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222
A New England Girlhood, Outlined from Memory (Beverly, MA)
·
Lucy Larcom
27
II.
SCHOOLROOM
AND
MEETING-HOUSE.
THERE
were
only
two
or
three
houses
between
ours
and
the
main
street,
and
then
our
lane
came
out
directly
opposite
the
finest
house
in
town,
a
three-story
edifice
of
brick,
painted
white,
the
"Colonel's"
residence.
There
was
a
spacious
garden
behind
it,
from
which
we
caught
glimpses
and
perfumes
of
unknown
flowers.
Over
its
high
walls
hung
boughs
of
splendid
great
yellow
sweet
apples,
which,
when
they
fell
on
the
outside,
we
children
considered
as
our
perquisites.
When
I
first
read
about
the
apples
of
the
Hesperides,
my
idea
of
them
was
that
they
were
like
the
Colonel's
"pumpkin-sweetings."
Beyond
the
garden
were
wide
green
fields
which
reached
eastward
down
to
the
beach.
It
was
one
of
those
large
old
estates
which
used
to
give
to
the
very
heart
of
our
New
England
coast
towns
a
delightful
breeziness
and
roominess.
A
coach-and-pair
was
one
of
the
appurtenances
of
this
estate,
with
a
coachman
on
the
box;
and
when
he
took
the
family
out
for
an
airing
we
small
children
thought
it
was
a
sort
of
Cinderella
spectacle,
prepared
expressly
for
us.
It
was
not,
however,
quite
so
interesting
as
the
Boston
stage-coach,
that
rolled
regularly
every
day
past
the
head
of
our
lane
into
and
out
of
its
headquarters,
a
big,
unpainted
stable
close
at
hand.
This
stage-coach,
in
our
minds,
meant
the
city,--twenty
miles
off;
an
immeasurable
distance
to
us
then.
Even
our
elders
did
not
go
there
very
often.
In
those
early
days,
towns
used
to
give
each
other
nicknames,
like
schoolboys.
Ours
was
called
"Bean-town"
not
because
it
was
especially
devoted
to
the
cultivation
of
this
leguminous
edible,
but
probably
because
it
adhered
a
long
time
to
the
Puritanic
custom
of
saving
Sunday-work
by
baking
beans
on
Saturday
evening,
leaving
them
in
the
oven
over
night.
After
a
while,
as
families
left
off
heating
their
ovens,
the
bean-pots
were
taken
by
the
village
baker
on
Saturday
afternoon,
who
returned
them
to
each
house
early
on
Sunday
morning
with
the
pan
of
brown
bread
that
went
with
them.
The
jingling
of
the
baker's
bells
made
the
matter
a
public
one.
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