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222
A New England Girlhood, Outlined from Memory (Beverly, MA)
·
Lucy Larcom
85
It
was
fortunate
for
me
that
I
liked
to
be
out
of
doors
a
great
deal,
and
that
I
had
a
brother,
John,
who
was
willing
to
have
me
for
an
occasional
companion.
Sometimes
he
would
take
me
with
him
when
he
went
huckleberrying,
up
the
rural
Montserrat
Road,
through
Cat
Swamp,
to
the
edge
of
Burnt
Hills
and
Beaver
Pond.
He
had
a
boy's
pride
in
explaining
these
localities
to
me,
making
me
understand
that
I
had
a
guide
who
was
familiar
with
every
inch
of
the
way.
Then,
charging
me
not
to
move
until
he
came
back,
he
would
leave
me
sitting
alone
on
a
great
craggy
rock,
while
he
went
off
and
filled
his
basket
out
of
sight
among
the
bushes.
Indeed,
I
did
not
want
to
move,
it
was
all
so
new
and
fascinating.
The
tall
pine-trees
whispering
to
each
other
across
the
sky-openings
above
me,
the
graceful
ferns,
the
velvet
mosses
dotted
with
scarlet
fairy-cups,
as
if
the
elves
had
just
spread
their
table
for
tea,
the
unspeakable
charm
of
the
spice-breathing
air,
all
wove
a
web
of
enchantment
about
me,
from
which
I
had
no
wish
to
disentangle
myself.
The
silent
spell
of
the
woods
held
me
with
a
power
stronger
even
than
that
of
the
solemn-voiced
sea.
Sometimes
this
same
brother
would
get
permission
to
take
me
on
a
longer
excursion,--to
visit
the
old
homestead
at
"The
Farms."
Three
or
four
miles
was
not
thought
too
long
a
walk
for
a
healthy
child
of
five
years;
and
that
road,
in
the
old
time,
led
through
a
rural
Paradise,
beautiful
at
every
season,--whether
it
were
the
time
of
song-sparrows
and
violets,
of
wild
roses,
of
coral-hung
barberry-bushes,
or
of
fallen
leaves
and
snow-drifts.
The
wildness
of
the
road,
now
exchanged
for
elegant
modern
cultivation,
was
its
great
charm
to
us.
We
stopped
at
the
Cove
Brook
to
hear
the
cat-birds
sing,
and
at
Mingo's
Beach
to
revel
in
the
sudden
surprise
of
the
open
sea,
and
to
listen
to
the
chant
of
the
waves,
always
stronger
and
grander
there
than
anywhere
along
the
shore.
We
passed
under
dark
wooded
cliffs
out
into
sunny
openings,
the
last
of
which
held
under
its
skirting
pines
the
secret
of
the
prettiest
woodpath
to
us
in
all
the
world,
the
path
to
the
ancestral
farmhouse.
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