The Annotated Little Women

by Louisa May Alcott

  Amy, played by a surprisingly blonde Elizabeth Taylor, gets a stern lesson from the village schoolmaster in the 1949 film. (Photofest)

  During the fifteen minutes that followed, the proud and sensitive little girl suffered a shame and pain which she never forgot. To others it might seem a ludicrous or trivial affair, but to her it was a hard experience; for during the twelve years of her life she had been governed by love alone, and a blow of that sort had never touched her before. The smart of her hand, and the ache of her heart, were forgotten in the sting of the thought,—

  “I shall have to tell at home, and they will be so disappointed in me!”

  The fifteen minutes seemed an hour; but they came to an end at last, and the word “recess!” had never seemed so welcome to her before.

  “You can go, Miss March,” said Mr. Davis, looking, as he felt, uncomfortable.

  He did not soon forget the reproachful look Amy gave him, as she went, without a word to any one, straight into the anteroom, snatched her things, and left the place “forever,” as she passionately declared to herself. She was in a sad state when she got home; and when the older girls arrived, some time later, an indignation meeting was held at once. Mrs. March did not say much, but looked disturbed, and comforted her afflicted little daughter in her tenderest manner. Meg bathed the insulted hand with glycerine10 and tears; Beth felt that even her beloved kittens would fail as a balm for griefs like this, and Jo wrathfully proposed that Mr. Davis be arrested without delay, while Hannah shook her fist at the “villain,” and pounded potatoes for dinner as if she had him under her pestle.

  No notice was taken of Amy’s flight, except by her mates; but the sharp-eyed demoiselles discovered that Mr. Davis was quite benignant in the afternoon, also unusually nervous. Just before school closed, Jo appeared, wearing a grim expression, as she stalked up to the desk, and delivered a letter from her mother; then collected Amy’s property, and departed, carefully scraping the mud from her boots on the doormat, as if she shook the dust of the place off her feet.

  “Yes, you can have a vacation from school, but I want you to study a little every day, with Beth,” said Mrs. March, that evening. “I don’t approve of corporal punishment, especially for girls. I dislike Mr. Davis’ manner of teaching, and don’t think the girls you associate with are doing you any good, so I shall ask your father’s advice before I send you anywhere else.”

  “That’s good! I wish all the girls would leave, and spoil his old school. It’s perfectly maddening to think of those lovely limes,” sighed Amy, with the air of a martyr.

  “I am not sorry you lost them, for you broke the rules, and deserved some punishment for disobedience,” was the severe reply, which rather disappointed the young lady, who expected nothing but sympathy.

  “Do you mean you are glad I was disgraced before the whole school?” cried Amy.

  “I should not have chosen that way of mending a fault,” replied her mother; “but I’m not sure that it won’t do you more good than a milder method. You are getting to be altogether too conceited and important, my dear, and it is quite time you set about correcting it. You have a good many little gifts and virtues, but there is no need of parading them, for conceit spoils the finest genius. There is not much danger that real talent or goodness will be overlooked long; even if it is, the consciousness of possessing and using it well should satisfy one, and the great charm of all power is modesty.”

  “So it is,” cried Laurie, who was playing chess in a corner with Jo. “I knew a girl, once, who had a really remarkable talent for music, and she didn’t know it; never guessed what sweet little things she composed when she was alone, and wouldn’t have believed it if any one had told her.”

  “I wish I’d known that nice girl, maybe she would have helped me, I’m so stupid,” said Beth, who stood beside him, listening eagerly.

  “You do know her, and she helps you better than any one else could,” answered Laurie, looking at her with such mischievous meaning in his merry black eyes, that Beth suddenly turned very red, and hid her face in the sofa-cushion, quite overcome by such an unexpected discovery.

  Louisa May Alcott’s mother had a special fondness for chess. She played on the board seen here. (Louisa May Alcott Memorial Association; photograph by James E. Coutré)

  Jo let Laurie win the game, to pay for that praise of her Beth, who could not be prevailed upon to play for them after her compliment. So Laurie did his best, and sung delightfully, being in a particularly lively humor, for to the Marches he seldom showed the moody side of his character. When he was gone, Amy, who had been pensive all the evening, said, suddenly, as if busy over some new idea,—

  “Is Laurie an accomplished boy?”

