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diff --git a/old/grlhd10.txt b/old/grlhd10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c692009 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/grlhd10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7328 @@ +Project Gutenberg Etext of A New England Girlhood, by Lucy Larcom + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. 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Farley. +Project Gutenberg/Make a Difference Day Project 1999. + + + + + +A NEW ENGLAND GIRLHOOD +OUTLINED FROM MEMORY + +By LUCY LARCOM + + + + +I dedicated this sketch +To my girlfriends in general; +And in particular +To my namesake-niece, +Lucy Larcom Spaulding. + + +Happy those early days, when I +Shined in my angel-infancy! +--When on some gilded cloud or flower +My gazing soul would dwell an hour, +And in those weaker glories spy +Some shadows of eternity:-- +Before I taught my tongue to wound +My conscience by a sinful sound;-- +But felt through all this fleshy dress +Bright shoots of everlastingness. + +HENRY VAUGHAN + + +The thought of our past years in me doth breed +Perpetual benediction. + +WORDSWORTH + + + + +PREFACE + +THE following sketch was written for the young, at the suggestion +of friends. + +My audience is understood to be composed of girls of all ages, +and of women who have not forgotten their girlhood. Such as have +a friendly appreciation of girls--and of those who write for +them--are also welcome to listen to as much of my narrative as +they choose. All others are eavesdroppers, and, of course, have +no right to critise. + +To many, the word "autobiography" implies nothing but conceit and +egotism. But these are not necessarily its characteristics. If an +apple blossom or a ripe apple could tell its own story, it would +be, still more than its own, the story of the sunshine that +smiled upon it, of the winds that whispered to it, of the birds +that sang around it, of the storms that visited it, and of the +motherly tree that held it and fed it until its petals were +unfolded and its form developed. + +A complete autobiography would indeed be a picture of the outer +and inner universe photographed upon one little life's +consciousness. For does not the whole world, seen and unseen + +go to the making up of every human being? The commonest personal +history has its value when it is looked at as a part of the One +Infinite Life. Our life--which is the very best thing we have--is +ours only that we may share it with Our Father's family, at their +need. If we have anything, within us worth giving away, to +withhold it is ungenerous; and we cannot look honestly into +ourselves without acknowledging with humility our debt to the +lives around us for whatever of power or beauty has been poured +into ours. + +None of us can think of ourselves as entirely separate beings. +Even an autobiographer has to say "we" much oftener than "I." +Indeed, there may be more egotism in withdrawing mysteriously +into one's self, than in frankly unfolding one's life--story, for +better or worse. There may be more vanity in covering, one's face +with a veil, to be wondered at and guessed about, than in draw- +ing it aside, and saying by that act, "There! you see that I am +nothing remarkable." + +However, I do not know that I altogether approve of autobiography +myself, when the subject is a person of so little importance as +in the present instance. Still, it may have a reason for being, +even in a case like this. + +Every one whose name is before the public at all must be aware of +a common annoyance in the frequent requests which are made for +personal facts, data for biographical paragraphs, and the like. +To answer such requests and furnish the material asked for, were +it desirable, would interfere seriously with the necessary work +of almost any writer. The first impulse is to pay no attention to +them, putting them aside as mere signs of the ill-bred, idle +curiosity of the age we live in about people and their private +affairs. It does not seem to be supposed possible that authors +can have any natural shrinking from publicity, like other +mortals. + +But while one would not willingly encourage an intrusive custom, +there is another view of the matter. The most enjoyable thing +about writing is that the relation between writer and reader may +be and often does become that of mutual friendship; an friends +naturally like to know each other in a neighborly way. + +We are all willing to gossip about ourselves, sometimes, with +those who are really interested in us. Girls especially are fond +of exchanging confidences with those whom they think they can +trust; it is one of the most charming traits of a simple, +earnest-hearted girlhood, and they are the happiest women who +never lose it entirely. + +I should like far better to listen to my girlreaders' thoughts +about life and themselves than to be writing out my own +experiences. It is to my disadvantage that the confidences, in +this case, must all be on one side. But I have known so +many girls so well in my relation to them of schoolmate, +workmate, and teacher, I feel sure of a fair share of their +sympathy and attention. + +It is hardly possible for an author to write anything sincerely +without making it something of an autobiography. Friends can +always read a personal history, or guess at it, between the +lines. So I sometimes think I have already written mine, in my +verses. In them, I have found the most natural and free +expression of myself. They have seemed to set my life to music +for me, a life that has always had to be occupied with many +things besides writing. Not, however, that I claim to have +written much poetry: only perhaps some true rhymes: I do not see +how there could be any pleasure in writing insincere ones. + +Whatever special interest this little narrative of mine may have +is due to the social influences under which I was reared, and +particularly to the prominent place held by both work and +religion in New England half a century ago. The period of my +growing-up had peculiarities which our future history can never +repeat, although something far better is undoubtedly already +resulting thence. Those peculiarities were the natural de- +velopment of the seed sown by our sturdy Puritan ancestry. The +religion of our fathers overhung us children like the shadow of a +mighty tree against the trunk of which we rested, while we looked +up in wonder through the great boughs that half hid and half +revealed the sky. Some of the boughs were already decaying, so +that perhaps we began to see a little more of the sky, than our +elders; but the tree was sound at its heart. There was life in it +that can never be lost to the world. + +One thing we are at last beginning to understand, which our +ancestors evidently had not learned; that it is far more needful +for theologians to become as little children, than for little +children to become theologians. They considered it a duty that +they owed to the youngest of us, to teach us doctrines. And we +believed in our instructors, if we could not always digest their +instructions. We learned to reverence truth as they received it +and lived it, and to feel that the search for truth was one chief +end of our being. + +It was a pity that we were expected to begin thinking upon hard +subjects so soon, and it was also a pity that we were set to hard +work while so young. Yet these were both inevitable results of +circumstances then existing; and perhaps the two belong together. +Perhaps habits of conscientious work induce thought. Certainly, +right thinking naturally impels people to work. + +We learned no theories about "the dignity of labor," but we were +taught to work almost as if it were a religion; to keep at work, +expecting nothing else. It was our inheritance, banded down from +the outcasts of Eden. And for us, as for them, there was a +blessing hidden in the curse. I am glad that I grew up under +these wholesome Puritanic influences, as glad as I am that I was +born a New Englander; and I surely should have chosen New England +for my birthplace before any region under the sun. + +Rich or poor, every child comes into the world with some +imperative need of its own, which shapes its individuality. I +believe it was Grotius who said, "Books are necessities of my +life. Food and clothing I can do without, if I must." + +My "must-have " was poetry. From the first, life meant that to +me. And, fortunately, poetry is not purchasable material, but an +atmosphere in which every life may expand. I found it everywhere +about me. The children of old New England were always surrounded, +it is true, with stubborn matter of fact,--the hand to hand +struggle for existence. But that was no hindrance. Poetry must +have prose to root itself in; the homelier its earth-spot, the +lovelier, by contrast, its heaven-breathing flowers. + +To different minds, poetry may present different phases. To me, +the reverent faith of the people I lived among, and their +faithful everyday living, was poetry; blossoms and trees and blue +skies were poetry. God himself was poetry. As I grew up and lived +on, friendship became to me the deepest and sweetest ideal of +poetry. To live in other lives, to take their power and +beauty into our own, that is poetry experienced, the most +inspiring of all. Poetry embodied in persons, in lovely and lofty +characters, more sacredly than all in the One Divine Person who +has transfigured our human life with the glory of His sacrifice, +--all the great lyrics and epics pale before that, and it is +within the reach and comprehension of every human soul. + +To care for poetry in this way does not make one a poet, but it +does make one feel blessedly rich, and quite indifferent to many +things which are usually looked upon as desirable possessions. I +am sincerely grateful that it was given to me, from childhood, to +see life from this point of view. And it seems to me that every +young girl would be happier for beginning her earthly journey +with the thankful consciousness that her life does not consist in +the abundance of things that she possesses. + +The highest possible poetic conception is that of a life +consecrated to a noble ideal. It may be unable to find expression +for itself except through humble, even menial services, or +through unselfish devotion whose silent song is audible to God +alone; yet such music as this might rise to heaven from every +young girl's heart and character if she would set it free. In +such ways it was meant that the world should be filled with the +true poetry of womanhood. + +It is one of the most beautiful facts in this human existence of +ours, that we remember the earliest and freshest part of it most +vividly. Doubtless it was meant that our childhood should live on +in us forever. My childhood was by no means a cloudless one. It +had its light and shade, each contributing a charm which makes it +wholly delightful in the retrospect. + +I can see very distinctly the child that I was, and I know how +the world looked to her, far off as she is now. She seems to me +like my little sister, at play in a garden where I can at any +time return and find her. I have enjoyed bringing her back, and +letting her tell her story, almost as if she were somebody else. +I like her better than I did when I was really a child, and I +hope never to part company with her. + +I do not feel so much satisfaction in the older girl who comes +between her and me, although she, too, is enough like me to be my +sister, or even more like my young, undisciplined mother; for the +girl is mother of the woman. But I have to acknowledge her faults +and mistakes as my own, while I sometimes feel like reproving her +severely for her carelessly performed tasks, her habit of lapsing +into listless reveries, her cowardly shrinking from +responsibility and vigorous endeavor, and many other faults that +I have inherited from her. Still, she is myself, and I could not +be quite happy without her comradeship. + +Every phase of our life belongs to us. The moon does not, except +in appearance, lose her first thin, luminous curve, nor her +silvery crescent, in rounding to her full. The woman is still +both child and girl, in the completeness of womanly character. +We have a right to our entire selves, through all the changes of +this mortal state, a claim which we shall doubtless carry along +with us into the unfolding mysteries of our eternal being. +Perhaps in this thought lies hidden the secret of immortal youth; +for a seer has said that "to grow old in heaven is to grow +young." + +To take life as it is sent to us, to live it faithfully, looking +and striving always towards better life, this was the lesson that +came to me from my early teachers. It was not an easy lesson, +but it was a healthful one; and I pass it on to younger pupils, +trusting that they will learn it more thoroughly than I ever +have. + +Young or old, we may all win inspiration to do our best, from the +needs of a world to which the humblest life may be permitted to +bring immeasurable blessings:-- + +"For no one doth know +What he can bestow, +What light, strength, and beauty may after him go: +Thus onward we move, +And, save God above, +None guesseth how wondrous the journey will prove." + +L.L. +BEVERLY, MASSACHUSETTS, +October, 1889. + + +CONTENTS. + + +CHAPTER + +I. UP AND DOWN THE LANE +II. SCHOOLROOM AND MEETING-HOUSE +III. THE HYMN-BOOK +IV. NAUGHTY CHILDREN AND FAIRY TALES +V. OLD NEW ENGLAND +VI. GLIMPSES OF POETRY +VII. BEGINNING TO WORK +VIII.BY THE RIVER +IX. MOUNTAIN-FRIENDS +X. MILL-GIRLS' MAGAZINES +XI. READING AND STUDYING +XII. FROM THE MERRIMACK TO THE MISSISSIPPI + + + +A NEW ENGLAND GIRLHOOD + +I. + +UP AND DOWN THE LANE. + +IT is strange that the spot of earth where we were born should +make such a difference to us. People can live and grow anywhere, +but people as well as plants have their habitat,--the place +where they belong, and where they find their happiest, because +their most natural life. If I had opened my eyes upon this planet +elsewhere than in this northeastern corner of Massachusetts, +elsewhere than on this green, rocky strip of shore between +Beverly Bridge and the Misery Islands, it seems to me as if I +must have been somebody else, and not myself. These gray ledges +hold me by the roots, as they do the bayberry bushes, the sweet- +fern, and the rock-saxifrage. + +When I look from my window over the tree-tops to the sea, I could +almost fancy that from the deck of some one of those inward bound +vessels the wistful eyes of the Lady Arbella might be turned +towards this very hillside, and that mine were meeting hers in +sympathy, across the graves of two hundred and fifty years. For +Winthrop's fleet, led by the ship that bore her name, must have +passed into harbor that way. Dear and gracious spirit! The memory +of her brief sojourn here has left New England more truly +consecrated ground. Sweetest of womanly pioneers! It is as if an +angel in passing on to heaven just touched with her wings this +rough coast of ours. + +In those primitive years, before any town but Salem had been +named, this whole region was known as Cape Ann Side; and about +ten years after Winthrop's arrival, my first ancestor's name +appears among those of other hardy settlers of the neighborhood. +No record has been found of his coming, but emigration by that +time had grown so rapid that ships' lists were no longer +carefully preserved. And then he was but a simple yeoman, a +tiller of the soil; one who must have loved the sea, however, for +he moved nearer and nearer towards it from Agawam through Wenham +woods, until the close of the seventeenth century found his +descendants--my own great-great-grandfatber's family--planted in +a romantic homestead-nook on a hillside, overlooking wide gray +spaces of the bay at the part of Beverly known as "The Farms." +The situation was beautiful, and home attachments proved +tenacious, the family claim to the farm having only been resigned +within the last thirty or forty years. + +I am proud of my unlettered forefathers, who were also too humbly +proud to care whether their names would be remembered or not; for +they were God-fearing men, and had been persecuted for their +faith long before they found their way either to Old or New +England. + +The name is rather an unusual one, and has been traced back from +Wales and the Isle of Wight through France to Languedoc and Pied- +mont; a little hamlet in the south of France still bearing it in +what was probably the original spelling-La Combe. There is a +family shield in existence, showing a hill surmounted by a tree, +and a bird with spread wings above. It might symbolize flight in +times of persecution, from the mountains to the forests, and +thence to heaven, or to the free skies of this New World. + +But it is certain that my own immediate ancestors were both +indifferent and ignorant as to questions of pedigree, and +accepted with sturdy dignity an inheritance of hard work and the +privileges of poverty, leaving the same bequest to their +descendants. And poverty has its privileges. When there is very +little of the seen and temporal to intercept spiritual vision, +unseen and eternal realities are, or may be, more clearly beheld. + +To have been born of people of integrity and profound faith in +God, is better than to have inherited material wealth of any +kind. And to those serious-minded, reticent progenitors of mine, +looking out from their lonely fields across the lonelier sea, +their faith must have been everything. + +My father's parents both died years before my birth. My +grandmother had been left a widow with a large family in my +father's boyhood, and he, with the rest, had to toil early for a +livelihood. She was an earnest Christian woman, of keen +intelligence and unusual spiritual perception. She was supposed +by her neighbors to have the gift of "second sight"; and some +remarkable stories are told of her knowledge of distant events +while they were occurring, or just before they took place. Her +dignity of presence and character must have been noticeable. +A relative of mine, who as a very little child, was taken by her +mother to visit my grandmother, told me that she had always +remembered the aged woman's solemnity of voice and bearing, and +her mother's deferential attitude towards her: and she was so +profoundly impressed by it all at the time, that when they had +left the house, and were on their homeward path through the +woods, she looked up into her mother's face and asked in a +whisper, "Mother, was that God?" + +I used sometimes to feel a little resentment at my fate in not +having been born at the old Beverly Farms home-place, as my +father and uncles and aunts and some of my cousins had been. But +perhaps I had more of the romantic and legendary charm of it than +if I had been brought up there, for my father, in his +communicative moods, never wearied of telling us about his +childhood; and we felt that we still held a birthright claim upon +that picturesque spot through him. Besides, it was only three or +four miles away, and before the day of railroads, that was +thought nothing of as a walk, by young or old. + +But, in fact, I first saw the light in the very middle of +Beverly, in full view of the town clock and the Old South +steeple. (I believe there is an "Old South" in nearly all these +first-settled cities and villages of Eastern Massachusetts. The +town wore a half-rustic air of antiquity then, with its old- +fashioned people and weather-worn houses; for I was born while my +mother-century was still in her youth, just rounding the first +quarter of her hundred years. + +Primitive ways of doing things had not wholly ceased during, my +childhood; they were kept up in these old towns longer than +elsewhere. We used tallow candles and oil lamps, and sat by open +fireplaces. There was always a tinder-box in some safe corner or +other, and fire was kindled by striking flint and steel upon the +tinder. What magic it seemed to me, when I was first allowed to +strike that wonderful spark, and light the kitchen fire! + +The fireplace was deep, and there was a "settle" in the chimney +corner, where three of us youngest girls could sit together and +toast our toes on the andirons (two Continental soldiers in full +uniform, marching one after the other), while we looked up the +chimney into a square of blue sky, and sometimes caught a snow- +flake on our foreheads; or sometimes smirched our clean aprons +(high-necked and long sleeved ones, known as "tiers") against the +swinging crane with its sooty pot-hooks and trammels. + +The coffee-pot was set for breakfast over hot coals, on a three- +legged bit of iron called a "trivet." Potatoes were roasted in +the ashes, and the Thanksgiving turkey in a "tin-kitchen," +the business of turning the spit being usually delegate to some +of us, small folk, who were only too willing to burn our faces in +honor of the annual festival. + +There were brick ovens in the chimney corner, where the great +bakings were done; but there was also an iron article called a +"Dutch oven," in which delicious bread could be baked over the +coals at short notice. And there was never was anything that +tasted better than my mother's "firecake,"--a short-cake spread +on a smooth piece of board, and set up with a flat-iron before +the blaze, browned on one side, and then turned over to be +browned on the other. (It required some sleight of hand to do +that.) If I could only be allowed to blow the bellows--the very +old people called them "belluses"--when the fire began to get +low, I was a happy girl. + +Cooking-stoves were coming into fashion, but they were clumsy +affairs, and our elders thought that no cooking could be quite so +nice as that which was done by an open fire. We younger ones +reveled in the warm, beautiful glow, that we look back to as to a +remembered sunset. There is no such home-splendor now. + +When supper was finished, and the tea-kettle was pushed back on +the crane, and the backlog had been reduced to a heap of fiery +embers, then was the time for listening to sailor yarns and ghost +and witch legends. The wonder seems somehow to have faded out of +those tales of eld since the gleam of red-hot coals died away +from the hearthstone. The shutting up of the great fireplaces +and the introduction of stoves marks an era; the abdication of +shaggy Romance and the enthronement of elegant Commonplace-- +sometimes, alas! the opposite of elegant--at the New England +fireside. + +Have we indeed a fireside any longer in the old sense? It hardly +seems as if the young people of to-day can really understand the +poetry of English domestic life, reading it, as they must, by a +reflected illumination from the past. What would "Cotter's +Saturday Night" have been, if Burns had written it by the opaque +heat of a stove instead of at his + +"Wee bit ingle blinkin' bonnilie?" + +New England as it used to be was so much like Scotland in many of +its ways of doing and thinking, that it almost seems as if that +tender poem of hearth-and-home life had been written for us too. +I can see the features of my father, who died when I was a little +child, whenever I read the familiar verse:-- + +"The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face +They round the ingle form a circle wide: +The sire turns o'er, wi' patriarchal grace, +The big ha' Bible, ance his father's pride." + +A grave, thoughtful face his was, lifted up so grandly amid that +blooming semicircle of boys and girls, all gathered silently in +the glow of the ruddy firelight! The great family Bible had the +look upon its leathern covers of a book that bad never been new, +and we honored it the more for its apparent age. Its companion +was the Westminster Assembly's and Shorter Catechism, out of +which my father asked us questions on Sabbath afternoons, when +the tea-table had been cleared. He ended the exercise with a +prayer, standing up with his face turned toward the wall. My most +vivid recollection of his living face is as I saw it reflected in +a mirror while he stood thus praying. His closed eyes, the +paleness and seriousness of his countenance, awed me. I never +forgot that look. I saw it but once again, when, a child of +six or seven years, I was lifted to a footstool beside his coffin +to gaze upon his face for the last time. It wore the same +expression that it did in prayer; paler, but no longer care-worn; +so peaceful, so noble! They left me standing there a long time, +and I could not take my eyes away. I had never thought my +father's face a beautiful one until then, but I believe it must +have been so, always. + +I know that he was a studious man, fond of what was called "solid +reading." He delighted in problems of navigation (he was for many +years the master of a merchant-vessel sailing to various European +ports), in astronomical calculations and historical computations. +A rhyming genius in the town, who undertook to hit off the +peculiarities of well-known residents, characterized my father as + +"Philosophic Ben, +Who, pointing to the stars, cries, Land ahead!" + +His reserved, abstracted manner,--though his gravity concealed a +fund of rare humor,--kept us children somewhat aloof from him; +but my mother's temperament formed a complete contrast to his. +She was chatty and social, rosy-cheeked and dimpled, with bright +blue eyes and soft, dark, curling hair, which she kept pinned up +under her white lace cap-border. Not even the eldest child +remembered her without her cap, and when some of us asked her why +she never let her pretty curls be visible, she said,-- +"Your father liked to see me in a cap. I put it on soon after we +were married, to please him; I always have worn it, and I always +shall wear it, for the same reason." + +My mother had that sort of sunshiny nature which easily shifts to +shadow, like the atmosphere of an April day. Cheerfulness held +sway with her, except occasionally, when her domestic cares grew +too overwhelming; but her spirits rebounded quickly from +discouragement. + +Her father was the only one of our grandparents who had survived +to my time,--of French descent, piquant, merry, exceedingly +polite, and very fond of us children, whom be was always treating +to raisins and peppermints and rules for good behavior. He had +been a soldier in the Revolutionary War,--the greatest +distinction we could imagine. And he was also the sexton of the +oldest church in town,--the Old South,--and had charge of the +winding-up of the town clock, and the ringing of the bell on +week-days and Sundays, and the tolling for funerals,--into which +mysteries he sometimes allowed us youngsters a furtive glimpse. +I did not believe that there was another grandfather so +delightful as ours in all the world. + +Uncles, aunts, and cousins were plentiful in the family, but they +did not live near enough for us to see them very often, excepting +one aunt, my father's sister, for whom I was named. She was fair, +with large, clear eyes that seemed to look far into one's heart, +with an expression at once penetrating and benignant. To my +childish imagination she was an embodiment of serene and lofty +goodness. I wished and hoped that by bearing her baptismal name I +might become like her; and when I found out its signification (I +learned that "Lucy" means "with light"), I wished it more +earnestly still. For her beautiful character was just such an +illumination to my young life as I should most desire mine to be +to the lives of others. + +My aunt, like my father, was always studying something. Some map +or book always lay open before her, when I went to visit her, in +her picturesque old house, with its sloping roof and tall well- +sweep. And she always brought out some book or picture for me +from her quaint old-fashioned chest of drawers. I still possess +the " Children in the Wood," which she gave me, as a keepsake, +when I was about ten years old. + +Our relatives form the natural setting of our childhood. We +understand ourselves best and are best understood by others +through the persons who came nearest to us in our earliest years. +Those larger planets held our little one to its orbit, and lent +it their brightness. Happy indeed is the infancy which is +surrounded only by the loving and the good! + +Besides those who were of my kindred, I had several aunts by +courtesy, or rather by the privilege of neighborhood, who seemed +to belong to my babyhood. Indeed, the family hearthstone came +near being the scene of a tragedy to me, through the blind +fondness of one of these. + +The adjective is literal. This dear old lady, almost sightless, +sitting in a low chair far in the chimney corner, where she had +been placed on her first call to see the new baby, took me upon +her lap, and--so they say--unconsciously let me slip off into the +coals. I was rescued unsinged, however, and it was one of the +earliest accomplishments of my infancy to thread my poor, half- +blind Aunt Stanley's needles for her. We were close neighbors and +gossips until my fourth year. Many an hour I sat by her side +drawing a needle and thread through a bit of calico, under the +delusion that I was sewing, while she repeated all sorts of +juvenile singsongs of which her memory seemed full, for my +entertainment. There used to be a legend current among my +brothers and sisters that this aunt unwittingly taught me to use +a reprehensible word. One of her ditties began with the lines:-- + +"Miss Lucy was a charming child; +She never said, 'I won't.'" + +After bearing this once or twice, the willful negative was +continually upon my lips; doubtless a symptom of what was dormant +within--a will perhaps not quite so aggressive as it was +obstinate. But she meant only to praise me and please me; +and dearly I loved to stay with her in her cozy up-stairs room +across the lane, that the sun looked into nearly all day. + +Another adopted aunt lived down-stairs in the same house. This +one was a sober woman; life meant business to her, and she taught +me to sew in earnest, with a knot in the end of my thread, +although it was only upon clothing for my ragchildren - absurd +creatures of my own invention, limbless and destitute of +features, except as now and then one of my older sisters would, +upon my earnest petition, outline a face for one of them, with +pen and ink. I loved them, nevertheless, far better than I did +the London doll that lay in waxen state in an upper drawer at +home,--the fine lady that did not wish to be played with, but +only to be looked at and admired. + +This latter aunt I regarded as a woman of great possessions. She +owned the land beside us and opposite us. Her well was close to +our door, a well of the coldest and clearest water I ever drank, +and it abundantly supplied the whole neighborhood. + +The hill behind her house was our general playground; and I +supposed she owned that, too, since through her dooryard, and +over her stone wall, was our permitted thoroughfare thither. I +imagined that those were her buttercups that we gathered when we +got over the wall, and held under each other's chin, to see, by +the reflection, who was fond of butter; and surely the yellow +toadflax (we called it "lady's slipper") that grew in the rock- +crevices was hers, for we found it nowhere else. + +The blue gill-over-the-ground unmistakably belonged to her, for +it carpeted an unused triangular corner of her garden inclosed by +a leaning fence gray and gold with sea-side lichens. Its blue was +beautiful, but its pungent earthy odor--I can smell it now -- +repelled us from the damp corner where it grew. It made us think +of graves and ghosts; and I think we were forbidden to go there. +We much preferred to sit on the sunken curbstones, in the shade +of the broad-leaved burdocks, and shape their spiny balls into +chairs and cradles and sofas for our dollies, or to "play school" +on the doorsteps, or to climb over the wall 1, and to feel the +freedom of the hill. + +We were a neighborhood of large families, and most of us enjoyed +the privilege of "a little wholesome neglect." Our tether was a +long one, and when, grown a little older, we occasionally asked +to have it lengthened, a maternal "I don't care" amounted to +almost unlimited liberty. + +The hill itself was well-nigh boundless in its capacities for +juvenile occupation. Besides its miniature precipices, that +walled in some of the neighbors' gardens, and its slanting +slides, worn smooth by the feet of many childish generations, +there were partly quarried ledges, which had shaped themselves +into rock-stairs, carpeted with lovely mosses, in various +patterns. These were the winding ways up our castle-towers, with +breakfast-rooms and boudoirs along the landings, where we set our +tables for expected guests with bits of broken china, and left +our numerous rag-children tucked in asleep under mullein blankets +or plantain-coverlets, while we ascended to the topmost turret to +watch for our ships coming in from sea. + +For leagues of ocean were visible from the tiptop of the ledge, a +tiny cleft peak that held always little rain-pool for thirsty +birds that now and then stopped as they flew over, to dip their +beaks and glance shyly at us, as if they wished to share our +games. We could see the steeples and smokes of Salem in the +distance, and the bill, as it desended, lost itself in mowing +fields that slid again into the river. Beyond that was Rial Side +and Folly Hill, and they looked so very far off! + +They called it "over to Green's" across the river. I thought it +was because of the thick growth of dark green junipers, that +covered the cliff-side down to the water's edge; but they were +only giving the name of the farmer who owned the land, Whenever +there was an unusual barking of dogs in the distance, they said +it was "over to Green's." That barking of dogs made the place +seem very mysterious to me. + +Our lane ran parallel with the hill and the mowing fields, and +down our lane we were always free to go. It was a genuine lane, +all ups and downs, and too narrow for a street, although at last +they have leveled it and widened it, and made a commonplace +thoroughfare of it. I am glad that my baby life knew it in all +its queer, original irregularities, for it seemed to have a +character of its own, like many of its inhabitants, all the more +charming because it was unlike anything but itself. The hill, +too, is lost now, buried under houses. + +Our lane came to an end at some bars that let us into another +lane,--or rather a footpath or cowpath, bordered with cornfields +and orchards. We were still on home ground, for my father's +vegetable garden and orchard were here. After a long straight +stretch, the path suddenly took an +abrupt turn, widening into a cart road, then to a tumble-down +wharf, and there was the river! + +An "arm of the sea" I was told that our river was, and it did +seem to reach around the town and hold it in a liquid embrace. +Twice a day the tide came in and filled its muddy bed with a +sparkling flood. So it was a river only half the time, but at +high tide it was a river indeed; all that a child could wish, +with its boats and its sloops, and now and then that most +available craft for a crew of children--a gundalow. We easily +transformed the spelling into "gondola," and in fancy were afloat +on Venetian waters, under some overhanging balcony, perhaps at +the very Palace of the Doges,--willingly blind to the reality of +a mudscow leaning against some rickety wharf posts, covered with +barnacles. + +Sometimes a neighbor boy who was the fortunate owner of a boat +would row us down the river a fearful, because a forbidden, joy. +The widening waters made us tremble with dread and longing for +what might be beyond; for when we had passed under the piers of +the bridge, the estuary broadened into the harbor and the open +sea. Then somebody on board would tell a story of children who +had drifted away beyond the harbor-bar and the light-house, and +were drowned; and our boyish helmsman would begin to look grave +and anxious, and would turn his boat and row us back swiftly to +the safe gundalow and tumbledown wharf. + +The cars rush into the station now, right over our riverside +playground. I can often hear the mirthful shout of boys and girls +under the shriek of the steam whistle. No dream of a railroad had +then come to the quiet old town, but it was a wild train of +children that ran homeward in the twilight up the narrow lane, +with wind-shod feet, and hair flying like the manes of young +colts, and light hearts bounding to their own footsteps. How good +and dear our plain, two-story dwelling-house looked to us as we +came in sight of it, and what sweet odors stole out to meet us +from the white-fenced inclosure of our small garden,--from peach- +trees and lilac-bushes in bloom, from bergamot and balm and beds +of camomile! + +Sometimes we would find the pathetic figure of white-haired +Larkin Moore, the insane preacher, his two canes lain aside, +waiting, in our dooryard for any audience that he could gather: +boys and girls were as welcome as anybody. He would seat us in a +row on the green slope, and give us a half hour or so of +incoherent exhortation, to which we attended respectfully, if not +reverently; for his whole manner showed that, though demented, he +was deeply in earnest. He seemed there in the twilight like a +dazed angel who had lost his way, and had half forgotten his +errand, which yet he must try to tell to anybody who would +listen. + +I have heard my mother say that sometimes he would ask if he +might take her baby in his arms and sing to it; and that though +she was half afraid herself, the baby--I like to fancy I was that +baby--seemed to enjoy it, and played gleefully with the old man's +flowing gray locks. + +Good Larkin Moore was well known through the two neighboring +counties, Essex and Middlesex. We saw him afterward on the banks +of the Merrimack. He always wore a loose calico tunic over his +trousers; and, when the mood came upon him, he started off with +two canes,--seeming to think he could travel faster as a +quadruped than as a biped. He was entirely harmless; his only +wish was to preach or to sing. + +A characteristic anecdote used to be told of him: that once, as a +stage-coach containing, only a few passengers passed him on the +road, he asked the favor of a seat on the top, and was refused. +There were many miles between him and his destination. But he did +not upbraid the ungracious driver; he only swung his two canes a +little more briskly, and kept breast of the horses all the +way, entering the town side by side with the inhospitable +vehicles--a running reproach to the churl on the box. + +There was another wanderer, a blind woman, whom my mother treated +with great respect on her annual pilgrimages. She brought with +her some printed rhymes to sell, purporting to be composed by +herself, and beginning with the verse:-- + +"I, Nancy Welsh, was born and bred +In Essex County, Marblehead. +And when I was an infant quite +The Lord deprived me of my sight." + +I labored under the delusion that blindness was a sort of +insanity, and I used to run away when this pilgrim came, for she +was not talkative like Larkin Moore. I fancied she disliked +children, and so I shrank from her. + +There were other odd estrays going about, who were either well +known, or could account for them selves. The one human phenomenon +that filled us little ones with mortal terror was an unknown +"man with a pack on his back." I do not know what we thought he +would do with us, but the sight of one always sent us breathless +with fright to the shelter of the maternal wing. I did not at +all like the picture of Christian on his way to the wicket-gate, +in "Pilgrim's Progress," before I had read the book, because he +had "a pack on his back." But there was really nothing to be +afraid of in those simple, honest old times. I suppose we +children would not have known how happy and safe we were, in our +secluded lane, if we had not conjured up a few imaginary fears. + +Long as it is since the rural features of our lane were entirely +obliterated, my feet often go back and press, in memory, its +grass-grown borders, and in delight and liberty I am a child +again. Its narrow limits were once my whole known world. Even +then it seemed to me as if it might lead everywhere; and it was +indeed but the beginning of a road which must lengthen and widen +beneath my feet forever. + +II. + +SCHOOLROOM AND MEETING-HOUSE. + +THERE were only two or three houses between ours and the main +street, and then our lane came out directly opposite the finest +house in town, a three-story edifice of brick, painted white, the +"Colonel's" residence. There was a spacious garden behind it, +from which we caught glimpses and perfumes of unknown flowers. +Over its high walls hung boughs of splendid great yellow sweet +apples, which, when they fell on the outside, we children +considered as our perquisites. When I first read about the apples +of the Hesperides, my idea of them was that they were like the +Colonel's "pumpkin-sweetings." + +Beyond the garden were wide green fields which reached eastward +down to the beach. It was one of those large old estates which +used to give to the very heart of our New England coast towns a +delightful breeziness and roominess. + +A coach-and-pair was one of the appurtenances of this estate, +with a coachman on the box; and when he took the family out for +an airing we small children thought it was a sort of Cinderella +spectacle, prepared expressly for us. + +It was not, however, quite so interesting as the Boston stage - +coach, that rolled regularly every day past the head of our lane +into and out of its headquarters, a big, unpainted stable close +at hand. This stage-coach, in our minds, meant the city,--twenty +miles off; an immeasurable distance to us then. Even our elders +did not go there very often. + +In those early days, towns used to give each other nicknames, +like schoolboys. Ours was called "Bean-town" not because it was +especially devoted to the cultivation of this leguminous edible, +but probably because it adhered a long time to the Puritanic +custom of saving Sunday-work by baking beans on Saturday evening, +leaving them in the oven over night. After a while, as families +left off heating their ovens, the bean-pots were taken by the +village baker on Saturday afternoon, who returned them to each +house early on Sunday morning with the pan of brown bread that +went with them. The jingling of the baker's bells made the matter +a public one. + +The towns through which our stage-coach passed sometimes called +it the "bean-pot." The Jehn who drove it was something of a wag. +Once, coming through Charlestown, while waiting in the street for +a resident passenger, he was hailed by another resident who +thought him obstructing the passage, with the shout,-- + +"Halloo there! Get your old bean-pot out of the way!" + +"I will, when I have got my pork in," was the ready reply. What +the sobriquet of Charlestown was, need not be explained. + +We had a good opportunity to watch both coaches, as my father's +shop was just at the head of the lane, and we went to school up- +stairs in the same building. After he left off going to sea,-- +before my birth,--my father took a store for the sale of what +used to be called "West India goods," and various other domestic +commodities. + +The school was kept by a neighbor whom everybody called "Aunt +Hannah." It took in all the little ones about us, no matter how +young they were, provided they could walk and talk, and were +considered capable of learning their letters. + +A ladder-like flight of stairs on the outside of the house led up +to the schoolroom, and another flight, also outside, took us down +into a bit of a garden, where grew tansy and spearmint and +southernwood and wormwood, and, among other old-fashioned +flowers, an abundance of many-tinted four o'clocks, whose regular +afternoon-opening just at the close of school, was a daily +wonder to us babies. From the schoolroom window we could watch +the slow hands of the town clock and get a peep at what was going +on in the street, although there was seldom anybody in sight +except the Colonel's gardener or coachman, going into or out of +the driveway directly opposite. It was a very still street; the +front windows of the houses were generally closed, and a +few military-looking Lombardy poplars stood like sentinels on +guard before them. + +Another shop--a very small one--joined my father's, where three +shoemakers, all of the same name--the name our lane went by--sat +at their benches and plied their "waxed ends." One of them, an +elderly man, tall and erect, used to come out