I was as tall as a woman at thirteen,and my older sisters insisted upon lengthening my dresses,and putting up my mop of hair with a comb.I felt injured and almost outraged because my protestations against this treatment were unheeded and when the transformation in my visible appearance was effected,I went away by myself and had a good cry,which I would not for the world have had them know about,as that would have added humiliation to my distress.And the greatest pity about it was that I too soon became accustomed to the situation.I felt like a child,but considered it my duty to think and behave like a woman.I began to look upon it as a very serious thing to live.The untried burden seemed already to have touched my shoulders.For a time Iwas morbidly self-critical,and at the same time extremely reserved.The associates I chose were usually grave young women,ten or fifteen years older than myself;but I think I felt older and appeared older than they did.
Childhood,however,is not easily defrauded of its birthright,and mine soon reasserted itself.At home I was among children of my own age,for some cousins and other acquaintances had come to live and work with us.We had our evening frolics and entertain-ments together,and we always made the most of our brief holiday hours.We had also with us now the sister Emilie of my fairy-tale memories,who had grown into a strong,earnest-hearted woman.We all looked up to her as our model,and the ideal of our heroine-worship;for our deference to her in every way did amount to that.
She watched over us,gave us needed reproof and commendation,rarely cosseted us,but rather made us laugh at what many would have considered the hardships of our lot.She taught us not only to accept the circumstances in which we found ourselves,but to win from them courage and strength.When we came in shivering from our work,through a snowstorm,complaining of numb hands and feet,she would say cheerily,"But it doesn't make you any warmer to say you are cold;"and this was typical of the way she took life generally,and tried to have us take it.She was constantly denying herself for our sakes,without making us feel that she was doing so.But she did not let us get into the bad habit of pitying ourselves because we were not as "well off"as many other children.And indeed we considered ourselves pleasantly situated;but the best of it all was that we had her.
Her theories for herself,and her practice,too,were rather severe;but we tried to follow them,according to our weaker abilities.Her custom was,for instance,to take a full cold bath every morning before she went to her work,even though the water was chiefly broken ice;and we did the same whenever we could be resolute enough.It required both nerve and will to do this at five o'clock on a zero morning,in a room without a fire;but it helped us to harden ourselves,while we formed a good habit.The working-day in winter began at the very earliest daylight,and ended at half-past seven in the evening.
Another habit of hers was to keep always beside her at her daily work something to study or to think about.At first it was "Watts on the Improvement of the Mind,"arranged as a textbook,with questions and answers,by the minister of Beverly who had made the thought of the millennium such a reality to his people.She quite wore this book out,carrying it about with her in her working-dress pocket.After that,"Locke on the Understanding"was used in the same way.She must have known both books through and through by heart.Then she read Combe and Abercrombie,and discussed their physics and metaphysics with our girl boarders,some of whom had remarkably acute and well-balanced minds.Her own seemed to have turned from its early bent toward the romantic,her taste being now for serious and practical,though sometimes abstruse,themes.I remember that Young and Pollock were her favorite poets.
I could not keep up with her in her studies and readings,for many of the books she liked seemed to me very dry.I did not easily take to the argumentative or moralizing method,which Icame to regard as a proof of the weakness of my own intellect in comparison with hers.I would gladly have kept pace with her if Icould.Anything under the heading of "Didactick,"like some of the pieces in the old "English Reader,"used by school-children in the generation just before ours,always repelled me.But Ithough it necessary to discipline myself by reading such pieces,and my first attempt at prose composition,"On Friendship,"was stiffly modeled after a certain "Didactick Essay"in that same English Reader.
My sister,however,cared more to watch the natural development of our minds than to make us follow the direction of hers.She was really our teacher,although she never assumed that position.
Certainly I learned more from her about my own capabilities,and how I might put them to use,than I could have done at any school we knew of,had it been possible for me to attend one.
I think she was determined that we should not be mentally defrauded by the circumstances which had made it necessary for us to begin so early to win our daily bread.This remark applies especially to me,as my older sisters (only two or three of them had come to Lowell)soon drifted away from us into their own new homes or occupations,and she and I were left together amid the whir of spindles and wheels.
One thing she planned for us,her younger housemates,--a dozen or so of cousins,friends,and sisters,some attending school,and some at work in the mill,--was a little fortnightly paper,to be filled with our original contributions,she herself acting as editor.
I do not know where she got the idea,unless it was from Mrs.