  “Yes; he has had an excellent education, and has much talent; he will make a fine man, if not spoilt by petting,” replied her mother.

  “And he isn’t conceited, is he?” asked Amy.

  “Not in the least; that is why he is so charming, and we all like him so much.”

  “I see; it’s nice to have accomplishments, and be elegant; but not to show off, or get perked up,” said Amy, thoughtfully.

  “These things are always seen and felt in a person’s manner and conversation, if modestly used; but it is not necessary to display them,” said Mrs. March.

  “Any more than it’s proper to wear all your bonnets, and gowns, and ribbons, at once, that folks may know you’ve got ’em,” added Jo; and the lecture ended in a laugh.

  1. Amy’s Valley of Humiliation. Both Bunyan’s Christian and, later, his wife pass through the Valley of Humiliation. We learn in Part Two of The Pilgrim’s Progress that, although people fear this valley, the only harms they suffer there are of their own making, and that the valley “is of itself as fruitful a place as any the crow flies over.”

  2. “Cyclops.” Amy mistakenly alludes to the wicked wheel-eyed giant in Homer’s Odyssey. In a letter to Laurie model Alf Whitman, May Alcott confirmed having once made this error (Schlesinger, “The Alcotts through Thirty Years,” p. 377).

  3. “ ‘lapse of lingy.’ ” Here, Amy is trying to come up with “lapsus linguae,” or “slip of the tongue.”

  4. “rag-money.” In another context, “rag-money” might mean paper currency. Here, however, it refers to the small amount of cash that the Marches acquire by selling rags and cast-off clothing to peddlers. Evidently, the girls take monthly turns in receiving the household’s rag-money.

  5. “pickled limes” The informal currency of Amy’s schoolyard, pickled limes were imported from the West Indies and continued to be “held in much estimation in some of the New England States” well after Alcott’s death (Report of the West India Royal Commission, p. 125). Although Amy and her school friends were almost certainly consuming limes that had been pickled before they left the Caribbean, the process for pickling limes was adaptable to the home kitchen and remains available in some modern cookbooks. Limes were most often preserved in brine. However, a sweeter, more elaborate concoction could also be assembled. A recipe dating from the Alcotts’ girlhood is set forth below in its entirety:

  PRESERVED LIMES, OR SMALL LEMONS.

  Take limes, or small lemons that are quite ripe, and all about the same size. With a sharp penknife scoop a hole at the stalk end of each, and loosen the pulp all around the inside, taking care not to break or cut through the rind. In doing this, hold the lime over a bowl, and having extracted all the pulp and juice, (saving them in the bowl,) boil the empty limes half an hour or more in alum-water, till the rinds look clear and nearly transparent. Then drain them, and lay them for several hours in cold water, changing the water nearly every hour. At night, having changed the water once more, let the limes remain in it till the next day, by which time all taste of the alum should be removed; but if it is not, give them a boil in some weak ginger tea. If you wish them very green, line the sides and bottom of a preserving-kettle with fresh vine-leaves, placed very thickly, put in the limes, and pour on as much clear cold water as w
ill cover them, (spring or pump-water is best,) and fill up with a very thick layer of vine-leaves. Boil them slowly an hour or more. If they are not sufficiently green, repeat the process with fresh vine-leaves and fresh water.

  After the limes have been greened, give the kettle a complete washing; or take another and proceed to make the syrup. Having weighed the limes, allow to every pound of them a pound of the best double refined loaf-sugar, and half a pint of very clear water. Break up the sugar and put it into the kettle. Then pour on to it the water, which must previously be mixed with some beaten white of egg, allowing the white of one egg to three pounds of sugar. Let the sugar dissolve in the water before you set it over the fire, stirring it well. Boil and skim the sugar, and when the scum ceases to rise, put in the limes, adding the juice that was saved from them, and which must first be strained from the pulp, seeds, &c. Boil the limes in the syrup till they are very tender and transparent. Then take them out carefully, and spread them on flat dishes. Put the syrup into a tureen, and leave it uncovered for two days.

