A New England Girlhood, Outlined from Memory (Beverly, MA)

We were seldom permitted to play with any boys except our brothers. I drew the inference that our boys must be a great deal better than "the other boys." My brother John had some fine play-fellows, but he seemed to consider me in the way when they were his guests. Occasionally we would forget that the neighbor-boys were not girls, and would find ourselves all playing together in delightful unconsciousness; although possibly a thought, like that of the "Ettrick Shepherd," may now and then have flitted through the mind of some masculine juvenile:-- "Why the boys should drive away Little sweet maidens from the play, Or love to banter and fight so well,-- That Is the thing I never could tell." One day I thoughtlessly accepted an invitation to get through a gap in the garden-fence, to where the doctor's two boys were preparing to take an imaginary sleigh-ride in midsummer. The sleigh was stranded among tall weeds an cornstalks, but I was politely handed in by the elder boy, who sat down by my side and tucked his little brother in front at our feet, informing me that we were father and mother and little son, going to take a ride to Newburyport. He had found an old pair of reins and tied them to a saw-horse, that he switched and "Gee-up"-ed vigorously. The journey was as brief as delightful. I ran home feeling like the heroine of an elopement, asking myself meanwhile, "What would my brother John say if he knew I had been playing with boys?" He was very particular about his sisters' behavior. But I incautiously said to one sister in whom I did not usually confide, that I thought James was the nicest boy in the lane, and that I liked his little brother Charles, too. She laughed at me so unmercifully for making the remark, that I never dared look towards the gap in the fence again, beyond which I could hear the boys' voices around the old sleigh where they were playing, entirely forgetful of their former traveling companion. Still, I continued to think that my courteous cavalier, James, was the nicest boy in the lane.