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A New England Girlhood, Outlined from Memory (Beverly, MA)
·
Lucy Larcom
188
There
were
only
half
a
dozen
girls
of
us,
who
measured
the
cloth,
and
kept
an
account
of
the
pieces
baled,
and
their
length
in
yards.
It
pleased
me
much
to
have
something
to
do
which
required
the
use
of
pen
and
ink,
and
I
think
there
must
be
a
good
many
scraps
of
verse
buried
among
the
blank
pages
of
those
old
account-books
of
that
found
their
way
there
during
the
frequent
half-hours
of
waiting
for
the
cloth
to
be
brought
in
from
the
mills.
The
only
machinery
in
the
room
was
a
hydraulic
arrangement
for
pressing
the
cloth
into
bales,
managed
by
two
or
three
men,
one
of
whom
was
quite
a
poet,
and
a
fine
singer
also.
His
hymns
were
frequently
in
request,
on
public
occasions.
He
lent
me
the
first
volume
of
Whittier's
poems
that
I
ever
saw.
It
was
a
small
book,
containing
mostly
Antislavery
pieces.
"The
Yankee
Girl"
was
one
of
them,
fully
to
appreciate
the
spirit
of
which,
it
is
necessary
to
have
been
a
working-girl
in
slave-labor
times.
New
England
Womanhood
crowned
Whittier
as
her
laureate
from
the
day
of
his
heroine's
spirited
response
to
the
slaveholder:--
"O,
could
ye
have
seen
her--that
pride
of
our
girls--
Arise
and
cast
back
the
dark
wealth
of
her
curls,
With
a
scorn
in
her
eye
that
the
gazer
could
feel,
And
a
glance
like
the
sunshine
that
flashes
on
steel!
Go
back,
haughty
Southron!
Go
back!
for
thy
gold
Is
red
with
the
blood
of
the
hearts
thou
hast
sold!"
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