  In the meantime prepare a jelly for filling the limes. Get several dozen of fine ripe lemons. Roll them under your hand on the table, to increase the juice; cut them in half, and squeeze them through a strainer into a pitcher. To each pint of the juice allow a pound of the best double refined loaf-sugar. Put the sugar, mixed with the lemon-juice, into a preserving-kettle, and when they are melted set it over the fire, and boil and skim it till it becomes a thick, firm jelly, which it should in twenty minutes. Try if it will congeal by taking out a little in a spoon, and placing it in the open air. If it congeals immediately, it is sufficiently done. If boiled too long it will liquefy, and will not congeal again without the assistance of isinglass. When the jelly is done, put it at once into a large bowl, and leave it uncovered.

  The lemon-jelly, the syrup, and the limes, having all stood uncovered in their separate vessels for two or three days, finish by filling the limes with the jelly; putting them, with the open part downwards, into wide-mouthed glass jars, and gently pouring on them the syrup. Cover the jars closely, and paste strong paper over the covers.

  Very small, thin-skinned, ripe oranges, preserved in this manner, and filled with orange-jelly, are delicious.

  If, instead of having it liquid, you wish the syrup to crystallize or candy round the fruit, put no water to the sugar, but boil it slowly a long time, with the juice only, clarified by beaten white of egg mixed with the sugar in proportion of one white to three pounds.

  Before squeezing out the juice of the lemons intended to make the jelly, it will be well to pare off very thin the yellow rind; cut it into bits, and put it into a bottle of white wine or brandy, where it will keep soft and fresh, and the infusion will make a fine flavouring for cakes, puddings, &c. The rind of lemons should never be thrown away, as it is useful for so many nice purposes. Apple-sauce and apple-pies should always be flavoured with lemon-peel (Leslie, Directions for Cookery, pp. 473–75).

  6. ferule. A flat ruler with a widened end, so routinely used for punishing children that the word also became a verb, meaning to strike, usually across the hands, with a ferule. The verb eventually outgrew its literal meaning, so that one could also ferule a child with a cane, stick, or other implement.

  7. “Dr. Blimber.” In Dickens’s novel Dombey and Son, Dr. Blimber runs a “great hothouse” of a school for young gentlemen where the students are mercilessly crammed with rote learning. On her first visit to Europe in 1865, Alcott had encountered and decried a real-life Blimber: a courtly English colonel who stuffed his young children with knowledge of “the Spanish inquisition, the population of Switzerland, the politics of Russia, and other lively topics equally suited to infant minds” (Louisa May Alcott, “Life in a Pension,” p. 2). Alcott infinitely preferred the gentler, more holistic educational methods of her father.

  8. the little Irish children, who were their sworn foes. Alcott was generally more accepting of foreign ethnicities than most Americans of her time. However, the enmity between the Irish children and Amy’s schoolmates faithfully reflects the tensions between recent Irish immigrants and more established white society in mid–nineteenth century New England.

  9. the disgrace. In pronounced contrast to Mr. Davis, Bronson Alcott was deeply sensitive to his pupils’ feelings of shame and dishonor, and his classroom philosophy opposed the feruling of students in all but the most desperate cases. A famous story of his teaching relates that he once called two disobedient boys to his desk and, declaring that it was a worse punishment to give pain than to receive it, commanded the offenders to ferule him. Forced to strike the teacher they loved, the boys burst into tears of remorse and were obedient thereafter.

  10. glycerine. A colorless, odorless liquid, glycerine, or glycerol, is still used in skin-care products.

  CHAPTER VIII.

  Jo Meets Apollyon.1

  “GIRLS, where are you going?” asked Amy, coming into their room one Saturday afternoon, and finding them getting ready to go out, with an air of secrecy which excited her curiosity.

  “Never mind; little girls shouldn’t ask questions,” returned Jo, sharply.

  Now if there is anything mortifying to our feelings, when we are young, it is to be told that; and to be bidden to “run away, dear,” is still more trying to us. Amy bridled up at this insult, and determined to find out the secret, if she teased for an hour. Turning to Meg, who never refused her anything very long, she said, coaxingly, “Do tell me! I should think you might let me go, too; for Beth is fussing over her dolls, and I haven’t got anything to do, and am so lonely.”

  “I can’t, dear, because you aren’t invited,” began Meg; but Jo broke in impatiently, “Now, Meg, be quiet, or you will spoil it all. You can’t go, Amy; so don’t be a baby, and whine about it.”

