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. Lydia
Maria Child's "Juvenile Miscellany," which had found its way to us some
years before,--a most delightful guest, and, I think, the first
magazine prepared for American children, who have had so many since
then.(I have always been glad that I knew that sweet woman with the
child's heart and the poet's soul, in her later years, and could tell
her how happy she had helped to make my childhood.) Our little sheet
was called "The Diving Bell," probably from the sea-associations of the
name. We kept our secrets of authorship very close from everybody
except the editor, who had to decipher the handwriting and copy the
pieces. It was, indeed, an important part of the fun to guess who wrote
particular pieces. After a little while, however, our mannerisms
betrayed us. One of my cousins was known to be the chief story-teller,
and I was recognized as the leading rhymer among the younger
contributors; the editor-sister excelling in her versifying, as she did
in almost everything.

It was a cluster of very conscious-looking little girls that assembled
one evening in the attic room, chosen on account of its remoteness from
intruders (for we did not admit even the family as a public, the
writers themselves were the only audience), to listen to the reading of
our first paper. We took Saturday evening, because that was longer than
the other workday evenings, the mills being closed earlier. Such
guessing and wondering and admiring as we had! But nobody would
acknowledge her own work, for that would have spoiled the pleasure.
Only there were certain wise hints and maxims that we knew never came
from any juvenile head among us, and those we set down as "editorials."

Some of the stories contained rather remarkable incidents. One, written
to illustrate a little girl's habit of carelessness about her own
special belongings, told of her