regularly every +day, and stand for a long time at the corner, motionless as a +post, with his nose and chin pointing skyward, usually to the +northeast. I watched his face with wonder, for it was said that +"Uncle John" was "weatherwise," and knew all the secrets of the +heavens. + +Aunt Hannah's schoolroom and "our shop" are a blended memory to +me. As I was only a baby when I began to go to school, I was +often sent down-stairs for a half hour's recreation not permitted +to the older ones. I think I looked upon both school and shop +entirely as places of entertainment for little children. + +The front shop-window was especially interesting to us children, +for there were in it a few glass jars containing sticks of +striped barley-candy, and red and white peppermint-drops, and +that delectable achievement of the ancient confectioner's art, +the "Salem gibraltar." One of my first recollections of my father +is connected with that window. He had taken me into the shop with +him after dinner,--I was perhaps two years old,--and I was +playing beside him on the counter when one of his old sea- +comrades came in, whom we knew as "Captain Cross." The Captain +tried to make friends with me, and, to seal the bond, asked my +father to take down from its place of exhibition a strip of red +peppermints dropped on white paper, in a style I particularly +admired, which he twisted around my neck, saying, "Now I've +bought you! Now you are my girl. Come, go home with me!" + +His words sounded as if be meant them. I took it all in earnest, +and ran, scared and screaming, to my father, dashing down the +sugar-plums I wanted so much, and refusing even to bestow a +glance upon my amused purchaser. My father pacified me by taking +me on his shoulders and carrying me "pickaback" up and down the +shop, and I clung to him in the happy consciousness that I +belonged to him, and that be would not let anybody else have me; +though I did not feel quite easy until Captain Cross disappeared. +I suppose that this little incident has always remained in my +memory because it then for the first time became a fact in my +consciousness that my father really loved me as I loved him. He +was not at all a demonstrative man, and any petting that he gave +us children could not fail to make a permanent impression. + +I think that must have been also the last special attention I +received from him, for a little sister appeared soon after, whose +coming was announced to me with the accompaniment of certain +mysterious hints about my nose being out of joint. I examined +that feature carefully in the looking glass, but could not +discover anything usual about it. It was quite beyond me to +imagine that our innocent little baby could have anything to do +with the possible disfigurement of my face, but she did absorb +the fondness of the whole family, myself included, and she became +my father's playmate and darling, the very apple of his eye. I +used sometimes to wish I were a baby too, so that he would notice +me, but gradually I accepted the situation. + +Aunt Hannah used her kitchen or her sitting room for a +schoolroom, as best suited her convenience. We were delighted +observers of her culinary operations and other employments. If a +baby's head nodded, a little bed was made for it on a soft +"comforter" in the corner, where it had its nap out undisturbed. +But this did not often happen; there were so many interesting +things going on that we seldom became sleepy. + +Aunt Hannah was very kind and motherly, but she kept us in fear +of her ferule, which indicated to us a possibility of smarting +palms. This ferule was shaped much like the stick with which she +stirred her hasty pudding for dinner,--I thought it was the same, +--and I found myself caught in a whirlwind of family laughter by +reporting at home that "Aunt Hannah punished the scholars with +the pudding-stick." + +There was one colored boy in school, who did not sit on a bench, +like the rest, but on a block of wood that looked like a backlog +turned endwise. Aunt Hannah often called him a "blockhead," and I +supposed it was because he sat on that block. Sometimes, in his +absence, a boy was made to sit in his place for punishment, for +being a "blockhead " too, as I imagined. I hoped I should never +be put there. Stupid little girls received a different treatment, +--an occasional rap on the head with the teacher's thimble; +accompanied with a half-whispered, impatient ejaculation, which +sounded very much like "Numskull!" I think this was a rare +occurrence, however, for she was a good-natured, much-enduring +woman. + +One of our greatest school pleasures was to watch Aunt Hannah +spinning on her flax-wheel, wetting her thumb and forefinger at +her lips to twist the thread, keeping time, meanwhile, to some +quaint old tune with her foot upon the treadle. + +A verse of one of her hymns, which I never heard anybody else +sing, resounds in the farthest corner of my memory yet:"-- + +"Whither goest thou, pilgrim stranger, +Wandering through this lowly vale? +Knowest thou not 't is full of danger? +And will not thy courage fail?" + +Then a little pause, and the refrain of the answer broke in with +a change, quick and jubilant, the treadle moving more rapidly, +also: - + +"No, I'm bound for the kingdom! +Will you go to glory with me? +Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!" + +I began to go to school when I was about two years old, as other +children about us did. The mothers of those large families had to +resort to some means of keeping their little ones out of +mischief, while they attended to their domestic duties. Not much +more than that sort of temporary guardianship was expected of the +good dame who had us in charge. + +But I learned my letters in a few days, standing at Aunt Hannah's +knee while she pointed them out in the spelling-book with a pin, +skipping over the "a b abs " into words of one and two syllables, +thence taking a flying leap into the New Testament, in which +there is concurrent family testimony that I was reading at the +age of two years and a half. Certain it is that a few passages in +the Bible, whenever I read them now, do not fail to bring before +me a vision of Aunt Hannah's somewhat sternly smiling lips, with +her spectacles just above them, far down on her nose, encouraging +me to pronounce the hard words. I think she tried to choose for +me the least difficult verses, or perhaps those of which she was +herself especially fond. Those which I distinctly recall are the +Beatitudes, the Twenty-third Psalm, parts of the first and +fourteenth chapters of the Gospel of St. John, and the thirteenth +chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians. + +I liked to say over the "Blesseds,"--the shortest ones best,-- +about the meek and the pure in heart; and the two "In the +beginnings," both in Genesis and John. Every child's earliest and +proudest Scriptural conquest in school was, almost as a matter of +course, the first verse in the Bible. + +But the passage which I learned first, and most delighted to +repeat after Aunt Hannah,--I think it must have been her favorite +too,--was, "Let not your heart be troubled. In my Father's house +are many mansions." + +The Voice in the Book seemed so tender! Somebody was speaking who +had a heart, and who knew that even a little child's heart was +sometimes troubled. And it was a Voice that called us somewhere; +to the Father's house, with its many mansions, so sunshiny and so +large. + +It was a beautiful vision that came to me with the words,--I +could see it best with my eyes shut,-a great, dim Door standing +ajar, opening out of rosy morning mists, overhung with swaying +vines and arching boughs that were full of birds; and from beyond +the Door, the ripple of running waters, and the sound of many +happy voices, and above them all the One Voice that was saying, +"I go to prepare a place for you." The vision gave me a sens + +of freedom, fearless and infinite. What was there to be afraid of +anywhere? Even we little children could see the open door of our +Father's house. We were playing around its threshold now, and we +need never wander out of sight of it. The feeling was a vague +one, but it was like a remembrance. The spacious mansions were +not far away. They were my home. I had known them, and should +return to them again. + +This dim half-memory, which perhaps comes to all children, I had +felt when younger still, almost before I could walk. Sitting on +the floor in a square of sunshine made by an open window, the +leaf-shadows from great boughs outside dancing and wavering +around me, I seemed to be talking to them and they to me in +unknown tongues, that left within me an ecstasy yet unforgotten. +These shadows had brought a message to me from an unseen +Somewhere, which my baby heart was to keep forever. The wonder of +that moment often returns. Shadow-traceries of bough and leaf +still seem to me like the hieroglyphics of a lost language. + +The stars brought me the same feeling. I remember the surprise +they were to me, seen for the first time. One evening, just +before I was put to bed, I was taken in somebody's arms--my +sister's, I think--outside the door, and lifted up under the +dark, still, clear sky, splendid with stars, thicker and nearer +earth than they have ever seemed since. All my little being +shaped itself into a subdued delighted "Oh!" And then the +exultant thought flitted through the mind of the reluctant child, +as she was carried in, "Why, that is the roof of the house I live +in." After that I always went to sleep happier for the feeling +that the stars were outside there in the dark, though I could not +see them. + +I did firmly believe that I came from some other country to this; +I had a vague notion that we were all here on a journey,--that +this was not the place where we really belonged. Some of the +family have told me that before I could talk plainly, I used to +run about humming the sentence-- + +"My father and mother +Shall come unto the land," + +sometimes varying it with, + +"My brothers and sisters +Shall come unto the land;" + +Nobody knew where I had caught the words, but I chanted them so +constantly that my brother wrote them down, with chalk, on the +under side of a table, where they remained for years. My thought +about that other land may have been only a baby's dream; but the +dream was very real to me. I used to talk, in sober earnest, +about what happened "before I was a little girl, and came here to +live"; and it did seem to me as if I remembered. + + +But I was hearty and robust, full of frolicsome health, and very +fond of the matter-of-fact world I lived in. My sturdy little +feet felt the solid earth beneath them. I grew with the sprouting +grass, and enjoyed my life as the buds and birds seemed to enjoy +theirs. It was only as if the bud and the bird and the dear warm +earth knew, in the same dumb way that I did, that all their joy +and sweetness came to them out of the sky. + +These recollections, that so distinctly belong the baby Myself, +before she could speak her thoughts, though clear and vivid, are +difficult to put into shape. But other grown-up children, in +looking back, will doubtless see many a trailing cloud of glory, +that lighted their unconscious infancy from within and from +beyond. + +I was quite as literal as I was visionary in my mental renderings +of the New Testament, read at Aunt Hannah's knee. I was much +taken with the sound of words, without any thought of their +meaning--a habit not always outgrown with childhood. The +"sounding brass and tinkling cymbals," for instance, in the +Epistle to the Corinthians, seemed to me things to be greatly +desired. "Charity" was an abstract idea. I did not know what it +meant. But "tinkling cymbals" one could make music with. I wished +I could get hold of them. It never occurred to me that the +Apostle meant to speak of their melody slightingly. + +At meeting, where I began to go also at two years of age, I made +my own private interpretations of the Bible readings. They were +absurd enough, but after getting laughed at a few times at home +for making them public, I escaped mortification by forming a +habit of great reserve as to my Sabbath-day thoughts. + +When the minister read, "Cut it down: why cumbereth it the +ground?"? I thought he meant to say "cu-cumbereth." These +vegetables grew on the ground, and I had heard that they were not +very good for people to eat. I honestly supposed that the New +Testament forbade the cultivation of cucumbers. + +And "Galilee" I understood as a mispronunciation of "gallery." +"Going up into Galilee" I interpreted into clattering up the +uncarpeted stairs in the meeting-house porch, as the boys did, +with their squeaking brogans, looking as restless as imprisoned +monkeys after they had got into those conspicuous seats, where +they behaved as if they thought nobody could see their pranks. I +did not think it could be at all nice to "go up into Galilee." + +I had an "Aunt Nancy," an uncle's wife, to whom I was sometimes +sent for safe-keeping when house-cleaning or anything unusual was +going on at home. She was a large-featured woman, with a very +deep masculine voice, and she conducted family worship herself, +kneeling at prayer, which was not the Orthodox custom. + +She always began by saying,-- + +"Oh Lord, Thou knowest that we are all groveling worms of the +dust." I thought she meant that we all looked like wriggling red +earthworms, and tried to make out the resemblance in my mind, but +could not. I unburdened my difficulty at home, telling the family +that "Aunt Nancy got down on the floor and said we were all +grubbelin' worms," begging to know whether everybody did +sometimes have to crawl about in the dust. + +A little later, I was much puzzled as to whether I was a Jew or +Gentile. The Bible seemed to divide people into these two classes +only. The Gentiles were not well spoken of: I did not want to be +one of them. The talked about Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and the +rest, away back to Adam, as if they were our forefathers (there +was a time when I thought that Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel +were our four fathers); and yet I was very sure that I was not a +Jew. When I ventured to ask, I was told that we were all +Christians or heathen now. That did not help me for I thought +that only grown-up persons could be Christians, from which it +followed that all children must be heathen. Must I think of +Myself as a heathen, then, until I should be old enough to be a +Christian? It was a shocking conclusion, but I could see no other +answer to my question, and I felt ashamed to ask again. +My self-invented theory about the human race was that Adam and +Eve were very tall people, taller than the tallest trees in the +Garden of Eden, before they were sent out of it; but that they +then began to dwindle; that their children had ever since been +getting smaller and smaller, and that by and by the inhabitants +of the world would be no bigger than babies. I was afraid I +should stop growing while I was a child, and I used to stand on +the footstool in the pew, and try to stretch myself up to my +mother's height, to imagine how it would seem to be a woman. I +hoped I should be a tall one. I did not wish to be a diminishing +specimen of the race;-- an anxiety which proved to be entirely +groundless. + +The Sabbath mornings in those old times had a peculiar charm. +They seemed so much cleaner than other mornings! The roads and +the grassy footpaths seemed fresher, and the air itself purer and +more wholesome than on week-days. Saturday afternoon and evening +were regarded as part of the Sabbath (we were taught that it was +heathenish to call the day Sunday); work and playthings were laid +aside, and every body, as well as every thing, was subjected to a +rigid renovation. Sabbath morning would not have seemed like +itself without a clean house, a clean skin, and tidy and spotless +clothing. + +The Saturday's baking was a great event, the brick oven being +heated to receive the flour bread, the flour-and-Indian, and the +rye-and-Indian bread, the traditional pot of beans, the Indian +pudding, and the pies; for no further cooking was to be done +until Monday. We smaller girls thought it a great privilege to be +allowed to watch the oven till the roof of it should be "white- +hot," so that the coals could be shoveled out. + +Then it was so still, both out of doors and within! We were not +allowed to walk anywhere except in the yard or garden. I remember +wondering whether it was never Sabbath-day over the fence, in the +next field; whether the field was not a kind of heathen field, +since we could only go into it on week-days. The wild flowers +over there were perhaps Gentile blossoms. Only the flowers in the +garden were well-behaved Christians. It was Sabbath in the house, +and possibly even on the doorstep; but not much farther. The town +itself was so quiet that it scarcely seemed to breathe. The sound +of wheels was seldom heard in the streets on that day; if we +heard it, we expected some unusual explanation. + +I liked to go to meeting,--not wholly oblivious to the fact that +going there sometimes implied wearing a new bonnet and my best +white dress and muslin "vandyke," of which adornments, if very +new, I vainly supposed the whole congregation to be as admiringly +aware as I was myself. + +But my Sabbath-day enjoyment was not wholly without drawbacks. +It was so hard, sometimes, to stand up through the "long prayer," +and to sit still through the "ninthlies," and "tenthlies," and +"finallys" of the sermon! It was impressed upon me that good +children were never restless in meeting, and never laughed or +smiled, however their big brothers tempted them with winks or +grimaces. And I did want to be good. + +I was not tall enough to see very far over the top of the pew. I +think there were only three persons that came within range of my +eyes. One was a dark man with black curly hair brushed down in +"bangs" over his eyebrows, who sat behind a green baize curtain +near the outside door, peeping out at me, as I thought. I had an +impression that he was the "tidy-man," though that personage had +become mythical long before my day. He had a dragonish look, to +me; and I tried never to meet his glance. + +But I did sometimes gaze more earnestly than was polite at a +dear, demure little lady who sat in the corner of the pew next +ours, her downcast eyes shaded by a green calash, and her hidden +right hand gently swaying a long-handled Chinese fan. She was the +deacon's wife, and I felt greatly interested in her movements and +in the expression of her face, because I thought she represented +the people they called "saints," who were, as I supposed, about +the same as first cousins to the angels. + +The third figure in sight was the minister. I did not think he +ever saw me; he was talking to the older people,--usually telling +them how wicked they were. He often said to them that there was +not one good person among them; but I supposed he excepted +himself. He seemed to me so very good that I was very much afraid +of him. I was a little afraid of my father, but then he sometimes +played with us children: and besides, my father was only a man. +I thought the minister belonged to some different order of +beings. Up there in the pulpit he seemed to me so far off--oh! a +great deal farther off than God did. His distance made my +reverence for him take the form of idolatry. The pulpit was his +pedestal. If any one had told me that the minister ever did or +thought anything that was wrong, I should have felt as if the +foundations of the earth under me were shaken. I wondered if he +ever did laugh. Perhaps it was wicked for a minister even to +smile. + +One day, when I was very little, I met the minister in the +street; and he, probably recognizing me as the child of one of +his parishioners, actually bowed to me! His bows were always +ministerially profound, and I was so overwhelmed with surprise +and awe that I forgot to make the proper response of a "curtsey," +but ran home as fast as I could go to proclaim the wonder. It +would not have astonished me any more, if one of the tall +Lombardy poplars that stood along the sidewalk had laid itself +down at my feet. + +I do not remember anything that the preacher ever said, except +some words which I thought sounded well,--such as +"dispensations," "decrees," "ordinances," "covenants,"-- although +I attached no meaning to them. He seemed to be trying to explain +the Bible by putting it into long words. I did not understand +them at all. It was from Aunt Hannah that I received my first +real glimpses of the beautiful New Testament revelation. In her +unconscious wisdom she chose for me passages and chapters that +were like openings into heaven. They contained the great, deep +truths which are simple because they are great. It was not +explanations of those grand words that I required, or that +anybody requires. In reading them we are all children together, +and need only to be led to the banks of the river of God, which +is full of water, that we may look down into its pellucid depths +for ourselves. + +Our minister was not unlike other ministers of the time, and his +seeming distance from his congregation was doubtless owing to the +deep reverence in which the ministerial office was universally +held among our predecessors. My own graven-image worship of him +was only a childish exageration of the general feeling of grown +people around me. He seemed to us an inhabitant of a Sabbath-day +sphere, while we belonged to the every-day world. I distinctly +remember the day of my christening, when I was between three and +four years old. My parents did not make a public profession of +their faith until after the birth of all their children, eight of +whom--I being my father's ninth child and seventh daughter--were +baptized at one time. My two half-sisters were then grown-up +young women. My mother had told us that the minister would be +speaking directly to us, and that we must pay close attention to +what he said. I felt that it was an important event, and I wished +to do exactly what the minister desired of me. I listened eagerly +while he read the chapter and the hymn. The latter was one of my +favorites:-- + +"See Israel's gentle Shepherd stands;" + +and the chapter was the third of St. Matthew, containing the +story of our Lord's baptism. I could not make out any special +message for us, until be came to the words, "Whose fan is in his +hand." + +That must be it! I looked anxiously at my sisters, to see if they +had brought their fans. It was warm weather, and I had taken a +little one of my own to meeting. Believing that I was following a +direct instruction, I clasped my fan to my bosom and held it +there as we walked up the aisle, and during the ceremony, +wondering why the others did not do so, too. The baby in my +mother's arms--Octavia, the eighth daughter--shocked me by crying +a little, but I tried to behave the better on that account. + +It all seemed very solemn and mysterious to me. I knew from my +father's and mother's absorbed manner then, and when we returned +from church, that it was something exceedingly important to +Them--something that they wished us neither to talk about nor to +forget. + +I never did forget it. There remained within me a sweet, haunting +feeling of having come near the "gentle Shepherd" of the hymn, +who was calling the lambs to his side. The chapter had ended +with the echo of a voice from heaven, and with the glimpse of a +descending Dove. And the water-drops on my forehead, were they +not from that "pure river of water of life, clear as crystal," +that made music through those lovely verses in the last chapter +of the good Book? + +I am glad that I have always remembered that day of family +consecration. As I look back, it seems as if the horizons of +heaven and earth met and were blended then. And who can tell +whether the fragrance of that day's atmosphere may not enter into +the freshness of some new childhood in the life which is to come? + +III. + +THE HYMN-BOOK. + +ALMOST the first decided taste in my life was the love of hymns. +Committing them to memory was as natural to me as breathing. I +followed my mother about with the hymn-book ("Watts' and +Select"), reading or repeating them to her, while she was busy +with her baking or ironing, and she was always a willing +listener. She was fond of devotional reading, but had little time +for it, and it pleased her to know that so small a child as I +really cared for the hymns she loved. + +I learned most of them at meeting. I was told to listen to the +minister; but as I did not understand a word he was saying, I +gave it up, and took refuge in the hymn-book, with the +conscientious purpose of trying to sit still. I turned the leaves +over as noiselessly as possible, to avoid the dreaded reproof of +my mother's keen blue eyes; and sometimes I learned two or three +hymns in a forenoon or an afternoon. Finding it so easy, I +thought I would begin at the beginning, and learn the whole. +There were about a thousand of them included in the Psalms, the +First, Second, and Third Books, and the Select Hymns. But I had +learned to read before I had any knowledge of counting up +numbers, and so was blissfully ignorant of the magnitude of my +undertaking. I did not, I think, change my resolution because +there were so many, but because, little as I was, I discovered +that there were hymns and hymns. Some of them were so prosy that +the words would not stay in my memory at all, so I concluded that +I would learn only those I liked. + +I had various reasons for my preferences. With some, I was caught +by a melodious echo, or a sonorous ring; with others by the hint +of a picture, or a story, or by some sacred suggestion that +attracted me, I knew not why. Of some I was fond just because I +misunderstood them; and of these I made a free version in my +mind, as I murmured them over. One of my first favorites was +certainly rather a singular choice for a child of three or four +years. I had no idea of its meaning, but made up a little story +out of it, with myself as the heroine. It began with the words-- + +"Come, humble sinner, in whose breast +A thousand thoughts revolve." + +The second stanza read thus:-- + +"I'll go to Jesus, though my sin +Hath like a mountain rose." + +I did not know that this last line was bad grammar, but thought +that the sin in question was something pretty, that looked "like +a mountain rose." Mountains I had never seen; they were a +glorious dream to me. And a rose that grew on a mountain must +surely be prettier than any of our red wild roses on the hill, +sweet as they were. I would pluck that rose, and carry it up the +mountain-side into the temple where the King sat, and would give +it to Him; and then He would touch me with his sceptre, and let +me through into a garden full of flowers. There was no garden in +the hymn; I suppose the "rose" made me invent one. But it did +read-- + +"I know his courts; I'll enter in, +Whatever may oppose;" + +and so I fancied there would be lions in the way, as there were +in the Pilgrim's, at the "House Beautiful"; but I should not be +afraid of them; they would no doubt be chained. The last verse +began with the lines,-- + +"I can but perish if I go: +I am resolved to try:" + +and my heart beat a brave echo to the words, as I started off in +fancy on a "Pilgrim's Progress" of my own, a happy little +dreamer, telling nobody the secret of my imaginary journey, taken +in sermon-time. + +Usually, the hymns for which I cared most suggested Nature in +some way,--flowers, trees, skies, and stars. When I repeated,-- + +"There everlasting spring abides, +And never-withering flowers," - + +I thought of the faintly flushed anemones and white and blue +violets, the dear little short-lived children of our shivering +spring. They also would surely be found in that heavenly land, +blooming on through the cloudless, endless year. And I seemed to +smell the spiciness of bay berry and sweet-fern and wild roses +and meadow-sweet that grew in fragrant jungles up and down the +hillside back of the meeting-house, in another verse which I +dearly loved:-- + +"The hill of Zion yields +A thousand sacred sweet, +Before we reach the heavenly fields, +Or walk the golden streets." + +We were allowed to take a little nosegay to meeting sometimes: a +pink or two (pinks were pink then, not red, nor white, nor even +double) and a sprig of camomile; and their blended perfume still +seems to be a part of the June Sabbath mornings long passed away. + +When the choir sang of +"Seas of heavenly rest," + +a breath of salt wind came in with the words through the open +door, from the sheltered waters of the bay, so softly blue and so +lovely, I always wondered how a world could be beautiful where +"there was no more sea." I concluded that the hymn and the text +could not really contradict other; that there must be something +like the sea in heaven, after all. One stanza that I used to +croon over, gave me the feeling of being rocked in a boat on a +strange and beautiful ocean, from whose far-off shores the +sunrise beckoned:-- + +"At anchor laid, remote from home, +Toiling I cry, Sweet Spirit, come! +Celestial breeze, no longer stay! +But spread my sails, and speed my way!" + +Some of the chosen hymns of my infancy the world recognizes among +its noblest treasures of sacred song. That one of Doddridge's, +beginning with +"Ye golden lamps of heaven, farewell!" + +made me feel as if I had just been gazing in at some window of +the "many mansions" above:-- + +"Ye stars are but the shining dust +Of my divine abode-" + +Had I not known that, ever since I was a baby? But the light does +not stream down even into a baby s soul with equal brightness all +the time. Earth draws her dark curtains too soon over the +windows of heaven, and the little children fall asleep in her dim +rooms, and forget their visions. + +That majestic hymn of Cowper's,-- + +"God moves in a mysterious way," + +was one of my first and dearest. It reminded me of the rolling of +thunder through the sky; and, understood as little as the thunder +itself, which my mother told me was God's voice, so that I +bent my ear and listened, expecting to hear it shaped into words, +it still did give me an idea of the presence of One Infinite +Being, that thrilled me with reverent awe. And this was one of +the best lessons taught in the Puritan school,--the lesson of +reverence, the certainty that life meant looking up to something, +to Some One greater than ourselves, to a Life far above us, which +yet enfolded ours. + +The thought of God, when He was first spoken of to me, seemed as +natural as the thought of my father and mother. That He should be +invisible did not seem strange, for I could not with my eyes see +through the sky, beyond which I supposed he lived. But it was +easy to believe that He could look down and see me, and that He +knew all about me. We were taught very early to say "Thou, God, +seest me"; and it was one of my favorite texts. Heaven seemed +nearer, because somebody I loved was up there looking at me. A +baby is not afraid of its father's eyes. + +The first real unhappiness I remember to have felt was when some +one told me, one day, that I did not love God. I insisted, almost +tearfully, that I did; but I was told that if I did truly love +Him I should always be good. I knew I was not that, and the +feeling of sudden orphanage came over me like a bewildering +cloud. Yet I was sure that I loved my father and mother, even +when I was naughty, Was He harder to please than they? + +Then I heard of a dreadful dark Somewhere, the horror of which +was that it was away from Him. What if I should wake some +morning, and find myself there? Sometimes I did not dare to go to +sleep for that dread. And the thought was too awful to speak of +to anybody. Baby that I was, I shut my lips in a sort of reckless +despair, and thought that if I could not be good, I might as well +be naughty, and enjoy it. But somehow I could not enjoy it. I +felt sorry and ashamed and degraded whenever I knew that I had +been cross or selfish. + +I heard them talk about Jesus as if He were a dead man, one who +died a great while ago, whose death made a great difference to +us, I could not understand how. It seemed like a lovely story, +the loveliest in the world, but it sounded as if it were only a +story, even to those who repeated it to me; something that had +happened far away in the past. + +But one day a strange minister came into the Sabbath-school in +our little chapel, and spoke to us children about Him, oh! so +differently! + +"Children," he said, "Jesus is not dead. He is alive: He loves +you, and wants you to love Him! He is your best Friend, and He +will show you how to be good." + +My heart beat fast. I could hardly keep back the tears. The New +Testament, then, did really mean what it said! Jesus said He +would come back again, and would always be with those who loved +Him. + +"He is alive! He loves me! He will tell me how to be good!" I +said it over to myself, but not to anybody else. I was sure that +I loved Him. It was like a beautiful secret between us two. I +felt Him so alive and so near! He wanted me to be good, and I +could be, I would be, for his sake. + +That stranger never knew how his loving word had touched a +child's heart. The doors of the Father's house were opened wide +again, by the only hand that holds the key. The world was all +bright and fresh once more. It was as if the May sun had suddenly +wakened the flowers in an overshadowed wayside nook. + +I tried long afterward, thinking that it was my duty, to build up +a wall of difficult doctrines over my spring blossoms, as if they +needed protection. But the sweet light was never wholly stifled +out, though I did not always keep my face turned towards it: and +I know now, that just to let his lifegiving smile shine into the +soul is better than any of the theories we can invent about Him; +and that only so can young or old receive the kingdom of God as a +little child. + +I believe that one great reason for a child's love of hymns, such +as mine was, is that they are either addressed to a Person, to +the Divine Person,--or they bring Him before the mind in some +distinct way, instead of being written upon a subject, like a +sermon. To make Him real is the only way to make our own spirits +real to ourselves. + +I think more gratefully now of the verses I learned from the +Bible and the Hymn-Book than of almost anything that came to me +in that time of beginnings. The whole Hymn-Book was not for me +then, any more than the whole Bible. I took from both only what +really belonged to me. To be among those who found in the true +sources of faith and adoration, was like breathing in my native +air, though I could not tell anything about the land from which I +had come. Much that was put in the way of us children to climb +by, we could only stumble over; but around and above the +roughnesses of the road, the pure atmosphere of worship was felt +everywhere, the healthiest atmosphere for a child's soul to +breathe in. + +I had learned a great many hymns before the family took any +notice of it. When it came to the knowledge of my most motherly +sister Emilie,--I like to call her that, for she was as fond of +early rising as Chaucer's heroine:-- + +"Up rose the sun, and up rose Emilie;" +and it is her own name, with a very slight change,--she undertook +to see how many my small memory would contain. She promised me a +new book, when I should have learned fifty; and that when I could +repeat any one of a hundred hymns, she would teach me to write. I +earned the book when I was about four years old. I think it was a +collection of some of Jane Taylor's verses. "For Infant Minds," +was part of the title. I did not care for it, however, nearly so +much as I did for the old, thumb-worn "Watts' and Select Hymns." +Before I was five I bad gone beyond the stipulated hundred. + +A proud and happy child I was, when I was permitted to dip a +goose quill into an inkstand, and make written letters, instead +of printing them with a pencil on a slate. + +My sister prepared a neat little writing-book for me, and told me +not to make a mark in it except when she was near to tell me what +to do. In my self-sufficient impatience to get out of "pothooks +and trammels" into real letters and words I disobeyed her +injunction, and disfigured the pages with numerous tell-tale +blots. Then I hid the book away under the garret eaves, and +refused to bring it to light again. I was not allowed to resume +my studies in penmanship for some months, in consequence. But +when I did learn to write, Emilie was my teacher, and she made me +take great pains with my p's and q's. + +It is always a mistake to cram a juvenile mind. A precocious +child is certainly as far as possible from being an interesting +one. Children ought to be children, and nothing else. But I am +not sorry that I learned to read when so young, because there +were years of my childhood that came after, when I had very +little time for reading anything. + +To learn hymns was not only a pastime, but a pleasure which it +would have been almost cruel to deprive me of. It did not seem to +me as if I learned them, but as if they just gave themselves to +me while I read them over; as if they, and the unseen things they +sang about, became a part of me. + +Some of the old hymns did seem to lend us wings, so full were +they of aspiration and hope and courage. To a little child, +reading them or hearing them sung was like being caught up in a +strong man's arms, to gaze upon some wonderful landscape. These +climbing and flying hymns,--how well I remember them, although +they were among the first I learned! They are of the kind that +can never wear out. We all know them by their first lines,-- + +"Awake, our souls! away, our fears!" + +"Up to the hills I lift mine eyes." + +"There is a land of pure delight." + +"Rise, my soul, and stretch thy wings, +Thy better portion trace!" + +How the meeting-house rafters used to ring to that last hymn, +sung to the tune of "Amsterdam!" Sometimes it seemed as if the +very roof was lifted off,--nay, the roof of the sky itself--as if +the music had burst an entrance for our souls into the heaven of +heavens. + +I loved to learn the glad hymns, and there were scores of them. +They come flocking back through the years, like birds that are +full of the music of an immortal spring! + +"Come, let us join our cheerful songs +With angels round the throne." + +"Love divine, all love excelling; +Joy of heaven, to earth come down." + +"Joy to the world! the Lord is come!" + +"Hark! the song of jubilee, +Loud as mighty thunders' roar, +Or the fullness of the sea +When it breaks upon the shore! + +"Hallelujah! for the Lord +God Omnipotent shall reign! +Hallelujah! let the word +Echo round the earth and main." + +Ah, that word "Hallelujah!" It seemed to express all the joy of +spring mornings and clear sunshine and bursting blossoms, blended +with all that I guessed of the songs of angels, and with all that +I had heard and believed, in my fledgling soul, of the glorious +One who was born in a manger and died on a cross, that He might +reign in human hearts as a king. I wondered why the people did +not sing "Hallelujah" more. It seemed like a word sent straight +down to us out of heaven. + +I did not like to learn the sorrowful hymns, though I did it when +they were given to me as a task, such as-- + +"Hark, from the tombs," and + +"Lord, what a wretched land is this, +That yields us no supply." + +I suppose that these mournful strains had their place, but +sometimes the transition was too sudden, from the outside of the +meeting-house to the inside; from the sunshine and bobolinks and +buttercups of the merry May-day world, to the sad strains that +chanted of "this barren land," this "vale of tears," this +"wilderness" of distress and woe. It let us light-hearted +children too quickly down from the higher key of mirth to which +our careless thoughts were pitched. We knew that we were happy, +and sorrow to us was unreal. But somehow we did often get the +impression that it was our duty to try to be sorrowful; and that +we could not be entirely good, without being rather miserable. + +And I am afraid that in my critical little mind I looked upon it +as an affectation on the part of the older people to speak of +life in this doleful way. I thought that they really knew better. +It seemed to me that it must be delightful to grow up, and learn +things, and do things, and be very good indeed,--better than +children could possibly know how to be. I knew afterwards that my +elders were sometimes, at least, sincere in their sadness; for +with many of them life must have been a hard struggle. But when +they shook their heads and said,--"Child, you will not be so +happy by and by; you are seeing your best days now," I still +doubted. I was born with the blessing of a cheerful temperament; +and while that is not enough to sustain any of us through the +inevitable sorrows that all must share, it would have been most +unnatural and ungrateful in me to think of earth as a dismal +place, when everything without and within was trying to tell me +that this good and beautiful world belongs to God. + +I took exception to some verses in many of the hymns that I loved +the most. I had my own mental reservations with regard even to +that glorious chant of the ages,-- + +"Jerusalem, my happy home, +Name ever dear to me." + +I always wanted to skip one half of the third +stanza, as it stood in our Hymn-Book: + +"Where congregations ne'er break up, +And Sabbaths have no end." + +I did not want it to be Sabbath-day always. I was conscious of a +pleasure in the thought of games and frolics and coming week-day +delights that would flit across my mind even when I was studying +my hymns, or trying to listen to the minister. And I did want the +congregation to break up some time. Indeed, in those bright +spring days, the last hymn in the afternoon always sounded best, +because with it came the opening of doors into the outside air, +and the pouring in of a mingled scent of sea winds and apple +blossoms, like an invitation out into the freedom of the beach, +the hillsides, the fields and gardens and orchards. In all this I +felt as if I were very wicked. I was afraid that I loved earth +better than I did heaven. + +Nevertheless I always did welcome that last hymn, announced to be +sung "with the Doxology," usually in "long metre," to the tune of +"Old Hundred." There were certain mysterious preliminaries,--the +rustling of singing-book leaves, the sliding of the short screen- +curtains before the singers along by their clinking rings, and +now and then a premonitory groan or squeak from bass-viol or +violin, as if the instruments were clearing their throats; and +finally the sudden uprising of that long row of heads in the +"singing-seats." + +My tallest and prettiest grown-up sister, Louise, stood there +among them, and of all those girlish, blooming faces I thought +hers the very handsomest. But she did not open her lips wide +enough to satisfy me. I could not see that she was singing at +all. + +To stand up there and be one of the choir, seemed to me very +little short of promotion to the ranks of cherubim and seraphim. +I quite envied that tall, pretty sister of mine. I was sure that +I should open my mouth wide, if I could only be in her place. +Alas! the years proved that, much as I loved the hymns, there was +no music in me to give them voice, except to very indulgent ears. + +Some of us must wait for the best human gifts until we come to +heavenly places. Our natural desire for musical utterance is +perhaps a prophecy that in a perfect world we shall all know how +to sing. But it is something to feel music, if we cannot make it. +That, in itself, is a kind of unconscious singing. + +As I think back to my childhood, it seems to me as if the air was +full of hymns, as it was of the fragrance of clover-blossoms, and +the songs of bluebirds and robins, and the deep undertone of the +sea. And the purity, the calmness, and the coolness of the dear +old Sabbath days seems lingering yet in the words of those +familiar hymns, whenever I bear them sung. Their melody +penetrates deep into my life, assuming me that I have not left +the green pastures and the still waters of my childhood very far +behind me. + +There is something at the heart of a true song or hymn which +keeps the heart young that listens. It is like a breeze from the +eternal hills; like the west wind of spring, never by a breath +less balmy and clear for having poured life into the old +generations