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222
A New England Girlhood, Outlined from Memory (Beverly, MA)
·
Lucy Larcom
61
There
was
much
questioning
in
those
days
as
to
whether
fictitious
reading
was
good
for
children.
To
"tell
a
story"
was
one
equivalent
expression
for
lying.
But
those
who
came
nearest
to
my
child-life
recognized
the
value
of
truth
as
impressed
through
the
imagination,
and
left
me
in
delightful
freedom
among
my
fairy-tale
books.
I
think
I
saw
a
difference,
from
the
first,
between
the
old
poetic
legends
and
a
modern
lie,
especially
if
this
latter
was
the
invention
of
a
fancy
as
youthful
as
my
own.
I
supposed
that
the
beings
of
those
imaginative
tales
had
lived
some
time,
somewhere;
perhaps
they
still
existed
in
foreign
countries,
which
were
all
a
realm
of
fancy
to
me.
I
was
certain
that
they
could
not
inhabit
our
matter-of-fact
neighborhood.
I
had
never
heard
that
any
fairies
or
elves
came
over
with
the
Pilgrims
in
the
Mayflower.
But
a
little
red-haired
playmate
with
whom
I
became
intimate
used
to
take
me
off
with
her
into
the
fields,
where,
sitting,
on
the
edge
of
a
disused
cartway
fringed
with
pussy-clover,
she
poured
into
my
ears
the
most
remarkable
narratives
of
acquaintances
she
had
made
with
people
who
lived
under
the
ground
close
by
us,
in
my
father's
orchard.
Her
literal
descriptions
quite
deceived
me;
I
swallowed
her
stories
entire,
just
as
people
in
the
last
century
did
Defoe's
account
of
"The
Apparition
of
Mrs.
Veal."
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