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222
A New England Girlhood, Outlined from Memory (Beverly, MA)
·
Lucy Larcom
101
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
inexhaustible
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.
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