of earth for thousands of years; a spiritual +freshness, which has nothing to do with time or decay. + +IV. + +NAUGHTY CHILDREN AND FAIRY TALES. + +ALTHOUGH the children of an earlier time heard a great deal of +theological discussion which meant little or nothing to them, +there was one thing that was made clear and emphatic in all the +Puritan training: that the heavens and earth stood upon firm +foundations--upon the Moral Law as taught in the Old Testament +and confirmed by the New. Whatever else we did not understand, we +believed that to disobey our parents, to lie or steal, had been +forbidden by a Voice which was not to be gainsaid. People who +broke or evaded these commands did so willfully, and without +excusing themselves, or being excused by others. I think most of +us expected the fate of Ananias and Sapphira, if we told what we +knew was a falsehood. + +There were reckless exceptions, however. A playmate, of whom I +was quite fond, was once asked, in my presence, whether she had +done something forbidden, which I knew she had been about only a +little while before. She answered "No," and without any apparent +hesitation. After the person who made the inquiry had gone, I +exclaimed, with horrified wonder, "How could you?" + +Her reply was, "Oh, I only kind of said no." What a real lie was +to her, if she understood a distinct denial of the truth as only +"kind-of" lying, it perplexed me to imagine. The years proved +that this lack of moral perception was characteristic, and nearly +spoiled a nature full of beautiful gifts. + +I could not deliberately lie, but I had my own temptations, which +I did not always successfully resist. I remember the very spot-- +in a footpath through a green field--where I first met the Eighth +Commandment, and felt it looking me full in the face. + +I suppose I was five or six years old. I had begun to be trusted +with errands; one of them was to go to a farmhouse for a quart of +milk every morning, to purchase which I went always to the money- +drawer in the shop and took out four cents. We were allowed to +take a "small brown" biscuit, or a date, or a fig, or a "gibral- +tar," sometimes; but we well understood that we could not help +ourselves to money. + +Now there was a little painted sugar equestrian in a shop-window +down town, which I had seen and set my heart upon. I had learned +that its price was two cents; and one morning as I passed around +the counter with my tin pail I made up my mind to possess myself +of that amount. My father's back was turned; he was busy at his +desk with account-books and ledgers. I counted out four cents +aloud, but took six, and started on my errand with a fascinating +picture before me of that pink and green horseback rider as my +very own. + +I cannot imagine what I meant to do with him. I knew that his +paint was poisonous, and I could not have intended to eat him; +there were much better candies in my father's window; he would +not sell these dangerous painted toys to children. But the little +man was pretty to look at, and I wanted him, and meant to have +him. It was just a child's first temptation to get possession of +what was not her own,--the same ugly temptation that produces the +defaulter, the burglar, and the highway robber, and that made it +necessary to declare to every human being the law, "Thou shalt +not covet." + +As I left the shop, I was conscious of a certain pleasure in the +success of my attempt, as any thief might be; and I walked off +very fast, clattering the coppers in the tin pail. + +When I was fairly through the bars that led into the farmer's +field, and nobody was in sight, I took out my purloined pennies, +and looked at them as they lay in my palm. + +Then a strange thing happened. It was a bright morning, but it +seemed to me as if the sky grew suddenly dark; and those two +pennies began to burn through my hand, to scorch me, as if they +were red hot, to my very soul. It was agony to hold them. I laid +them down under a tuft of grass in the footpath, and ran as if I +had left a demon behind me. I did my errand, and returning, I +looked about in the grass for the two cents, wondering whether +they could make me feel so badly again. But my good angel hid +them from me; I never found them. + +I was too much of a coward to confess my fault to my father; I +had already begun to think of him as "an austere man," like him +in the parable of the talents. I should have been a much happier +child if I bad confessed, for I had to carry about with me for +weeks and months a heavy burden of shame. I thought of myself as +a thief, and used to dream of being carried off to jail and +condemned to the gallows for my offense: one of my story-books +told about a boy who was hanged at Tyburn for stealing, and how +was I better than he? + +Whatever naughtiness I was guilty of afterwards, I never again +wanted to take what belonged to another, whether in the family or +out of it. I hated the sight of the little sugar horseback rider +from that day, and was thankful enough when some other child had +bought him and left his place in the window vacant. + +About this time I used to lie awake nights a good deal, wondering +what became of infants who were wicked. I had heard it said that +all who died in infancy went to heaven, but it was also said that +those who sinned could not possibly go to heaven. I understood, +from talks I had listened to among older people, that infancy +lasted until children were about twelve years of age. Yet here +was I, an infant of less than six years, who had committed a sin. +I did not know what to do with my own case. I doubted whether it +would do any good for me to pray to be forgiven, but I did pray, +because I could not help it, though not aloud. I believe I +preferred thinking my prayers to saying them, almost always. + +Inwardly, I objected to the idea of being an infant; it seemed to +me like being nothing in particular--neither a child nor a little +girl, neither a baby nor a woman. Having discovered that I was +capable of being wicked, I thought it would be better if I could +grow up at once, and assume my own responsibilities. It quite +demoralized me when people talked in my presence about "innocent +little children." + +There was much questioning in those days as to whether fictitious +reading was good for children. To "tell a story" was one +equivalent expression for lying. But those who came nearest to +my child-life recognized the value of truth as impressed through +the imagination, and left me in delightful freedom among my +fairy-tale books. I think I saw a difference, from the first, +between the old poetic legends and a modern lie, especially if +this latter was the invention of a fancy as youthful as my own. + +I supposed that the beings of those imaginative tales had lived +some time, somewhere; perhaps they still existed in foreign +countries, which were all a realm of fancy to me. I was certain +that they could not inhabit our matter-of-fact neighborhood. I +had never heard that any fairies or elves came over with the +Pilgrims in the Mayflower. But a little red-haired playmate with +whom I became intimate used to take me off with her into the +fields, where, sitting, on the edge of a disused cartway fringed +with pussy-clover, she poured into my ears the most remarkable +narratives of acquaintances she had made with people who lived +under the ground close by us, in my fatber's orchard. Her literal +descriptions quite deceived me; I swallowed her stories entire, +just as people in the last century did Defoe's account of "The +Apparition of Mrs. Veal." + +She said that these subterranean people kept house, and that they +invited her down to play with their children on Wednesday and +Saturday afternoons; also that they sometimes left a plate of +cakes and tarts for her at their door: she offered to show me the +very spot where it was,--under a great apple-tree which my +brothers called "the luncheon-tree," because we used to rest and +refresh ourselves there, when we helped my father weed his +vegetable-garden. But she guarded herself by informing me that it +would be impossible for us to open the door ourselves; that it +could only be unfastened from the inside. She told me these +people's names--a "Mr. Pelican," and a "Mr. Apple-tree Manasseh," +who had a very large family of little "Manassehs." She said that +there was a still larger family, some of them probably living +just under the spot where we sat, whose sirname was "Hokes." (If +either of us had been familiar with another word pronounced in +the same way, though spelled differently, I should since have +thought that she was all the time laughing in her sleeve at my +easy belief.) These "Hokeses" were not good-natured people, she +added, whispering to me that we must not speak about them aloud, +as they had sharp ears, and might overhear us, and do us +mischief. + +I think she was hoaxing herself as well as me; it was her way of +being a heroine in her own eyes and mine, and she had always the +manner of being entirely in earnest. + +But she became more and more romantic in her inventions. A +distant aristocratic-looking mansion, which we could see half- +hidden by trees, across the river, she assured me was a haunted +house, and that she had passed many a night there, seeing +unaccountable sights, and hearing mysterious sounds. She further +announced that she was to be married, some time, to a young man +who lived over there. I inferred that the marriage was to take +place whenever the ghostly tenants of the house would give their +consent. She revealed to me, under promise of strict secrecy, the +young man's name. It was "Alonzo." + +Not long after I picked up a book which one of my sisters had +borrowed, called "Alonzo and Melissa," and I discovered that she +had been telling me page after page of "Melissa's" adventures, as +if they were her own. The fading memory I have of the book is +that it was a very silly one; and when I discovered that the rest +of the romantic occurrences she had related, not in that volume, +were to be found in "The Children of the Abbey," I left off +listening to her. I do not think I regarded her stories as lies; +I only lost my interest in them after I knew that they were all +of her own clumsy second-hand making-up, out of the most +commonplace material. + +My two brothers liked to play upon my credulity. When my brother +Ben pointed up to the gilded weather-cock on the Old South +steeple, and said to me with a very grave face,-- + +"Did you know that whenever that cock crows every rooster in town +crows too?" I listened out at the window, and asked,-- + +"But when will he begin to crow?" + +"Oh, roosters crow in the night, sometimes, when you are asleep." + +Then my younger brother would break in with a shout of delight at +my stupidity:-- + +"I'll tell you when, goosie!-- + +'The next day after never; +When the dead ducks fly over the river.'" + +But this must have been when I was very small; for I remember +thinking that "the next day after never" would come some time, in +millions of years, perhaps. And how queer it would be to see dead +ducks flying through the air! + +Witches were seldom spoken of in the presence of us children. We +sometimes overheard a snatch of a witch-story, told in whispers, +by the flickering firelight, just as we were being sent off to +bed. But, to the older people, those legends were too much like +realities, and they preferred not to repeat them. Indeed, it was +over our town that the last black shadow of the dreadful +witchcraft delusion had rested. Mistress Hale's house was just +across the burying-ground, and Gallows Hill was only two miles +away, beyond the bridge. Yet I never really knew what the "Salem +Witchcraft" was until Goodrich's "History of the United States" +was put into my hands as a schoolbook, and I read about it there. + +Elves and gnomes and air-sprites and genii were no strangers to +us, for my sister Emilie--she who heard me say my hymns, and +taught me to write--was mistress of an almost limitless fund of +imaginative lore. She was a very Scheherezade of story-tellers, +so her younger sisters thought, who listened to her while +twilight grew into moonlight, evening after evening, with fasci- +nated wakefulness. + +Besides the tales that the child-world of all ages is familiar +with,--Red Riding-Hood, the Giant-Killer, Cinderella, Aladdin, +the "Sleeping Beauty," and the rest,--she had picked up somewhere +most of the folk-stories of Ireland and Scotland, and also the +wild legends of Germany, which latter were not then made into the +compact volumes known among juvenile readers of to-day as Grimm's +"Household Tales." + +Her choice was usually judicious; she omitted the ghosts and +goblins that would have haunted our dreams; although I was now +and then visited by a nightmare-consciousness of being a +bewitched princess who must perform some impossible task, such as +turning a whole roomful of straws into gold, one by one, or else +lose my head. But she blended the humorous with the romantic in +her selections, so that we usually dropped to sleep in good +spirits, if not with a laugh. + +That old story of the fisherman who had done the "Man of the Sea" +a favor, and was to be rewarded by having his wish granted, she +told in so quaintly realistic a way that I thought it might all +have happened on one of the islands out in Massachusetts Bay. +The fisherman was foolish enough, it seemed, to let his wife do +all his wishing for him; and she, unsatisfied still, though she +had been made first an immensely rich woman, and then a great +queen, at last sent her husband to ask that they two might be +made rulers over the sun, moon, and stars. + +As my sister went on with the story, I could see the waves grow +black, and could hear the wind mutter and growl, while the +fisherman called for the first, second, and then reluctantly, for +the third time:-- + +"O Man of the Sea, +Come listen to me! +For Alice my wife, +The plague of my life, +Has sent me to beg a boon of thee!" + +As his call died away on the sullen wind, the mysterious "Man of +the Sea" rose in his wrath out of the billows, and said,-- + +"Go back to your old mud hut, and stay there with your wife +Alice, and never come to trouble me again." + +I sympathized with the "Man of the Sea" in his righteous +indignation at the conduct of the greedy, grasping woman; and the +moral of the story remained with me, as the story itself did. I +think I understood dimly, even then, that mean avarice and self- +seeking ambition always find their true level in muddy earth, +never among the stars. + +So it proved that my dear mother-sister was preparing me for life +when she did not know it, when she thought she was only amusing +me. + +This sister, though only just entering her teens, was toughening +herself by all sorts of unnecessary hardships for whatever might +await her womanhood. She used frequently to sleep in the garret +on a hard wooden sea-chest instead of in a bed. And she would get +up before daylight and run over into the burying-ground, +barefooted and white-robed (we lived for two or three years in +another house than our own, where the oldest graveyard in town +was only separated from us by our garden fence), "to see if there +were any ghosts there," she told us. Returning noiselessly,-- +herself a smiling phantom, with long, golden-brown hair rippling +over her shoulders,--she would drop a trophy upon her little +sisters' pillow, in the shape of a big, yellow apple that had +dropped from "the Colonel's" "pumpkin sweeting" tree into the +graveyard, close to our fence. + +She was fond of giving me surprises, of watching my wonder at +seeing anything beautiful or strange for the first time. Once, +when I was very little, she made me supremely happy by rousing me +before four o'clock in the morning, dressing me hurriedly, and +taking me out with her for a walk across the graveyard and +through the dewy fields. The birds were singing, and the sun was +just rising, and we were walking toward the east, hand in hand, +when suddenly there appeared before us what looked to me like an +immense blue wall, stretching right and left as far as I could +see. + +"Oh, what is it the wall of?" I cried. + +It was a revelation she had meant for me. "So you did not know it +was the sea, little girl!" she said. + +It was a wonderful illusion to My unaccustomed eyes, and I took +in at that moment for the first time something of the real +grandeur of the ocean. Not a sail was in sight, and the blue +expanse was scarcely disturbed by a ripple, for it was the high- +tide calm. That morning's freshness, that vision of the sea, I +know I can never lose. + +>From our garret window--and the garret was my usual retreat when +I wanted to get away by myself with my books or my dreams--we had +the distant horizon-line of the bay, across a quarter of a mile +of trees and mowing fields. We could see the white breakers +dashing against the long narrow island just outside of the +harbor, which I, with my childish misconstruction of names, +called "Breakers' Island"; supposing that the grown people had +made a mistake when they spoke of it as "Baker's." But that far- +off, shining band of silver and blue seemed so different from the +whole great sea, stretching out as if into eternity from the feet +of the baby on the shore! + +The marvel was not lessened when I began to study geography, and +comprehended that the world is round. Could it really be that we +had that endless "Atlantic Ocean" to look at from our window, to +dance along the edge of, to wade into or bathe in, if we chose? +The map of the world became more interesting to me than any of +the story-books. In my fanciful explorations I out-traveled +Captain Cook, the only voyager around the world with whose name +my childhood was familiar. + +The field-paths were safe, and I was allowed to wander off alone +through them. I greatly enjoyed the freedom of a solitary +explorer among the seashells and wild flowers. + +There were wonders everywhere. One day I picked up a star-fish on +the beach (we called it a "five-finger"), and hung him on a tree +to dry, not thinking of him as a living creature. When I went +some time after to take him down he had elasped with two or three +of his fingers the bough where I laid him, so that he could not +be removed without breaking his hardened shell. My conscience +smote me when I saw what an unhappy looking skeleton I had made +of him. + +I overtook the horse-shoe crab on the sands, but I did not like +to turn him over and make him "say his prayers," as some of the +children did. I thought it must be wicked. And then he looked so +uncomfortable, imploringly wriggling his claws while he lay upon +his back! I believe I did, however, make a small collection of +the shells of stranded horseshoe crabs deserted by their tenants. + +There were also pretty canary-colored cockle-shells and tiny +purple mussels washed up by the tide. I gathered them into my +apron, and carried them home, and only learned that they too held +living inhabitants by seeing a dead snail protruding from every +shell after they had been left to themselves for a day or two. +This made me careful to pick up only the empty ones, and there +were plenty of them. One we called a "butterboat"; it had +something shaped like a seat across the end of it on the inside. +And the curious sea-urchin, that looked as if he was made only +for ornament, when he had once got rid of his spines, and the +transparent jelly-fish, that seemed to have no more right to be +alive than a ladleful of mucilage,--and the razor-shells, and the +barnacles, and the knotted kelp, and the flabby green sea-aprons, +--there was no end to the interesting things I found when I was +trusted to go down to the edge of the tide alone. + +The tide itself was the greatest marvel, slipping away so +noiselessly, and creeping back so softly over the flats, +whispering as it reached the sands, and laughing aloud "I am +coming!" as, dashing against the rocks, it drove me back to where +the sea-lovage and purple beach-peas had dared to root +themselves. I listened, and felt through all my little being that +great, surging word of power, but had no guess of its meaning. I +can think of it now as the eternal voice of Law, ever returning +to the green, blossoming, beautiful verge of Gospel truth, to +confirm its later revelation, and to say that Law and Gospel +belong together. "The sea is His, and He made it: and His hands +formed the dry land." + +And the dry land, the very dust of the earth, every day revealed +to me some new miracle of a flower. Coming home from school one +warm noon, I chanced to look down, and saw for the first time the +dry roadside all starred with lavender-tinted flowers, scarcely +larger than a pin-head; fairy-flowers, indeed; prettier than +anything that grew in gardens. It was the red sand-wort; but why +a purple flower should be called red, I do not know. I remember +holding these little amethystine blossoms like jewels in the palm +of my hand, and wondering whether people who walked along that +road knew what beautiful things they were treading upon. I never +found the flower open except at noonday, when the sun was +hottest. The rest of the time it was nothing but an +insignificant, dusty-leaved weed,--a weed that was transformed +into a flower only for an hour or two every day. It seemed like +magic. + +The busy people at home could tell me very little about the wild +flowers, and when I found a new one I thought I was its +discoverer. I can see myself now leaning in ecstasy over a small, +rough-leaved purple aster in a lonely spot on the hill, and +thinking that nobody else in all the world had ever beheld such a +flower before, because I never had. I did not know then, that the +flower-generations are older than the human race. + +The commonest blossoms were, after all, the dearest, because they +were so familiar. Very few of us lived upon carpeted floors, but +soft green grass stretched away from our door-steps, all golden +with dandelions in spring. Those dandelion fields were like +another heaven dropped down upon the earth, where our feet +wandered at will among the stars. What need had we of luxurious +upholstery, when we could step out into such splendor, from the +humblest door? + +The dandelions could tell us secrets, too. We blew the fuzz off +their gray beads, and made them answer our question, "Does my +mother want me to come home?" Or we sat down together in the +velvety grass, and wove chains for our necks and wrists of the +dandelion-sterns, and "made believe" we were brides, or queens, +or empresses. + +Then there was the white rock-saxifrage, that filled the crevices +of the ledges with soft, tufty bloom like lingering snow-drifts, +our May-flower, that brought us the first message of spring. +There was an elusive sweetness in its almost imperceptible +breath, which one could only get by smelling it in close bunches. +Its companion was the tiny four-cleft innocence-flower, that +drifted pale sky-tints across the chilly fields. Both came to us +in crowds, and looked out with us, as they do with the small +girls and boys of to-day, from the windy crest of Powder House +Hill,--the one playground of my childhood which is left to the +children and the cows just as it was then. We loved these little +democratic blossoms, that gathered around us in mobs at our May +Day rejoicings. It is doubtful whether we should have loved the +trailing arbutus any better, had it strayed, as it never did, +into our woods. + +Violets and anemones played at hide-and-seek with us in shady +places. The gay columbine rooted herself among the bleak rocks, +and laughed and nodded in the face of the east wind, coquettishly +wasting the show of her finery on the frowning air. Bluebirds +twittered over the dandelions in spring. In midsummer, +goldfinches warbled among the thistle-tops; and, high above the +bird-congregations, the song-sparrow sent forth her clear, warm, +penetrating trill,--sunshine translated into music. + +We were not surfeited, in those days, with what is called +pleasure; but we grew up happy and healthy, learning +unconsciously the useful lesson of doing without. The birds and +blossoms hardly won a gladder or more wholesome life from the air +of our homely New England than we did. + +"Out of the strong came forth sweetness." The Beatitudes are the +natural flowering-forth of the Ten Commandments. And the +happiness of our lives was rooted in the stern, vigorous virtues +of the people we lived among, drawing thence its bloom and song, +and fragrance. There was granite in their character and beliefs, +but it was granite that could smile in the sunshine and clothe +itself with flowers. We little ones felt the firm rock beneath +us, and were lifted up on it, to emulate their goodness, and to +share their aspirations. + +V. + +OLD NEW ENGLAND. + +WHEN I first opened my eyes upon my native town, it was already +nearly two hundred years old, counting from the time when it was +part of the original Salem settlement,--old enough to have gained +a character and an individuality of its own, as it certainly had. +We children felt at once that we belonged to the town, as we did +to our father or our mother. + +The sea was its nearest neighbor, and penetrated to every +fireside, claiming close intimacy with every home and heart. The +farmers up and down the shore were as much fishermen as farmers; +they were as familiar with the Grand Banks of Newfoundland as +they were with their own potato-fields. Every third man you met +in the street, you might safely hail as "Shipmate," or "Skipper," +or "Captain." My father's early seafaring experience gave him the +latter title to the end of his life. + +It was hard to keep the boys from going off to sea before they +were grown. No inland occupation attracted them. "Land-lubber" +was one of the most contemptuous epithets heard from boyish lips. +The spirit of adventure developed in them a rough, breezy type of +manliness, now almost extinct. + +Men talked about a voyage to Calcutta, or Hong-Kong, or "up the +Straits,"--meaning Gibraltar and the Mediterranean,--as if it +were not much more than going to the next village. It seemed as +if our nearest neighbors lived over there across the water; we +breathed the air of foreign countries, curiously interblended +with our own. + +The women of well-to-do families had Canton crape shawls and +Smyrna silks and Turk satins, for Sabbath-day wear, which +somebody had brought home for them. Mantel-pieces were adorned +with nautilus and conch-shells, and with branches and fans of +coral; and children had foreign curiosities and treasures of the +sea for playthings. There was one imported shell that we did not +value much, it was so abundant--the freckled univalve they called +a "prop." Yet it had a mysterious interest for us little ones. +We held it to our ears, and listened for the sound of the waves, +which we were told that, it still kept, and always would keep. I +remember the time when I thought that the ocean was really +imprisoned somewhere within that narrow aperture. + +We were accustomed to seeing barrels full of cocoa-nuts rolled +about; and there were jars of preserved tropical fruits, +tamarinds, ginger-root, and other spicy appetizers, almost as +common as barberries and cranberries, in the cupboards of most +housekeepers. + +I wonder what has become of those many, many little red "guinea- +peas" we had to play with! It never seemed as if they really +belonged to the vegetable world, notwithstanding their name. + +We had foreign coins mixed in with our large copper cents,--all +kinds, from the Russian "kopeck" to the "half-penny token" of +Great Britain. Those were the days when we had half cents in +circulation to make change with. For part of our currency was the +old-fashioned "ninepence,"--twelve and a half cents, and the +"four pence ha'penny,"--six cents and a quarter. There was a good +deal of Old England about us still. + +And we had also many living reminders of strange lands across the +sea. Green parrots went scolding and laughing down the thimble- +berry hedges that bordered the cornfields, as much at home out of +doors as within. Java sparrows and canaries and other tropical +songbirds poured their music out of sunny windows into the +street, delighting the ears of passing school children long +before the robins came. Now and then somebody's pet monkey would +escape along the stone walls and shed-roofs, and try to hide from +his boy-persecutors by dodging behind a chimney, or by slipping +through an open scuttle, to the terror and delight of juveniles +whose premises he invaded. + +And there were wanderers from foreign countries domesticated in +many families, whose swarthy complexions and un-Caucasian +features became familiar in our streets,--Mongolians, Africans, +and waifs from the Pacific islands, who always were known to us +by distinguished names,--Hector and Scipio, and Julius Caesar and +Christopher Columbus. Families of black people were scattered +about the place, relics of a time when even New England had not +freed her slaves. Some of them had belonged in my great-grand- +father's family, and they hung about the old homestead at "The +Farms" long after they were at liberty to go anywhere they +pleased. There was a "Rose" and a "Phillis" among them, who came +often to our house to bring luscious high blackberries from the +Farms woods, or to do the household washing. They seemed +pathetically out of place, although they lived among us on equal +terms, respectable and respected. + +The pathos of the sea haunted the town, made audible to every ear +when a coming northeaster brought the rote of the waves in from +the islands across the harbor-bar, with a moaning like that we +heard when we listened for it in the shell. Almost every house +had its sea-tragedy. Somebody belonging to it had been +shipwrecked, or had sailed away one day, and never returned. + +Our own part of the bay was so sheltered by its islands that +there were seldom any disasters heard of near home, although the +names of the two nearest--Great and Little Misery--are said to +have originated with a shipwreck so far back in the history of +the region that it was never recorded. + +But one such calamity happened in my infancy, spoken of always by +those who knew its victims in subdued tones;--the wreck of the +"Persia." The vessel was returning from the Mediterranean, and in +a blinding snow-storm on a wild March night her captain probably +mistook one of the Cape Ann light-houses for that on Baker's +Island, and steered straight upon the rocks in a lonely cove just +outside the cape. In the morning the bodies of her dead crew were +found tossing about with her cargo of paper-manufacturers' rags, +among the breakers. Her captain and mate were Beverly men, and +their funeral from the meeting-house the next Sabbath was an +event which long left its solemnity hanging over the town. + +We were rather a young nation at this time. The History of the +United States could only tell the story of the American +Revolution, of the War of 1812, and of the administration of +about half a dozen presidents. + +Our republicanism was fresh and wide-awake. The edge of George +Washington's little hatchet had not yet been worn down to its +latter-day dullness; it flashed keenly on our young eyes and ears +in the reading books, and through Fourth of July speeches. The +Father of his Country had been dead only a little more than a +quarter of a century, and General Lafayette was still alive; he +had, indeed, passed through our town but a few years before, and +had been publicly welcomed under our own elms and lindens. Even +babies echoed the names of our two heroes in their prattle. + +We had great "training days," when drum and fife took our ears by +storm; When the militia and the Light Infantry mustered and +marched through the streets to the Common with boys and girls at +their heels,--such girls as could get their mother's consent, or +the courage to run off without it.(We never could.)But we always +managed to get a good look at the show in one way or another. + +"Old Election," "'Lection Day" we called it, a lost holiday now, +was a general training day, and it came at our most delightful +season, the last of May. Lilacs and tulips were in bloom, then; +and it was a picturesque fashion of the time for little girls +whose parents had no flower-gardens to go around begging a bunch +of lilacs, or a tulip or two. My mother always made "'Lection +cake" for us on that day. It was nothing but a kind of sweetened +bread with a shine of egg-and-molasses on top; but we thought it +delicious. + +The Fourth of July and Thanksgiving Day were the only other +holidays that we made much account of, and the former was a far +more well behaved festival than it is in modern times. The bells +rang without stint, and at morning and noon cannon were fired +off. But torpedoes and fire-crackers did not make the highways +dangerous;--perhaps they were thought too expensive an amusement. +Somebody delivered an oration; there was a good deal said about +"this universal Yankee nation"; some rockets went up from Salem +in the evening; we watched them from the hill, and then went to +bed, feeling that we had been good patriots. + +There was always a Fast Day, which I am afraid most of us younger +ones regarded merely as a day when we were to eat unlimited +quantities of molasses-gingerbread, instead of sitting down to +our regular meals. + +When I read about Christmas in the English story-books, I wished +we could have that beautiful holiday. But our Puritan fathers +shook their heads at Christmas. + +Our Sabbath-school library books were nearly all English +reprints, and many of the story-books were very interesting. I +think that most of my favorites were by Mrs. Sherwood. Some of +them were about life in India,--"Little Henry and his Bearer," +and "Ayah and Lady." Then there were "The Hedge of Thorns;" +"Theophilus and Sophia;" "Anna Ross," and a whole series of +little English books that I took great delight in. + +I had begun to be rather introspective and somewhat unhealthily +self-critical, contrasting myself meanwhile with my sister Lida, +just a little older, who was my usual playmate, and whom I +admired very much for what I could not help seeing,--her unusual +sweetness of disposition. I read Mrs. Sherwood's "Infant's +Progress," and I made a personal application of it, picturing +myself as the naughty, willful "Playful," and my sister Lida as +the saintly little "Peace." + +This book gave me a morbid, unhappy feeling, while yet it had +something of the fascination of the "Pilgrim's Progress," of +which it is an imitation. I fancied myself followed about by a +fiend-like boy who haunted its pages, called "Inbred-Sin;" and +the story implied that there was no such thing as getting rid of +him. I began to dislike all boys on his account. There was one +who tormented my sister and me--we only knew him by name--by +jumping out at us from behind doorways or fences on our way to +school, making horrid faces at us. "Inbred-Sin," I was certain, +looked just like him; and the two, strangely blended in one +hideous presence, were the worst nightmare of my dreams. There +was too much reality about that "Inbreed-Sin." I felt that I was +acquainted with him. He was the hateful hero of the little +allegory, as Satan is of "Paradise Lost." + +I liked lessons that came to me through fables and fairy tales, +although, in reading Aesop, I invariably skipped the "moral" +pinned on at the end, and made one for myself, or else did +without. + +Mrs. Lydia Maria Child's story of "The Immortal Fountain," in the +"Girl's Own Book,"--which it was the joy of my heart to read, +although it preached a searching sermon to me,--I applied in the +same way that I did the "Infant's Progress." I thought of Lida as +the gentle, unselfish Rose, and myself as the ugly Marion. She +was patient and obliging, and I felt that I was the reverse. She +was considered pretty, and I knew that I was the reverse of that, +too. I wondered if Lida really had bathed in the Immortal +Fountain, and oh, how I wished I could find the way there! But I +feared that trying to do so would be of no use; the fairies would +cross their wands to keep me back, and their wings would darken +at my approach. + +The book that I loved first and best, and lived upon in my +childhood, was "Pilgrim's Progress." It was as a story that I +cared for it, although I knew that it meant something more,-- +something that was already going on in my own heart and life. +Oh, how I used to wish that I too could start off on a pilgrim- +age! It would be so much easier than the continual, discouraging +struggle to be good! + +The lot I most envied was that of the contented Shepherd Boy in +the Valley of Humiliation, singing his cheerful songs, and +wearing "the herb called Heart's Ease in his bosom"; but all the +glorious ups and downs of the "Progress" I would gladly have +shared with Christiana and her children, never desiring to turn +aside into any "By-Path Meadow" while Mr. Great-Heart led the +way, and the Shining Ones came down to meet us along the road. +It was one of the necessities of my nature, as a child, to have +some one being, real or ideal, man or woman, before whom I +inwardly bowed down and worshiped. Mr. Great-Heart was the +perfect hero of my imagination. Nobody, in books or out of them, +compared with him. I wondered if there were really any Mr. Great- +Hearts to be met with among living men. + +I remember reading this beloved book once in a snow-storm, and +looking up from it out among the white, wandering flakes, with a +feeling that they had come down from heaven as its interpreters; +that they were trying to tell me, in their airy up-and-down- +flight, the story of innumerable souls. I tried to fix my eye on +one particular flake, and to follow its course until it touched +the earth. But I found that I could not. A little breeze was +stirring an the flake seemed to go and return, to descend and +then ascend again, as if hastening homeward to the sky, losing +itself at last in the airy, infinite throng, and leaving me +filled with thoughts of that "great multitude, which no man could +number, clothed with white robes," crowding so gloriously into +the closing pages of the Bible. + +Oh, if I could only be sure that I should some time be one of +that invisible company! But the heavens were already beginning to +look a great way off. I hummed over one of my best loved hymns,-- + +"Who are these in bright array?" + +and that seemed to bring them nearer again. + +The history of the early martyrs, the persecutions of the +Waldenses and of the Scotch Covenanters, I read and re-read with +longing emulation! Why could not I be a martyr, too? It would be +so beautiful to die for the truth as they did, as Jesus did! I +did not understand then that He lived and died to show us what +life really means, and to give us true life, like His,--the life +of love to God with all our hearts, of love to all His human +children for His sake;--and that to live this life faithfully is +greater even than to die a martyr's death. + +It puzzled me to know what some of the talk I heard about being a +Christian could mean. I saw that it was something which only men +and women could comprehend. And yet they taught me to say those +dear words of the Master, "Suffer the little children to come +unto Me!" Surely He meant what He said. He did not tell the +children that they must receive the kingdom of God like grown +people; He said that everybody must enter into it "as a little +child." + +But our fathers were stalwart men, with many foes to encounter. +If anybody ever needed a grown-up religion, they surely did; and +it became them well. + +Most of our every-day reading also came to us over the sea. Miss +Edgworth's juvenile stories were in general circulation, and we +knew "Harry and Lucy" and "Rosamond" almost as well as we did our +own playmates. But we did not think those English children had so +good a time as we did; they had to be so prim and methodical. It +seemed to us that the little folks across the water never were +allowed to romp and run wild; some of us may have held a vague +idea that this freedom of ours was the natural inheritance of +republican children only. + +Primroses and cowslips and daisies bloomed in these pleasant +story-books of ours, and we went a-Maying there, with our +transatlantic playmates. I think we sometimes started off with +our baskets, expecting to find those English flowers in our own +fields. How should children be wiser than to look for every +beautiful thing they have heard of, on home ground? + +And, indeed, our commonest field-flowers were, many of them, +importations from the mother-country--clover, and dandelions, and +ox-eye daisies. I was delighted when my mother told me one day +that a yellow flower I brought her was a cowslip, for I thought +she meant that it was the genuine English cowslip, which I had +read about. I was disappointed to learn that it was a native +blossom, the marsh-marigold. + +My sisters had some books that I appropriated to myself a great +deal: "Paul and Virginia;" "Elizabeth, or the Exiles of Siberia;" +"Nina: an Icelandic Tale;" with the "Vicar of Wakefield;" the +"Tour to the Hebrides;" "Gulliver's Travels;" the "Arabian +Nights;" and some odd volumes of Sir Walter Scott's novels. + +I read the "Scottish Chiefs"--my first novel when I was about +five years old. So absorbed was I in the sorrows of Lady Helen +Mar and Sir William Wallace, that I crept into a corner where +nobody would notice me, and read on through sunset into +moonlight, with eyes blurred with tears. I did not feel that I +was doing anything wrong, for I had heard my father say he was +willing his daughters should read that one novel. He probably did +not intend the remark for the ears of his youngest, however. + +My appetite for reading was omnivorous, and I devoured a great +many romances. My sisters took them from a circulating library, +many more, perhaps, than came to my parents' knowledge; but it +was not often that one escaped me, wherever it was hidden. I did +not understand what I was reading, to be sure; and that was one +of the best and worst things about it. The sentimentalism of some +of those romances was altogether unchildlike; but I did not take +much of it in. It was the habit of running over pages and pages +to get to the end of a story, the habit of reading without caring +what I read, that I know to have been bad for my mind. To use a +nautical expression, my brain was in danger of getting "water- +logged." There are so many more books of fiction written +nowadays, I do not see how the young people who try to read one +tenth of them have any brains left for every-day use. + +One result of my infantile novel-reading was that I did not like +to look at my own face in a mirror, because it was so unlike that +of heroines, always pictured with "high white foreheads" and +"cheeks of a perfect oval." Mine was round, ruddy, and laughing +with health; and, though I practiced at the glass a good deal, I +could not lengthen it by puckering down my lips. I quite envied +the little girls who were pale and pensive-looking, as that was +the only ladyfied standard in the romances. Of course, the chief +pleasure of reading them was that of identifying myself with +every new heroine. They began to call me a "bookworm" at home. I +did not at all relish the title. + +It was fortunate for me that I liked to be out of doors a great +deal, and that I had a brother, John, who was willing to have me +for an occasional companion. Sometimes he would take me with him +when be went huckleberrying, up the rural Montserrat Road, +through Cat Swamp, to the edge of Burnt Hills and Beaver Pond. +He had a boy's pride in explaining these localities to me, making +me understand that I had a guide who was familiar with every inch +of the way. Then, charging me not to move until he came back, he +would leave me sitting alone on a great craggy rock, while he +went off and filled his basket out of sight among the bushes. +Indeed, I did not want to move, it was all so new and +fascinating. The tall pine-trees whispering to each other across +the sky-openings above me, the graceful ferns, the velvet mosses +dotted with scarlet fairy-cups, as if the elves had just spread +their table for tea, the unspeakable charm of the spice-breathing +air, all wove a web of enchantment about me, from which I had no +wish to disentangle myself. The silent spell of the woods held +me with a power stronger even than that of the solemn-voiced sea. +Sometimes this same brother would get permission to take me on a +longer excursion,--to visit the old homestead at "The Farms." +Three or four miles was not thought too long a walk for a healthy +child of five years; and that road, in the old time, led through +a rural Paradise, beautiful at every season,--whether it were the +time of song-sparrows and violets, of wild roses, of coral-hung +barberry-bushes, or of fallen leaves and snow-drifts. The +wildness of the road, now exchanged for elegant modern +cultivation, was its great charm to us. We stopped at the Cove +Brook to hear the cat-birds sing, and at Mingo's Beach to revel +in the sudden surprise of the open sea, and to listen to the +chant of the waves, always stronger and grander there than +anywhere along the shore. We passed under dark wooded cliffs out +into sunny openings, the last of which held under its skirting +pines the secret of the prettiest woodpath to us in all the +world, the path to the ancestral farmhouse. + +We found children enough to play with there,--as numerous a +family as our own. We were sometimes, I fancy, the added drop too +much of already overflowing juvenility. Farther down the road, +where the cousins were all grown-up men and women, Aunt Betsey's +cordial, old-fashioned hospitality sometimes detained us a day or +two. We watched the milking, and fed the chickens, and fared +gloriously. Aunt Betsey could not have done more to entertain us, +had we been the President's children. + +I have always cherished the memory of a certain pair of large- +bowed spectacles that she wore, and of the green calash, held by +a ribbon bridle, that sheltered her head, when she walked up from +the shore to see us, as she often did. They announced to us the +approach of inexhaustible kindliness and good cheer. We took in a +home-feeling with the words "Aunt Betsey" then and always. She +had just the husband that belonged to her in my Uncle David, an +upright man, frank-faced, large-hearted, and spiritually minded. +He was my father's favorite brother, and to our branch of the +family "The Farms" meant "Uncle David and Aunt Betsey." + +My brother John's plans for my entertainment did not always +harmonize entirely with my own ideas. He had an inventive mind, +and wanted me to share his boyish sports. But I did not like to +ride in a wheelbarrow, nor to walk on stilts, nor even to coast +down the hill on his sled and I always got a tumble, if I tried, +for I was rather a clumsy child; besides, I much preferred girls' +quieter games. + +We were seldom permitted to play with any boys except our +brothers. I drew the inference that our boys must be a great deal +better than "the other boys." My brother John had some fine play- +fellows, but he seemed to consider me in the way when they were +his guests. Occasionally we would forget that the neighbor-boys +were not girls, and would find ourselves all playing together in +delightful unconsciousness; although possibly a thought, like +that of the "Ettrick Shepherd," may now and then have flitted +through the mind of some masculine juvenile:-- + +"Why the boys should drive away +Little sweet maidens from the play, +Or love to banter and fight so well,-- +That Is the thing I never could tell." + +One, day I thoughtlessly accepted an invitation to get through a +gap in the garden-fence, to where the doctor's two boys were +preparing to take an imaginary sleigh-ride in midsummer. The +sleigh was stranded among tall weeds an cornstalks, but I was +politely handed in by the elder boy, who sat down by my side and +tucked his little brother in front at our feet, informing me that +we were father and mother and little son, going to take a ride to +Newburyport. He had found an old pair of reins and tied them to +a saw-horse, that he switched and "Gee-up"-ed vigorously. The +journey was as brief as delightful. I ran home feeling like the +heroine of an elopement, asking myself meanwhile, "What would my +brother John say if he knew I had been playing with boys?" He was +very particular about his sisters' behavior. But I incautiously +said to one sister in whom I did not usually confide, that I +thought James was the nicest boy in the lane, and that I liked +his little brother Charles, too. She laughed at me so +unmercifully for making the remark, that I never dared look +towards the gap in the fence again, beyond which I could hear the +boys' voices around the old sleigh where they were playing, +entirely forgetful of their former traveling companion. Still, I +continued to think that my courteous cavalier, James, was the +nicest boy in the lane. + +My brother's vigilant care of his two youngest sisters was once +the occasion to them of a serious fright. My grandfather--the +sexton--sometimes trusted him to toll the bell for a funeral. In +those days the bell was tolled for everybody who died. John was +social, and did not like to go up into the belfry and stay an +hour or so alone, and as my grandfather positively forbade him to +take any other boy up there, he one day got permission for us two +little girls to go with him, for company. We had to climb up a +great many stairs, and the last flight was inclosed by a rough +door with a lock inside, which he was charged to fasten, so that +no mischievous boys should follow. + +It was strange to be standing up there in the air, gazing over +the balcony-railing down into the street, where the men and women +looked so small, and across to the water and the ships in the +east, and the clouds and hills in the west! But when he struck +the tongue against the great bell, close to our ears, it was more +than we were prepared for. The little sister, scarcely three +years old, screamed and shrieked,-- + +"I shall be stunned-ded! I shall be stunned-ded!" I do not know +where she had picked up that final syllable, but it made her +terror much more emphatic. Still the great waves of solem + +sound went eddying on, over the hills and over the sea, and we +had to hear it all, though we stopped our ears with our fingers. +It was an immense relief to us when the last stroke of the +passing-bell was struck, and John said we could go down. + +He took the key from his pocket and was fitting it into the lock, +when it slipped, beyond our reach. Now the little sister cried +again, and would not be pacified; and when I looked up and caught +John's blank, dismayed look, I began to feel like crying, too. +The question went swiftly through my mind,--How many days can we +stay up here without starving to death?