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222
A New England Girlhood, Outlined from Memory (Beverly, MA)
·
Lucy Larcom
32
One
of
our
greatest
school
pleasures
was
to
watch
Aunt
Hannah
spinning
on
her
flax-wheel,
wetting
her
thumb
and
forefinger
at
her
lips
to
twist
the
thread,
keeping
time,
meanwhile,
to
some
quaint
old
tune
with
her
foot
upon
the
treadle.
A
verse
of
one
of
her
hymns,
which
I
never
heard
anybody
else
sing,
resounds
in
the
farthest
corner
of
my
memory
yet:"--
"Whither
goest
thou,
pilgrim
stranger,
Wandering
through
this
lowly
vale?
Knowest
thou
not
't
is
full
of
danger?
And
will
not
thy
courage
fail?"
Then
a
little
pause,
and
the
refrain
of
the
answer
broke
in
with
a
change,
quick
and
jubilant,
the
treadle
moving
more
rapidly,
also:--
"No,
I'm
bound
for
the
kingdom!
Will
you
go
to
glory
with
me?
Hallelujah!
Praise
the
Lord!"
I
began
to
go
to
school
when
I
was
about
two
years
old,
as
other
children
about
us
did.
The
mothers
of
those
large
families
had
to
resort
to
some
means
of
keeping
their
little
ones
out
of
mischief,
while
they
attended
to
their
domestic
duties.
Not
much
more
than
that
sort
of
temporary
guardianship
was
expected
of
the
good
dame
who
had
us
in
charge.
But
I
learned
my
letters
in
a
few
days,
standing
at
Aunt
Hannah's
knee
while
she
pointed
them
out
in
the
spelling-book
with
a
pin,
skipping
over
the
"a
b
abs"
into
words
of
one
and
two
syllables,
thence
taking
a
flying
leap
into
the
New
Testament,
in
which
there
is
concurrent
family
testimony
that
I
was
reading
at
the
age
of
two
years
and
a
half.
Certain
it
is
that
a
few
passages
in
the
Bible,
whenever
I
read
them
now,
do
not
fail
to
bring
before
me
a
vision
of
Aunt
Hannah's
somewhat
sternly
smiling
lips,
with
her
spectacles
just
above
them,
far
down
on
her
nose,
encouraging
me
to
pronounce
the
hard
words.
I
think
she
tried
to
choose
for
me
the
least
difficult
verses,
or
perhaps
those
of
which
she
was
herself
especially
fond.
Those
which
I
distinctly
recall
are
the
Beatitudes,
the
Twenty-third
Psalm,
parts
of
the
first
and
fourteenth
chapters
of
the
Gospel
of
St.
John,
and
the
thirteenth
chapter
of
the
First
Epistle
to
the
Corinthians.
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