第45章 MOUNTAIN-FRIENDS(1)

THE pleasure we found in making new acquaintances among our workmates arose partly from their having come from great distances,regions unknown to us,as the northern districts of Maine and New Hampshire and Vermont were,in those days of stage-coach traveling,when rail-roads had as yet only connected the larger cities with one another.

It seemed wonderful to me to be talking with anybody who had really seen mountains and lived among them.One of the younger girls,who worked beside me during my very first days in the mill,had come from far up near the sources of the Merrimack,and she told me a great deal about her home,and about farm-life among the hills.I listened almost with awe when she said that she lived in a valley where the sun set at four o'clock,and where the great snowstorms drifted in so that sometimes they did not see a neighbor for weeks.

To have mountain-summits looking down upon one out of the clouds,summer and winter,by day and by night,seemed to me something both delightful and terrible.And yet here was this girl to whom it all appeared like the merest commonplace.What she felt about it was that it was "awful cold,sometimes;the days were so short!and it grew dark so early!"Then she told me about the spinning,and the husking,and the sugar-making,while we sat in a corner together,waiting to replace the full spools by empty ones,--the work usually given to the little girls.

I had a great admiration for this girl,because she had come from those wilderness-regions.The scent of pine-woods and checker-berry-leaves seemed to bang about her.I believe I liked her all the better because she said "daown"and "haow."It was part of the mountain-flavor.

I tried,on my part,to impress her with stories of the sea;but I did not succeed very well.Her principal comment was,"They don't think much of sailors up aour way."And I received the impression,from her and others,and from my own imagination,that rural life was far more delightful than the life of towns.

But there is something in the place where we were born that holds us always by the heartstrings.A town that still has a great deal of the country in it,one that is rich in beautiful scenery and ancestral associations,is almost like a living being,with a body and a soul.We speak of such a town,if our birthplace,as of a mother,and think of ourselves as her sons and daughters.

So we felt,my sisters and I,about our dear native town of Beverly.Its miles of sea-border,almost every sunny cove and rocky headland of which was a part of some near relative's homestead,were only half a day's journey distant;and the misty ocean-spaces beyond still widened out on our imagination from the green inland landscape around us.But the hills sometimes shut us in,body and soul.To those who have been reared by the sea a wide horizon is a necessity,both for the mind and for the eye.

We had many opportunities of escape towards our native shores,for the larger part of our large family still remained there,and there was a constant coming and going among us.The stagedriver looked upon us as his especial charge,and we had a sense of personal property in the Salem and Lowell stagecoach,which had once,like a fairy-godmother's coach,rumbled down into our own little lane,taken possession of us,and carried us off to a new home.

My married sisters had families growing up about them,and they liked to have us younger ones come and help take care of their babies.One of them sent for me just when the close air and long days'work were beginning to tell upon my health,and it was decided that I had better go.The salt wind soon restored my strength,and those months of quiet family life were very good for me.

Like most young girls,I had a motherly fondness for little children,and my two baby-nephews were my pride and delight.The older one had a delicate constitution,and there was a thoughtful,questioning look in his eyes,that seemed to gaze forward almost sadly,and foresee that be should never attain to manhood.The younger,a plump,vigorous urchin,three or four months old,did,without doubt,"feel his life in every limb."He was my especial charge,for his brother's clinging weakness gave him,the first-born,the place nearest his mother's heart.The baby bore the family name,mine and his mother's;"our little Lark,"we sometimes called him,for his wide-awakeness and his merry-heartedness.(Alas!neither of those beautiful boys grew up to be men!One page of my home-memories is sadly written over with their elegy,the "Graves of a Household."Father,mother,and four sons,an entire family,long since passed away from earthly sight.)The tie between my lovely baby-nephew and myself became very close.The first two years of a child's life are its most appealing years,and call out all the latent tenderness of the nature on which it leans for protection.I think I should have missed one of the best educating influences of my youth,if I had not had the care of that baby for a year or more just as Ientered my teens.I was never so happy as when I held him in my arms,sleeping or waking;and he,happy anywhere,was always contented when he was with me.