--for I really thought we +should never get down out of our prison in the air: never see our +mother's face again. + +But my brother's wits returned to him. He led us back to the +balcony, and shouted over the railing to a boy in the street, +making him understand that he must go and inform my father that +we were locked into the belfry. It was not long before we saw +both him and my grandfather on their way to the church. They came +up to the little door, and told us to push with our united +strength against it. The rusty lock soon yielded, and how good it +was to look into those two beloved human faces once more! But we +little girls were not invited to join my brother again when he +tolled the bell: if we had been, I think we should have promptly +declined the invitation. + +Many of my childish misadventures came to me in connection with +my little sister, who, having been much indulged, too it for +granted that she could always have what she wanted. + +One day we two were allowed to take a walk together; I, as the +older, being supposed to take care of her. Although we were going +towards the Cove, over a secluded road, she insisted upon wearing +a brand-new pair of red morocco boots. All went well until we +came to a bog by the roadside, where sweet-flag and cat-tails +grew. Out in the middle of the bog, where no venturesome boy had +ever attempted their seizure, there were many tall, fine-looking +brown cat-tails growing. She caught sight of them, and before I +saw what she was doing, she had shot from my side like an arrow +from the bow, and was far out on the black, quaking surface, that +at first upheld her light weight. I stood petrified with horror. +I knew all about that dangerous place. I had been told that +nobody had ever found out how deep that mud was. I was uttered +just one imploring "Come back!" when she turned to me with a +shriek, throwing up her arms towards me. She was sinking! There +was nobody in sight, and there was no time to think. I ran, or +rather flew, across the bog, with just one thought in my mind, "I +have got to get her out!" Some angel must +have prevented me from making a misstep, and sinking with her. I +felt the power of a giant suddenly taking possession of my small +frame. Quicker than I could tell of it, I had given one +tremendous pull (she had already sunk above her boot-tops), and +had dragged her back to the road. It is a marvel to me now how I +--a child of scarcely six years--succeeded in rescuing her. It +did not seem to me as if I were doing it myself, but as if some +unseen Power had taken possession of me for a moment, and made me +do it. And I suppose that when we act from a sudden impulse to +help another out of trouble, it never is ourself that does the +good deed. The Highest Strength just takes us and uses us. I +certainly felt equal to going straight through the earth to China +after my little sister, if she had stink out of sight. + +We were two miserable looking children when we reached home, the +sticky ooze having changed her feet into unmanageable lumps of +mud, with which my own clothes also were soiled. I had to drag or +carry her all the way, for she could not or would not walk a +step. And alas for the morocco boots! They were never again red. +I also received a scolding for not taking better care of my +little sister, and I was not very soon allowed again to have her +company in my rambles. + +We usually joined with other little neighbor girls in some out- +of-door amusement near home. And our sports, as well as our +books, had a spice of Merry Old England. They were full of kings +and queens, and made sharp contrasts, as well as odd mixtures, +with the homeliness of our everyday life. + +One of them, a sort of rhymed dialogue, began with the couplet:-- + +"Queen Anne, Queen Anne, she sits in the sun, +As fair as a lady, as white as a nun." + +If "Queen Anne" did not give a right guess as to which hand of +the messenger held the king's letter to her, she was contempt- +uously informed that she was + +"as brown as a bun." + +In another name, four little girls joined hands across, in +couples, chanting:-- + +"I wish my father were a king, +I wish my mother were a queen, +And I a little companion!" + +concluding with a close embrace in a dizzying whirl, breathlessly +shouting all together,-- + +"A bundle of fagots! A bundle of fagots!" + +In a third, which may have begun with a juvenile reacting of the +Colonial struggle for liberty, we ranged ourselves under two +leaders, who made an archway over our heads of their lifted hands +and arms, saying, as we passed beneath,-- + +"Lift up the gates as high as the sky, +And let King George and his army pass by!" + +We were told to whisper "Oranges" or "Lemons" for a pass-word; +and "Oranges" always won the larger enlistment, whether British +or American. + +And then there was "Grandmother Gray," and the + +"Old woman from Newfoundland, +With all her children in her hand;" +and the + +"Knight from Spain +Inquiring for your daughter Jane," + +and numberless others, nearly all of them bearing +a distinct Old World flavor. One of our play-places was an +unoccupied end of the burying-ground, overhung by the Colonel's +apple-trees and close under his wall, so that we should not be +too near the grave-stones. + +I do not think that death was at all a real thing to me or to my +brothers and sisters at this time. We lived so near the grave- +yard that it seemed merely the extension of our garden. We +wandered there at will, trying to decipher the moss-grown +inscriptions, and wondering at the homely carvings of cross-bones +and cherubs and willow-trees on the gray slate-stones. I did not +associate those long green mounds with people who had once lived, +though we were careful, having been so instructed, not to step on +the graves. To ramble about there and puzzle ourselves with the +names and dates, was like turning over the pages of a curious old +book. We had not the least feeling of irreverence in taking the +edge of the grave-yard for our playground. It was known as "the +old burying-ground"; and we children regarded it with a sort of +affectionate freedom, as we would a grandmother, because it was +old. + +That, indeed, was one peculiar attraction of the town itself; it +was old, and it seemed old, much older than it does now. There +was only one main street, said to have been the first settlers' +cowpath to Wenham, which might account for its zigzag +picturesqueness. All the rest were courts or lanes. + +The town used to wear a delightful air of drowsiness, as if she +had stretched herself out for an afternoon nap, with her head +towards her old mother, Salem, and her whole length reclining +towards the sea, till she felt at her feet, through her green +robes, the clip of the deep water at the Farms. All her elder +children recognized in her quiet steady-going ways a maternal +unity and strength of character, as of a town that understood her +own plans, and had settled down to peaceful, permanent habits.Her +spirit was that of most of our Massachusetts coast-towns. They +were transplanted shoots of Old England. And it was the voice of +a mother-country more ancient than their own, that little +children heard crooning across the sea in their cradle-hymns and +nursery-songs. + +VI. +GLIMPSES OF POETRY. + +OUR close relationship to Old England was sometimes a little +misleading to us juveniles. The conditions of our life were +entirely different, but we read her descriptive stories and sang +her songs as if they were true for us, too. One of the first +things I learned to repeat--I think it was in the spelling-book-- +began with the verse:-- + +"I thank the goodness and the grace +That on my birth has smiled, +And made me, in these latter days, +A happy English child." + +And some lines of a very familiar hymn by Dr. Watts ran thus:-- + +"Whene'er I take my walks abroad, +How many poor I see. +. . . . . . . . . . . . + +"How many children in the street +Half naked I behold; +While I am clothed from head to feet, +And sheltered from the cold." + +Now a ragged, half-clothed child, or one that could really be +called poor, in the extreme sense of the word, was the rarest of +all sights in a thrifty New England town fifty years ago. I used +to look sharply for those children, but I never could see one. +And a beggar! Oh, if a real beggar would come along, like the one +described in + +"Pity the sorrows of a poor old man," + +what a wonderful event that would be! I believe I had more +curiosity about a beggar, and more ignorance, too, than about a +king. The poem read:-- + +"A pampered menial drove me from the door." + +What sort of creature could a "pampered menial" be? Nothing that +had ever come under our observation corresponded to the words. +Nor was it easy for us to attach any meaning to the word +"servant." There were women who came in occasionally to do the +washing, or to help about extra work. But they were decently +clothed, and had homes of their own, more or less comfortable, +and their quaint talk and free-and-easy ways were often as much +of a lift to the household as the actual assistance they +rendered. + +I settled down upon the conclusion that "rich" and "poor" were +book-words only, describing something far off, and having nothing +to do with our every-day experience. My mental definition of +"rich people," from home observation, was something like this: +People who live in three-story houses, and keep their green +blinds closed, and hardly ever come out and talk with the folks +in the street. There were a few such houses in Beverly, and a +great many in Salem, where my mother sometimes took me for a +shopping walk. But I did not suppose that any of the people who +lived near us were very rich, like those in books. + +Everybody about us worked, and we expected to take hold of our +part while young. I think we were rather eager to begin, for we +believed that work would make men and women of us. + +I, however, was not naturally an industrious child, but quite the +reverse. When my father sent us down to weed his vegetable-garden +at the foot of the lane, I, the youngest of his weeders, liked to +go with the rest, but not for the sake of the work or the pay. I +generally gave it up before I had weeded half a bed. It made me +so warm! and my back did ache so! I stole off into the shade of +the great apple-trees, and let the west wind fan my hot cheeks, +and looked up into the boughs, and listened to the many, many +birds that seemed chattering to each other in a language of their +own. What was it they were saying? and why could not I understand +it? Perhaps I should, sometime. I had read of people who did, in +fairy tales. + +When the others started homeward, I followed. I did not mind +their calling me lazy, nor that my father gave me only one +tarnished copper cent, while Lida received two or three bright +ones. I had had what I wanted most. I would rather sit under the +apple-trees and hear the birds sing than have a whole handful of +bright copper pennies. It was well for my father and his garden +that his other children were not like me. + +The work which I was born to, but had not begun to do, was +sometimes a serious weight upon my small, forecasting brain. + +One of my hymns ended with the lines,-- + +"With books, and work, and healthful play, +May my first years be passed, +That I may give, for every day, +Some good account at last." + +I knew all about the books and the play; but the work,--how +should I ever learn to do it? + +My father had always strongly emphasized his wish that all his +children, girls as well as boys, should have some independent +means of self-support by the labor of their hands; that every one +should, as was the general custom, "learn a trade." Tailor's +work--the finishing of men's outside garments--was the "trade +learned most frequently by women in those days, and one or more +of my older sisters worked at it; I think it must have been at +home, for I somehow or somewhere got the idea, while I was a +small child, that the chief end of woman was to make clothing for +mankind. + +This thought came over me with a sudden dread one Sabbath morning +when I was a toddling thing, led along by my sister, behind my +father and mother. As they walked arm in arm before me, I lifted +my eyes from my father's heels to his head, and mused: "How tall +he is! and how long his coat looks! and how many thousand, +thousand stitches there must be in his coat and pantaloons! And I +suppose I have got to grow up and have a husband, and put all +those little stitches into his coats and pantaloons. Oh, I never, +never can do it!" A shiver of utter discouragement went through +me. With that task before me, it hardly seemed to me as if life +were worth living. I went on to meeting, and I suppose I forgot +my trouble in a hymn, but for the moment it was real. It was not +the only time in my life that I have tired myself out with +crossing bridges to which I never came. real. It was not the only time inmy +life that I have tired myself out with crossing brid,es to which I never +came. + +Another trial confronted me in the shape of an ideal but +impossible patchwork quilt. We learned to sew patchwork at +school, while we were learning the alphabet; and almost every +girl, large or small, had a bed-quilt of her own begun, with an +eye to future house furnishing. I was not over fond of sewing, +but I thought it best to begin mine early. + +So I collected a few squares of calico, and undertook to put them +together in my usual independent way, without asking direction. +I liked assorting those little figured bits of cotton cloth, for +they were scraps of gowns I had seen worn, and they reminded me +of the persons who wore them. One fragment, in particular, was +like a picture to me. It was a delicate pink and brown sea-moss +pattern, on a white ground, a piece of a dress belonging to my +married sister, who was to me bride and angel in One. I always +saw her face before me when I unfolded this scrap,--a face with +an expression truly heavenly in its loveliness. Heaven claimed +her before my childhood was ended. Her beautiful form was laid to +rest in mid-ocean, too deep to be pillowed among the soft sea- +mosses. But she lived long enough to make a heaven of my child- +hood whenever she came home. + +One of the sweetest of our familiar hymns I always think of as +belonging to her, and as a still unbroken bond between her spirit +and mine. She had come back to us for a brief visit, soon after +her marriage, with some deep, new experience of spiritual +realities which I, a child of four or five years, felt in the +very tones of her voice, and in the expression of her eyes. + +My mother told her of my fondness for the hymn-book, and she +turned to me with a smile and said, "Won't you learn one hymn for +me--one hymn that I love very much?" + +Would I not? She could not guess how happy she made me by wishing +me to do anything for her sake. The hymn was,-- + +"Whilst Thee I seek, protecting Power." + +In a few minutes I repeated the whole to her and its own beauty, +pervaded with the tenderness of her love for me, fixed it at once +indelibly in my memory. Perhaps I shall repeat it to her again, +deepened with a lifetime's meaning, beyond the sea, and beyond +the stars. + +I could dream over my patchwork, but I could not bring it into +conventional shape. My sisters, whose fingers had been educated, +called my sewing "gobblings." I grew disgusted with it myself, +and gave away all my pieces except the pretty sea-moss pattern, +which I was not willing to see patched up with common calico. It +was evident that I should never conquer fate with my needle. + +Among other domestic traditions of the old times was the saying +that every girl must have a pillow-case full of stockings of her +own knitting before she was married. Here was another mountain +before me, for I took it for granted that marrying was inevitable +--one of the things that everybody must do, like learning to +read, or going to meeting. + +I began to knit my own stockings when I ways six or seven years +old, and kept on, until home-made stockings went out of fashion. +The pillow-case full, however, was never attempted, any more than +the patchwork quilt. I heard somebody say one day that there must +always be one "old maid" in every family of girls, and I accepted +the prophecy of some of my elders, that I was to be that one. I +was rather glad to know that freedom of choice in the matter was +possible. + +One day, when we younger ones were hanging about my golden-haired +and golden-hearted sister Emilie, teasing her with wondering +questions about our future, she announced to us (she had reached +the mature age of fifteen years) that she intended to be an old +maid, and that we might all come and live with her. Some one +listening reproved her, but she said, "Why, if they fit them- +selves to be good, helpful, cheerful old maids, they will +certainly be better wives, if they ever are married," and that +maxim I laid by in my memory for future contingencies, for I +believed in every word she ever uttered. She herself, however, +did not carry out her girlish intention. "Her children arise up +and call her blessed; her husband also; and he praiseth her." But +the little sisters she used to fondle as her "babies have never +allowed their own years nor her changed relations to cancel their +claim upon her motherly sympathies. + +I regard it as a great privilege to have been one of a large +family, and nearly the youngest. We had strong family resem- +blances, and yet no two seemed at all alike. It was like +rehearsing in a small world each our own part in the great one +awaiting us. If we little ones occasionally had some severe +snubbing mixed with the petting and praising and loving, that was +wholesome for us, and not at all to be regretted. + +Almost every one of my sisters had some distinctive aptitude with +her fingers. One worked exquisite lace-embroidery; another had a +knack at cutting and fitting her doll's clothing so perfectly +that the wooden lady was always a typical specimen of the genteel +doll-world; and another was an expert at fine stitching, so +delicately done that it was a pleasure to see or to wear anything +her needle had touched. I had none of these gifts. I looked on +and admired, and sometimes tried to imitate, but my efforts +usually ended in defeat and mortification. + +I did like to knit, however, and I could shape a stocking +tolerably well. My fondness for this kind of work was chiefly +because it did not require much thought. Except when there was +"widening" or "narrowing" to be done, I did not need to keep my +eyes upon it at all. So I took a book upon my lap and read, and +read, while the needles clicked on, comforting me with the +reminder that I was not absolutely unemployed, while yet I was +having a good time reading. + +I began to know that I liked poetry, and to think a good deal +about it at my childish work. Outside of the hymn-book, the first +rhymes I committed to memory were in the "Old Farmer's Almanac," +files of which hung in the chimney corner, and were an inexhaust- +ible source of entertainment to us younger ones. + +My father kept his newspapers also carefully filed away in the +garret, but we made sad havoc among the "Palladiums" and other +journals that we ought to have kept as antiquarian treasures. +We valued the anecdote column and the poet's corner only; these +we clipped unsparingly for our scrap-books. + +A tattered copy of Johnson's large Dictionary was a great delight +to me, on account of the specimens of English versification which +I found in the Introduction. I learned them as if they were so +many poems. I used to keep this old volume close to my pillow; +and I amused myself when I awoke in the morning by reciting its +jingling contrasts of iambic and trochaic and dactylic metre, and +thinking what a charming occupation it must be to "make up" +verses. + +I made my first rhymes when I was about seven years old. My +brother John proposed "writing poetry" as a rainy-day amusement, +one afternoon when we two were sent up into the garret to +entertain ourselves without disturbing the family. He soon grew +tired of his unavailing attempts, but I produced two stanzas, the +first of which read thus:-- + +"One summer day, said little Jane, +We were walking down a shady lane, +When suddenly the wind blew high, +And the red lightning flashed in the sky. +The second stanza descended in a dreadfully abrupt anti-climax; +but I was blissfully ignorant of rhetoricians' rules, and +supposed that the rhyme was the only important thing. It may +amuse my child-readers if I give them this verse too: + +"The peals of thunder, how they rolled! +And I felt myself a little cooled; +For I before had been quite warm; +But now around me was a storm." + +My brother was surprised at my success, and I believe I thought +my verses quite fine, too. But I was rather sorry that I had +written them, for I had to say them over to the family, and then +they sounded silly. The habit was formed, however, and I went on +writing little books of ballads, which I illustrated with colors +from my toy paintbox, and then squeezed down into the cracks of +the garret floor, for fear that somebody would find them. + +My fame crept out among the neighbors, nevertheless. I was even +invited to write some verses in young lady's album; and Aunt +Hannah asked me to repeat my verses to her. I considered myself +greatly honored by both requests. + +My fondness for books began very early. At the age of four I had +formed the plan of collecting a library. Not of limp, paper- +covered picture-books, such as people give to babies; no! I +wanted books with stiff covers, that could stand up side by side +on a shelf, and maintain their own character as books. But I did +not know how to make a beginning, for mine were all of the kind +manufactured for infancy, and I thought they deserved no better +fate than to be tossed about among my rag-babies and playthings. + +One day, however, I found among some rubbish in a corner a +volume, with one good stiff cover; the other was missing. It did +not look so very old, nor as if it had been much read; neither +did it look very inviting to me as I turned its leaves. On its +title-page I read "The Life of John Calvin." I did not know who +he was, but a book was a book to me, and this would do as well as +any to begin my library with. I looked upon it as a treasure, and +to make sure of my claim, I took it down to my mother and timidly +asked if I might have it for my own. She gave me in reply a +rather amused "Yes," and I ran back happy, and began my library +by setting John Calvin upright on a beam under the garret eaves, +my "make-believe" book-case shelf. + +I was proud of my literary property, and filled out the shelf in +fancy with a row of books, every one of which should have two +stiff covers. But I found no more neglected volumes that I could +adopt. John Calvin was left to a lonely fate, and am afraid that +at last the mice devoured him. Before I had quite forgotten him, +however, I did pick up one other book of about his size, and in +the same one-covered condition; and this attracted me more, +because it was in verse. Rhyme had always a sort of magnetic +power over me, whether I caught at any idea it contained or not. + +This was written in the measure which I afterwards learned was +called Spenserian. It was Byron's "Vision of Judgment," and +Southey's also was bound up with it. +Southey's hexameters were too much of a mouthful for me, but +Byron's lines jingled, and apparently told a story about +something. St. Peter came into it, and King George the Third; +neither of which names meant anything to me; but the scenery +seemed to be somewhere up among the clouds, and I, unsuspicious +of the author's irreverence, took it for a sort of semi-Biblical +fairy tale. + +There was on my mother's bed a covering of pink chintz, pictured +all over with the figure of a man sitting on a cloud, holding a +bunch of keys. I put the two together in my mind, imagining the +chintz counterpane to be an illustration of the poem, or the poem +an explanation of the counterpane. For the stanza I liked best +began with the words,-- + +"St.Peter sat at the celestial gate, +And nodded o'er his keys." + +I invented a pronunciation for the long words, and went about the +house reciting grandly,-- + +"St. Peter sat at the kelestikal gate, +And nodded o'er his keys." + +That volume, swept back to me with the rubbish of Time, still +reminds me, forlorn and half-clad, of my childish fondness for +its mock-magnificence. + +John Calvin and Lord Byron were rather a peculiar combination, as +the foundation of an infant's library; but I was not aware of any +unfitness or incompatibility. To me they were two brother-books, +like each other in their refusal to wear limp covers. + +It is amusing to recall the rapid succession of contrasts in one +child's tastes. I felt no incongruity between Dr. Watts and +Mother Goose. I supplemented "Pibroch of Donuil Dhu" and + +"Lochiel, Lochiel, beware of the day," + +with "Yankee Doodle" and the "Diverting History of John Gilpin;" +and with the glamour of some fairy tale I had just read still +haunting me, I would run out of doors eating a big piece of bread +and butter,--sweeter than any has tasted since,--and would jump +up towards the crows cawing high above me, cawing back to them, +and half wishing I too were a crow to make the sky ring with my +glee. + +After Dr. Watts's hymns the first poetry I took great delight in +greeted me upon the pages of the "American First Class Book," +handed down from older pupils in the little private school which +my sisters and I attended when Aunt Hannah had done all she could +for us. That book was a collection of excellent literary +extracts, made by one who was himself an author and a poet. It +deserved to be called "first-class" in another sense than that +which was understood by its title. I cannot think that modern +reading books have improved upon it much. It contained poems from +Wordsworth, passages from Shakespeare's plays, among them the +pathetic dialogue between Hubert and little Prince Arthur, whose +appeal to have his eyes spared, brought many a tear to my own. +Bryant's "Waterfowl" and "Thanatopsis" were there also; and +Neal's,-- + +"There's a fierce gray bird with a bending beak," + +that the boys loved so dearly to "declaim;" and another poem by +this last author, which we all liked to read, partly from a +childish love of the tragic, and partly for its graphic +description of an avalanche's movement:-- + +"Slowly it came in its mountain wrath, +And the forests vanished before its path; +And the rude cliffs bowed; and the waters fled,-- +And the valley of life was the tomb of the dead." + +In reading this, "Swiss Minstrel's Lament over the Ruins of +Goldau," I first felt my imagination thrilled with the terrible +beauty of the mountains--a terror and a sublimity which attracted +my thoughts far more than it awed them. But the poem in which +they burst upon me as real presences, unseen, yet known in their +remote splendor as kingly friends before whom I could bow, yet +with whom I could aspire,--for something like this I think +mountains must always be to those who truly love them,--was +Coleridge's "Mont Blanc before Sunrise," in this same "First +Class Book." I believe that poetry really first took possession +of me in that poem, so that afterwards I could not easily mistake +the genuineness of its ring, though my ear might not be +sufficiently trained to catch its subtler harmonies. This great +mountain poem struck some hidden key-note in my nature, and I +knew thenceforth something of what it was to live in poetry, and +to have it live in me. Of course I did not consider my own +foolish little versifying poetry. The child of eight or nine +years regarded her rhymes as only one among her many games and +pastimes. + +But with this ideal picture of mountain scenery there came to me +a revelation of poetry as the one unattainable something which I +must reach out after, because I could not live without it. The +thought of it was to me like the thought of God and of truth. To +leave out poetry would be to lose the real meaning of life. I +felt this very blindly and vaguely, no doubt; but the feeling was +deep. It was as if Mont Blanc stood visibly before me, while I +murmured to myself in lonely places -- + +"Motionless torrents! silent cataracts! +Who made you glorious as the gates of heaven +Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade the sun +Clothe you with rainbows? Who with lovely flowers +Of living blue spread garlands at your feet?" + +And then the + +"Pine groves with their soft and soul-like sound" +gave glorious answer, with the streams and torrents, and my +child-heart in its trance echoed the poet's invocation,-- + +"Rise, like a cloud of incense from the earth! +And tell the stars, and tell the rising sun, +Earth, with her thousand voices, calls on GOD!" + +I have never visited Switzerland, but I surely saw the Alps, with +Coleridge, in my childhood. And although I never stood face to +face with mountains until I was a mature woman, always, after +this vision of them, they were blended with my dream of whatever +is pure and lofty in human possibilities,--like a white ideal +beckoning me on. + +Since I am writing these recollections for the young, I may say +here that I regard a love for poetry as one of the most needful +and helpful elements in the life-outfit of a human being. It +was the greatest of blessings to me, in the long days of toil to +which I was shut in much earlier than most young girls are, that +the poetry I held in my memory breathed its enchanted atmosphere +through me and around me, and touched even dull drudgery with its +sunshine. + +Hard work, however, has its own illumination--if done as duty +which worldliness has not; and worldliness seems to be the +greatest temptation and danger Of young people in this genera- +tion. Poetry is one of the angels whose presence will drive out +this sordid demon, if anything less than the Power of the Highest +can. But poetry is of the Highest. It is the Divine Voice, +always, that we recognize through the poet's, whenever he most +deeply moves our souls. + +Reason and observation, as well as my own experience, assure me +also that it is great--poetry even the greatest--which the +youngest crave, and upon which they may be fed, because it is the +simplest. Nature does not write down her sunsets, her starry +skies, her mountains, and her oceans in some smaller style, to +suit the comprehension of little children; they do not need any +such dilution. So I go back to the, American First Class Book," +and affirm it to have been one of the best of reading-books, +because it gave us children a taste of the finest poetry and +prose which had been written in our English tongue, by British +and by American authors. Among the pieces which left a permanent +impression upon my mind I recall Wirt's description of the +eloquent blind preacher to whom he listened in the forest +wilderness of the Blue Ridge, a remarkable word-portrait, in +which the very tones of the sightless speaker's voice seemed to +be reproduced. I believe that the first words I ever remembered +of any sermon were those contained in the grand, brief sentence,- +-"Socrates died like a philosopher; but Jesus Christ--like a +God!" + +Very vivid, too, is the recollection of the exquisite little +prose idyl of "Moss-Side," from "Lights and Shadows of Scottish +Life." From the few short words with which it began--"Gilbert +Ainslee was a poor man, and he had been a poor man all the days +of his life"--to the happy waking of his little daughter Margaret +out of her fever-sleep with which it ended, it was one sweet +picture of lowly life and honorable poverty irradiated with +sacred home-affections, and cheerful in its rustic homeliness as +the blossoms and wild birds of the moorland and the magic touch +of Christopher North could make it. I thought as I read-- + +"How much pleasanter it must be to be poor than to be rich--at +least in Scotland!" + +For I was beginning to be made aware that poverty was a possible +visitation to our own household; and that, in our Cape Ann corner +of Massachusetts, we might find it neither comfortable nor +picturesque. After my father's death, our way of living, never +luxurious, grew more and more frugal. Now and then I heard +mysterious allusions to "the wolf at the door": and it was +whispered that, to escape him, we might all have to turn our +backs upon the home where we were born, and find our safety in +the busy world, working among strangers for our daily bread. +Before I had reached my tenth year I began to have rather +disturbed dreams of what it might soon mean for me to "earn my +own living." + +VII. + +BEGINNING TO WORK. + +A CHILD does not easily comprehend even the plain fact of death. +Though I had looked upon my father's still, pale face in his +coffin, the impression it left upon me was of sleep; more +peaceful and sacred than common slumber, yet only sleep. My +dreams of him were for a long time so vivid that I would say to +myself, "He was here yesterday; he will be here again to-morrow," +with a feeling that amounted to expectation. + +We missed him, we children large and small who made up the yet +untrained home crew, as a ship misses the man at the helm. His +grave, clear perception of what was best for us, his brief words +that decided, once for all, the course we were to take, had been +far more to us than we knew. + +It was hardest of all for my mother, who had been accustomed to +depend entirely upon him. Left with her eight children, the +eldest a boy of eighteen years, and with no property except the +roof that sheltered us and a small strip of land, her situation +was full of perplexities which we little ones could not at all +understand. To be fed like the ravens and clothed like the grass +of the field seemed to me, for one, a perfectly natural thing, +and I often wondered why my mother was so fretted and anxious. + +I knew that she believed in God, and in the promises of the +Bible, and yet she seemed sometimes to forget everything but her +troubles and her helplessness. I felt almost like preaching to +her, but I was too small a child to do that, I well knew; so I +did the next best thing I could think of--I sang hymns as if +singing to myself, while I meant them for her. Sitting at the +window with my book and my knitting, while she was preparing +dinner or supper with a depressed air because she missed the +abundant provision to which she held been accustomed, I would go +from hymn to hymn, selecting those which I thought would be most +comforting to her, out of the many that my memory-book contained, +and taking care to pronounce the words distinctly. + +I was glad to observe that she listened to + +"Come, ye disconsolate," + +and + +"How firm a foundation;" + +and that she grew more cheerful; though I did not feel sure that +my singing cheered her so much as some happier thought that had +come to her out of her own heart. Nobody but my mother, indeed, +would have called my chirping singing. But as she did not seem +displeased, I went on, a little more confidently, with some hymns +that I loved for their starry suggestions,-- + +"When marshaled on the nightly plain," + +and + +"Brightest and best of the sons of the morning," + +and + +"Watchman, tell us of the night?" + +The most beautiful picture in the Bible to me, certainly the +loveliest in the Old Testament, had always been that one painted +by prophecy, of the time when wild and tame creatures should live +together in peace, and children should be their fearless play- +mates. Even the savage wolf Poverty would be pleasant and +neighborly then, no doubt! A Little Child among them, leading +them, stood looking wistfully down through the soft sunrise +of that approaching day, into the cold and darkness of the world. +Oh, it would be so much better than the garden of Eden! + +Yes, and it would be a great deal better, I thought, to live in +the millennium, than even to die and go to heaven, although so +many people around me talked as if that were the most desirable +thing of all. But I could never understand why, if God sent us +here, we should be in haste to get away, even to go to a pleas- +anter place. + +I was perplexed by a good many matters besides. I had learned to +keep most of my thoughts to myself, but I did venture to ask +about the Ressurrection--how it was that those who had died and +gone straight to heaven, and had been singing there for thousands +of years, could have any use for the dust to which their bodies +had returned. Were they not already as alive as they could be? I +found that there were different ideas of the resurrection among +"orthodox" people, even then. I was told however, that this was +too deep a matter for me, and so I ceased asking questions. But I +pondered the matter of death; what did it mean? The Apostle Paul +gave me more light on the subject than any of the ministers did. +And, as usual, a poem helped me. It was Pope's Ode, beginning +with,-- + +"Vital spark of heavenly flame,"-- + +which I learned out of a reading-book. To die was to "languish +into life." That was the meaning of it! and I loved to repeat to +myself the words,-- + +"Hark! they whisper: angels say, +'Sister spirit, come away!'" + +"The world recedes; it disappears! +Heaven opens on my eyes! my ears +With sounds seraphic ring." + +A hymn that I learned a little later expressedto me the same +satisfying thought: + + +"For strangers into life we come, +And dying is but going home." + +The Apostle's words, with which the song of "The Dying Christian +to his Soul" ends, left the whole cloudy question lit up with +sunshine, to my childish thoughts:-- + +"O grave, where is thy 'victory? +O death, where is thy sting?" + +My father was dead; but that only meant that be bad gone to a +better home than the one be lived in with us, and by and by we +should go home, too. + +Meanwhile the millennium was coming, and some people thought it +was very near. And what was the millennium? Why, the time when +everybody on earth would live just as they do in heaven. Nobody +would be selfish, nobody would be unkind; no! not so much as in a +single thought. What a delightful world this would be to live in +then! Heaven itself