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222
A New England Girlhood, Outlined from Memory (Beverly, MA)
·
Lucy Larcom
183
That
they
should
write
was
no
more
strange
than
that
they
should
study,
or
read,
or
think.
And
yet
there
were
those
to
whom
it
seemed
incredible
that
a
girl
could,
in
the
pauses
of
her
work,
put
together
words
with
her
pen
that
it
would
do
to
print;
and
after
a
while
the
assertion
was
circulated,
through
some
distant
newspaper,
that
our
magazine
was
not
written
by
ourselves
at
all,
but
by
"Lowell
lawyers."
This
seemed
almost
too
foolish
a
suggestion
to
contradict,
but
the
editor
of
the
"Offering"
thought
it
best
to
give
the
name
and
occupation
of
some
of
the
writers
by
way
of
refutation.
It
was
for
this
reason
(much
against
my
own
wish)
that
my
real
name
was
first
attached
to
anything
I
wrote.
I
was
then
book-keeper
in
the
cloth-room
of
the
Lawrence
Mills.
We
had
all
used
any
fanciful
signature
we
chose,
varying
it
as
we
pleased.
After
I
began
to
read
and
love
Wordsworth,
my
favorite
nom
de
plume
was
"Rotha."
In
the
later
numbers
of
the
magazine,
the
editor
more
frequently
made
us
of
my
initials.
One
day
I
was
surprised
by
seeing
my
name
in
full
in
Griswold's
"Female
Poet's;"--no
great
distinction,
however,
since
there
were
a
hundred
names
or
so,
besides.
It
seemed
necessary
to
give
these
gossip
items
about
myself;
but
the
real
interest
of
every
separate
life-story
is
involved
in
the
larger
life-history
which
is
going
on
around
it.
We
do
not
know
ourselves
without
our
companions
and
surroundings.
I
cannot
narrate
my
workmates'
separate
experiences,
but
I
know
that
because
of
having
lived
among
them,
and
because
of
having
felt
the
beauty
and
power
of
their
lives,
I
am
different
from
what
I
should
otherwise
have
been,
and
it
is
my
own
fault
if
I
am
not
better
for
my
life
with
them.
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