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222
A New England Girlhood, Outlined from Memory (Beverly, MA)
·
Lucy Larcom
40
The
third
figure
in
sight
was
the
minister.
I
did
not
think
he
ever
saw
me;
he
was
talking
to
the
older
people,--usually
telling
them
how
wicked
they
were.
He
often
said
to
them
that
there
was
not
one
good
person
among
them;
but
I
supposed
he
excepted
himself.
He
seemed
to
me
so
very
good
that
I
was
very
much
afraid
of
him.
I
was
a
little
afraid
of
my
father,
but
then
he
sometimes
played
with
us
children:
and
besides,
my
father
was
only
a
man.
I
thought
the
minister
belonged
to
some
different
order
of
beings.
Up
there
in
the
pulpit
he
seemed
to
me
so
far
off--oh!
a
great
deal
farther
off
than
God
did.
His
distance
made
my
reverence
for
him
take
the
form
of
idolatry.
The
pulpit
was
his
pedestal.
If
any
one
had
told
me
that
the
minister
ever
did
or
thought
anything
that
was
wrong,
I
should
have
felt
as
if
the
foundations
of
the
earth
under
me
were
shaken.
I
wondered
if
he
ever
did
laugh.
Perhaps
it
was
wicked
for
a
minister
even
to
smile.
One
day,
when
I
was
very
little,
I
met
the
minister
in
the
street;
and
he,
probably
recognizing
me
as
the
child
of
one
of
his
parishioners,
actually
bowed
to
me!
His
bows
were
always
ministerially
profound,
and
I
was
so
overwhelmed
with
surprise
and
awe
that
I
forgot
to
make
the
proper
response
of
a
"curtsey,"
but
ran
home
as
fast
as
I
could
go
to
proclaim
the
wonder.
It
would
not
have
astonished
me
any
more,
if
one
of
the
tall
Lombardy
poplars
that
stood
along
the
sidewalk
had
laid
itself
down
at
my
feet.
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