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222
A New England Girlhood, Outlined from Memory (Beverly, MA)
·
Lucy Larcom
43
I
am
glad
that
I
have
always
remembered
that
day
of
family
consecration.
As
I
look
back,
it
seems
as
if
the
horizons
of
heaven
and
earth
met
and
were
blended
then.
And
who
can
tell
whether
the
fragrance
of
that
day's
atmosphere
may
not
enter
into
the
freshness
of
some
new
childhood
in
the
life
which
is
to
come?
III.
THE
HYMN-BOOK.
ALMOST
the
first
decided
taste
in
my
life
was
the
love
of
hymns.
Committing
them
to
memory
was
as
natural
to
me
as
breathing.
I
followed
my
mother
about
with
the
hymn-book
("Watts'
and
Select"),
reading
or
repeating
them
to
her,
while
she
was
busy
with
her
baking
or
ironing,
and
she
was
always
a
willing
listener.
She
was
fond
of
devotional
reading,
but
had
little
time
for
it,
and
it
pleased
her
to
know
that
so
small
a
child
as
I
really
cared
for
the
hymns
she
loved.
I
learned
most
of
them
at
meeting.
I
was
told
to
listen
to
the
minister;
but
as
I
did
not
understand
a
word
he
was
saying,
I
gave
it
up,
and
took
refuge
in
the
hymn-book,
with
the
conscientious
purpose
of
trying
to
sit
still.
I
turned
the
leaves
over
as
noiselessly
as
possible,
to
avoid
the
dreaded
reproof
of
my
mother's
keen
blue
eyes;
and
sometimes
I
learned
two
or
three
hymns
in
a
forenoon
or
an
afternoon.
Finding
it
so
easy,
I
thought
I
would
begin
at
the
beginning,
and
learn
the
whole.
There
were
about
a
thousand
of
them
included
in
the
Psalms,
the
First,
Second,
and
Third
Books,
and
the
Select
Hymns.
But
I
had
learned
to
read
before
I
had
any
knowledge
of
counting
up
numbers,
and
so
was
blissfully
ignorant
of
the
magnitude
of
my
undertaking.
I
did
not,
I
think,
change
my
resolution
because
there
were
so
many,
but
because,
little
as
I
was,
I
discovered
that
there
were
hymns
and
hymns.
Some
of
them
were
so
prosy
that
the
words
would
not
stay
in
my
memory
at
all,
so
I
concluded
that
I
would
learn
only
those
I
liked.
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