could scarcely be much better! Perhaps people +would not die at all, but, when the right time came, would slip +quietly away into heaven, just as Enoch did. + +My father had believed in the near millennium. His very last +writing, in his sick-room, was a penciled computation, from the +prophets, of the time when it would begin. The first minister +who preached in our church, long before I was born, had studied +the subject much, and had written books upon this, his favorite +theme. The thought of it was continually breaking out, like bloom +and sunshine, from the stern doctrines of the period. + +One question in this connection puzzled me a good deal. Were +people going to be made good in spite of themselves, whether they +wanted to or not? And what would be done with the bad ones, if +there were any left? I did not like to think of their being +killed off, and yet everybody must be good, or it would not be a +true millennium. + +It certainly would not matter much who was rich, and who was +poor, if goodness, and not money, was the thing everybody cared +for. Oh, if the millennium would only begin now! I felt as if it +were hardly fair to me that I should not be here during those +happy thousand years, when I wanted to so much. But I had not +lived even my short life in the world without leading something +of my own faults and perversities; and when I saw that there was +no sign of an approaching millennium in my heart I had to +conclude that it might be a great way off, after all. Yet +the very thought of it brought warmth and illumination to my +dreams by day and by night. It was coming, some time! And the +people who were in heaven would be as glad of it as those who +remained on earth. + +That it was a hard world for my mother and her children to live +in at present I could not help seeing. The older members of the +family found occupations by which the domestic burdens were +lifted a little; but, with only the three youngest to clothe and +to keep at school, there was still much more outgo than income, +and my mother's discouragement every day increased. + +My eldest brother had gone to sea with a relative who was master +of a merchant vessel in the South American trade. His inclination +led him that way; it seemed to open before him a prospect of +profitable business, and my mother looked upon him as her future +stay and support. + +One day she came in among us children looking strangely excited. +I heard her tell some one afterwards that she had just been to +hear Father Taylor preach, the sailors minister, whose coming to +our town must have been a rare occurrence. His words had touched +her personally, for he had spoken to mothers whose first-born had +left them to venture upon strange seas and to seek unknown lands. +He had even given to the wanderer he described the name of her +own absent son Benjamin. "As she left the church she met a +neighbor who informed her that the brig "Mexican" had arrived at +Salem, in trouble. It was the vessel in which my brother had +sailed only a short time before, expecting to be absent for +months. "Pirates" was the only word we children caught, as she +hastened away from the house, not knowing whether her son was +alive or not. Fortunately, the news hardly reached the town +before my brother himself did. She met him in the street, and +brought him home with her, forgetting all her anxieties in her +joy at his safety. + +The "Mexican" had been attacked on the high seas by the piratical +craft "Panda," robbed of twenty thousand dollars in specie, se + +fire, and abandoned to her fate, with the crew fastened down in +the hold. One small skylight had accidentally been overlooked by +the freebooters. The captain discovered it, and making his way +through it to the deck, succeeded in putting out the fire, else +vessel and sailors would have sunk together, and their fate would +never have been known. + +Breathlessly we listened whenever my brother would relate the +story, which he did not at all enjoy doing, for a cutlass had +been swung over his head, and his life threatened by the pirate's +boatswain, demanding more money, after all had been taken. A +Genoese messmate, Iachimo, shortened to plain "Jack" by the +"Mexican's" crew, came to see my brother one day, and at the +dinner table he went through the whole adventure in pantomime, +which we children watched with wide-eyed terror and amusement. +For there was some comedy mixed with what had been so nearly a +tragedy, and Jack made us see the very whites of the black cook's +eyes, who, favored by his color, had hidden himself--all except +that dilated whiteness--between two great casks in the bold. +Jack himself had fallen through a trap-door, was badly hurt, and +could not extricate himself. + +It was very ludicrous. Jack crept under the table to show us how +he and the cook made eyes at each other down there in the +darkness, not daring to speak. The pantomime was necessary, for +the Genoese had very little English at his command. + +When the pirate crew were brought into Salem for trial, my +brother had the questionable satisfaction of identifying in the +court-room the ruffian of a boatswain who had threatened his +life. This boatswain and several others of the crew were executed +in Boston. The boy found his brief sailor-experience quite enough +for him, and afterward settled down quietly to the trade of a +carpenter. + +Changes thickened in the air around us. Not the least among them +was the burning of "our meeting-house," in which we had all been +baptized. One Sunday morning we children were told, when we woke, +that we could not go to meeting that day, because the church was +a heap of smoking ruins. It seemed to me almost like the end of +the world. + +During my father's life, a few years before my birth, his +thoughts had been turned towards the new manufacturing town +growing up on the banks of the Merrimack. He had once taken a +journey there, with the possibility in his mind of making the +place his home, his limited income furnishing no adequate promise +of a maintenance for his large family of daughters. From the +beginning, Lowell had a high reputation for good order, morality, +piety, and all that was dear to the old-fashioned New Englander's +heart. + +After his death, my mother's thoughts naturally followed the +direction his had taken; and seeing no other opening for herself, +she sold her small estate, and moved to Lowell, with the +intention of taking a corporation-house for mill-girl boarders. +Some of the family objected, for the Old World traditions about +factory life were anything but attractive; and they were current +in New England until the experiment at Lowell had shown that +independent and intelligent workers invariably give their own +character to their occupation. My mother had visited Lowell, and +she was willing and glad, knowing all about the place, to make it +our home. + +The change involved a great deal of work. "Boarders" signified a +large house, many beds, and an indefinite number of people. Such +piles of sewing accumulated before us! A sewing-bee, volunteered +by the neighbors, reduced the quantity a little, and our child- +fingers had to take their part. But the seams of those sheets did +look to me as if they were miles long! + +My sister Lida and I had our "stint,"--so much to do every day. +It was warm weather, and that made it the more tedious, for we +wanted to be running about the fields we were so soon to leave. +One day, in sheer desperation, we dragged a sheet up with us into +an apple-tree in the yard, and sat and sewed there through the +summer afternoon, beguiling the irksomeness of our task by +telling stories and guessing riddles. + +It was hardest for me to leave the garret and the garden. In the +old houses the garret was the children's castle. The rough +rafters,--it was always ail unfinished room, otherwise not a true +garret,--the music of the rain on the roof, the worn sea-chests +with their miscellaneous treasures, the blue-roofed cradle that +had sheltered ten blue-eyed babies, the tape-looms and reels and +spinning wheels, the herby smells, and the delightful dream +corners,--these could not be taken with us to the new home. +Wonderful people had looked out upon us from under those garret- +eaves. Sindbad the Sailor and Baron Munchausen had sometimes +strayed in and told us their unbelievable stories; and we had +there made acquaintance with the great Caliph Haroun Alraschid. + +To go away from the little garden was almost as bad. Its lilacs +and peonies were beautiful to me, and in a corner of it was one +tiny square of earth that I called my own, where I was at liberty +to pull up my pinks and lady's delights every day, to see whether +they had taken root, and where I could give my lazy morning-glory +seeds a poke, morning after morning, to help them get up and +begin their climb. Oh, I should miss the garden very much indeed! + +It did not take long to turn over the new leaf of our home +experience. One sunny day three of us children, my youngest +sister, my brother John, and I, took with my mother the first +stage-coach journey of our lives, across Lynnfield plains and +over Andover hills to the banks of the Merrimack. We were set +down before an empty house in a yet unfinished brick block, where +we watched for the big wagon that was to bring our household +goods. + +It came at last; and the novelty of seeing our old furniture +settled in new rooms kept us from being homesick. One after +another they appeared,--bedsteads, chairs, tables, and, to me +most welcome of all, the old mahogany secretary with brass- +handled drawers, that had always stood in the "front room" at +home. With it came the barrel full of books that had filled its +shelves, and they took their places as naturally as if they had +always lived in this strange town. + +There they all stood again side by side on their shelves, the +dear, dull, good old volumes that all my life I had tried in vain +to take a sincere Sabbath-day interest in,--Scott's Commentaries +on the Bible, Hervey's "Meditations," Young's "Night Thouhts," +"Edwards on the Affections," and the Writings of Baxter and +Doddridge. Besides these, there were bound volumes of the +"Repository Tracts," which I had read and re-read; and the +delightfully miscellaneous "Evangelicana," containing an account +of Gilbert Tennent's wonderful trance; also the "History of +the Spanish Inquisition," with some painfully realistic illus- +trations; a German Dictionary, whose outlandish letters and words +I liked to puzzle myself over; and a descriptive History of +Hamburg, full of fine steel engravings--which last two or three +volumes my father had brought with him from the countries to +which be had sailed in his sea-faring days. A complete set of +the "Missionary Herald"," unbound, filled the upper shelves. + +Other familiar articles journeyed with us: the brass-headed +shovel and tongs, that it had been my especial task to keep +bright; the two card-tables (which were as unacquainted as +ourselves with ace, face, and trump); the two china mugs, +with their eighteenth-century lady and gentleman figurines +curiosities brought from over the sea, and reverently laid away +by my mother with her choicest relics in the secretary-desk; my +father's miniature, painted in Antwerp, a treasure only shown +occasionally to us children as a holiday treat; and my mother's +easy-chair,--I should have felt as if I had lost her, had that +been left behind. The earliest unexpressed ambition of my infancy +had been to grow up and wear a cap, and sit in an easy-chair +knitting and look comfortable just as my mother did. + +Filled up with these things, the little one-windowed sitting-room +easily caught the home feeling, and gave it back to us. Inanimate +Objects do gather into themselves something of the character +of those who live among them, through association; and this alone +makes heirlooms valuable. They are family treasures, because they +are part of the family life, full of memories and inspirations. +Bought or sold, they are nothing but old furniture. Nobody can +buy the old associations; and nobody who has really felt how +everything that has been in a home makes part of it, can willing- +ly bargain away the old things. + +My mother never thought of disposing of her best furniture, +whatever her need. It traveled with her in every change of her +abiding-place, as long as she lived, so that to us children home +seemed to accompany her wherever she went. And, remaining yet in +the family, it often brings back to me pleasant reminders of my +childhood. No other Bible seems quite so sacred to me as the old +Family Bible, out of which my father used to read when we were +all gathered around him for worship. To turn its leaves and look +at its pictures was one of our few Sabbath-day indulgences; and I +cannot touch it now except with feelings of profound reverence. + +For the first time in our lives, my little sister and I became +pupils in a grammar school for both girls and boys, taught by a +man. I was put with her into the sixth class, but was sent the +very next day into the first. I did not belong in either, but +somewhere between. And I was very uncomfortable in my promotion, +for though the reading and spelling and grammar and geography +were perfectly easy, I had never studied any thing but mental +arithmetic, and did not know how to "do a sum." We had to show, +when called up to recite, a slateful of sums, "done" and +"proved." No explanations were ever asked of us. + +The girl who sat next to me saw my distress, and offered to do my +sums for me. I accepted her proposal, feeling, however, that I +was a miserable cheat. But I was afraid of the master, who was +tall and gaunt, and used to stalk across the schoolroom, right +over the desk-tops, to find out if there was any mischief going +on. Once, having caught a boy annoying a seat-mate with a pin, he +punished the offender by pursuing him around the schoolroom, +sticking a pin into his shoulder whenever he could overtake him. +And he had a fearful leather strap, which was sometimes used even +upon the shrinking palm of a little girl. If he should find out +that I was a pretender and deceiver, as I knew that I was, I +could not guess what might happen to me. He never did, however. +I was left unmolested in the ignorance which I deserved. But I +never liked the girl who did my sums, and I fancied she had a +decided contempt for me. + +There was a friendly looking boy always sitting at the master's +desk; they called him, the monitor." It was his place to assist +scholars who were in trouble about their lessons, but I was too +bashful to speak to him, or to ask assistance of anybody. I think +that nobody learned much under that regime, and the whole school +system was soon after entirely reorganized. + +Our house was quickly filled with a large feminine family. As a +child, the gulf between little girlhood and young womanhood had +always looked to me very wide. I suppose we should get across it +by some sudden jump, by and by. But among these new companions of +all ages, from fifteen to thirty years, we slipped into womanhood +without knowing when or how. + +Most of my mother's boarders were from New Hampshire and Vermont, +and there was a fresh, breezy sociability about them which made +them seem almost like a different race of beings from any we +children had hitherto known. + +We helped a little about the housework, before and after school, +making beds, trimming lamps, and washing dishes. The heaviest +work was done by a strong Irish girl, my mother always attending +to the cooking herself. She was, however, a better caterer than +the circumstances required or permitted. She liked to make nice +things for the table, and, having been accustomed to an abundant +supply, could never learn to economize. At a dollar and a quarter +a week for board,(the price allowed for mill-girls by the +corporations) great care in expenditure was necessary. It was not +in my mother's nature closely to calculate costs, and in this way +there came to be a continually increasing leak in the family +purse. The older members of the family did everything +they could, but it was not enough. I heard it said one day, in a +distressed tone, "The children will have to leave school and go +into the mill." + +There were many pros and cons between my mother and sisters +before this was positively decided. The mill-agent did not want +to take us two little girls, but consented on condition we should +be sure to attend school tile full number of months prescribed +each year. I, the younger one, was then between eleven and twelve +years old. + +I listened to all that was said about it, very much fearing that +I should not be permitted to do the coveted work. For the feeling +had already frequently come to me, that I was the one too many in +the overcrowded family nest. Once, before we left our old home, I +had heard a neighbor condoling with my mother because there were +so many of us, and her emphatic reply had been a great relief to +my mind:-- + +"There is isn't one more than I want. I could not spare a single +one of my children." + +But her difficulties were increasing, and I thought it would be a +pleasure to feel that I was not a trouble or burden or expense to +anybody. So I went to my first day's work in the mill with a +light heart. The novelty of it made it seem easy, and it really +was not hard, just to change the bobbins on the spinning-frames +every three quarters of an hour or so, with half a dozen othe + +little girls who were doing the same thing. When I came back at +night, the family began to pity me for my long, tiresome day's +work, but I laughed and said,-- + +"Why, it is nothing but fun. It is just like play." + +And for a little while it was only a new amusement; I liked it +better than going to school and "making believe" I was learning +when I was not. And there was a great deal of play mixed with it. +We were not occupied more than half the time. The intervals were +spent frolicking around around the spinning-frames, teasing and +talking to the older girls, or entertaining ourselves with the +games and stories in a corner, or exploring with the overseer's +permission, the mysteries of the the carding-room, the dressing- +room and the weaving-room. + +I never cared much for machinery. The buzzing and hissing and +whizzing of pulleys and rollers and spindles and flyers around me +often grew tiresome. I could not see into their complications, or +feel interested in them. But in a room below us we were sometimes +allowed to peer in through a sort of blind door at the great +water-wheel that carried the works of the whole mill. It was so +huge that we could only watch a few of its spokes at a time, and +part of its dripping rim, moving with a slow, measured strength +through the darkness that shut it in. It impressed me with +something of the awe which comes to us in thinking of the great +Power which keeps the mechanism of the universe in motion. Even +now, the remembrance of its large, mysterious movement, in which +every little motion of every noisy little wheel was involved, +brings back to me a verse from one of my favorite hymns:-- + +"Our lives through various scenes are drawn, +And vexed by trifling cares, +While Thine eternal thought moves on +Thy undisturbed affairs." + +There were compensations for being shut in to daily toil so +early. The mill itself had its lessons for us. But it was not, +and could not be, the right sort of life for a child, and we were +happy in the knowledge that, at the longest, our employment was +only to be temporary. + +When I took my next three months at the grammar school, every- +thing there was changed, and I too was changed. The teachers were +kind, and thorough in their instruction; and my mind seemed to +have been ploughed up during that year of work, so that knowledge +took root in it easily. It was a great delight to me to study, +and at the end of the three months the master told me that I was +prepared for the high school. + +But alas! I could not go. The little money I could earn--one +dollar a week, besides the price of my board--was needed in the +family, and I must return to the mill. It was a severe dis- +appointment to me, though I did not say so at home. I did not at +all accept the conclusion of a neighbor whom I heard talking +about it with my mother. His daughter was going to the high +school, and my mother was telling him how sorry she was that I +could not. + +"Oh," he said, in a soothing tone, "my girl hasn't got any such +head-piece as yours has. Your girl doesn't need to go." + +Of course I knew that whatever sort of a "head-piece" I had, I +did need and want just that very opportunity to study. I think +the solution was then formed, inwardly, that I would go to school +again, some time, whatever happened. I went back to my work, but +now without enthusiasm. I had looked through an open door that +I was not willing to see shut upon me. + +I began to reflect upon life rather seriously for a girl of +twelve or thirteen. What was I here for? What could I make of +myself? Must I submit to be carried along with the current, and +do just what everybody else did? No: I knew I should not do that, +for there was a certain Myself who was always starting up with +her own original plan or aspiration before me, and who was quite +indifferent as to what people, generally thought. +Well, I would find out what this Myself was good for, and that +she should be! It was but the presumption of extreme youth. How +gladly would I know now, after these long years, just why I was +sent into the world, and whether I have in any degree fulfilled +the purpose of my being! + +In the older times it was seldom said to little girls, as it +always has been said to boys, that they ought to have some +definite plan, while they were children, what to be and do when +they were grown up. There was usually but one path open before +them, to become good wives and housekeepers. And the ambition of +most girls was to follow their mothers' footsteps in this +direction; a natural and laudable ambition. But girls, as well as +boys, must often have been conscious of their own peculiar +capabilities,--must have desired to cultivate and make use of +their individual powers. When I was growing up, they had already +begun to be encouraged to do so. We were often told that it was +our duty to develop any talent we might possess, or at least to +learn how to do some one thing which the world needed, or which +would make it a pleasanter world. + +When I thought what I should best like to do, my first dream-- +almost a baby's dream--about it was that it would be a fine thing +to be a schoolteacher, like Aunt Hannah. Afterward, when I heard +that there were artists, I wished I could some time be one. A +slate and pencil, to draw pictures, was my first request whenever +a day's ailment kept me at home from school; and I rather enjoyed +being a little ill, for the sake of amusing myself in that way. +The wish grew up with me; but there were no good drawing- +teachers in those days, and if there had been, the cost of +instruction would have been beyond the family means. My sister +Emilie, however, who saw my taste and shared it herself, did her +best to assist me, furnishing me with pencil and paper and +paint-box. + +If I could only make a rose bloom on paper, I thought I should be +happy! or if I could at last succeed in drawing the outline of +winter-stripped boughs as I saw them against the sky, it seemed +to me that I should be willing to spend years in trying. I did +try a little, and very often. Jack Frost was my most inspiring +teacher. His sketches on the bedroom window-pane in cold mornings +were my ideal studies of Swiss scenery, crags and peaks and +chalets and fir-trees,--and graceful tracery of ferns, like those +that grew in the woods where we went huckleberrying, all blended +together by his touch of enchantment. I wondered whether human +fingers ever succeeded in imitating that lovely work. + +The taste has followed me all my life through, but I could never +indulge it except as a recreation. I was not to be an artist, and +I am rather glad that I was hindered, for I had even stronger in- +clinations in other directions; and art, really noble art, +requires the entire devotion of a lifetime. + +I seldom thought seriously of becoming an author, although it +seemed to me that anybody who had written a book would have a +right to feel very proud. But I believed that a person must be +exceedingly wise before presuming to attempt it: although now and +then I thought I could feel ideas growing in my mind that it +might be worth while to put into a book,--if I lived and studied +until I was forty or fifty years old. + +I wrote my little verses, to be sure, but that was nothing; they +just grew. They were the same as breathing or singing. I could +not help writing them, and I thought and dreamed a great many +that were ever put on paper. They seemed to fly into my mind +and away again, like birds with a carol through the air. It +seemed strange to me that people should notice them, or should +think my writing verses anything peculiar; for I supposed that +they were in everybody's mind, just as they were in mine, and +that anybody could write them who chose. + +One day I heard a relative say to my mother,-- + +"Keep what she writes till she grows up, and perhaps she will get +money for it. I have heard of somebody who earned a thousand +dollars by writing poetry." + +It sounded so absurd to me. Money for writing verses! One dollar +would be as ridiculous as a thousand. I should as soon have +thought of being paid for thinking! My mother, fortunately, +was sensible enough never to flatter me or let me be flattered +about my scribbling. It never was allowed to hinder any work I +had to do. I crept away into a corner to write what came into my +head, just as I ran away to play; and I looked upon it only as my +most agreeable amusement, never thinking of preserving anything +which did not of itself stay in my memory. This too was well, for +the time did lot come when I could afford to look upon verse- +writing as an occupation. Through my life, it has only been +permitted to me as an aside from other more pressing employments. +Whether I should have written better verses had circumstances +left me free to do what I chose, it is impossible now to know. + +All my thoughts about my future sent me back to Aunt Hannah and +my first infantile idea of being a teacher. I foresaw that I +should be that before I could be or do any thing else. It had +been impressed upon me that I must make myself useful in the +world, and certainly one could be useful who could "keep school" +as Aunt Hannah did. I did not see anything else for a girl to +do who wanted to use her brains as well as her hands. So the plan +of preparing myself to be a teacher gradually and almost uncon- +sciously shaped itself in my mind as the only practicable one. I +could earn my living in that way,--all-important consideration. + +I liked the thought of self-support, but I would have chosen some +artistic or beautiful work if I could. I had no especial aptitude +for teaching, and no absorbing wish to be a teacher, but it +seemed to me that I might succeed if I tried. What I did like +about it was that one must know something first. I must acquire +knowledge before I could impart it, and that was just what I +wanted. I could be a student, wherever I was and whatever else I +had to be or do, and I would! + +I knew I should write; I could not help doing that, for my hand +seemed instinctively to move towards pen and paper in moments of +leisure. But to write anything worth while, I must have mental +cultivation; so, in preparing myself to teach, I could also be +preparing myself to write. + +This was the plan that indefinitely shaped itself in my mind as I +returned to my work in the spinning-room, and which I followed +out, not without many breaks and hindrances and neglects, during +the next six or seven years,--to learn all I could, so that I +should be fit to teach or to write, as the way opened. And it +turned out that fifteen or twenty of my best years were given to +teaching. + +VIII. + +BY THE RIVER. + +IT did not take us younger ones long to get acquainted with our +new home, and to love it. + +To live beside a river had been to me a child's dream of romance. +Rivers, as I pictured them, came down from the mountains, and +were born in the clouds. They were bordered by green meadows, and +graceful trees leaned over to gaze into their bright mirrors. Our +shallow tidal creek was the only river I had known, except as +visioned on the pages of the "Pilgrim's Progress," and in the +Book of Revelation. And the Merrimack was like a continuation of +that dream. + +I soon made myself familiar with the rocky nooks along Pawtucket +Falls, shaded with hemlocks and white birches. Strange new wild +flowers grew beside the rushing waters,-- among them Sir Walter +Scott's own harebells, which I had never thought of except as +blossoms of poetry; here they were, as real to me as to his Lady +of the Lake! I loved the harebell, the first new flower the river +gave me, as I had never loved a flower before. + +There was but one summers holiday for us who worked in the mills +--the Fourth of July. We made a point of spending it out of +doors, making excursions down the river to watch the meeting of +the slow Concord and the swift Merrimack; or around by the old +canal-path, to explore the mysteries of the Guard Locks; or +across the bridge, clambering up Dracut Heights, to look away to +the dim blue mountains. + +On that morning it was our custom to wake one another at four +o'clock, and start off on a tramp together over some retired road +whose chief charm was its unfamiliarity, returning to a very late +breakfast, with draggled gowns and aprons full of dewy wild +roses. No matter if we must get up at five the next morning and +go back to our hum-drum toil, we should have the roses to take +with us for company, and the sweet air of the woodland which +lingered about them would scent our thoughts all day, and make us +forget the oily smell of the machinery. + +We were children still, whether at school or at work, and Nature +still held us close to her motherly heart. Nature came very close +to the mill-gates, too, in those days. There was green grass all +around them; violets and wild geraniums grew by the canals; and +long stretches of open land between the corporation buildings and +the street made the town seem country-like. + +The slope behind our mills (the "Lawrence" Mills) was a green +lawn; and in front of some of them the overseers had gay flower- +gardens; we passed in to our work through a splendor of dahlias +and hollyhocks. + +The gray stone walls of St. Anne's church and rectory made a +picturesque spot in the middle of the town, remaining still as a +lasting monument to the religious purpose which animated the +first manufacturers. The church arose close to the oldest +corporation (the "Merrimack"), and seemed a part of it, and a +part, also, of the original idea of the place itself, which was +always a city of worshipers, although it came to be filled with a +population which preferred meeting-houses to churches. I admired +the church greatly. I had never before seen a real one; never +anything but a plain frame meeting-house; and it and its benign, +apostolic-looking rector were like a leaf out of an English +story-book. + +And so, also, was the tiny white cottage nearly opposite, set in +the middle of a pretty flower-garden that sloped down to the +canal. In the garden there was almost always a sweet little girl +in a pink gown and white sunbonnet gathering flowers when I +passed that way, and I often went out of my path to do so. These +relieved the monotony of the shanty-like shops which bordered the +main street. The town had sprung up with a mushroom-rapidity, and +there was no attempt at veiling the newness of its bricks and +mortar, its boards and paint. + +But there were buildings that had their own individuality, and +asserted it. One of these was a mud-cabin with a thatched roof, +that looked as if it had emigrated bodily from the bogs of +Ireland. It had settled itself down into a green hollow by the +roadside, and it looked as much at home with the lilac-tinted +crane's-bill and yellow buttercups as if it had never lost sight +of the shamrocks of Erin. + +Now, too, my childish desire to see a real beggar was gratified. +Straggling petitioners for "cold victuals" hung around our back +yard, always of Hibernian extraction; and a slice of bread was +rewarded with a shower of benedictions that lost itself upon us +in the flood of its own incomprehensible brogue. + +Some time every summer a fleet of canoes would glide noiselessly +up the river, and a company of Penobscot Indians would land at a +green point almost in sight from our windows. Pawtucket Falls had +always been one of their favorite camping-places. Their strange +endeavors, to combine civilization with savagery were a great +source of amusement to us; men and women clad alike in loose +gowns, stove-pipe hats, and moccasons; grotesque relies of +aboriginal forest-life. The sight of these uncouth-looking red +men made the romance fade entirely out of the Indian stories we +had heard. Still their wigwam camp was a show we would not +willingly have missed. + +The transition from childhood to girlhood, when a little girl has +had an almost unlimited freedom of out-of-door life, is +practically the toning down of a mild sort of barbarianism, and +is often attended by a painfully awkward self-consciousness. I +had an innate dislike of conventionalities. I clung to the +child's inalienable privilege of running half wild; and when I +found that I really was growing up, I felt quite rebellious. + +I was as tall as a woman at thirteen, and my older sisters +insisted upon lengthening my dresses, and putting up my mop of +hair with a comb. I felt injured and almost outraged because my +protestations against this treatment were unheeded and when the +transformation in my visible appearance was effected, I went away +by myself and had a good cry, which I would not for the world +have had them know about, as that would have added humiliation to +my distress. And the greatest pity about it was that I too soon +became accustomed to the situation. I felt like a child, but +considered it my duty to think and behave like a woman. I began +to look upon it as a very serious thing to live. The untried +burden seemed already to have touched my shoulders. For a time I +was morbidly self-critical, and at the same time extremely +reserved. The associates I chose were usually grave young women, +ten or fifteen years older than myself; but I think I felt older +and appeared older than they did. + +Childhood, however, is not easily defrauded of its birthright, +and mine soon reasserted itself. At home I was among children of +my own age, for some cousins and other acquaintances had come to +live and work with us. We had our evening frolics and entertain- +ments together, and we always made the most of our brief holiday +hours. We had also with us now the sister Emilie of my fairy-tale +memories, who had grown into a strong, earnest-hearted woman. We +all looked up to her as our model, and the ideal of our heroine- +worship; for our deference to her in every way did amount to +that. + +She watched over us, gave us needed reproof and commendation, +rarely cosseted us, but rather made us laugh at what many would +have considered the hardships of our lot. She taught us not only +to accept the circumstances in which we found ourselves, but to +win from them courage and strength. When we came in shivering +from our work, through a snowstorm, complaining of numb hands and +feet, she would say cheerily, "But it doesn't make you any warmer +to say you are cold;" and this was typical of the way she took +life generally, and tried to have us take it. She was constantly +denying herself for our sakes, without making us feel that she +was doing so. But she did not let us get into the bad habit of +pitying ourselves because we were not as "well off" as many other +children. And indeed we considered ourselves pleasantly situated; +but the best of it all was that we had her. + +Her theories for herself, and her practice, too, were rather +severe; but we tried to follow them, according to our weaker +abilities. Her custom was, for instance, to take a full cold bath +every morning before she went to her work, even though the water +was chiefly broken ice; and we did the same whenever we could be +resolute enough. It required both nerve and will to do this at +five o'clock on a zero morning, in a room without a fire; but it +helped us to harden ourselves, while we formed a good habit. The +working-day in winter began at the very earliest daylight, and +ended at half-past seven in the evening. + +Another habit of hers was to keep always beside her at her daily +work something to study or to think about. At first it was "Watts +on the Improvement of the Mind," arranged as a textbook, with +questions and answers, by the minister of Beverly who had made +the thought of the millennium such a reality to his people. She +quite wore this book out, carrying it about with her in her +working-dress pocket. After that, "Locke on the Understanding" +was used in the same way. She must have known both books through +and through by heart. Then she read Combe and Abercrombie, and +discussed their physics and metaphysics with our girl boarders, +some of whom had remarkably acute and well-balanced minds. Her +own seemed to have turned from its early bent toward the +romantic, her taste being now for serious and practical, though +sometimes abstruse, themes. I remember that Young and Pollock +were her favorite poets. + +I could not keep up with her in her studies and readings, for +many of the books she liked seemed to me very dry. I did not +easily take to the argumentative or moralizing method, which I +came to regard as a proof of the weakness of my own intellect in +comparison with hers. I would gladly have kept pace with her if I +could. Anything under the heading of "Didactick," like some of +the pieces in the old "English Reader," used by school-children +in the generation just before ours, always repelled me. But I +though it necessary to discipline myself by reading such pieces, +and my first attempt at prose composition, "On Friendship," was +stiffly modeled after a certain "Didactick Essay" in that same +English Reader. + +My sister, however, cared more to watch the natural development +of our minds than to make us follow the direction of hers. She +was really our teacher, although she never assumed that position. +Certainly I learned more from her about my own capabilities, and +how I might put them to use, than I could have done at any school +we knew of, had it been possible for me to attend one. + +I think she was determined that we should not be mentally +defrauded by the circumstances which had made it necessary for us +to begin so early to win our daily bread. This remark applies +especially to me, as my older sisters (only two or three of them +had come to Lowell) soon drifted away from us into their own new +homes or occupations, and she and I were left together amid the +whir of spindles and wheels. + +One thing she planned for us, her younger housemates,--a dozen or +so of cousins, friends, and sisters, some attending school, and +some at work in the mill,--was a little fortnightly paper, to be +filled with our original contributions, she herself acting as +editor. + +I do not know where she got the idea, unless it was from Mrs. +Lydia Maria Child's "Juvenile Miscellany," which had found its +way to us some years before,--a most delightful guest, and, I +think, the first magazine prepared for American children, who +have had so many since then.