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A New England Girlhood, Outlined from Memory (Beverly, MA)
·
Lucy Larcom
201
This
thought
flashed
by
like
a
ray
of
light
That
brightened
my
homely
labor:--
The
water
is
making
my
own
hands
white
While
I
wash
the
robes
of
my
neighbor.
And
how
delighted
we
were
with
Mrs.
Kirkland's
"A
New
Home:
Who'll
Follow?"
the
first
real
Western
book
I
ever
read.
Its
genuine
pioneer-flavor
was
delicious.
And,
moreover,
it
was
a
prophecy
to
Sarah,
Emilie,
and
myself,
who
were
one
day
thankful
enough
to
find
an
"Aunty
Parshall's
dish-kettle"
in
a
cabin
on
an
Illinois
prairie.
So
the
pleasantly
occupied
years
slipped
on,
I
still
nursing
my
purpose
of
a
more
systematic
course
of
study,
though
I
saw
no
near
possibility
of
its
fulfillment.
It
came
in
an
unexpected
way,
as
almost
everything
worth
having
does
come.
I
could
never
have
dreamed
that
I
was
going
to
meet
my
opportunity
nearly
or
quite
a
thousand
miles
away,
on
the
banks
of
the
Mississippi.
And
yet,
with
that
strange,
delightful
consciousness
of
growth
into
a
comprehension
of
one's
self
and
of
one's
life
that
most
young
persons
must
occasionally
have
experienced,
I
often
vaguely
felt
heavens
opening
for
my
half-fledged
wings
to
try
themselves
in.
Things
about
me
were
good
and
enjoyable,
but
I
could
not
quite
rest
in
them;
there
was
more
for
me
to
be,
to
know,
and
to
do.
I
felt
almost
surer
of
the
future
than
of
the
present.
If
the
dream
of
the
millennium
which
brightened
the
somewhat
sombre
close
of
the
first
ten
years
of
my
life
had
faded
a
little,
out
of
the
very
roughnesses
of
the
intervening
road
light
had
been
kindled
which
made
the
end
of
the
second
ten
years
glow
with
enthusiastic
hope.
I
had
early
been
saved
from
a
great
mistake;
for
it
is
the
greatest
of
mistakes
to
begin
life
with
the
expectation
that
it
is
going
to
be
easy,
or
with
the
wish
to
have
it
so.
What
a
world
it
would
be,
if
there
were
no
hills
to
climb!
Our
powers
were
given
us
that
we
might
conquer
obstacles,
and
clear
obstructions
from
the
overgrown
human
path,
and
grow
strong
by
striving,
led
onward
always
by
an
Invisible
Guide.
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