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222
A New England Girlhood, Outlined from Memory (Beverly, MA)
·
Lucy Larcom
152
IX.
MOUNTAIN-FRIENDS.
THE
pleasure
we
found
in
making
new
acquaintances
among
our
workmates
arose
partly
from
their
having
come
from
great
distances,
regions
unknown
to
us,
as
the
northern
districts
of
Maine
and
New
Hampshire
and
Vermont
were,
in
those
days
of
stage-coach
traveling,
when
rail-roads
had
as
yet
only
connected
the
larger
cities
with
one
another.
It
seemed
wonderful
to
me
to
be
talking
with
anybody
who
had
really
seen
mountains
and
lived
among
them.
One
of
the
younger
girls,
who
worked
beside
me
during
my
very
first
days
in
the
mill,
had
come
from
far
up
near
the
sources
of
the
Merrimack,
and
she
told
me
a
great
deal
about
her
home,
and
about
farm-life
among
the
hills.
I
listened
almost
with
awe
when
she
said
that
she
lived
in
a
valley
where
the
sun
set
at
four
o'clock,
and
where
the
great
snowstorms
drifted
in
so
that
sometimes
they
did
not
see
a
neighbor
for
weeks.
To
have
mountain-summits
looking
down
upon
one
out
of
the
clouds,
summer
and
winter,
by
day
and
by
night,
seemed
to
me
something
both
delightful
and
terrible.
And
yet
here
was
this
girl
to
whom
it
all
appeared
like
the
merest
commonplace.
What
she
felt
about
it
was
that
it
was
"awful
cold,
sometimes;
the
days
were
so
short!
and
it
grew
dark
so
early!"
Then
she
told
me
about
the
spinning,
and
the
husking,
and
the
sugar-making,
while
we
sat
in
a
corner
together,
waiting
to
replace
the
full
spools
by
empty
ones,--the
work
usually
given
to
the
little
girls.
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