(I have always been glad that I knew +that sweet woman with the child's heart and the poet's soul, in +her later years, and could tell her how happy she had helped to +make my childhood.) Our little sheet was called "The Diving +Bell," probably from the sea-associations of the name. We kept +our secrets of authorship very close from everybody except the +editor, who had to decipher the handwriting and copy the pieces. +It was, indeed, an important part of the fun to guess who wrote +particular pieces. After a little while, however, our mannerisms +betrayed us. One of my cousins was known to be the chief story- +teller, and I was recognized as the leading rhymer among the +younger contributors; the editor-sister excelling in her +versifying, as she did in almost everything. + +It was a cluster of very conscious-looking little girls that +assembled one evening in the attic room, chosen on account of its +remoteness from intruders (for we did not admit even the family +as a public, the writers themselves were the only audience), to +listen to the reading of our first paper. We took Saturday +evening, because that was longer than the other workday evenings, +the mills being closed earlier. Such guessing and wondering and +admiring as we had! But nobody would acknowledge her own work, +for that would have spoiled the pleasure. Only there were certain +wise hints and maxims that we knew never came from any juvenile +head among us, and those we set down as "editorials." + +Some of the stories contained rather remarkable incidents. One, +written to illustrate a little girl's habit of carelessness about +her own special belongings, told of her rising one morning, and +after hunting around for her shoes half an hour or so, finding +them in the book-case, where she had accidentally locked them up +the night before! + +To convince myself that I could write something besides rhymes, I +had attempted an essay of half a column on a very extensive +subject, "MIND." It began loftily:- + +"What a noble and beautiful thing is mind!" and it went on in the +same high-flown strain to no particular end. But the editor +praised it, after having declined the verdict of the audience +that she was its author; and I felt sufficiently flattered by +both judgments. + +I wrote more rhymes than anything else, because they came more +easily. But I always felt that the ability to write good prose +was far more desirable, and it seems so to me still. I will give +my little girl readers a single specimen of my twelve-year-old +"Diving Bell" verses, though I feel as if I ought to apologize +even for that. It is on a common subject, "Life like a Rose":-- + +"Childhood's like a tender bud +That's scarce been formed an hour, +But which erelong will doubtless be +A bright and lovely flower. + +"And youth is like a full-blown rose +Which has not known decay; +But which must soon, alas! too soon! +Wither and fade away. + +"And age is like a withered rose, +That bends beneath the blast; +But though its beauty all is gone, +Its fragrance yet may last." + +This, and other verses that I wrote then, serve to illustrate the +child's usual inclination to look forward meditatively, rather +than to think and write of the simple things that belong to +children. + +Our small venture set some of us imagining what larger +possibilities might be before us in the far future. We talked +over the things we should like to do when we should be women out +in the active world; and the author of the shoe-story horrified +us by declaring that she meant to be distinguished when she grew +up for something, even if it was for something bad! She did go so +far in a bad way as to plagiarize a long poem in a subsequent +number of the "Diving Bell" but the editor found her out, and we +all thought that a reproof from Emilie was sufficent punishment. + +I do not know whether it was fortunate or unfortunate for me that +I had not, by nature, what is called literary ambition. I knew +that I had a knack at rhyming, and I knew that I enjoyed nothing +better than to try to put thoughts and words together, in any +way. But I did it for the pleasure of rhyming and writing, +indifferent as to what might come of it. For any one who could +take hold of every-day, practical work, and carry it on +successfully, I had a profound respect. To be what is called +"capable" seemed to me better worth while than merely to have a +taste or for writing, perhaps because I was conscious of my +deficiencies in the former respect. But certainly the world needs +deeds more than it needs words. I should never have been willing +to be only a writer, without using my hands to some good purpose +besides. + +My sister, however, told me that here was a talent which I had no +right to neglect, and which I ought to make the most of. I +believed in her; I thought she understood me better than I +understood myself; and it was a comfort to be assured that my +scribbling was not wholly a waste of time. So I used pencil and +paper in every spare minute I could find.Our little home-journal +went bravely on through twelve numbers. Its yellow manuscript +pages occasionally meet my eyes when I am rummaging among my old +papers, with the half-conscious look of a waif that knows it has +no right to its escape from the waters of oblivion. + +While it was in progress my sister Emilie became acquainted with +a family of bright girls, near neighbors of ours, who proposed +that we should join with them, and form a little society for +writing and discussion, to meet fortnightly at their house. We +met,--I think I was the youngest of the group,--prepared a +Constitution and By-Laws, and named ourselves "The Improvement +Circle." If I remember rightly, my sister was our first +president. The older ones talked and wrote on many subjects quite +above me. I was shrinkingly bashful, as half-grown girls usually +are, but I wrote my little essays and read them, and listened to +the rest, and enjoyed it all exceedingly. Out of this little +"Improvement Circle" grew the larger one whence issued the +"Lowell Offering," a year or two later. + +At this time I had learned to do a spinner's work, and I obtained +permission to tend some frames that stood directly in front of +the river-windows, with only them and the wall behind me, +extending half the length of the mill,--and one young woman +beside me, at the farther end of the row. She was a sober, mature +person, who scarcely thought it worth her while to speak often to +a child like me; and I was, when with strangers, rather a +reserved girl; so I kept myself occupied with the river, my work, +and my thoughts. And the river and my thoughts flowed on +together, the happiest of companions. Like a loitering pilgrim, +it sparkled up to me in recognition as it glided along and bore +away my little frets and fatigues on its bosom. When the work +"went well," I sat in the window-seat, and let my fancies fly +whither they would,--downward to the sea, or upward to the hills +that hid the mountain-cradle of the Merrimack. + +The printed regulations forbade us to bring books into the mill, +so I made my window-seat into a small library of poetry, pasting +its side all over with newspaper clippings. In those days we had +only weekly papers, and they had always a "poet's corner," where +standard writers were well represented, with anonymous ones, +also. I was not, of course, much of a critic. I chose my verses +for their sentiment, and because I wanted to commit them to +memory; sometimes it was a long poem, sometimes a hymn, sometimes +only a stray verse. Mrs. Hemans sang with me,-- + +"Far away, o'er the blue hills far away;" + +and I learned and loved her "Better Land," and + +"If thou hast crushed a flower," + +and "Kindred Hearts." + +I wonder if Miss Landon really did write that fine poem to Mont +Blanc which was printed in her volume, but which sounds so +entirely unlike everything else she wrote! This was one of my +window-gems. It ended with the appeal,-- + +"Alas for thy past mystery! +For thine untrodden snow! +Nurse of the tempest! hast thou none +To guard thine outraged brow?" +and it contained a stanza that I often now repeat to myself:-- + +"We know too much: scroll after scroll +Weighs down our weary shelves: +Our only point of ignorance +Is centred in ourselves." + +There was one anonymous waif in my collection that I was very +fond of. I have never seen it since, nor ever had the least clue +to its authorship. It stirred me and haunted me; and it often +comes back to me now, in snatches like these:-- + +"The human mind! That lofty thing, +The palace and the throne +Where Reason sits, a sceptred king, +And breathes his judgment-tone!" + +"The human soul! That startling thing, +Mysterious and sublime; +An angel sleeping on the wing, +Worn by the scoffs of time. +>From heaven in tears to earth it stole- +That startling thing, the human soul." + +I was just beginning, in my questionings as to the meaning of +life, to get glimpses of its true definition from the poets,-- +that it is love, service, the sacrifice of self for others' good. +The lesson was slowly learned, but every hint of it went to my +heart, and I kept in silent upon my window wall reminders like +that of holy George Herbert:" + +"Be useful where thou livest, that they may +Both want and wish thy pleasing presence still. +-Find out men' s wants and will, +And meet them there. All worldly joys go less +To the one joy of doing kindnesses;" + +and that well-known passage from Talfourd,-- + +"The blessings which the weak and poor can scatter, +Have their own season. +It is a little thing to speak a phase +Of common comfort, which, by daily use, +Has almost lost its sense; yet on the ear +Of him who thought to die unmourned 't will fall +Like choicest music." + +A very familiar extract from Carlos Wilcox, almost the only +quotation made nowadays from his poems, was often on my sister +Emilie's lips, whose heart seemed always to be saying to itself:- +- + +"Pour blessings round thee like a shower of gold!" + +I had that beside me, too, and I copy part of it here, for her +sake, and because it will be good for my girl readers to keep in +mind one of the noblest utterances of an almost forgotten +American poet:-- + +"Rouse to some work of high and holy love, +And thou an angel's happiness shalt know; +Shalt bless the earth while in the world above. +The good begun by thee shall onward flow. +The pure, sweet stream shall deeper, wider grow. +The seed that in these few and fleeting hours +Thy hands, unsparing and unwearied sow, +Shall deck thy grave with amaranthine flowers, +And yield thee fruits divine in heaven's immortal bowers." + +One great advantage which came to these many stranger girls +through being brought together, away from their own homes, was +that it taught them to go out of themselves, and enter into the +lives of others. Home-life, when one always stays at home, is +necessarily narrowing. That is one reason why so many women are +petty and unthoughtful of any except their own family's +interests. We have hardly begun to live until we can take in the +idea of the whole human family as the one to which we truly +belong. To me, it was an incalculable help to find myself among +so many working-girls, all of us thrown upon our own resources, +but thrown much more upon each others' sympathies. + +And the stream beside which we toiled added to its own +inspirations human suggestions drawn from our acquaintance with +each other. It blended itself with the flow of our lives. Almost +the first of my poemlets in the "Lowell Offering" was entitled +"The River." These are some lines of it:-- + +"Gently flowed a river bright +On its path of liquid light, +Gleaming now soft banks between, +Winding now through valleys green, +Cheering with its presence mild +Cultured fields and woodlands wild. + +"Is not such a pure one's life? +Ever shunning pride and strife, +Noiselessly along she goes, +Known by gentle deeds she does; +Often wandering far, to bless, +And do others kindnesses. + +"Thus, by her own virtues shaded, +While pure thoughts, like starbeams, lie +Mirrored in her heart and eye, +She, content to be unknown, +All serenely moveth on, +Till, released from Time's commotion, +Self is lost in Love's wide ocean." + +There was many a young girl near me whose life was like the +beautiful course of the river in my ideal of her. The Merrimack +has blent its music with the onward song of many a lovely soul +that, clad in plain working-clothes, moved heavenward beside its +waters. + +One of the loveliest persons I ever knew was a young girl who +worked opposite to me in the spinning-room. Our eyes made us +friends long before we spoke to each other. She was an orphan, +well-bred and well-educated, about twenty years old, and she had +brought with her to her place of toil the orphan child of her +sister, left to her as a death-bed legacy. They boarded with a +relative. The factory boarding-houses were often managed by +families of genuine refinement, as in this case, and the one +comfort of Caroline's life was her beautiful little niece, to +whom she could go home when the day's work was over. + +Her bereavements had given an appealing sadness to her whole +expression; but she had accepted them and her changed +circumstances with the submission of profound faith which +everybody about her felt in everything she said and did. I think +I first knew, through her, how character can teach, without +words. To see her and her little niece together was almost like +looking at a picture of the Madonna. Caroline afterwards became +an inmate of my mother's family, and we were warm friends until +her death a few years ago. + +Some of the girls could not believe that the Bible was meant to +be counted among forbidden books. We all thought that the +Scriptures had a right to go wherever we went, and that if we +needed them anywhere, it was at our work. I evaded the law by +carrying some leaves from a torn Testament in my pocket. + +The overseer, caring more for law than gospel, confiscated all he +found. He had his desk full of Bibles. It sounded oddly to hear +him say to the most religious girl in the room, when he took hers +away, "I did think you had more conscience than to bring that +book here." But we had some close ethical questions to settle in +those days. It was a rigid code of morality under which we lived. +Nobody complained of it, however, and we were doubtless better +off for its strictness, in the end. + +The last window in the row behind me was filled with flourishing +house-plants--fragrant leaved geraniums, the overseer's pets. +They gave that corner a bowery look; the perfume and freshness +tempted me there often. Standing before that window, I could look +across the room and see girls moving backwards and forwards among +the spinning-frames, sometimes stooping, sometimes reaching up +their arms, as their work required, with easy and not ungraceful +movements. On the whole, it was far from being a disagreeable +place to stay in. The girls were bright-looking and neat, and +everything was kept clean and shining. The effect of the whole +was rather attractive to strangers. + +My grandfather came to see my mother once at about this time and +visited the mills. When he had entered our room, and looked +around for a moment, he took off his hat and made a low bow to +the girls, first toward the right, and then toward the left. We +were familiar with his courteous habits, partly due to his French +descent; but we had never seen anybody bow to a room full of mill +girls in that polite way, and some one of the family afterwards +asked him why he did so. He looked a little surprised at the +question, but answered promptly and with dignity, "I always take +off my hat to ladies." + +His courtesy was genuine. Still, we did not call ourselves +ladies. We did not forget that we were working-girls, wearing +coarse aprons suitable to our work, and that there was some +danger of our becoming drudges. I know that sometimes the +confinement of the mill became very wearisome to me. In the sweet +June weather I would lean far out of the window, and try not to +hear the unceasing clash of sound inside. Looking away to the +hills, my whole stifled being would cry out + +"Oh, that I had wings!" + +Still I was there from choice, and + +"The prison unto which we doom ourselves, +No prison is." + +And I was every day making discoveries about life, and about +myself. I had naturally some elements of the recluse, and would +never, of my own choice, have lived in a crowd. I loved quiet- +ness. The noise of machinery was particularly distasteful to me. +But I found that the crowd was made up of single human lives, not +one of them wholly uninteresting, when separately known. I +learned also that there are many things which belong to the whole +world of us together, that no one of us, nor any few of us, can +claim or enjoy for ourselves alone. I discovered, too, that I +could so accustom myself to the noise that it became like a +silence to me. And I defied the machinery to make me its slave. +Its incessant discords could not drown the music of my thoughts +if I would let them fly high enough. Even the long hours, the +early rising and the regularity enforced by the cladgor of the +bell were good discipline for one who was naturally inclined to +dally and to dream, and who loved her own personal liberty with a +willful rebellion against control. Perhaps I could have brought +myself into the limitations of order and method in no other way. + +Like a plant that starts up in showers and sunshine and does not +know which has best helped it to grow, it is difficult to say +whether the hard things or the pleasant things did me most good. +But when I was sincerest with myself, as also when I thought +least about it, I know that I was glad to be alive, and to be +just where I was. +It is a conquest when we can lift ourselves above the annoyances +of circumstances over which we have no control; but it is a +greater victory when we can make those circumstances our helpers, +when we can appreciate the good there is in them. It has often +seemed to me as if Life stood beside me, looking me in the face, +and saying, "Child, you must learn to like me in the form in +which you see me, before I can offer myself to you in any other +aspect." + +It was so with this disagreeable necessity of living among many +people. There is nothing more miserable than to lose the feeling +of our own distinctiveness, since that is our only clue to the +Purpose behind us and the End before us. But when we have +discovered that human beings are not a mere "mass," but an +orderly Whole, of which we are a part, it is all so different! + +This we working-girls might have learned from the webs of cloth +we saw woven around us. Every little thread must take its place +as warp or woof, and keep in it steadily. Left to itself, it +would be only a loose, useless filament. Trying to wander in an +independent or a disconnected way among the other threads, it +would make of the whole web an inextricable snarl. Yet each +little thread must be as firmly spun as if it were the only one, +or the result would be a worthless fabric. + +That we are entirely separate, while yet we entirely belong to +the Whole, is a truth that we learn to rejoice in, as we come to +understand more and more of ourselves, and of this human life of +ours, which seems so complicated, and yet is so simple. And when +we once get a glimpse of the Divine Plan in it all, and know that +to be just where we are, doing just what we are doing just at +this hour because it is our appointed hour,--when we become aware +that this is the very best thing possible for us in God's +universe, the hard task grows easy, the tiresome employment +welcome and delightful. Having fitted ourselves to our present +work in such a way as this, we are usually prepared for better +work, and are sent to take a better place. + +Perhaps this is one of the unfailing laws of progress in our +being. Perhaps the Master of Life always rewards those who do +their little faithfully by giving them some greater opportunity +for faithfulness. Certainly, it is a comfort, wherever we are, to +say to ourselves:-- + +"Thou camest not to thy place by accident, +It is the very place God meant for thee." + +IX. + +MOUNTAIN-FRIENDS. + +THE pleasure we found in making new acquaintances among our +workmates arose partly from their having come from great +distances, regions unknown to us, as the northern districts of +Maine and New Hampshire and Vermont were, in those days of stage- +coach traveling, when rail-roads had as yet only connected the +larger cities with one another. + +It seemed wonderful to me to be talking with anybody who had +really seen mountains and lived among them. One of the younger +girls, who worked beside me during my very first days in the +mill, had come from far up near the sources of the Merrimack, and +she told me a great deal about her home, and about farm-life +among the hills. I listened almost with awe when she said that +she lived in a valley where the sun set at four o'clock, and +where the great snowstorms drifted in so that sometimes they did +not see a neighbor for weeks. + +To have mountain-summits looking down upon one out of the clouds, +summer and winter, by day and by night, seemed to me something +both delightful and terrible. And yet here was this girl to whom +it all appeared like the merest commonplace. What she felt about +it was that it was "awful cold, sometimes; the days were so +short! and it grew dark so early! " Then she told me about the +spinning, and the husking, and the sugar-making, while we sat in +a corner together, waiting to replace the full spools by empty +ones,--the work usually given to the little girls. + +I had a great admiration for this girl, because she had come from +those wilderness-regions. The scent of pine-woods and checker- +berry-leaves seemed to bang about her. I believe I liked her all +the better because she said "daown" and "haow." It was part of +the mountain-flavor. + +I tried, on my part, to impress her with stories of the sea; but +I did not succeed very well. Her principal comment was, "They +don't think much of sailors up aour way." And I received the +impression, from her and others, and from my own imagination, +that rural life was far more delightful than the life of towns. + +But there is something in the place where we were born that holds +us always by the heartstrings. A town that still has a great deal +of the country in it, one that is rich in beautiful scenery and +ancestral associations, is almost like a living being, with a +body and a soul. We speak of such a town, if our birthplace, as +of a mother, and think of ourselves as her sons and daughters. + +So we felt, my sisters and I, about our dear native town of +Beverly. Its miles of sea-border, almost every sunny cove and +rocky headland of which was a part of some near relative's +homestead, were only half a day's journey distant; and the misty +ocean-spaces beyond still widened out on our imagination from the +green inland landscape around us. But the hills sometimes shut us +in, body and soul. To those who have been reared by the sea a +wide horizon is a necessity, both for the mind and for the eye. + +We had many opportunities of escape towards our native shores, +for the larger part of our large family still remained there, and +there was a constant coming and going among us. The stagedriver +looked upon us as his especial charge, and we had a sense of +personal property in the Salem and Lowell stagecoach, which had +once, like a fairy-godmother's coach, rumbled down into our own +little lane, taken possession of us, and carried us off to a new +home. + +My married sisters had families growing up about them, and they +liked to have us younger ones come and help take care of their +babies. One of them sent for me just when the close air and long +days' work were beginning to tell upon my health, and it was +decided that I had better go. The salt wind soon restored my +strength, and those months of quiet family life were very good +for me. + +Like most young girls, I had a motherly fondness for little +children, and my two baby-nephews were my pride and delight. The +older one had a delicate constitution, and there was a +thoughtful, questioning look in his eyes, that seemed to gaze +forward almost sadly, and foresee that be should never attain to +manhood. The younger, a plump, vigorous urchin, three or four +months old, did, without doubt, "feel his life in every limb." He +was my especial charge, for his brother's clinging weakness gave +him, the first-born, the place nearest his mother's heart. The +baby bore the family name, mine and his mother's; "our little +Lark," we sometimes called him, for his wide-awakeness and his +merry-heartedness.(Alas! neither of those beautiful boys grew up +to be men! One page of my home-memories is sadly written over +with their elegy, the "Graves of a Household." Father, mother, +and four sons, an entire family, long since passed away from +earthly sight.) + +The tie between my lovely baby-nephew and myself became very +close. The first two years of a child's life are its most +appealing years, and call out all the latent tenderness of the +nature on which it leans for protection. I think I should have +missed one of the best educating influences of my youth, if I had +not had the care of that baby for a year or more just as I +entered my teens. I was never so happy as when I held him +in my arms, sleeping or waking; and he, happy anywhere, was +always contented when he was with me. + +I was as fond as ever of reading, and somehow I managed to +combine baby and book. Dickens's "Old Curiosity Shop" was just +then coming out in a Philadelphia weekly paper, and I read it +with the baby playing at my feet, or lying across my lap, in an +unfinished room given up to sea-chests and coffee-bags and spicy +foreign odors. (My cherub's papa was a sea-captain, usually +away on his African voyages.) Little Nell and her grandfather +became as real to me as my darling charge, and if a tear from his +nurse's eyes sometimes dropped upon his cheek as he slept, he +was not saddened by it. When he awoke he was irrepressible; +clutching at my hair with his stout pink fists, and driving all +dream-people effectually out of my head. Like all babies, he was +something of a tyrant; but that brief, sweet despotism ends only +too soon. I put him gratefully down, dimpled, chubby, and +imperious, upon the list of my girlhood's teachers. + +My sister had no domestic help besides mine, so I learned a good +deal about general housework. A girl's preparation for life was, +in those days, considered quite imperfect, who had no practical +knowledge of that kind. We were taught, indeed, how to do every- +thing that a woman might be called upon to do under any +circumstances, for herself or for the household she lived in. It +was one of the advantages of the old simple way of living, that +the young daughters of the house were, as a matter of course, +instructed in all these things. They acquired the habit of being +ready for emergencies, and the family that required no outside +assistance was delightfully independent. + +A young woman would have been considered a very inefficient being +who could not make and mend and wash and iron her own clothing, +and get three regular meals and clear them away every day, +besides keeping the house tidy, and doing any other needed +neighborly service, such as sitting all night by a sick-bed. To +be "a good watcher" was considered one of the most important of +womanly attainments. People who lived side by side exchanged such +services without waiting to be asked, and they seemed to be +happiest of whom such kindnesses were most expected. + +Every kind of work brings its own compensations and attractions. +I really began to like plain sewing; I enjoyed sitting down for a +whole afternoon of it, fingers flying and thoughts flying faster +still,--the motion of the hands seeming to set the mind astir. +Such afternoons used to bring me throngs of poetic suggestions, +particularly if I sat by an open window and could hear the wind +blowing and a bird or two singing. Nature is often very generous +in opening her heart to those who must keep their hands employed. +Perhaps it is because she is always quietly at work herself, +and so sympathizes with her busy human friends. And possibly +there is no needful occupation which is wholly unbeautiful. The +beauty of work depends upon the way we meet it--whether we arm +ourselves each morning to attack it as an enemy that must be +vanquished before night comes, or whether we open our eyes with +the sunrise to welcome it as an approaching friend who will keep +us delightful company all day, and who will make us feel, at +evening, that the day was well worth its fatigues. + +I found my practical experience of housekeeping and baby-tending +very useful to me afterwards at the West, in my sister Emilie's +family, when she was disabled by illness. I think, indeed, that +every item of real knowledge I ever acquired has come into use +somewhere or somehow in the course of the years. But these were +not the things I had most wished to do. The whole world of +thought lay unexplored before me,--a world of which I had already +caught large and tempting glimpses, and I did not like to feel +the horizon shutting me in, even to so pleasant a corner as this. +And the worst of it was that I was getting too easy and content- +ed, too indifferent to the higher realities which my work and my +thoughtful companions had kept keenly clear before me. I felt my- +self slipping into an inward apathy from which it was hard to +rouse myself. I could not let it go on so. I must be where my +life could expand. + +It was hard to leave the dear little fellow I had taught to walk +and to talk, but I knew he would not be inconsolable. So I only +said "I must go,"--and turned my back upon the sea, and my face +to the banks of the Merrimack. + +When I returned I found that I enjoyed even the familiar, +unremitting clatter of the mill, because it indicated that +something was going on. I liked to feel the people around me, +even those whom I did not know, as a wave may like to feel the +surrounding waves urging it forward, with or against its own +will. I felt that I belonged to the world, that there was +something for me to do in it, though I had not yet found out +what. Something to do; it might be very little, but still it +would be my own work. And then there was the better something +which I had almost forgotten--to be! Underneath my dull thoughts +the old aspirations were smouldering, the old ideals rose and +beckoned to me through the rekindling light. + +It was always aspiration rather than ambition by which I felt +myself stirred. I did not care to outstrip others, and become +what is called "distinguished," were that a possibility, so much +as I longed to answer the Voice that invited, ever receding, up +to invisible heights, however unattainable they might seem. I was +conscious of a desire that others should feel something coming to +them out of my life like the breath of flowers, the whisper of +the winds, the warmth of the sunshine, and the depth of the sky. +That, I felt, did not require great gifts or a fine education. +We might all be that to each other. And there was no opportunity +for vanity or pride in receiving a beautiful influence, and +giving it out again. + +I do not suppose that I definitely thought all this, though I +find that the verses I wrote for our two mill magazines at about +this time often expressed these and similar longings. They were +vague, and they were too likely to dissipate themselves in mere +dreams. But our aspirations come to us from a source far beyond +ourselves. Happy are they who are "not disobedient unto the +heavenly vision"! + +A girl of sixteen sees the world before her through rose-tinted +mists, a blending of celestial colors and earthly exhalations, +and she cannot separate their elements, if she would; they all +belong to the landscape of her youth. It is the mystery of the +meeting horizons,--the visible beauty seeking to lose and find +itself in the Invisible. + +In returning to my daily toil among workmates from the hill- +country, the scenery to which they belonged became also a part of +my life. They brought the mountains with them, a new background +and a new hope. We shared an uneven path and homely occupations; +but above us hung glorious summits never wholly out of sight. +Every blossom and every dewdrop at our feet was touched with some +tint of that far-off splendor, and every pebble by the wayside +was a messenger from the peak that our feet would stand upon by +and by. + +The true climber knows the delight of trusting his path, of +following it without seeing a step before him, or a glimpse of +blue sky above him, sometimes only knowing that it is the right +path because it is the only one, and because it leads upward. +This our daily duty was to us. Though we did not always know it, +the faithful plodder was sure to win the heights. Unconsciously +we learned the lesson that only by humble Doing can any of us win +the lofty possibilities of Being. For indeed, what we all want to +find is not so much our place as our path. The path leads to the +place, and the place, when we have found it, is only a clearing +by the roadside, an opening into another path. + +And no comrades are so dear as those who have broken with us a +pioneer road which it will be safe and good for others to follow; +which will furnish a plain clue for all bewildered travelers +hereafter. There is no more exhilarating human experience than +this, and perhaps it is the highest angelic one. It may be that +some such mutual work is to link us forever with one another in +the Infinite Life. + +The girls who toiled together at Lowell were clearing away a few +weeds from the overgrown track of independent labor for other +women. They practically said, by numbering themselves among +factory girls, that in our country no real odium could be +attached to any honest toil that any self-respecting woman might +undertake. + +I regard it as one of the privileges of my youth that I was +permitted to grow up among those active, interesting girls, whose +lives were not mere echoes of other lives, but had principle and +purpose distinctly their own. Their vigor of character was a +natural development. The New Hampshire girls who came to Lowell +were descendants of the sturdy backwoodsmen who settled that +State scarcely a hundred years before. Their grandmothers had +suffered the hardships of frontier life, had known the horrors of +savage warfare when the beautiful valleys of the Connecticut and +the Merrimack were threaded with Indian trails from Canada to the +white settlements. Those young women did justice to their +inheritance. They were earnest and capable; ready to undertake +anything that was worth doing. My dreamy, indolent nature was +shamed into activity among them. They gave me a larger, firmer +ideal of womanhood. + +Often during the many summers and autumns that of late years I +have spent among the New Hampshire hills, sometimes far up the +mountainsides, where I could listen to the first song of the +little brooks setting out on their journey to join the very river +that flowed at my feet when I was a working girl on its banks,-- +the Merrimack,--I have felt as if I could also hear the early +music of my workmates' lives, those who were born among these +glorious summits. Pure, strong, crystalline natures, carrying +down with them the light of blue skies and the freshness of free +winds to their place of toil, broadening and strengthening as +they went on, who can tell how they have refreshed the world, how +beautifully they have blended their being with the great ocean of +results? A brook's life is like the life of a maiden. The rivers +receive their strength from the rock-born hills, from the +unfailing purity of the mountain-streams. + +A girl's place in the world is a very strong one: it is a pity +that she does not always see it so. It is strongest through her +natural impulse to steady herself by leaning upon the Eternal +Life, the only Reality; and her weakness comes also from her +inclination to lean against something,--upon an unworthy support, +rather than none at all. She often lets her life get broken into +fragments among the flimsy trellises of fashion and convention- +ality, when it might be a perfect thing in the upright beauty of +its own consecrated freedom. + +Yet girlhood seldom appreciates itself. We often hear a girl +wishing that she were a boy. That seems so strange! God made no +mistake in her creation. He sent her into the world full of power +and will to be a helper; and only He knows how much his world +needs help. She is here to make this great house of humanity a +habitable and a beautiful place, without and within,--a true home +for every one of his children. It matters not if she is poor, if +she has to toil for her daily bread, or even if she is surrounded +by coarseness and uncongeniality: nothing can deprive her of her +natural instinct to help, of her birthright as a helper. These +very hindrances may, with faith and patience, develop in her a +nobler womanhood. + +No; let girls be as thankful that they are girls as that they are +human beings; for they also, according to his own loving plan for +them, were created in the image of God. Their real power, the +divine dowry of womanhood, is that of receiving and giving +inspiration. In this a girl often surpasses her brother; and it +is for her to hold firmly and faithfully to her holiest +instincts, so that when he lets his standard droop, she may, +through her spiritual strength, be a standard bearer for him. +Courage and self-reliance are now held to be virtues as womanly +as they are manly; for the world has grown wise enough to see +that nothing except a life can really help another life. It is +strange that it should ever have held any other theory about +woman. + +That was a true use of the word "help" that grew up so naturally +in the rendering and receiving of womanly service in the old- +fashioned New England household. A girl came into a family as one +of the home-group, to share its burdens, to feel that they were +her own. The woman who employed her, if her nature was at all +generous, could not feel that money alone was an equivalent for a +heart's service; she added to it her friendship, her gratitude +and esteem. The domestic problem can never be rightly settled +until the old idea of mutual help is in some way restored. This +is a question for girls of the present generation to consider, +and she who can bring about a practical solution of it will win +the world's gratitude. + +We used sometimes to see it claimed, in public prints, that it +would be better for all of us mill-girls to be working in +families, at domestic service, than to be where we were. +Perhaps the difficulties of modern housekeepers did begin with +the opening of the Lowell factories. Country girls were naturally +independent, and the feeling that at this new work the few hours +they had of every-day leisure were entirely their own was a +satisfaction to them. They preferred it to going out as "hired +help." It was like a young man's pleasure in entering upon +business for himself. Girls had never tried that experiment +before, and they liked it. It brought out in them a dormant +strength of character which the world did not previously see, but +now fully acknowledges. Of course they had a right to continue at +that freer kind of work as long as they chose, although their +doing so increased the perplexities of the housekeeping problem +for themselves even, since many of them were to become, and did +become, American house-mistresses. + +It would be a step towards the settlement of this vexed and +vexing question if girls would decline to classify each other by +their occupations, which among us are usually only temporary, and +are continually shifting from one pair of hands to another. +Changes of fortune come so abruptly that the millionaire's daugh- +ter of to-day may be glad to earn her living by sewing or +sweeping tomorrow. + +It is the first duty of every woman to recognize the mutual bond +of universal womanhood. Let her ask herself whether she would +like to hear herself or little sister spoken of as a shop-girl, +or a factory-girl, or a servant-girl, if necessity had compelled +her for a time to be employed in either of the ways indicated. +If she would shrink from it a little, then she is a little +inhuman when she puts her unknown human sisters who are so +occupied into a class by themselves, feeling herself to be +somewhat their superior. She is really the superior person who +has accepted her work and is doing it faithfully, whatever it is. +This designating others by their casual employments prevents one +from making real distinctions, from knowing persons as persons. +A false standard is set up in the minds of those who classify and +of those who are classified. + +Perhaps it is chiefly the fault of ladies themselves that the +word "lady" has nearly lost its original meaning (a noble one) +indicating sympathy and service;--bread-giver to those who are in +need. The idea that it means something external in dress or +circumstances has been too generally adopted by rich and poor; +and this, coupled with the sweeping notion that in our country +one person is just as good as another, has led to ridiculous +results, like that of saleswomen calling themselves "sales- +ladies." I have even heard a chambermaid at a hotel introduce +herself to guests as "the chamber-lady." + +I do not believe that any Lowell mill-girl was ever absurd enough +to wish to be known as a "factory-lady," although most of them +knew that "factory-girl" did not represent a high type of +womanhood in the Old World. But they themselves belonged to the +New World, not to the Old; and they were making their own +traditions, to hand down to their Republican descendants--one of +which was and is that honest work has no need to assert itself or +to humble itself in a nation like ours, but simply to take its +place as one of the foundation-stones of the Republic. + +The young women who worked at Lowell had the advantage of living +in a community where character alone commanded respect. They +never, at their work or away from it, heard themselves contempt- +uously spoken of on account of their occupation, except by the +ignorant or weak-minded, whose comments they were of course to +sensible to heed. + +We may as well acknowledge that one of the unworthy tendencies of +womankind is towards petty estimates of other women. This +classifying habit illustrates the fact. If we must classify our +sisters, let us broaden ourselves by making large classifica- +tions. We might all place ourselves in one of two ranks - the +women who do something and the women who do nothing; the first +being of course the only creditable place to occupy. And if we +would escape from our pettinesses, as we all may and should, the +way to do it is to find the key to other lives, and live in their +largeness, by sharing their outlook upon life. Even poorer +people's windows will give us a new horizon, and people's windows +will give us a new horizon, and often a far broader one than our +own. + +X. + +MILL-GIRLS' MAGAZINES + +THERE was a passage from Cowper that my sister used to quote to +us, because, she said, she often repeated it to herself, and +found that it did her good:-- + +"In such a world, so thorny, and where none +Finds happiness unblighted, or if found, +Without some thistly sorrow at its side, +It seems the part of wisdom, and no sin +Against the law of love, to measure lots +With less distinguished than ourselves, that thus +We may with patience bear our moderate ills, +And sympathize with others, suffering more." + +I think she made us feel--she certainly made me feel--that our +lot was in many ways an unusually fortunate one, and full of +responsibilities. She herself was always thinking what she could +do for others, not only immediately about her, but in the +farthest corners of the earth. She had her Sabbath-school class, +and visited all the children in it: she sat up all night, very +often, watching by a sick girl's bed, in the hospital or in some +distant boarding-house; she gave money to send to missionaries, +or to help build new churches in the city, when she was earning +only eight or ten dollars a month clear of her board, and could +afford herself but one "best dress," besides her working clothes. +That best dress was often nothing but a Merrimack print. But she +insisted that it was a great saving of trouble to have just this +one, because she was not obliged to think what she should wear if +she were invited out to spend an evening. And she kept track of +all the great philanthropic movements of the day. She felt deeply +the shame and wrong of American slavery, and tried to make her +workmates see and feel it too.