By Mary Larcom Dow

Extracts from the Beacon, published in Beverly for a charity November 1, 1913.

I am proud to be asked to record some of my pleasant days with my mother's cousin, Lucy Larcom. It will, of course, be natural to me to speak principally of the six or seven years during which she lived at Beverly Farms, the only time in which she had a real home of her own. It has always seemed strange to me that Doctor Addison in his biography of her, should have dismissed that part of her life with so few words. I know that it meant a great deal to her.

My very first recollection of her was as a child, when she, as a young lady, came to my house (then owned by "Aunt Betsey") spoken of so affectionately in "A New England Girlhood." Afterward, when I bought the old house, she expressed her great pleasure and when I told her I had spent all my money for it, she said that was quite right; it was like the turtle with his shell, a retreat.

When she came here in 1866, she was in her early forties, a beautiful, gracious figure, with flowing abundant brown hair, and a most benignant face. She was then editor of "Our Young Folks." She took several sunny rooms near the railroad station, almost opposite "The witty Autocrat." He dated his letters from "Beverly Farms by the Depot," not to be outdone by his Manchester neighbors. The house was then owned by Captain Joseph Woodberry, a refined gentleman of the old school.

She brought with her at first, to these pleasant rooms, a favorite niece who resembled her in looks and in temperament, and she at once proceeded, with her exquisite taste, to make a real home for them. The bright fire on the hearth where we sat and talked and watched the logs fall apart and the sparks go out, was a great delight to her, and I have always thought that that beautiful poem "By the Fireside" must have been written "in those days."

The woods and fields of Beverly Farms were then accessible to all of us, and she knew just where to find the first hepaticas and the rare spots where the linnea grew, and the rhodora and the arethusa, and that last pathetic blossom of the year, the witch hazel, and she could paint them too.

To this home by the sea, came noted people; Mary Livermore, Celia Thaxter, whose sea-swept poems were our great delight, and many others. I recall one great event when Mr. Whittier came and took tea. He was so gentle and simple. The conversation turned on the softening of religious creeds, and he gave us some of his own experiences. He told us that when Charles Kingsley came to America, he went to see him at the Parker House, and as they walked down School Street, Mr. Whittier expressed his appreciation to Mr. Kingsley for his work in that direction. Mr. Kingsley laughed and said,—"Why, when I first went to preach at Eversley, I had great difficulty in making my parishioners believe that God is as good as the average church member."

There was a comfortable lounge in the living room at Beverly Farms, by an east window, and by that window was written "A Strip of Blue."

I do not think that Lucy Larcom had a very keen sense of humor, but she enjoyed fun in others, and was always amused at my absurd exaggerations and at my brother David's comical sea yarns. This brother of mine strongly resembled her in face and build, and also in his determination not to be poor. They would be rich, and they were rich to the end of the chapter. Her income must have been always slender, but I do not think I ever heard her say she could not afford anything. If she wanted her good neighbor, Mr. Josiah Obear, to harness up his red horse and rock-away and take her about the countryside, she said so, and we would go joyfully off, coming home, perhaps from the Essex fields, with a box of strawberries for her simple supper. Always the simple life with nature was her wish.

She was decidedly old-fashioned, and though I do not suppose she thought plays and cards and dancing wicked, she had still a little shrinking from them. I remember that now and then we played a game called rounce, a game as innocent and inane as "Dumb Muggins" but she always had a little fear that Captain Woodberry would discover it, which pleased me immensely.

Those pleasant days at Beverly Farms came too soon to an end, and for the last part of her life I did not see so much of her. She remains to me a loving and helpful memory of a serene and child-like nature, and "a glad heart without reproach or blot," and I am glad to lay this witch hazel flower of memory upon the grave of that daughter of the Puritans, Lucy Larcom.