I never cared much for machinery.The buzzing and hissing and whizzing of pulleys and rollers and spindles and flyers around me often grew tiresome.I could not see into their complications,or feel interested in them.But in a room below us we were sometimes allowed to peer in through a sort of blind door at the great water-wheel that carried the works of the whole mill.It was so huge that we could only watch a few of its spokes at a time,and part of its dripping rim,moving with a slow,measured strength through the darkness that shut it in.It impressed me with something of the awe which comes to us in thinking of the great Power which keeps the mechanism of the universe in motion.Even now,the remembrance of its large,mysterious movement,in which every little motion of every noisy little wheel was involved,brings back to me a verse from one of my favorite hymns:--"Our lives through various scenes are drawn,And vexed by trifling cares,While Thine eternal thought moves on Thy undisturbed affairs."There were compensations for being shut in to daily toil so early.The mill itself had its lessons for us.But it was not,and could not be,the right sort of life for a child,and we were happy in the knowledge that,at the longest,our employment was only to be temporary.
When I took my next three months at the grammar school,every-thing there was changed,and I too was changed.The teachers were kind,and thorough in their instruction;and my mind seemed to have been ploughed up during that year of work,so that knowledge took root in it easily.It was a great delight to me to study,and at the end of the three months the master told me that I was prepared for the high school.
But alas!I could not go.The little money I could earn--one dollar a week,besides the price of my board--was needed in the family,and I must return to the mill.It was a severe dis-appointment to me,though I did not say so at home.I did not at all accept the conclusion of a neighbor whom I heard talking about it with my mother.His daughter was going to the high school,and my mother was telling him how sorry she was that Icould not.
"Oh,"he said,in a soothing tone,"my girl hasn't got any such head-piece as yours has.Your girl doesn't need to go."Of course I knew that whatever sort of a "head-piece"I had,Idid need and want just that very opportunity to study.I think the solution was then formed,inwardly,that I would go to school again,some time,whatever happened.I went back to my work,but now without enthusiasm.I had looked through an open door that I was not willing to see shut upon me.
I began to reflect upon life rather seriously for a girl of twelve or thirteen.What was I here for?What could I make of myself?Must I submit to be carried along with the current,and do just what everybody else did?No:I knew I should not do that,for there was a certain Myself who was always starting up with her own original plan or aspiration before me,and who was quite indifferent as to what people,generally thought.
Well,I would find out what this Myself was good for,and that she should be!It was but the presumption of extreme youth.How gladly would I know now,after these long years,just why I was sent into the world,and whether I have in any degree fulfilled the purpose of my being!
In the older times it was seldom said to little girls,as it always has been said to boys,that they ought to have some definite plan,while they were children,what to be and do when they were grown up.There was usually but one path open before them,to become good wives and housekeepers.And the ambition of most girls was to follow their mothers'footsteps in this direction;a natural and laudable ambition.But girls,as well as boys,must often have been conscious of their own peculiar capabilities,--must have desired to cultivate and make use of their individual powers.When I was growing up,they had already begun to be encouraged to do so.We were often told that it was our duty to develop any talent we might possess,or at least to learn how to do some one thing which the world needed,or which would make it a pleasanter world.
When I thought what I should best like to do,my first dream--almost a baby's dream--about it was that it would be a fine thing to be a schoolteacher,like Aunt Hannah.Afterward,when I heard that there were artists,I wished I could some time be one.Aslate and pencil,to draw pictures,was my first request whenever a day's ailment kept me at home from school;and I rather enjoyed being a little ill,for the sake of amusing myself in that way.