  “You are going somewhere with Laurie, I know you are; you were whispering and laughing together, on the sofa, last night, and you stopped when I came in. Aren’t you going with him?”

  Christian wrestles the dragon-winged demon Apollyon in this illustration from a nineteenth-century edition of Pilgrim’s Progress. (Photograph by Culture Club / Getty Images)

  “Yes, we are; now do be still, and stop bothering.”

  Amy held her tongue, but used her eyes, and saw Meg slip a fan into her pocket.

  “I know! I know! you’re going to the theatre to see the ‘Seven Castles!’ ” she cried; adding, resolutely, “and I shall go, for mother said I might see it; and I’ve got my rag-money, and it was mean not to tell me in time.”

  “Just listen to me a minute, and be a good child,” said Meg, soothingly. “Mother doesn’t wish you to go this week, because your eyes are not well enough yet to bear the light of this fairy piece. Next week you can go with Beth and Hannah, and have a nice time.”

  “I don’t like that half as well as going with you and Laurie. Please let me; I’ve been sick with this cold so long, and shut up, I’m dying for some fun. Do, Meg! I’ll be ever so good,” pleaded Amy, looking as pathetic as she could.

  “Suppose we take her. I don’t believe mother would mind, if we bundle her up well,” began Meg.

  “If she goes I shan’t; and if I don’t, Laurie won’t like it; and it will be very rude, after he invited only us, to go and drag in Amy. I should think she’d hate to poke herself where she isn’t wanted,” said Jo, crossly, for she disliked the trouble of overseeing a fidgety child, when she wanted to enjoy herself.

  Her tone and manner angered Amy, who began to put her boots on, saying, in her most aggravating way, “I shall go; Meg says I may; and if I pay for myself, Laurie hasn’t anything to do with it.”

  “You can’t sit with us, for our seats are reserved, and you mustn’t sit alone; so Laurie will give you his place, and that will spoil our pleasure; or he’ll get another seat for you, and that isn’t proper, when you weren’t asked. You shan’t stir a step; so you may just stay where you are,” scolded Jo, crosser than ever, having just pricked her finger in her hurry.

>   Sitting on the floor, with one boot on, Amy began to cry, and Meg to reason with her, when Laurie called from below, and the two girls hurried down, leaving their sister wailing; for now and then she forgot her grown-up ways, and acted like a spoilt child. Just as the party was setting out, Amy called over the banisters, in a threatening tone, “You’ll be sorry for this, Jo March! see if you ain’t.”

  “Fiddlesticks!” returned Jo, slamming the door.

  They had a charming time, for “The Seven Castles of the Diamond Lake” were as brilliant and wonderful as heart could wish. But, in spite of the comical red imps, sparkling elves, and gorgeous princes and princesses, Jo’s pleasure had a drop of bitterness in it; the fairy queen’s yellow curls reminded her of Amy; and between the acts she amused herself with wondering what her sister would do to make her “sorry for it.” She and Amy had had many lively skirmishes in the course of their lives, for both had quick tempers, and were apt to be violent when fairly roused. Amy teased Jo, and Jo irritated Amy, and semi-occasional explosions occurred, of which both were much ashamed afterward. Although the oldest, Jo had the least self-control, and had hard times trying to curb the fiery spirit which was continually getting her into trouble; her anger never lasted long, and, having humbly confessed her fault, she sincerely repented, and tried to do better. Her sisters used to say, that they rather liked to get Jo into a fury, because she was such an angel afterward. Poor Jo tried desperately to be good, but her bosom enemy was always ready to flame up and defeat her; and it took years of patient effort to subdue it.

  When they got home, they found Amy reading in the parlor. She assumed an injured air as they came in; never lifted her eyes from her book, or asked a single question. Perhaps curiosity might have conquered resentment, if Beth had not been there to inquire, and receive a glowing description of the play. On going up to put away her best hat, Jo’s first look was toward the bureau; for, in their last quarrel, Amy had soothed her feelings by turning Jo’s top drawer upside down, on the floor. Everything was in its place, however; and after a hasty glance into her various closets, bags and boxes, Jo decided that Amy had forgiven and forgotten her wrongs.