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222
A New England Girlhood, Outlined from Memory (Beverly, MA)
·
Lucy Larcom
21
The
blue
gill-over-the-ground
unmistakably
belonged
to
her,
for
it
carpeted
an
unused
triangular
corner
of
her
garden
inclosed
by
a
leaning
fence
gray
and
gold
with
sea-side
lichens.
Its
blue
was
beautiful,
but
its
pungent
earthy
odor--I
can
smell
it
now--repelled
us
from
the
damp
corner
where
it
grew.
It
made
us
think
of
graves
and
ghosts;
and
I
think
we
were
forbidden
to
go
there.
We
much
preferred
to
sit
on
the
sunken
curbstones,
in
the
shade
of
the
broad-leaved
burdocks,
and
shape
their
spiny
balls
into
chairs
and
cradles
and
sofas
for
our
dollies,
or
to
"play
school"
on
the
doorsteps,
or
to
climb
over
the
wall,
and
to
feel
the
freedom
of
the
hill.
We
were
a
neighborhood
of
large
families,
and
most
of
us
enjoyed
the
privilege
of
"a
little
wholesome
neglect."
Our
tether
was
a
long
one,
and
when,
grown
a
little
older,
we
occasionally
asked
to
have
it
lengthened,
a
maternal
"I
don't
care"
amounted
to
almost
unlimited
liberty.
The
hill
itself
was
well-nigh
boundless
in
its
capacities
for
juvenile
occupation.
Besides
its
miniature
precipices,
that
walled
in
some
of
the
neighbors'
gardens,
and
its
slanting
slides,
worn
smooth
by
the
feet
of
many
childish
generations,
there
were
partly
quarried
ledges,
which
had
shaped
themselves
into
rock-stairs,
carpeted
with
lovely
mosses,
in
various
patterns.
These
were
the
winding
ways
up
our
castle-towers,
with
breakfast-rooms
and
boudoirs
along
the
landings,
where
we
set
our
tables
for
expected
guests
with
bits
of
broken
china,
and
left
our
numerous
rag-children
tucked
in
asleep
under
mullein
blankets
or
plantain-coverlets,
while
we
ascended
to
the
topmost
turret
to
watch
for
our
ships
coming
in
from
sea.
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