(Petitions to Congress for the +abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia were circulated +nearly every year among the mill-girls, and received thousands of +signatures.) + +Whenever she was not occupied with her work or her reading, or +with looking after us younger ones,--two or three hours a day was +all the time she could call her own,--she was sure to be away on +some errand of friendliness or mercy. + +Those who do most for others are always those who are called upon +continually to do a little more, and who find a way to do it. +People go to them as to a bank that never fails. And surely, they +who have an abundance of life in themselves and who give their +life out freely to others are the only really rich. + +Two dollars a week sounds very small, but in Emilie's hands it +went farther than many a princely fortune of to-day, because she +managed with it to make so many people happy. But then she wanted +absolutely nothing for herself; nothing but the privilege of +helping others. + +I seem to be eulogizing my sister, though I am simply relating +matters of fact. I could not, however, illustrate my own early +experience, except by the lives around me which most influenced +mine. And it was true that our smaller and more self-centred +natures in touching hers caught something of her spirit, the +contagion of her warm heart and healthy energy. For health is +more contagious than disease, and lives that exhale sweetness +around them from the inner heaven of their souls keep the world +wholesome. + +I tried to follow her in my faltering way, and was gratified when +she would send me to look up one of her stray children, or would +let me watch with her at night by a sick-bed. I think it was +partly for the sake of keeping as close to her as I could-- +though not without a sincere desire to consecrate myself to the +Best--that I became, at about thirteen, a member of the church +which we attended. + +Our minister was a scholarly man, of refined tastes and a +sensitive organization, fervently spiritual, and earnestly +devoted to his work. It was all education to grow up under his +influence. I shall never forget the effect left by the tones of +his voice when be first spoke to me, a child of ten years, at a +neighborhood prayer-meeting in my mother's sitting-room. He had +been inviting his listeners to the friendship of Christ, and +turning to my little sister and me, he said,-- + +"And these little children, too; won't they come?" + +The words, and his manner of saving them, brought the tears to my +eyes. Once only before, far back in my earlier childhood--I have +already mentioned the incident--had I heard that Name spoken so +tenderly and familiarly, yet so reverently. It was as if he had +been gazing into the face of an invisible Friend, and bad just +turned from Him to look into ours, while he gave us his message, +that He loved us. + +In that moment I again caught a glimpse of One whom I had always +known, but had often forgotten,--One who claimed me as his +Father's child, and would never let me go. It was a real Face +that I saw, a real Voice that I heard, a real Person who was +calling me. I could not mistake the Presence that had so often +drawn near me and shone with sunlike eyes into my soul. The +words, "Lord, lift Thou up the light of thy countenance upon us!" +had always given me the feeling that a beautiful sunrise does. +It is indeed a sunrise text, for is not He the Light of the +World? + +And peaceful sunshine seemed pouring in at the windows of my life +on the day when I stood in the aisle before the pulpit with a +group, who, though young, were all much older than myself, and +took with them the vows that bound us to his service. Of what was +then said and read I scarcely remember more than the words of +heavenly welcome in the Epistle, "Now therefore ye are no more +strangers and foreigners." It was like coming home, like stepping +a little farther beyond the threshold in at the open door of our +Father's house. + +Perhaps I was too young to assume those vows. Had I deferred it a +few years there would have been serious intellectual hindrances. +But it was not the Articles of Faith I was thinking of, although +there was a long list of them, to which we all bowed assent, as +was the custom. It was the homecoming to the "house not made with +hands," the gladness of signifying that I belonged to God's +spiritual family, and was being drawn closer to his heart, with +whom none of us are held as "strangers and foreigners." + +I felt that I was taking up again the clue which had been put +into my childish hand at baptism, and was being led on by it into +the unfolding mysteries of life. Should I ever let it slip from +me, and lose the way to the "many mansions" that now seemed so +open and so near? I could not think so. It is well that we cannot +foresee our falterings and failures. At least I could never +forget that I had once felt my own and other lives bound together +with the Eternal Life by an invisible thread. + +The vague, fitful desire I had felt from my childhood to be +something to the world I lived in, to give it something of the +the inexpressible sweetness that often seemed pouring through me, +I knew not whence, now began to shape itself into a definite +outreach towards the Source of all spiritual life. To draw near +to the One All-Beautiful Being, Christ, to know Him as our +spirits may know The Spirit, to receive the breath of his +infinitely loving Life into mine, that I might breathe out that +fragrance again into the lives around me--this was the longing +wish that, half hidden from myself, lay deep beneath all other +desires of my soul. This was what religion grew to mean to me, +what it is still growing to mean, more simply and more clearly as +the years go on. + +The heart must be very humble to which this heavenly approach is +permitted. It knows that it has nothing in itself, nothing for +others, which it has not received. The loving Voice of Him who +gives his friends his errands to do whispers through them +constantly, "Ye are not your own." + +There may be those who would think my narrative more +entertaining, if I omitted these inner experiences, and related +only lighter incidents. But one thing I was aware of, from the +time I began to think and to wonder about my own life--that what +I felt and thought was far more real to me than the things that +happened. + +Circumstances are only the keys that unlock for us the secret of +ourselves; and I learned very early that though there is much to +enjoy in this beautiful outside world, there is much more to +love, to believe in, and to seek, in the invisible world out of +which it all grows. What has best revealed our true selves to +ourselves must be most helpful to others, and one can willingly +sacrifice some natural reserves to such an end. Besides, if we +tell our own story at all, we naturally wish to tell the truest +part of it. + +Work, study, and worship were interblended in our life. The +church was really the home-centre to many, perhaps to most of us; +and it was one of the mill regulations that everybody should go +to church somewhere. There must have been an earnest group of +ministers at Lowell, since nearly all the girls attended public +worship from choice. + +Our minister joined us in our social gatherings, often inviting +us to his own house, visiting us at our work, accompanying us on +our picnics down the river-bank,--a walk of a mile or so took us +into charmingly picturesque scenery, and we always walked,-- +suggesting books for our reading, and assisting us in our +studies. + +The two magazines published by the mill-girls, the "Lowell +Offering" and the "Operatives' Magazine," originated with +literary meetings in the vestry of two religious societies, the +first in the Universalist Church, the second in the First +Congregational, to which my sister and I belonged. + +On account of our belonging there, our contributions were given +to the "Operatives' Magazine," the first periodical for which I +ever wrote, issued by the literary society of which our minister +took charge. He met us on regular evenings, read aloud our poems +and sketches, and made such critical suggestions as he thought +desirable. This magazine was edited by two young women, both of +whom had been employed in the mills, although at that time the +were teachers in the public schools--a change which was often +made by mill-girls after a few months' residence at Lowell. A +great many of them were district-school teachers at their homes +in the summer, spending only the winters at their work. + +The two magazines went on side by side for a year or two, and +then were united in the "Lowell Offering" which had made the +first experiment of the kind by publishing a trial number or two +at irregular intervals. My sister had sent some verses of mine, +on request, to be published in one of those specimen numbers. +But we were not acquainted with the editor of the "Offering," and +we knew only a few of its contributors. The Universalist Church, +in the vestry of which they met, was in a distant part of the +city. Socially, the place where we worshiped was the place where +we naturally came together in other ways. The churches were all +filled to overflowing, so that the grouping together of the girls +by their denominational preferences was almost unavoidable. It +was in some such way as this that two magazines were started +instead of one. If the girls who enjoyed writing had not been so +many and so scattered, they might have made the better arrange- +ment of joining their forces from the beginning. + +I was too young a contributor to be at first of much value to +either periodical. They began their regular issues, I think, +while I was the nursemaid of my little nephews at Beverly. When I +returned to Lowell, at about sixteen, I found my sister Emilie +interested in the "Operatives' Magazine," and we both contributed +to it regularly, until it was merged in the "Lowell Offering," to +which we then transferred our writing efforts. It did not occur +to us to call these efforts "literary." I know that I wrote just +as I did for our little "Diving Bell,"--as a sort of pastime, +and because my daily toil was mechanical, and furnished no +occupation for my thoughts. Perhaps the fact that most of us +wrote in this way accounted for the rather sketchy and +fragmentary character of our "Magazine." It gave evidence that we +thought, and that we thought upon solid and serious matters; but +the criticism of one of our superintendents upon it, very kindly +given, was undoubtedly just: "It has plenty of pith, but it lacks +point. + + +The "Offering" had always more of the literary spirit and touch. +It was, indeed, for the first two years, edited by a gentleman of +acknowledged literary ability. But people seemed to be more +interested in it after it passed entirely into the bands of the +girls themselves. + +The "Operatives' Magazine" had a decidedly religious tone. We +who wrote for it were loyal to our Puritanic antecedents, and +considered it all-important that our lightest actions should be +moved by some earnest impulse from behind. We might write +playfully, but there must be conscience and reverence somewhere +within it all. We had been taught, and we believed, that idle +words were a sin, whether spoken or written. This, no doubt, gave +us a gravity of expression rather unnatural to youth. + +In looking over the bound volume of this magazine, I am amused at +the grown-up style of thought assumed by myself, probably its +very youngest contributor. I wrote a dissertation on "Fame," +quoting from Pollok, Cowper, and Milton, and ending with Diedrich +Knickerbocker's definition of immortal fame,--"Half a page of +dirty paper." For other titles I had "Thoughts on Beauty;" +"Gentility;" "Sympathy," etc. And in one longish poem, entitled +"My Childhood" (written when I was about fifteen), I find verses +like these, which would seem to have come out of a mature +experience:-- + +My childhood! O those pleasant days, when everything seemed +free, +And in the broad and verdant fields I frolicked merrily; +When joy came to my bounding heart with every wild bird's song, +And Nature's music in my ears was ringing all day long! + +And yet I would not call them back, those blessed times of +yore, +For riper years are fraught with joys I dreamed not of before. +The labyrinth of Science opes with wonders every day; +And friendship hath full many a flower to cheer life's dreary +way. + +And glancing through the pages of the "Lowell Offering" a year or +two later, I see that I continued to dismalize myself at times, +quite unnecessarily. The title of one sting of morbid verses is +"The Complaint of a Nobody," in which I compare myself to a weed +growing up in a garden; and the conclusion of it all is this +stanza:-- + +"When the fierce storms are raging, I will not repine, +Though I'm heedlessly crushed in the strife; +For surely 't were better oblivion were mine +Than a worthless, inglorious life. + +Now I do not suppose that I really considered myself a weed, +though I did sometimes fancy that a different kind of cultivation +would tend to make me a more useful plant. I am glad to remember +that these discontented fits were only occasional, for certainly +they were unreasonable. I was not unhappy; this was an affect- +ation of unhappiness; and half conscious that it was, I hid it +behind a different signature from my usual one + + +How truly Wordsworth describes this phase of undeveloped +feeling:-- + +"In youth sad fancies we affect, +In luxury of disrespect +To our own prodigal excess +Of too familiar happiness." + +It is a very youthful weakness to exaggerate passing moods into +deep experiences, and if we put them down on paper, we get a fine +opportunity of laughing at ourselves, if we live to outgrow them, +as most of us do. I think I must have had a frequent fancy that I +was not long for this world. Perhaps I thought an early death +rather picturesque; many young people do. There is a certain kind +of poetry that fosters this idea; that delights in imaginary +youthful victims, and has, reciprocally, its youthful devotees. +One of my blank verse poems in the "Offering" is entitled "The +Early Doomed." It begins,-- + +And must I die? The world is bright to me, +And everything that looks upon me, smiles. + +Another poem is headed "Memento Mori;" and another, entitled a +"Song in June," which ought to be cheerful, goes off into the +doleful request to somebody, or anybody, to + +Weave me a shroud in the month of June! + +I was, perhaps, healthier than the average girl, and had no +predisposition to a premature decline; and in reviewing these +absurdities of my pen, I feel like saying to any young girl who +inclines to rhyme, "Don't sentimentalize!" Write more of what +you see than of what you feel, and let your feelings realize +themselves to others in the shape of worthy actions. Then they +will be natural, and will furnish you with something worth +writing." + +It is fair to myself to explain, however, that many of these +verses of mine were written chiefly as exercises in rhythmic +expression. I remember this distinctly about one of my poems with +a terrible title,--"The Murderer's Request,"--in which I made an +imaginary criminal pose for me, telling where he would not and +where be would like to be buried. I modeled my verses,-- + +"Bury ye me on some storm-rifted mountain, +O'erhaliging the depths of a yawning abyss,"-- + +upon Byron's, + +"Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle +Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime;" + +and I was only trying to see how near I could approach to his +exquisite metre. I do not think I felt at all murderous in +writing it; but a more innocent subject would have been in better +taste, and would have met the exigencies of the dactyl quite as +well. + +It is also only fair to myself to say that my rhyming was usually +of a more wholesome kind. I loved Nature as I knew her,--in our +stern, blustering, stimulating New England,--and I chanted the +praises of Winter, of snow-storms, and of March winds (I always +took pride in my birth month, March), with hearty delight. + +Flowers had begun to bring me messages from their own world when +I was a very small child, and they never withdrew their +companionship from my thoughts, for there came summers when I +could only look out of the mill window and dream about them. + +I had one pet window plant of my own, a red rosebush, almost a +perpetual bloomer, that I kept beside me at my work for years. I +parted with it only when I went away to the West, and then with +regret, for it had been to me like a human little friend. But the +wild flowers had my heart. I lived and breathed with them, out +under the free winds of heaven; and when I could not see them, I +wrote about them. Much that I contributed to those mill-magazine +pages, they suggested,--my mute teachers, comforters, and +inspirers. It seems to me that any one who does not care for wild +flowers misses half the sweetness of this mortal life. + +Horace Smith's "Hymn to the Flowers" was a continual delight to +me, after I made its acquaintance. It seemed as if all the wild +blossoms of the woods had wandered in and were twining themselves +around the whirring spindles, as I repeated it, verse after +verse. Better still, they drew me out, in fancy, to their own +forest-haunts under "cloistered boughs," where each swinging +"floral bell" was ringing "a call to prayer," and making "Sab- +bath in the fields." + +Bryant's "Forest Hymn" did me an equally beautiful service. I +knew every word of it. It seemed to me that Bryant understood the +very heart and soul of the flowers as hardly anybody else did. +He made me feel as if they were really related to us human +beings. In fancy my feet pressed the turf where they grew, and I +knew them as my little sisters, while my thoughts touched them, +one by one, saying with him,-- + +"That delicate forest-flower, +With scented breath, and look so like a smile, +Seems, as it issues from the shapeless mould, +An emanation of the indwelling Life, +A visible token of the upholding Love, +That are the soul of this wide universe." + +I suppose that most of my readers will scarcely be older than I +was when I wrote my sermonish little poems under the inspiration +of the flowers at my factory work, and perhaps they will be +interested in reading a specimen or two from the "Lowell Offer- +ing:"-- + +LIVE LIKE THE FLOWERS. + +Cheerfully wave they o'er valley and mountain, +Gladden the desert, and smile by the fountain; +Pale discontent in no young blossom lowers:-- +Live like the flowers! + +Meekly their buds in the heavy rain bending, +Softly their hues with the mellow light blending, +Gratefully welcoming sunlight and showers:-- +Live like the flowers! + +Freely their sweets on the wild breezes flinging, +While in their depths are new odors upspringing:-- +(Blessedness twofold of Love's holy dowers,) +Live like the flowers! + +Gladly they heed Who their brightness has given: +Blooming on earth, look they all up to heaven; +Humbly look up from their loveliest bowers: - +Live like the flowers! + +Peacefully droop they when autumn is sighing; +Breathing mild fragrance around them in dying, +Sleep they in hope of Spring's freshening hours:-- +Die like the flowers! + +The prose-poem that follows was put into a rhymed version by +several unknown hands in periodicals of that day, so that at last +I also wrote one, in self-defense, to claim my own waif. But it +was a prose-poem that I intended it to be, and I think it is +better so. + +"BRING BACK MY FLOWERS." + +On the bank of a rivulet sat a rosy child. Her lap was filled +with flowers, and a garland of rose-buds was twined around her +neck. Her face was as radiant as the sunshine that fell upon it, +and her voice was as clear as that of the bird which warbled at +her side. + +The little stream went singing on, and with every gush of its +music the child lifted a flower in her dimpled hand, and, with a +merry laugh, threw it upon the water. In her glee she forgot that +her treasures were growing less, and with the swift motion of +childhood, she flung them upon the sparkling tide, until every +bud and blossom had disappeared. + +Then, seeing her loss, she sprang to her feet, and bursting into +tears, called aloud to the stream, "Bring back my flowers!" But +the stream danced along, regardless of her sorrow; and as it bore +the blooming burden away, her words came back in a taunting echo, +along its reedy margin. And long after, amid the wailing of the +breeze and the fitful bursts of childish grief, was heard the +fruitless cry, "Bring back my flowers!" + +Merry maiden, who art idly wasting the precious moments so +bountifully bestowed upon thee, see in the thoughtless child an +emblem of thyself! Each moment is a perfumed flower. Let its +fragrance be diffused in blessings around thee, and ascend as +sweet incense to the beneficent Giver! + +Else, when thou hast carelessly flung them from thee, and seest +them receding on the swift waters of Time, thou wilt cry, in +tones more sorrowful than those of the weeping child, "Bring back +my flowers!" And thy only answer will be an echo from the shadowy +Past,--"Bring back my flowers!" + +In the above, a reminiscence of my German studies comes back to +me. I was an admirer of Jean Paul, and one of my earliest +attempts at translation was his "New Year's Night of an Unhappy +Man," with its yet haunting glimpse of "a fair long paradise +beyond the mountains." I am not sure but the idea of trying my +hand at a "prose-poem" came to me from Richter, though it may +have been from Herder or Krummacher, whom I also enjoyed and +attempted to translate. + +I have a manuscript-book still, filled with these youthful +efforts. I even undertook to put German verse into English verse, +not wincing at the greatest--Goetlie and Schiller. These studies +were pursued in the pleasant days of cloth-room leisure, when my +work claimed me only seven or eight hours in a day. + +I suppose I should have tried to write,--perhaps I could not very +well have helped attempting it,--under any circumstances. My +early efforts would not, probably, have found their way into +print, however, but for the coincident publication of the two +mill-girls' magazines, just as I entered my teens. I fancy that +almost everything any of us offered them was published, though I +never was let in to editorial secrets. The editors of both +magazines were my seniors, and I felt greatly honored by their +approval of my contributions. + +One of the "Offering" editors was a Unitarian clergyman's +daughter, and had received an excellent education. The other was +a remarkably brilliant and original young woman, who wrote novels +that were published by the Harpers of New York while she was +employed at Lowell. The two had rooms together for a time, where +the members of the "Improvement Circle," chiefly composed of +"Offering" writers, were hospitably received. + +The "Operatives' Magazine" and the "Lowell Offerig" were united +in the year 1842, under the title of the "Lowell Offering and Ma- +gazine." + +(And--to correct a mistake which has crept into print--I will say +that I never attained the honor of being editor of either of +these magazines. I was only one of their youngest contributors. +The "Lowell Offering" closed its existence when I was a little +more than twenty years old. The only continuous editing I have +ever been engaged in was upon "Our Young Folks." About twenty +years ago I was editor-in-charge of that magazine for a year or +more, and I had previously been its assistant-editor from its +beginning. These explanatory items, however, do not quite belong +to my narrative, and I return to our magazines.) + +We did not receive much criticism; perhaps it would have been +better for us if we had. But then we did lot set ourselves up to +be literary; though we enjoyed the freedom of writing what we +pleased, and seeing how it looked in print. It was good practice +for us, and that was all that we desired. We were complimented +and quoted. When a Philadelphia paper copied one of my little +poems, suggesting some verbal improvements, and predicting +recognition for me in the future, I felt for the first time that +there might be such a thing as public opinion worth caring for, +in addition to doing one's best for its own sake. + +Fame, indeed, never had much attraction for me, except as it took +the form of friendly recognition and the sympathetic approval of +worthy judges. I wished to do good and true things, but not such +as would subject me to the stare of coldly curious eyes. I could +never imagine a girl feeling any pleasure in placing herself +"before the public." The privilege of seclusion must be the last +one a woman can willingly sacrifice. +And, indeed, what we wrote was not remarkable,--perhaps no more +so than the usual school compositions of intelligent girls. It +would hardly be worth while to refer to it particularly, had not +the Lowell girls and their magazines been so frequently spoken of +as something phenomenal. But it was a perfectly natural out- +growth of those girls' previous life. For what were we? Girls +who were working in a factory for the time, to be sure; but none +of us had the least idea of continuing at that kind of work +permanently. Our composite photograph, had it been taken, would +have been the representative New England girlhood of those days. +We had all been fairly educated at public or private schools, and +many of us were resolutely bent upon obtaining a better +education. Very few were among us without some distinct plan for +bettering the condition of themselves and those they loved. For +the first time, our young women had come forth from their home +retirement in a throng, each with her own individual purpose. +For twenty years or so, Lowell might have been looked upon as a +rather select industrial school for young people. The girls there +were just such girls as are knocking at the doors of young +women's colleges to-day. They had come to work with their hands, +but they could not hinder the working of their minds also. Their +mental activity was overflowing at every possible outlet. + +Many of them were supporting themselves at schools like Bradford +Academy or Ipswich Seminary half the year, by working in the +mills the other half. Mount Holyoke Seminary broke upon the +thoughts of many of them as a vision of hope,--I remember being +dazzled by it myself for a while,--and Mary Lyon's name was +honored nowhere more than among the Lowell mill-girls. Meanwhile +they were improving themselves and preparing for their future in +every possible way, by purchasing and reading standard books, by +attending lectures, and evening classes of their own getting up, +and by meeting each other for reading and conversation. + +That they should write was no more strange than that they should +study, or read, or think. And yet there were those to whom it +seemed incredible that a girl could, in the pauses of her work, +put together words with her pen that it would do to print; and +after a while the assertion was circulated, through some distant +newspaper, that our magazine was not written by ourselves at all, +but by "Lowell lawyers." This seemed almost too foolish a +suggestion to contradict, but the editor of the "Offering" +thought it best to give the name and occupation of some of the +writers by way of refutation. It was for this reason (much +against my own wish) that my real name was first attached to +anything I wrote. I was then book-keeper in the cloth-room of the +Lawrence Mills. We had all used any fanciful signature we chose, +varying it as we pleased. After I began to read and love +Wordsworth, my favorite nom de plume was "Rotha." In the later +numbers of the magazine, the editor more frequently made us of my +initials. One day I was surprised by seeing my name in full in +Griswold's "Female Poet's;"--no great distinction, however, since +there were a hundred names or so, besides. + +It seemed necessary to give these gossip items about myself; but +the real interest of every separate life-story is involved in the +larger life-history which is going on around it. We do not know +ourselves without our companions and surroundings. I cannot +narrate my workmates' separate experiences, but I know that +because of having lived among them, and because of having felt +the beauty and power of their lives, I am different from what I +should otherwise have been, and it is my own fault if I am not +better for my life with them. + +In recalling those years of my girlhood at Lowell, I often think +that I knew then what real society is better perhaps than ever +since. For in that large gathering together of young womanhood +there were many choice natures---some of the choicest in all our +excellent New England, and there were no false social standards +to hold them apart. It is the best society when people meet +sincerely, on the ground of their deepest sympathies and highest +aspirations, without conventionality or cliques or affectation; +and it was in that way that these young girls met and became +acquainted with each other, almost of necessity. + +There were all varieties of woman-nature among them, all degrees +of refinement and cultivation, and, of course, many sharp +contrasts of agreeable and disagreeable. It was not always the +most cultivated, however, who were the most companionable. There +were gentle, untaught girls, as fresh and simple as wild flowers, +whose unpretending goodness of heart was better to have than +bookishness; girls who loved everybody, and were loved by +everybody. Those are the girls that I remember best, and their +memory is sweet as a breeze from the clover fields. + +As I recall the throngs of unknown girlish forms that used to +pass and repass me on the familiar road to the mill-gates, and +also the few that I knew so well, those with whom I worked, +thought, read, wrote, studied, and worshiped, my thoughts send a +heartfelt greeting to them all, wherever in God's beautiful, busy +universe they may now be scattered:-- + +"I am glad I have lived in the world with you!" + +XI. + +READING AND STUDYING. + +My return to mill-work involved making acquaintance with a new +kind of machinery. The spinning-room was the only one I had +hitherto known anything about. Now my sister Emilie found a place +for me in the dressing-room, beside herself. It was more airy, +and fewer girls were in the room, for the dressing-frame itself +was a large, clumsy affair, that occupied a great deal of space. +Mine seemed to me as unmanageable as an overgrown spoilt child. +It had to be watched in a dozen directions every minute, and +even then it was always getting itself and me into trouble. I +felt as if the half-live creature, with its great, groaning +joints and whizzing fan, was aware of my incapacity to manage it, +and had a fiendish spite against me. I contracted an unconquer- +able dislike to it; indeed, I had never liked, and never could +learn to like, any kind of machinery. And this machine finally +conquered me. It was humiliating, but I had to acknowledge that +there were some things I could not do, and I retired from the +field, vanquished. + +The two things I had enjoyed in this room were that my sister was +with me, and that our windows looked toward the west. When the +work was running smoothly, we looked out together and quoted to +each other all the sunset-poetry we could remember. Our tastes +did not quite agree. Her favorite description of the clouds was +from Pollok:-- + +"They seemed like chariots of saints, +By fiery coursers drawn; as brightly hued +As if the glorious, bushy, golden locks +Of thousand cherubim had been shorn off, +And on the temples hung of morn and even." + +I liked better a translation from the German, beginning + +"Methinks it were no pain to die +On such an eve, while such a sky +O'ercanopies the west." + +And she generally had to hear the whole poem, for I was very fond +of it; though the especial verse that I contrasted with hers +was,-- + +"There's peace and welcome in yon sea +Of endless blue tranquillity; +Those clouds are living things; +I trace their veins of liquid gold, +And see them silently unfold +Their soft and fleecy wings." + +Then she would tell me that my nature inclined to quietness and +harmony, while hers asked for motion and splendor. I wondered +whether it really were so. But that huge, creaking framework +beside us would continually intrude upon our meditations and +break up our discussions, and silence all poetry for us with its +dull prose. + +Emilie found more profitable work elsewhere, and I found some +that was less so, but far more satisfactory, as it would give me +the openings of leisure which I craved. + +The paymaster asked, when I left, "Going where on can earn more +money?" + +"No," I answered, "I am going where I can have more time." +"Ah, yes!" he said sententiously, "time is money." But that was +not my thought about it. "Time is education," I said to myself; +for that was what I meant it should be to me. + +Perhaps I never gave the wage-earning element in work its due +weight. It always seemed to me that the, Apostle's idea about +worldly possessions was the only sensible one,-- + +"Having food and raiment, let us be therewith content." + +If I could earn enough to furnish that, and have time to study +besides,--of course we always gave away a little, however little +we had,--it seemed to me a sufficiency. At this time I was +receiving two dollars a week, besides my board. Those who were +earning much more, and were carefully "laying it up," did not +appear to be any happier than I was. + +I never thought that the possession of money would make me feel +rich: it often does seem to have an opposite effect. But then, I +have never had the opportunity of knowing, by experience, how it +does make one feel. It is something to have been spared the +responsibility of taking charge of the Lord's silver and gold. +Let us be thankful for what we have not, as well as for what we +have! + +Freedom to live one's life truly is surely more desirable than +any earthly acquisition or possession; and at my new work I had +hours of freedom every day. I never went back again to the +bondage of machinery and a working-day thirteen hours long. + +The daughter of one of our neighbors, who also went to the same +church with us, told me of a vacant place in the cloth-room, +where she was, which I gladly secured. This was a low brick +building next the counting- room, and a little apart from the +mills, where the cloth was folded, stamped, and baled for the +market. + +There were only half a dozen girls of us, who measured the cloth, +and kept an account of the pieces baled, and their length in +yards. It pleased me much to have something to do which required +the use of pen and ink, and I think there must be a good many +scraps of verse buried among the blank pages of those old +account-books of that found their way there during the frequent +half-hours of waiting for the cloth to be brought in from the +mills. + +The only machinery in the room was a hydraulic arrangement for +pressing the cloth into bales, managed by two or three men, one +of whom was quite a poet, and a fine singer also. His hymns were +frequently in request, on public occasions. He lent me the first +volume of Whittier's poems that I ever saw. It was a small book, +containing mostly Antislavery pieces. "The Yankee Girl" was one +of them, fully to appreciate the spirit of which, it is necessary +to have been a workink-girl in slave-labor times. New England +Womanhood crowned Whittier as her laureate from the day of his +heroine's spirited response to the slaveholder:-- + +"0, could ye have seen her--that pride of our girls-- +Arise and cast back the dark wealth of her curls, +With a scorn in her eye that the gazer could feel, +And a glance like the sunshine that flashes on steel! + +Go back, haughty Southron! Go back! for thy gold +Is red with the blood of the hearts thou hast sold!" + +There was in this volume another poem which is not in any of the +later editions, the impression of which, as it remains to me in +broken snatches, is very beautiful. It began with the lines + +"Bind up thy tresses, thou beautiful one, +Of brown in the shadow, and gold in the sun." + +It was a refreshment and an inspiration to look into this book +between my long rows of figures, and read such poems as "The +Angel of Patience," "Follen," "Raphael," and that wonderfully +rendered "Hymn" from Lamartine, that used to whisper itself +through me after I had read it, like the echo of a spirit's +voice:-- + +"When the Breath Divine is flowing, +Zephyr-like o'er all things going, +And, as the touch of viewless fingers, +Softly on my soul it lingers, +Open to a breath the lightest, +Conscious of a touch the slightest,-- + +Then, O Father, Thou alone, +>From the shadow of thy throne, +To the sighing of my breast +And its rapture answerest." + +I grew so familiar with this volume that I felt acquainted with +the poet long before I met him. It remained in my desk-drawer for +months. I thought it belonged to my poetic friend, the baler of +cloth. But one day he informed me that it was a borrowed book; he +thouht, however, he should claim it for his own, now that he had +kept it so long. Upon which remark I delivered it up to the +custody of his own conscience, and saw it no more. + +One day, towards the last of my stay at Lowell (I never changed +my work-room again), this same friendly fellow-toiler handed me a +poem to read, which some one had sent in to us from the count- +ing-room, with the penciled comment, "Singularly beautiful." It +was Poe's "Raven," which had just made its first appearance in +some magazine. It seemed like an apparition in literature, +indeed; the sensation it created among the staid, measured lyrics +of that day, with its flit of spectral wings, and its ghostly +refrain of "Nevermore!" was very noticeable. Poe came to Lowell +to live awhile, but it was after I had gone away. + +Our national poetry was at this time just beginning to be well +known and appreciated. Bryant had published two volumes, and +every school child was familiar with his "Death of the Flowers" +and "God's First Temples." Some one lent me the "Voices of the +Night," the only collection of Longfellow's verse then issued, I +think. The "Footsteps of Angels" glided at once into my memory, +and took possession of a permanent place there, with its tender +melody. "The Last Leaf" and "Old Ironsides" were favorites with +everybody who read poetry at all, but I do not think we Lowell +girls had a volume of Dr. Holmes's poems at that time. + +"The Lady's Book" and "Graham's Magazine" were then the popular +periodicals, and the mill-girls took them. I remember that the +"nuggets" I used to pick out of one or the other of them when I +was quite a child were labeled with the signature of Harriet E. +Beecher. "Father Morris," and "Uncle Tim," and others of the +delightful "May-Flower" snatches first appeared in this way. +Irving's "Sketch-Book" all reading people were supposed to have +read, and I recall the pleasure it was to me when one of my +sisters came into possession of "Knickerbocker's History of New +York." It was the first humorous book, as well as the first +history, that I ever cared about. And I was pleased enough--for I +was a little girl when my fondness for it began--to hear our +minister say that he always read Diedrich Knickerbocker for his +tired Monday's recreation. + +We were allowed to have books in the cloth-room. The absence of +machinery permitted that privilege. Our superintendent, who was a +man of culture and a Christian gentleman of the Puritan-school, +dignifed and reserved, used often to stop at my desk in his daily +round to see what book I was reading. One day it was Mather's +"Magnalia," which I had brought from the public library, with a +desire to know something of the early history of New England. He +looked a little surprised at the archaeological turn my mind had +taken, but his only comment was, "A valuable old book that." It +was a satisfaction to have a superintendent like him, whose +granite principles, emphasized by his stately figure and bearing, +made him a tower of strength in the church and in the community. +He kept a silent, kindly, rigid watch over the corporation-life +of which he was the head; and only those of us who were +incidentally admitted to his confidence knew how carefully we +were guarded. + +We had occasional glimpses into his own well-ordered home-life, +at social gatherings. His little daughter was in my infant +Sabbath-school class from her fourth to her seventh or eighth +year. She sometimes visited me at my work, and we had our frolics +among the heaps of cloth, as if we were both children. She had +also the same love of hymns that I had as a child, and she would +sit by my side and repeat to me one after another that she had +learned, not as a task, but because of her delight in them. One +of my sincerest griefs in going off to the West was that I should +see my little pupil Mary as a child no more. When I came back, +she was a grown-up young woman. + +My friend Anna, who had procured for me the place and work +besideher which I liked so much, was not at all a bookish person, +but we had perhaps a better time together than if she had been. +She was one who found the happiness of her life in doing +kindnesses for others, and in helping them bear their burdens. +Family reverses had brought her, with her mother and sisters, to +Lowell, and this was one strong point of sympathy between my own +family and hers. It was, indeed, a bond of neighborly union +between a great many households in the young manufacturing city. +Anna's manners and language were those of a lady, though she had +come from the wilds of Maine, somewhere in the vicinity of Mount +Desert, the very name of which seemed in those days to carry one +into a wilderness of mountains and waves. We chatted together at +our work on all manner of subjects, and once she astonished me by +saying confidentially, in a low tone, "Do you know, I am thirty +years old!" She spoke as if she thought the fact implied +something serious. My surprise was that she should have taken me +into her intimate friendship when I was only seventeen. I should +hardly have supposed her older than myself, if she had not +volunteered the information. + +When I lifted my eyes from her tall, thin figure to her fair face +and somewhat sad blue eyes, I saw that she looked a little worn; +but I knew that it was from care for others, strangers as well as +her own relatives; and it seemed to me as if those thirty loving +years were her rose-garland. I became more attached to her than +ever. + +What a foolish dread it is,--showing unripeness rather than +youth,--the dread of growing old! For how can a life be +beautified more than by its beautiful years? A living, loving, +growing spirit can never be old. Emerson says: + +"Spring still makes spring in the mind, +When sixty years are told; " + +and some of us are thankful to have lived long enough to bear +witness with him to that truth. + +The few others who measured cloth with us were nice, bright +girls, and some of them remarkably pretty. Our work and the room +itself were so clean that in summer we could wear fresh muslin +dresses, sometimes white ones, without fear of soiling them. +This slight difference of apparel and our fewer work-hours seemed +to give us a slight advantage over the toilers in the mills +opposite, and we occasionally heard ourselves spoken of as "the +cloth-room aristocracy." But that was only in fun. Most of us had +served an apprenticeship in the mills, and many of our best +friends were still there, preferring their work because it +brought them more money than we could earn. + +For myself, no amount of money would have been a temptation, +compared with my precious daytime freedom. Whole hours of +sunshine for reading, for walking, for studying, for writing, for +anything that I wanted to do! The days were so lovely and so +long! and yet how fast they slipped away! I had not given up my +dream of a better education, and as I could not go to school, I +began to study by myself. + +I had received a pretty thorough drill in the common English +branches at the grammar school, and at my employment I only +needed a little simple arithmetic. A few of my friends were +studying algebra in an evening class, but I had no fancy for +mathematics. My first wish was to learn about English Literature, +to go back to its very beginnings. It was not then studied even +in the higher schools, and I knew no one who could give me any +assistance in it, as a teacher. "Percy's Reliques" and "Chambers' +Cyclopoedia of English Literature " were in the city library, and +I used them, making extracts from Chaucer and Spenser, to fix +their peculiarities in my memory, though there was only a taste +of them to be had from the Cyclopaedia. + +Shakespeare I had read from childhood, in a fragmentary way. +"The Tempest," and "Midsummer Night's Dream," and "King Lear," I +had swallowed among my fairy tales. Now I discovered that the +historical plays, notably, "Julius Caesar" and "Coriolanus," had +no less attraction for me, though of a different kind. But it was +easy for me to forget that I was trying to be a literary student, +and slip off from Belmont to Venice with Portia to witness the +discomfiture of Shylock; although I did pity the miserable Jew, +and thought he might at least have been allowed the comfort of +his paltry ducats. I do not think that any of my studying at this +time was very severe; it was pleasure rather than toil, for I +undertook only the tasks I liked. But what I learned remained +with me, nevertheless. + +With Milton I was more familiar than with any other poet, and +from thirteen years of age to eighteen he was my preference. My +friend Angeline and I (another of my cloth-room associates) made +the "Paradise Lost" a language-study in an evening class, under +one of the grammar school masters, and I never open to the +majestic lines,-- + +"High on a throne of royal state, which far +Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind, +Or where the gorgeous east with richest hand +Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold,"-- + +Without seeing Angeline's kindly, homely face out-lined through +that magnificence, instead of the lineaments of the evil angel + +"by merit raised +To that bad eminence." + +She, too, was much older than I, and a most excellent, energetic, +and studious young woman. I wonder if she remembers how hard we +tried to get + +"Beelzebub--than whom, +Satan except, none higher sat," + +into the limits of our grammatical rules,--not altogether with +success, I believe. + +I copied passages from Jeremy Taylor and the old theologians into +my note-books, and have found them useful even recently, in +preparing compilations. Dryden and the eighteenth century poets +generally did not interest me, though I tried to read them from a +sense of duty. Pope was an exception, however. Aphorisms from the +"Essay on Man" were in as common use among us as those from the +Book of Proverbs. + +Some of my choicest extracts were in the first volume of +collected poetry I ever owned, a little red morocco book called +"The Young Man's Book of Poetry." It was given me by one of my +sisters when I was about a dozen years old, who rather +apologized for the young man on the title-page, saying that the +poetry was just as good as if he were not there. + +And, indeed, no young man could have valued it more than I did. +It contained selections from standard poets, and choice ones from +less familiar sources. One of the extracts was Wordsworth's +"Sunset among the Mountains," from the "Excursion," to read +which, however often, always lifted me into an ecstasy. That red +morocco book was my treasure. It traveled with me to the West, +and I meant to keep it as long as I lived. But alas! it was +borrowed by a little girl out on the Illinois prairies, who never +brought it back. I do not know that I have ever quite forgiven +her. I have wished I could look into it again, often and often +tbrough the years. But perhaps I ought to be grateful to that +little girl for teaching me to be careful about returning +borrowed books myself. Only a lover of them can appreciate the +loss of one which has been a possession from childhood. + +Young and Cowper were considered religious reading, and as such I +had always known something of them. The songs of Burns were in +the air. Through him I best learned to know poetry as song. I +think that I heard the "Cotter's Saturday Night" and "A man's a +man for a' that" more frequently quoted than any other poems +familiar to my girlhood. + +Some of my work-folk acquaintances were regular subscribers to +"Blackwood's Magazine" and the "Westminster" and "Edinburgh" +reviews, and they lent them to me. These, and Macaulay's +"Essays," were a great help and delight. I had also the reading +of the "Bibliotheca Sacra " and the "New Englander;" and +sometimes of the "North American Review." + +By the time I had come down to Wordsworth and Coleridge in my +readings of English poetry, I was enjoying it all so much that I +could not any longer call it study. + +A gift from a friend of Griswold's "Poets and Poetry of England" +gave me my first knowledge of Tennyson. It was a great experience +to read "Locksley Hall" for the first time while it was yet a new +poem, and while one's own young life was stirred by the prophetic +spirit of the age that gave it birth. + +I had a friend about my own age, and between us there was +something very much like what is called a "school-girl +friendship," a kind of intimacy supposed to be superficial, but +often as deep and permanent as it is pleasant. + +Eliza and I managed to see each other every day; we exchanged +confidences, laughed and cried together, read, wrote, walked, +visited, and studied together. Her dress always had an airy touch +which I admired, although I was rather indifferent as to what I +wore myself. But she would endeavor to "fix me up" tastefully, +while I would help her to put her compositions for the "Offering" +into proper style. She had not begun to go to school at two years +old, repeating the same routine of study every year of her +childhood, as I had. When a child, I should have thought it +almost as much of a disgrace to spell a word wrong, or make a +mistake in the multiplication table, as to break one of the Ten +Commandments. I was astonished to find that Eliza and other +friends had not been as particularly dealt with in their early +education. But she knew her deficiencies, and earned money enough +to leave her work and attend a day-school part of the year. + +She was an ambitious scholar, and she persuaded me into studying +the German language with her. A native professor had formed a +class among young women connected with the mills, and we joined +it. We met, six or eight of us, at the home of two of these young +women,--a factory boarding-house,--in a neat little parlor +which contained a piano. The professor was a music-teacher also, +and he sometimes brought his guitar, and let us finish our +recitation with a concert. More frequently he gave us the songs +of Deutschland that we begged for. He sang the "Erl-King" in his +own tongue admirably. We went through Follen's German Grammar and +Reader:--what a choice collection of extracts that "Reader" was! +We conquered the difficult gutturals, like those in the numeral +"acht und achtzig" (the test of our pronouncing abilities) so +completely that the professor told us a native really would +understand us! At his request, I put some little German songs +into English, which he published as sheet-music, with my name. +To hear my words sung quite gave me the feeling of a successful +translator. The professor had his own distinctive name for each +of his pupils. Eliza was "Naivete," from her artless manners ; +and me he called " Etheria," probably on account of my star- +gazing and verse-writing habits. Certainly there was never +anything ethereal in my visible presence. + +A botany class was formed in town by a literary lady who was +preparing a school text-book on the subject, and Eliza and I +joined that also. The most I recall about that is the delightful +flower-hunting rambles we took together. The Linnaean system, +then in use, did not give us a very satisfactory key to the +science. But we made the acquaintance of hitherto unfamiliar wild +flowers that grew around us, and that was the opening to us of +another door towards the Beautiful. + +Our minister offered to instruct the young people of his parish +in ethics, and my sister Emilie and myself were among his pupils. +We came to regard Wayland's "Moral Science" (our text-book) as +most interesting reading, and it furnished us with many subjects +for thought and for social discussion. + +Carlyle's "Hero-Worship" brought us a startling and keen +enjoyment. It was lent me by a Dartmouth College student, the +brother of one of my room-mates, soon after it was first +published in this country. The young man did not seem to know +exactly what to think of it, and wanted another reader's opinion. +Few persons could have welcomed those early writings of Carlyle +more enthusiastically than some of us working-girls did. The very +ruggedness of the sentences had a fascination for us, like that +of climbing over loose bowlders in a mountain scramble to get +sight of a wonderful landscape. + +My room-mate, the student's sister, was the possessor of an +electrifying new poem,--"Festus,"--that we sat up nights to read. +It does not seem as if it could be more than forty years since +Sarah and I looked up into each other's face from the page as the +lamplight grew dim, and said, quoting from the poem,-- + +"Who can mistake great thoughts?" + +She gave me the volume afterwards, when we went West together, +and I have it still. Its questions and conjectures were like a +glimpse into the chaos of our own dimly developing inner life. +The fascination of "Festus" was that of wonder, doubt, and +dissent, with great outbursts of an overmastering faith sweeping +over our minds as we read. Some of our friends thought it not +quite safe reading; but we remember it as one of the inspirations +of our workaday youth. + +We read books, also, that bore directly upon the condition of +humanity in our time. "The Glory and Shame of England" was one of +them, and it stirred us with a wonderful and painful interest. + +We followed travelers and explorers,--Layard to Nineveh, and +Stephens to Yucatan. And we were as fond of good story-books as +any girls that live in these days of overflowing libraries. One +book, a character-picture from history, had a wide popularity in +those days. It is a pity that it should be unfamiliar to modern +girlhood,--Ware's "Zenobia." The Queen of Palmyra walked among +us, and held a lofty place among our ideals of heroic womanhood, +never yet obliterated from admiring remembrance. + +We had the delight of reading Frederika Bremer's "Home" and +"Neighbors" when they were fresh from the fountains of her own +heart; and some of us must not be blamed for feeling as if no +tales of domestic life half so charming have been written since. +Perhaps it is partly because the home-life of Sweden is in itself +so delightfully unique. + +We read George Borrow's "Bible in Spain," and wandered with him +among the gypsies to whom he seemed to belong. I have never +forgotten a verse that this strange traveler picked up somewhere +among the Zincali:-- + +"I'll joyfully labor, both night and day, +To aid my unfortunate brothers; +As a laundress tans her own face in the ray +To cleanse the garments of others." + +It suggested a somewhat similar verse to my own mind. Why should +not our washerwoman's work have its touch of poetry also?