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222
A New England Girlhood, Outlined from Memory (Beverly, MA)
·
Lucy Larcom
70
And
the
dry
land,
the
very
dust
of
the
earth,
every
day
revealed
to
me
some
new
miracle
of
a
flower.
Coming
home
from
school
one
warm
noon,
I
chanced
to
look
down,
and
saw
for
the
first
time
the
dry
roadside
all
starred
with
lavender-tinted
flowers,
scarcely
larger
than
a
pin-head;
fairy-flowers,
indeed;
prettier
than
anything
that
grew
in
gardens.
It
was
the
red
sand-wort;
but
why
a
purple
flower
should
be
called
red,
I
do
not
know.
I
remember
holding
these
little
amethystine
blossoms
like
jewels
in
the
palm
of
my
hand,
and
wondering
whether
people
who
walked
along
that
road
knew
what
beautiful
things
they
were
treading
upon.
I
never
found
the
flower
open
except
at
noonday,
when
the
sun
was
hottest.
The
rest
of
the
time
it
was
nothing
but
an
insignificant,
dusty-leaved
weed,--a
weed
that
was
transformed
into
a
flower
only
for
an
hour
or
two
every
day.
It
seemed
like
magic.
The
busy
people
at
home
could
tell
me
very
little
about
the
wild
flowers,
and
when
I
found
a
new
one
I
thought
I
was
its
discoverer.
I
can
see
myself
now
leaning
in
ecstasy
over
a
small,
rough-leaved
purple
aster
in
a
lonely
spot
on
the
hill,
and
thinking
that
nobody
else
in
all
the
world
had
ever
beheld
such
a
flower
before,
because
I
never
had.
I
did
not
know
then,
that
the
flower-generations
are
older
than
the
human
race.
The
commonest
blossoms
were,
after
all,
the
dearest,
because
they
were
so
familiar.
Very
few
of
us
lived
upon
carpeted
floors,
but
soft
green
grass
stretched
away
from
our
door-steps,
all
golden
with
dandelions
in
spring.
Those
dandelion
fields
were
like
another
heaven
dropped
down
upon
the
earth,
where
our
feet
wandered
at
will
among
the
stars.
What
need
had
we
of
luxurious
upholstery,
when
we
could
step
out
into
such
splendor,
from
the
humblest
door?
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