Lab
Library
Journal
Shop
Sign in
to keep
Share image
1
222
A New England Girlhood, Outlined from Memory (Beverly, MA)
·
Lucy Larcom
185
"I
am
glad
I
have
lived
in
the
world
with
you!"
XI.
READING
AND
STUDYING.
My
return
to
mill-work
involved
making
acquaintance
with
a
new
kind
of
machinery.
The
spinning-room
was
the
only
one
I
had
hitherto
known
anything
about.
Now
my
sister
Emilie
found
a
place
for
me
in
the
dressing-room,
beside
herself.
It
was
more
airy,
and
fewer
girls
were
in
the
room,
for
the
dressing-frame
itself
was
a
large,
clumsy
affair,
that
occupied
a
great
deal
of
space.
Mine
seemed
to
me
as
unmanageable
as
an
overgrown
spoilt
child.
It
had
to
be
watched
in
a
dozen
directions
every
minute,
and
even
then
it
was
always
getting
itself
and
me
into
trouble.
I
felt
as
if
the
half-live
creature,
with
its
great,
groaning
joints
and
whizzing
fan,
was
aware
of
my
incapacity
to
manage
it,
and
had
a
fiendish
spite
against
me.
I
contracted
an
unconquerable
dislike
to
it;
indeed,
I
had
never
liked,
and
never
could
learn
to
like,
any
kind
of
machinery.
And
this
machine
finally
conquered
me.
It
was
humiliating,
but
I
had
to
acknowledge
that
there
were
some
things
I
could
not
do,
and
I
retired
from
the
field,
vanquished.
The
two
things
I
had
enjoyed
in
this
room
were
that
my
sister
was
with
me,
and
that
our
windows
looked
toward
the
west.
When
the
work
was
running
smoothly,
we
looked
out
together
and
quoted
to
each
other
all
the
sunset-poetry
we
could
remember.
Our
tastes
did
not
quite
agree.
Her
favorite
description
of
the
clouds
was
from
Pollok:--
Marker
Marker
Fine marker
White-out
Fine white-out
Circle
Paint
Unmarker
Hand
Scalpel
Dice
Sieve
Purify
Undo
Redo
Start over
