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A New England Girlhood, Outlined from Memory (Beverly, MA)
·
Lucy Larcom
115
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,
set
on
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.
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