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A New England Girlhood, Outlined from Memory (Beverly, MA)
·
Lucy Larcom
4
We
are
all
willing
to
gossip
about
ourselves,
sometimes,
with
those
who
are
really
interested
in
us.
Girls
especially
are
fond
of
exchanging
confidences
with
those
whom
they
think
they
can
trust;
it
is
one
of
the
most
charming
traits
of
a
simple,
earnest-hearted
girlhood,
and
they
are
the
happiest
women
who
never
lose
it
entirely.
I
should
like
far
better
to
listen
to
my
girl-readers'
thoughts
about
life
and
themselves
than
to
be
writing
out
my
own
experiences.
It
is
to
my
disadvantage
that
the
confidences,
in
this
case,
must
all
be
on
one
side.
But
I
have
known
so
many
girls
so
well
in
my
relation
to
them
of
schoolmate,
workmate,
and
teacher,
I
feel
sure
of
a
fair
share
of
their
sympathy
and
attention.
It
is
hardly
possible
for
an
author
to
write
anything
sincerely
without
making
it
something
of
an
autobiography.
Friends
can
always
read
a
personal
history,
or
guess
at
it,
between
the
lines.
So
I
sometimes
think
I
have
already
written
mine,
in
my
verses.
In
them,
I
have
found
the
most
natural
and
free
expression
of
myself.
They
have
seemed
to
set
my
life
to
music
for
me,
a
life
that
has
always
had
to
be
occupied
with
many
things
besides
writing.
Not,
however,
that
I
claim
to
have
written
much
poetry:
only
perhaps
some
true
rhymes:
I
do
not
see
how
there
could
be
any
pleasure
in
writing
insincere
ones.
Whatever
special
interest
this
little
narrative
of
mine
may
have
is
due
to
the
social
influences
under
which
I
was
reared,
and
particularly
to
the
prominent
place
held
by
both
work
and
religion
in
New
England
half
a
century
ago.
The
period
of
my
growing-up
had
peculiarities
which
our
future
history
can
never
repeat,
although
something
far
better
is
undoubtedly
already
resulting
thence.
Those
peculiarities
were
the
natural
development
of
the
seed
sown
by
our
sturdy
Puritan
ancestry.
The
religion
of
our
fathers
overhung
us
children
like
the
shadow
of
a
mighty
tree
against
the
trunk
of
which
we
rested,
while
we
looked
up
in
wonder
through
the
great
boughs
that
half
hid
and
half
revealed
the
sky.
Some
of
the
boughs
were
already
decaying,
so
that
perhaps
we
began
to
see
a
little
more
of
the
sky,
than
our
elders;
but
the
tree
was
sound
at
its
heart.
There
was
life
in
it
that
can
never
be
lost
to
the
world.
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