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A New England Girlhood, Outlined from Memory (Beverly, MA)
·
Lucy Larcom
134
Now,
too,
my
childish
desire
to
see
a
real
beggar
was
gratified.
Straggling
petitioners
for
"cold
victuals"
hung
around
our
back
yard,
always
of
Hibernian
extraction;
and
a
slice
of
bread
was
rewarded
with
a
shower
of
benedictions
that
lost
itself
upon
us
in
the
flood
of
its
own
incomprehensible
brogue.
Some
time
every
summer
a
fleet
of
canoes
would
glide
noiselessly
up
the
river,
and
a
company
of
Penobscot
Indians
would
land
at
a
green
point
almost
in
sight
from
our
windows.
Pawtucket
Falls
had
always
been
one
of
their
favorite
camping-places.
Their
strange
endeavors,
to
combine
civilization
with
savagery
were
a
great
source
of
amusement
to
us;
men
and
women
clad
alike
in
loose
gowns,
stove-pipe
hats,
and
moccasons;
grotesque
relies
of
aboriginal
forest-life.
The
sight
of
these
uncouth-looking
red
men
made
the
romance
fade
entirely
out
of
the
Indian
stories
we
had
heard.
Still
their
wigwam
camp
was
a
show
we
would
not
willingly
have
missed.
The
transition
from
childhood
to
girlhood,
when
a
little
girl
has
had
an
almost
unlimited
freedom
of
out-of-door
life,
is
practically
the
toning
down
of
a
mild
sort
of
barbarianism,
and
is
often
attended
by
a
painfully
awkward
self-consciousness.
I
had
an
innate
dislike
of
conventionalities.
I
clung
to
the
child's
inalienable
privilege
of
running
half
wild;
and
when
I
found
that
I
really
was
growing
up,
I
felt
quite
rebellious.
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