-- + +This thought flashed by like a ray of light +That brightened my homely labor:-- +The water is making my own hands white +While I wash the robes of my neighbor. + +And how delighted we were with Mrs. Kirkland's "A New Home: +Who'll Follow?" the first real Western book I ever read. Its +genuine pioneer-flavor was delicious. And, moreover, it was a +prophecy to Sarah, Emilie, and myself, who were one day thankful +enough to find an "Aunty Parshall's dish-kettle" in a cabin on an +Illinois prairie. + +So the pleasantly occupied years slipped on, I still nursing my +purpose of a more systematic course of study, though I saw no +near possibility of its fulfillment. It came in an unexpected +way, as almost everything worth having does come. I could never +have dreamed that I was going to meet my opportunity nearly or +quite a thousand miles away, on the banks of the Mississippi. +And yet, with that strange, delightful consciousness of growth +into a comprehension of one's self and of one's life that most +young persons must occasionally have experienced, I often vaguely +felt heavens opening for my half-fledged wings to try themselves +in. Things about me were good and enjoyable, but I could not +quite rest in them; there was more for me to be, to know, and to +do. I felt almost surer of the future than of the present. + +If the dream of the millennium which brightened the somewhat +sombre close of the first ten years of my life had faded a +little, out of the very roughnesses of the intervening road light +had been kindled which made the end of the second ten years glow +with enthusiastic hope. I had early been saved from a great +mistake; for it is the greatest of mistakes to begin life with +the expectation that it is going to be easy, or with the wish to +have it so. What a world it would be, if there were no hills to +climb! Our powers were given us that we might conquer obstacles, +and clear obstructions from the overgrown human path, and grow +strong by striving, led onward always by an Invisible Guide. + +Life to me, as I looked forward, was a bright blank of mystery, +like the broad Western tracts of our continent, which in the +atlases of those days bore the title of "Unexplored Regions." It +was to be penetrated, struggled through; and its difficulties +were not greatly dreaded, for I had not lost + +"The dream of Doing,-- +The first bound in the pursuing." + +I knew that there was no joy like the joy of pressing forward. + +XII. + +FROM THE MERRIMACK TO THE MISSISSIPPI. + +THE years between 1835 and 1845, which nearly cover the time I +lived at Lowell, seem to me, as I look back at them, singularly +interesting years. People were guessing and experimenting and +wondering and prophesying about a great many things,--about +almost everything. We were only beginning to get accustomed to +steamboats and railroads. To travel by either was scarcely less +an adventure to us younger ones than going up in a balloon. + +Phrenology was much talked about; and numerous "professors" of it +came around lecturing, and examining heads, and making charts of +cranial "bumps." This was profitable business to them for a +while, as almost everybody who invested in a "character" received +a good one; while many very commonplace people were flattered +into the belief that they were geniuses, or might be if they +chose. + +Mesmerism followed close upon phrenology; and this too had its +lecturers, who entertained the stronger portion of their +audiences by showing them how easily the weaker ones could be +brought under an uncanny influence. + +The most widespread delusion of the time was Millerism. A great +many persons--and yet not so many that I knew even one of them-- +believed that the end of the world was coming in the year 1842; +though the date was postponed from year to year, as the prophesy +failed of fulfillment. The idea in itself was almost too serious +to be jested about; and yet its advocates made it so literal a +matter that it did look very ridiculous to unbelievers. + +An irreverent little workmate of mine in the spinning-room made a +string of jingling couplets about it, like this:-- + +"Oh dear! oh dear! what shall we do +In eighteen hundred and forty-two? + +"Oh dear! oh dear! where shall we be +In eighteen hundred and forty-three? + +"Oh dear! oh dear! we shall be no more +In eighteen hundred and forty-four, + +"Oh dear! oh dear! we sha'n't be alive +In eighteen hundred and forty-five." + +I thought it audacious in her, since surely she and all of us +were aware that the world would come to an end some time, in some +way, for every one of us. I said to myself that I could not have +"made up" those rhymes. Nevertheless we all laughed at them +together. + +A comet appeared at about the time of the Miller excitement, and +also a very unusual illumination of sky and earth by the Aurora +Borealis. This latter occurred in midwinter. The whole heavens +were of a deep rose-color--almost crimson--reddest at the zenith, +and paling as it radiated towards the horizon. The snow was fresh +on the ground, and that, too, was of a brilliant red. Cold as it +was, windows were thrown up all around us for people to look out +at the wonderful sight. I was gazing with the rest, and listening +to exclamations of wonder from surrounding unseen beholders, when +somebody shouted from far down the opposite block of buildings, +with startling effect,-- + +"You can't stand the fire +In that great day!" + +It was the refrain of a Millerite hymn. The Millerites believed +that these signs in the sky were omens of the approaching +catastrophe. And it was said that some of them did go so far as +to put on white "ascension robes," and assemble somewhere, to +wait for the expected hour. + +When daguerreotypes were first made, when we heard that the sun +was going to take everybody's portrait, it seemed almost too +great a marvel to be believed. While it was yet only a rumor that +such a thing had been done, somewhere across the sea, I saw some +verses about it which impressed me much, but which I only partly +remember. These were the opening lines:-- +"Oh, what if thus our evil deeds +Are mirrored on the sky, +And every line of our wild lives +Daguerreotyped on high!" + +My sister and I considered it quite an event when we went to have +our daguerreotypes taken just before we started for the West. +The photograph was still an undeveloped mystery. + +Things that looked miraculous then are commonplace now. It almost +seems as if the children of to-day could not have so good a time +as we did, science has left them so little to wonder about. Our +attitude--the attitude of the time--was that of children climbing +their dooryard fence, to watch an approaching show, and to +conjecture what more remarkable spectacle could be following +behind. New England had kept to the quiet old-fashioned ways of +living for the first fifty years of the Republic. Now all was +expectancy. Changes were coming. Things were going to happen, +nobody could guess what. + +Things have happened, and changes have come. The New England that +has grown up with the last fifty years is not at all the New +England that our fathers knew. We speak of having been reared +under Puritanic influences, but the traditionary sternness of +these was much modified, even in the childhood of the generation +to which I belong. We did not recognize the grim features +of the Puritan, as we used sometimes to read about him, in our +parents or relatives. And yet we were children of the Puritans. + +Everything that was new or strange came to us at Lowell. And most +of the remarkable people of the day came also. How strange it was +to see Mar Yohannan, a Nestorian bishop, walking through the +factory yard in his Oriental robes with more than a child's +wonder on his face at the stir and rush of everything! He came +from Boston by railroad, and was present at the wedding at the +clergyman's house where he visited. The rapidity of the simple +Congregational service astonished him. + +"What? Marry on railroad, too?" he asked. + +Dickens visited Lowell while I was there, and gave a good report +of what he saw in his "American Notes." We did not leave work +even to gaze at distinguished strangers, so I missed seeing him. +But a friend who did see him sketched his profile in pencil for +me as he passed along the street. He was then best known as +"Boz." + +Many of the prominent men of the country were in the habit of +giving Lyceum lectures, and the Lyceum lecture of that day was a +means of education, conveying to the people the results of study +and thought through the best minds. At Lowell it was more +patronized by the mill-people than any mere entertainment. We had +John Quincy Adams, Edward Everett, John Pierpont, and Ralph Waldo +Emerson among our lecturers, with numerous distinguished +clergymen of the day. Daniel Webster was once in the city, trying +a law case. Some of my girl friends went to the court-room and +had a glimpse of his face, but I just missed seeing him. + +Sometimes an Englishman, who was studying our national +institutions, would call and have a friendly talk with us at +work. Sometimes it was a traveler from the South, who was +interested in some way. I remember one, an editor and author from +Georgia, who visited our Improvement Circle, and who sent some of +us "Offering" contributors copies of his book after he had +returned home. + +One of the pleasantest visitors that I recall was a young Quaker +woman from Philadelphia, a school-teacher, who came to see for +herself how the Lowell girls lived, of whom she had heard so +much. A deep, quiet friendship grew up between us two. I wrote +some verses for her when we parted, and she sent me one cordial, +charmingly-written letter. In a few weeks I answered it; but the +response was from another person, a near relative. She was dead. +But she still remains a real person to me; I often recall her +features and the tone of her voice. It was as if a beautiful +spirit from an invisible world had slipped in among us, and +quickly gone back again. + +It was an event to me, and to my immediate friends among the +mill-girls, when the poet Whittier came to Lowell to stay awhile. +I had not supposed that it would be my good fortune to meet him; +but one evening when we assembled at the "Improvement Circle," he +was there. The "Offering" editor, Miss Harriet Farley, had lived +in the same town with him, and they were old acquaintances. +It was a warm, summer evening. I recall the circumstance that a +number of us wore white dresses; also that I shrank back into +myself, and felt much abashed when some verses of mine were read +by the editor,--with others so much better, however, that mine +received little attention. I felt relieved; for I was not fond +of having my productions spoken of, for good or ill. He commended +quite highly a poem by another member of the Circle, on +"Pentucket," the Indian name of his native place, Haverhill. My +subject was "Sabbath Bells." As the Friends do not believe in +"steeple-houses," I was at liberty to imagine that it was my +theme, and not my verses, that failed to interest him. + +Various other papers were read,--stories, sketches, etc., and +after the reading there was a little conversation, when he came +and spoke to me. I let the friend who had accompanied me do my +part of the talking for I was too much overawed by the presence +of one whose poetry I had so long admired, to say a great deal. +But from that evening we knew each other as friends; and, of +course, the day has a white mark among memories of my Lowell +life. + +Mr. Whittier's visit to Lowell had some political bearing upon +the antislavery cause. It is strange now to think that a cause +like that should not always have been our country's cause,--our +country,--our own free nation! But antislavery sentiments were +then regarded by many as traitorous heresies; and those who held +them did not expect to win popularity. If the vote of the mill- +girls had been taken, it would doubtless have been unanimous on +the antislavery side. But those were also the days when a woman +was not expected to give, or even to have, an opinion on subjects +of public interest. + +Occasionally a young girl was attracted to the Lowell mills +through her own idealization of the life there, as it had been +reported to her. Margaret Foley, who afterwards became +distinguished as a sculptor, was one of these. She did not remain +many months at her occupation,--which I think was weaving,--soon +changing it for that of teaching and studying art. Those who came +as she did were usually disappointed. Instead of an Arcadia, they +found a place of matter-of-fact toil, filled with a company of +industrious, wide-awake girls, who were faithfully improving +their opportunities, while looking through them into avenues +Toward profit and usefulness, more desirable yet. It has always +been the way of the steady-minded New Englander to accept the +present situation--but to accept it without boundaries, taking in +also the larger prospects--all the heavens above and the earth +beneath--towards which it opens. + +The movement of New England girls toward Lowell was only an +impulse of a larger movement which about that time sent so many +people from the Eastern States into the West. The needs of the +West were constantly kept before us in the churches. We were +asked for contributions for Home Missions, which were willingly +given; and some of us were appointed collectors of funds for the +education of indigent young men to become Western Home Missionary +preachers. There was something almost pathetic in the readiness +with which this was done by young girls who were longing to fit +themselves for teachers, but had not the means. Many a girl at +Lowell was working to send her brother to college, who had far +more talent and character than he; but a man could preach, and it +was not "orthodox" to think that a woman could. And in her +devotion to him, and her zeal for the spread of Christian truth, +she was hardly conscious of her own sacrifice. Yet our ministers +appreciated the intelligence and piety of their feminine +parishioners. An agent who came from the West for school-teachers +was told by our own pastor that five hundred could easily be +furnished from among Lowell mill-girls. Many did go, and they +made another New England in some of our Western States. + +The missionary spirit was strong among my companions. I never +thought that I had the right qualifications for that work; but I +had a desire to see the prairies and the great rivers of the +West, and to get a taste of free, primitive life among pioneers. + +Before the year 1845, several of my friends had emigrated as +teachers or missionaries. One of the editors of the "Operatives' +Magazine" had gone to Arkansas with a mill-girl who had worked +beside her among the looms. They were at an Indian mission--to +the Cherokees and Choctaws. I seemed to breathe the air of that +far Southwest, in a spray of yellow jessamine which one of those +friends sent me, pressed in a letter. People wrote very long +letters then, in those days of twenty-five cent postage. + +Rachel, at whose house our German class had been accustomed to +meet, had also left her work, and had gone to western Virginia to +take charge of a school. She wrote alluring letters to us about +the scenery there; it was in the neighborhood of the Natural +Bridge. + +My friend Angeline, with whom I used to read "Paradise Lost," +went to Ohio as a teacher, and returned the following year, for a +very brief visit, however,--and with a husband. Another +acquaintance was in Wisconsin, teaching a pioneer school. Eliza, +my intimate companion, was about to be married to a clergyman. +She, too, eventually settled at the West. + +The event which brought most change into my own life was the +marriage of my sister Emilie. It involved the breaking up of our +own little family, of which she had really been the "houseband," +the return of my mother to my sisters at Beverly, and my going to +board among strangers, as other girls did. I found excellent +quarters and kind friends, but the home-life was ended. + +My sister's husband was a grammar school master in the city, and +their cottage, a mile or more out, among the open fields, was my +frequent refuge from homesickness and the general clatter. Our +partial separation showed me how much I had depended upon my +sister. I had really let her do most of my thinking for me. +Henceforth I was to trust to my own resources. I was no longer +the "little sister" who could ask what to do, and do as she was +told. It often brought me a feeling of dismay to find that I must +make up my own mind about things small and great. And yet I was +naturally self-reliant. I am not sure but self-reliance and +dependence really belong together. They do seem to meet in the +same character, like other extremes. + +The health of Emilie's husband failing, after a year or two, it +was evident that be must change his employment and his residence. +He decided to go with his brother to Illinois and settle upon a +prairie farm. Of course his wife and baby boy must go too, and +with the announcement of this decision came an invitation to me +to accompany them. I had no difficulty as to my response. It was +just what I wanted to do. I was to teach a district school; but +what there was beyond that, I could not guess. I liked to feel +that it was all as vague as the unexplored regions to which I was +going. My friend and room-mate Sarah, who was preparing herself +to be a teacher, was invited to join us, and she was glad to do +so. It was all quickly settled, and early in the spring of 1846 +we left New England. + +When I came to a realization of what I was leaving, when good-bys +had to be said, I began to feel very sorrowful, and to wish it +was not to be. I said positively that I should soon return, but +underneath my protestations I was afraid that I might not. The +West was very far off then, a full week's journey. It would be +hard getting back. Those I loved might die; I might die myself. +These thoughts passed through my mind, though not through my +lips. My eyes would sometimes tell the story, however, and I +fancy that my tearful farewells must have seemed ridiculous to +many of my friends, since my going was of my own cheerful choice. + +The last meeting of the Improvement Circle before I went away was +a kind of surprise party to me. Several original poems were read, +addressed to me personally. I am afraid that I received it all in +a dumb, undemonstrative way, for I could not make it seem real +that I was the person meant, or that I was going away at all. +But I treasured those tributes of sympathy afterwards, under the +strange, spacious skies where I sometimes felt so alone. + +The editors of the "Offering" left with me a testimonial in +money, accompanied by an acknowledgment of my contributions +during several years; but I had never dreamed of pay, and did not +know how to look upon it so. I took it gratefully, however, as a +token of their appreciation, and twenty dollars was no small help +toward my outfit. Friends brought me books and other keepsakes. +Our minister, gave me D'Aubigne's "History of the Reformation" as +a parting gift. It was quite a circumstance to be "going out +West." + +The exhilaration of starting off on one's first long journey, +young, ignorant, buoyant, expectant, is unlike anything else, +unless it be youth itself, the real beginning of the real +journey-- life. Annoyances are overlooked. Everything seems +romantic and dreamlike. + +We went by a southerly route, on account of starting so early in +the season there was snow on the ground the day we left. On the +second day, after a moonlight night on Long Island Sound, we were +floating down the Delaware, between shores misty-green with +buidding willows; then (most of us seasick, though I was not) we +were tossed across Chesapeake Bay; then there was a railway ride +to the Alleghanies, which gave us glimpses of the Potomac and the +Blue Ridge, and of the lovely scenery around Harper's Ferry; then +followed a stifling night on the mountains, when we were packed +like sardines into a stagecoach, without a breath of air, and the +passengers were cross because the baby cried, while I felt +inwardly glad that one voice among us could give utterance to the +general discomfort, my own part of which I could have borne if I +could only have had an occasional peep out at the mountain-side. +After that it was all river-voyaging, down the Monongahela into +the Ohio, and up the Mississippi. + +As I recall this part of it, I should say that it was the +perfection of a Western journey to travel in early spring by an +Ohio River steamboat,--such steamboats as they had forty years +ago, comfortable, roomy, and well ordered. The company was +social, as Western emigrants were wont to be when there were not +so very many of them, and the shores of the river, then only +thinly populated, were a constantly shifting panorama of +wilderness beauty. I have never since seen a combination of +spring colors so delicate as those shown by the uplifted forests +of the Ohio, where the pure white of the dogwood and the peach- +bloom tint of the red-bud (Judas tree) were contrasted with soft +shades of green, almost endlessly various, on the unfolding +leafage. + +Contrasted with the Ohio, the Mississippi had nothing to show but +breadth and muddiness. More than one of us glanced at its level +shores, edged with a monotonous growth of cottonwood, and sent +back a sigh towards the banks of the Merrimack. But we did not +let each other know what the sigh was for, until long after. The +breaking-up of our little company when the steamboat landed at +Saint Louis was like the ending of a pleasant dream. We had to +wake up to the fact that by striking due east thirty or forty +miles across that monotonous Greenness, we should reach our +destination, and must accept whatever we should find there, with +such grace as we could. + +What we did find, and did not find, there is not room fully to +relate here. Ours was at first the roughest kind of pioneering +experience; such as persons brought up in our well-to-do New +England could not be in the least prepared for, though they might +imagine they were, as we did. We were dropped down finally upon a +vast green expense, extending hundreds of miles north and south +through the State of Illinois, then known as Looking-Glass +Prairie. The nearest cabin to our own was about a mile away, and +so small that at that distance it looked like a shingle set up +endwise in the grass. Nothing else was in sight, not even a tree, +although we could see miles and miles in every direction. There +were only the hollow blue heavens above us and the level green +prairie around us,--an immensity of intense loneliness. We seldom +saw a cloud in the sky, and never a pebble beneath our feet. If +we could have picked up the commonest one, we should have +treasured it like a diamond. Nothing in nature now seemed so +beautiful to us as rocks. We had never dreamed of a world without +them; it seemed like living on a floor without walls or +foundations. + +After a while we became accustomed to the vast sameness, and even +liked it in a lukewarm way. And there were times when it filled +us with emotions of grandeur. Boundlessness in itself is +impressive; it makes us feel our littleness, and yet releases us +from that littleness. + +The grass was always astir, blowing one way, like the waves of +the sea; for there was a steady, almost an unvarying wind from +the south. It was like the sea, and yet even more wonderful, for +it was a sea of living and growing things. The Spirit of God was +moving upon the face of the earth, and breathing everything into +life. We were but specks on the great landscape. But God was +above it all, penetrating it and us with his infinite warmth. +The distance from human beings made the Invisible One seem so +near! Only Nature and ourselves now, face to face with Him! + +We could scarcely have found in all the world a more complete +contrast to the moving crowds and the whir and dust of the City +of Spindles, than this unpeopled, silent prairie. + +For myself, I know that I was sent in upon my own thoughts deeper +than I had ever been before. I began to question things which I +had never before doubted. I must have reality. Nothing but +transparent truth would bear the test of this great, solitary +stillness. As the prairies lay open to the sunshine, my heart +seemed to lie bare beneath the piercing eye of the All-Seeing. I +may say with gratitude that only some superficial rubbish of +acquired opinion was scorched away by this searching light and +heat. The faith of my childhood, in its simplest elements, took +firmer root as it found broader room to grow in. + +I had many peculiar experiences in my log-cabin school-teaching, +which was seldom more than three months in one place. Only once I +found myself among New England people, and there I remained a +year or more, fairly reveling in a return to the familiar, +thrifty ways that seem to me to shape a more comfortable style of +living than any under the sun. "Vine Lodge" (so we named the +cottage for its embowering honey-suckles), and its warm-hearted +inmates, with my little white schoolhouse under the oaks, make +one of the brightest of my Western memories. + +Only a mile or two away from this pretty retreat there was an +edifice towards which I often looked with longing. It was a +seminary for young women, probably at that time one of the best +in the country, certainly second to none in the West. It had +originated about a dozen years before, in a plan for Western +collegiate education, organized by Yale College graduates. It was +thought that women as well as men ought to share in the benefits +of such a plan, and the result was Monticello Seminary. The good +man whose wealth had made the institution a possibility lived in +the neighborhood. Its trustees were of the best type of pioneer +manhood, and its pupils came from all parts of the South and +West. + +Its Principal--I wonder now that I could have lived so near her +for a year without becoming acquainted with her,--but her high +local reputation as an intellectual woman inspired me with awe, +and I was foolishly diffident. One day, however, upon the +persuasion of my friends at Vine Lodge, who knew my wishes for a +higher education, I went with them to call upon her. We talked +about the matter which had been in my thoughts so long, and she +gave me not only a cordial but an urgent invitation to come and +enroll myself as a student. There were arrangements for those who +could not incur the current expenses, to meet them by doing part +of the domestic work, and of these I gladly availed myself. The +stately limestone edifice, standing in the midst of an original +growth of forest-trees, two or three miles from the Mississippi +River, became my home --my student-home--for three years. The +benefits of those three years I have been reaping ever since, I +trust not altogether selfishly. It was always my desire and my +ambition as a teacher, to help my pupils as my teachers had +helped me. + +The course of study at Monticello Seminary was the broadest, the +most college-like, that I have ever known; and I have had +experience since in several institutions of the kind. The study +of mediaeval and modern history, and of the history of modern +philosophy, especially, opened new vistas to me. In these our +Principal was also our teacher, and her method was to show us the +tendencies of thought, to put our minds into the great current of +human affairs, leaving us to collect details as we could, then or +afterward. We came thus to feel that these were life-long +studies, as indeed they are. + +The course was somewhat elective, but her advice to me was, not +to omit anything because I did not like it. I had a natural +distaste for mathematics, and my recollections of my struggles +with trigonometry and conic sections are not altogether those of +a conquering heroine. But my teacher told me that my mind had +need of just that exact sort of discipline, and I think she was +right. + +A habit of indiscriminate, unsystematized reading, such as I had +fallen into, is entirely foreign to the scholarly habit of mind. +Attention is the secret of real acquirement; but it was months +before I could command my own attention, even when I was +interested in the subject I was examining. It seemed as if all +the pages of all the books I had ever read were turning +themselves over between me and this one page that I wanted to +understand. I found that mere reading does not by any means make +a student. + +It was more to me to come into communication with my wise teacher +as a friend than even to receive the wisdom she had to impart. +She was dignified and reticent, but beneath her reserve, as is +often the case, was a sealed fountain of sympathy, which one who +had the key could easily unlock. Thinking of her nobleness of +character, her piety, her learning, her power, and her sweetness, +it seems to me as if I had once had a Christian Zenobia or +Hypatia for my teacher. + +We speak with awed tenderness of our unseen guardian angels, but +have we not all had our guiding angels, who came to us in visible +form, and, recognized or unknown, kept beside us on our difficult +path until they had done for us all they could? It seems to me as +if one had succeeded another by my side all through the years,-- +always some one whose influence made my heart stronger and my way +clearer; though sometimes it has been only a little child that +came and laid its hand into my hand as if I were its guide, +instead of its being mine. + +My dear and honored Lady-Principal was surely one of my strong +guiding angels, sent to meet me as I went to meet her upon my +life-road, just at the point where I most needed her. For the one +great thing she gave her pupils,--scope, often quite left out of +woman's education,--I especially thank her. The true education is +to go on forever. But how can there be any hopeful going on +without outlook? And having an infinite outlook, how can progress +ever cease? It was worth while for me to go to those Western +prairies, if only for the broader mental view that opened upon me +in my pupilage there. + +During my first year at the seminary I was appointed teacher of +the Preparatory Department,--a separate school of thirty or forty +girls,--with the opportunity to go on with my studies at the same +time. It was a little hard, but I was very glad to do it, as I +was unwilling to receive an education without rendering an +equivalent, and I did not wish to incur a debt. + +I believe that the postponement of these maturer studies to my +early womanhood, after I had worked and taught, was a benefit to +me. I had found out some of my special ignorances, what the +things were which I most needed to know. I had learned that the +book-knowledge I so much craved was not itself education, was not +even culture, but only a help, an adjunct to both. As I studied +more earnestly, I cared for fewer books, but those few made +themselves indispensable. It still seems to me that in the Lowell +mills, and in my log-cabin schoolhouse on the Western prairies, I +received the best part of my early education. + +The great advantage of a seminary course to me was that under my +broad-minded Principal I learned what education really is: the +penetrating deeper and rising higher into life, as well as making +continually wider explorations; the rounding of the whole human +being out of its nebulous elements into form, as planets and suns +are rounded, until they give out safe and steady light. This +makes the process an infinite one, not possible to be completed +at any school. + +Returning from the West immediately after my graduation, I was +for ten years or so a teacher of young girls in seminaries much +like my own Alma Mater. The best result to me of that experience +has been the friendship of my pupils,--a happiness which must +last as long as life itself. + +A book must end somewhere, and the natural boundary of this +narrative is drawn with my leaving New England for the West. I +was to outline the story of my youth for the young, though I +think many a one among them might tell a story far more +interesting than mine. The most beautiful lives seldom find their +way into print. Perhaps the most beautiful part of any life never +does. I should like to flatter myself so. + +I could not stay at the West. It was never really home to me +there, and my sojourn of six or seven years on the prairies only +deepened my love and longing for the dear old State of +Massachusetts. I came back in the summer of 1852, and the +unwritten remainder of my sketch is chiefly that of a teacher's +and writer's experience; regarding which latter I will add, for +the gratification of those who have desired them, a few personal +particulars. + +While a student and teacher at the West I was still writing, and +much that I wrote was published. A poem printed in "Sartain's +Magazine," sent there at the suggestion of the editor of the +"Lowell Offering" was the first for which I received +remuneration--five dollars. Several poems written for the +manuscript school journal at Monticello Seminary are in the +"Household" collection + of my verses, among them those entitled "Eureka," "Hand in Hand +with Angels," and " Psyche at School." These, and various others +written soon after, were printed in the "National Era," in return +for which a copy of the paper was sent me. Nothing further was +asked or expected. + +The little song "Hannah Binding Shoes"--written immediately after +my return from the West,--was a study from life--though not from +any one life--in my native town. It was brought into notice in a +peculiar way,--by my being accused of stealing it, by the editor +of the magazine to which I had sent it with a request for the +usual remuneration, if accepted. Accidentally or otherwise, this +editor lost my note and signature, and then denounced me by name +in a newspaper as a "literary thiefess;" having printed the +verses with a nom de plume in his magazine without my knowledge. +It was awkward to have to come to my own defense. But the curious +incident gave the song a wide circulation. + +I did not attempt writing for money until it became a necessity, +when my health failed at teaching, although I should long before +then have liked to spend my whole time with my pen, could I have +done so. But it was imperative that I should have an assured +income, however small; and every one who has tried it knows how +uncertain a support one's pen is, unless it has become very +famous indeed. My life as a teacher, however, I regard as part of +my best preparation for whatever I have since written. I do not +know but I should recommend five or ten years of teaching as the +most profitable apprenticeship for a young person who wished to +become an author. To be a good teacher implies self-discipline, +and a book written without something of that sort of personal +preparation cannot be a very valuable one. + +Success in writing may mean many different things. I do not know +that I have ever reached it, except in the sense of liking better +and better to write, and of finding expression easier. It is +something to have won the privilege of going on. Sympathy and +recognition are worth a great deal; the power to touch human +beings inwardly and nobly is worth far more. The hope of +attaining to such results, if only occasionally, must be a +writer's best inspiration. + +So far as successful publication goes, perhaps the first I +considered so came when a poem of mine was accepted by the +"Atlantic Monthly." Its title was "The Rose Enthroned," and as +the poet Lowell was at that time editing the magazine I felt +especially gratified. That and another poem, "The Loyal Woman's +No," written early in the War of the Rebellion, were each +attributed to a different person among our prominent poets, the +"Atlantic" at that time not giving authors' signatures. Of course +I knew the unlikeness; nevertheless, those who made the mistake +paid me an unintentional compliment. Compliments, however, are +very cheap, and by no means signify success. I have always +regarded it as a better ambition to be a true woman than to +become a successful writer. To be the second would never +have seemed to me desirable, without also being the first. + +In concluding, let me say to you, dear girls, for whom these +pages have been written, that if I have learned anything by +living, it is this,--that the meaning of life is education; not +through book-knowledge alone, sometimes entirely without it. +Education is growth, the development of our best possibilities +from within outward; and it cannot be carried on as it should be +except in a school, just such a school as we all find ourselves +in--this world of human beings by whom we are surrounded. The +beauty of belonging to this school is that we cannot learn +anything in it by ourselves alone, but for and with our +fellowpupils, the wide earth over. We can never expect promotion +here, except by taking our place among the lowest, and sharing +their difficulties until they are removed, and we all become +graduates together for a higher school. + +Humility, Sympathy, Helpfulness, and Faith are the best teachers +in this great university, and none of us are well educated who do +not accept their training. The real satisfaction of living is, +and must forever be, the education of all for each, and of each +for all. So let us all try together to be good and faithful +women, and not care too much for what the world may think of us +or of our abilities! + +My little story is not a remarkable one, for I have never +attempted remarkable things. In the words of one of our honored +elder writers, given in reply to a youthful aspirant who had +asked for some points of her "literary career,"--"I never had a +career." + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg Etext of A New England Girlhood, by Lucy Larcom + diff --git a/old/grlhd10.zip b/old/grlhd10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..2aa449d --- /dev/null +++ b/old/grlhd10.zip |