When Lucy Larcom was fourteen years old she worked in a
cotton-mill in Lowell, Mass. After she had been there a few
weeks, says _The Youth’s Companion_, she asked and received
permission to tend some frames which were near a window,
through which she might look out on the Merrimac River and its
picturesque banks.
After she had worked there a little while longer, she began to
make the window-seat and frame into a library. She pasted the
grimy paint all over with clippings of verse which she gathered
from such newspapers and magazines as fell into her hands.
So the little factory drudge secured for herself three
essentials for human happiness: work, the sight of nature, and
the beauty of the poet’s vision. No doubt the work was often
wearisome. Perhaps some of the poetry was not very good. But
the river and its meadows and hills must have been always
refreshing, and the spirit which so intelligently desired the
best in the world could not have faltered even on a toilsome
path.
(830)
=Drunkard’s Fate=--See DRINK, EFFECTS OF.
=Drunkards Saving Drunkards=--See PERSONAL INFLUENCE.
=Drunkard’s Soul=--See DEFACEMENT OF SOUL.