Lab
Library
Journal
Shop
Sign in
to keep
Share image
1
222
A New England Girlhood, Outlined from Memory (Beverly, MA)
·
Lucy Larcom
117
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.
Marker
Marker
Fine marker
White-out
Fine white-out
Circle
Paint
Unmarker
Hand
Scalpel
Dice
Sieve
Purify
Undo
Redo
Start over
