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222
A New England Girlhood, Outlined from Memory (Beverly, MA)
·
Lucy Larcom
110
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.
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