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222
A New England Girlhood, Outlined from Memory (Beverly, MA)
·
Lucy Larcom
37
A
little
later,
I
was
much
puzzled
as
to
whether
I
was
a
Jew
or
Gentile.
The
Bible
seemed
to
divide
people
into
these
two
classes
only.
The
Gentiles
were
not
well
spoken
of:
I
did
not
want
to
be
one
of
them.
The
talked
about
Abraham
and
Isaac
and
Jacob
and
the
rest,
away
back
to
Adam,
as
if
they
were
our
forefathers
(there
was
a
time
when
I
thought
that
Adam
and
Eve
and
Cain
and
Abel
were
our
four
fathers);
and
yet
I
was
very
sure
that
I
was
not
a
Jew.
When
I
ventured
to
ask,
I
was
told
that
we
were
all
Christians
or
heathen
now.
That
did
not
help
me
for
I
thought
that
only
grown-up
persons
could
be
Christians,
from
which
it
followed
that
all
children
must
be
heathen.
Must
I
think
of
Myself
as
a
heathen,
then,
until
I
should
be
old
enough
to
be
a
Christian?
It
was
a
shocking
conclusion,
but
I
could
see
no
other
answer
to
my
question,
and
I
felt
ashamed
to
ask
again.
My
self-invented
theory
about
the
human
race
was
that
Adam
and
Eve
were
very
tall
people,
taller
than
the
tallest
trees
in
the
Garden
of
Eden,
before
they
were
sent
out
of
it;
but
that
they
then
began
to
dwindle;
that
their
children
had
ever
since
been
getting
smaller
and
smaller,
and
that
by
and
by
the
inhabitants
of
the
world
would
be
no
bigger
than
babies.
I
was
afraid
I
should
stop
growing
while
I
was
a
child,
and
I
used
to
stand
on
the
footstool
in
the
pew,
and
try
to
stretch
myself
up
to
my
mother's
height,
to
imagine
how
it
would
seem
to
be
a
woman.
I
hoped
I
should
be
a
tall
one.
I
did
not
wish
to
be
a
diminishing
specimen
of
the
race;--an
anxiety
which
proved
to
be
entirely
groundless.
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