In 1852, her thoughts turned again to her native town of Beverly. Equipped with her Monticello education, she felt prepared to support herself by teaching in her congenial home in the East. The memories of her childhood drew her back in thought to her old home. She wrote to her brother Benjamin in March, “The almanac says I am twenty-eight years old, but really, Ben, I do believe it fibs, for I don’t feel half so old. It seems only the other day that Lydia and I were sitting by the big kitchen fireplace, down the lane, and you opposite us, puffing cigar-smoke into our hair, and singing, ‘My name is Apollyon.’”
To her sister Lydia, whose birthday was on the same day of the month as her own, she sent some verses recalling her childhood.
“In childhood we looked gayly out,
To see this blustering dawn begin
And hailed the wind whose noisy shout
Our mutual birthday ushered in.
“For cakes, beneath our pillow rolled,
We laughing searched, and wondered, too,
How mother had so well foretold
What fairy people meant to do.”