The "Footsteps of Angels" glided at once into my memory,
and took possession of a permanent place there, with its tender
melody. "The Last Leaf" and "Old Ironsides" were favorites with
everybody who read poetry at all, but I do not think we Lowell
girls had a volume of Dr. Holmes's poems at that time.
"The Lady's Book" and "Graham's Magazine" were then the popular
periodicals, and the mill-girls took them. I remember that the
"nuggets" I used to pick out of one or the other of them when I
was quite a child were labeled with the signature of Harriet E.
Beecher. "Father Morris," and "Uncle Tim," and others of the
delightful "May-Flower" snatches first appeared in this way.
Irving's "Sketch-Book" all reading people were supposed to have
read, and I recall the pleasure it was to me when one of my
sisters came into possession of "Knickerbocker's History of New
York." It was the first humorous book, as well as the first
history, that I ever cared about. And I was pleased enough--for I
was a little girl when my fondness for it began--to hear our
minister say that he always read Diedrich Knickerbocker for his
tired Monday's recreation.
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