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A New England Girlhood, Outlined from Memory (Beverly, MA)
·
Lucy Larcom
83
I
read
the
"Scottish
Chiefs"--my
first
novel
when
I
was
about
five
years
old.
So
absorbed
was
I
in
the
sorrows
of
Lady
Helen
Mar
and
Sir
William
Wallace,
that
I
crept
into
a
corner
where
nobody
would
notice
me,
and
read
on
through
sunset
into
moonlight,
with
eyes
blurred
with
tears.
I
did
not
feel
that
I
was
doing
anything
wrong,
for
I
had
heard
my
father
say
he
was
willing
his
daughters
should
read
that
one
novel.
He
probably
did
not
intend
the
remark
for
the
ears
of
his
youngest,
however.
My
appetite
for
reading
was
omnivorous,
and
I
devoured
a
great
many
romances.
My
sisters
took
them
from
a
circulating
library,
many
more,
perhaps,
than
came
to
my
parents'
knowledge;
but
it
was
not
often
that
one
escaped
me,
wherever
it
was
hidden.
I
did
not
understand
what
I
was
reading,
to
be
sure;
and
that
was
one
of
the
best
and
worst
things
about
it.
The
sentimentalism
of
some
of
those
romances
was
altogether
unchildlike;
but
I
did
not
take
much
of
it
in.
It
was
the
habit
of
running
over
pages
and
pages
to
get
to
the
end
of
a
story,
the
habit
of
reading
without
caring
what
I
read,
that
I
know
to
have
been
bad
for
my
mind.
To
use
a
nautical
expression,
my
brain
was
in
danger
of
getting
"water-logged."
There
are
so
many
more
books
of
fiction
written
nowadays,
I
do
not
see
how
the
young
people
who
try
to
read
one
tenth
of
them
have
any
brains
left
for
every-day
use.
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