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222
A New England Girlhood, Outlined from Memory (Beverly, MA)
·
Lucy Larcom
12
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?"
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