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A New England Girlhood, Outlined from Memory (Beverly, MA)
·
Lucy Larcom
59
As
I
left
the
shop,
I
was
conscious
of
a
certain
pleasure
in
the
success
of
my
attempt,
as
any
thief
might
be;
and
I
walked
off
very
fast,
clattering
the
coppers
in
the
tin
pail.
When
I
was
fairly
through
the
bars
that
led
into
the
farmer's
field,
and
nobody
was
in
sight,
I
took
out
my
purloined
pennies,
and
looked
at
them
as
they
lay
in
my
palm.
Then
a
strange
thing
happened.
It
was
a
bright
morning,
but
it
seemed
to
me
as
if
the
sky
grew
suddenly
dark;
and
those
two
pennies
began
to
burn
through
my
hand,
to
scorch
me,
as
if
they
were
red
hot,
to
my
very
soul.
It
was
agony
to
hold
them.
I
laid
them
down
under
a
tuft
of
grass
in
the
footpath,
and
ran
as
if
I
had
left
a
demon
behind
me.
I
did
my
errand,
and
returning,
I
looked
about
in
the
grass
for
the
two
cents,
wondering
whether
they
could
make
me
feel
so
badly
again.
But
my
good
angel
hid
them
from
me;
I
never
found
them.
I
was
too
much
of
a
coward
to
confess
my
fault
to
my
father;
I
had
already
begun
to
think
of
him
as
"an
austere
man,"
like
him
in
the
parable
of
the
talents.
I
should
have
been
a
much
happier
child
if
I
bad
confessed,
for
I
had
to
carry
about
with
me
for
weeks
and
months
a
heavy
burden
of
shame.
I
thought
of
myself
as
a
thief,
and
used
to
dream
of
being
carried
off
to
jail
and
condemned
to
the
gallows
for
my
offense:
one
of
my
story-books
told
about
a
boy
who
was
hanged
at
Tyburn
for
stealing,
and
how
was
I
better
than
he?
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