The Annotated Little Women

by Louisa May Alcott

  “Contrary minded say ‘No.’ ”

  Meg and Amy were contrary minded; and Mr. Winkle rose to say, with great elegance, “We don’t wish any boys; they only joke and bounce about. This is a ladies’ club, and we wish to be private and proper.”

  “I’m afraid he’ll laugh at our paper, and make fun of us afterward,” observed Pickwick, pulling the little curl on her forehead, as she always did when doubtful.

  Up bounced Snodgrass, very much in earnest. “Sir! I give you my word as a gentleman, Laurie won’t do anything of the sort. He likes to write, and he’ll give a tone to our contributions, and keep us from being sentimental, don’t you see? We can do so little for him, and he does so much for us, I think the least we can do is to offer him a place here, and make him welcome, if he comes.”

  This artful allusion to benefits conferred, brought Tupman to his feet, looking as if he had quite made up his mind.

  “Yes; we ought to do it, even if we are afraid. I say he may come, and his grandpa too, if he likes.”

  This spirited burst from Beth electrified the club, and Jo left her seat to shake hands approvingly. “Now then, vote again. Everybody remember it’s our Laurie, and say ‘Aye!’ ” cried Snodgrass, excitedly.

  Mrs. Alcott kept a detailed book of recipes and home remedies for use in her own “Kitchen Place.” (Louisa May Alcott Memorial Association)

  “Aye! aye! aye!” replied three voices at once.

  “Good! bless you! now, as there’s nothing like ‘taking time by the fetlock,’ as Winkle characteristically observes, allow me to present the new member;” and, to the dismay of the rest of the club, Jo threw open the door of the closet, and displayed Laurie sitting on a rag-bag, flushed and twinkling with suppressed laughter.

  “You rogue! you traitor! Jo, how could you?” cried the three girls, as Snodgrass led her friend triumphantly forth; and, producing both a chair and a badge, installed him in a jiffy.

  “The coolness of you two rascals is amazing,” began Mr. Pickwick, trying to get up an awful frown, and only succeeding in producing an amiable smile. But the new member was equal to the occasion; and, rising with a grateful salutation to the Chair, said, in the most engaging manner,—“Mr. President and ladies,—I beg pardon, gentlemen,— allow me to introduce myself as Sam Weller,7 the very humble servant of the club.”

  Laurie (Christian Bale) joins the club. (Photofest)

  “Good, good!” cried Jo, pounding with the handle of the old warming-pan on which she leaned.

  “My faithful friend and noble patron,” continued Laurie, with a wave of the hand, “who has so flatteringly presented me, is not to be blamed for the base stratagem of to-night. I planned it, and she only gave in after lots of teasing.”

  “Come now, don’t lay it all on yourself; you know I proposed the cupboard,” broke in Snodgrass, who was enjoying the joke amazingly.

  “Never you mind what she says. I’m the wretch that did it, sir,” said the new member, with a Welleresque nod to Mr. Pickwick. “But on my honor, I never will do so again, and henceforth dewote myself to the interest of this immortal club.”

  “Hear! hear!” cried Jo, clashing the lid of the warming-pan like a cymbal.

  “Go on, go on!” added Winkle and Tupman, while the President bowed benignly.

  “I merely wish to say, that as a slight token of my gratitude for the honor done me, and as a means of promoting friendly relations between adjoining nations, I have set up a post-office8 in the hedge in the lower corner of the garden; a fine, spacious building, with padlocks on the doors, and every convenience for the mails,—also the females, if I may be allowed the expression. It’s the old martin-house; but I’ve stopped up the door, and made the roof open, so it will hold all sorts of things, and save our valuable time. Letters, manuscripts, books and bundles can be passed in there; and, as each nation has a key, it will be uncommonly nice, I fancy. Allow me to present the club key; and, with many thanks for your favor, take my seat.”

  Great applause as Mr. Weller deposited a little key on the table, and subsided; the warming-pan clashed and waved wildly, and it was some time before order could be restored. A long discussion followed, and every one came out surprising, for every one did her best; so it was an unusually lively meeting, and did not adjourn till a late hour, when it broke up with three shrill cheers for the new member.

  No one ever regretted the admittance of Sam Weller, for a more devoted, well-behaved, and jovial member no club could have. He certainly did add “spirit” to the meetings, and “a tone” to the paper; for his orations convulsed his hearers, and his contributions were excellent, being patriotic, classical, comical, or dramatic, but never sentimental. Jo regarded them as worthy of Bacon, Milton, or Shakespeare; and remodelled her own works with good effect, she thought.

  The P.O. was a capital little institution, and flourished wonderfully, for nearly as many queer things passed through it as through the real office. Tragedies and cravats, poetry and pickles, garden seeds and long letters, music and gingerbread, rubbers, invitations, scoldings and puppies. The old gentleman liked the fun, and amused himself by sending odd bundles, mysterious messages, and funny telegrams; and his gardener, who was smitten with Hannah’s charms, actually sent a love-letter to Jo’s care. How they laughed when the secret came out, never dreaming how many love-letters that little post-office would hold in the years to come!

  1. plants as would consent to blossom there. Bronson Alcott was a devoted gardener who attached great symbolic meaning to the plants he grew. A large portion of his book Tablets, published the same month as Little Women, Part First, is devoted to showing how gardening unites one with the noblest souls of antiquity and improves one’s thought and character. In the March family’s garden, each girl chooses to plant flowers that underscore her personality. Beauty-loving Meg seeks out stately presentations and lush, bright colors. Jo’s choices are the most unpredictable and least aesthetically pleasing. Beth’s flowers are demure and delicate. Artistic and ambitious Amy favors dramatic shapes and contrasting shades, and her plans seem a bit too elaborate for her to manage with perfect success.

  2. Pickwick Club. The girls’ club is inspired by Charles Dickens’s first novel, The Pickwick Papers (1836–37). In Dickens’s work, Pickwick, Snodgrass, Tupman, and Winkle constitute a committee of the Pickwick Club, entrusted to travel about England and report on their discoveries. Pickwick, being the elder statesman of the club, is appropriately identified with Meg. Snodgrass, a poet, is an apt role for Jo. Winkle, a reckless, inept sportsman who seldom hits what he aims at, somewhat corresponds to the character of Amy. Tupman, who promptly forgives Winkle for accidentally shooting him on a hunting excursion, is a gentle, modest, long-suffering soul much in the fashion of Beth.

  3. THE MASKED MARRIAGE. A Tale of Venice. This tale, which “The Pickwick Portfolio” attributes to Meg, is a much-shortened version of a story of the same name published by Alcott at age twenty in Dodge’s Literary Museum in December 1852. The “Portfolio” version deals only with the fifth and last chapter of Alcott’s story.

  4. commy la fo. Amy’s latest error butchers a saying attributed to the ancient philosopher Thales of Miletus, who advised his audience to “take time by the forelock.” Amy also misstates the French phrase “comme il faut.” Literally “as it must be,” “comme il faut” means “in the socially proper fashion.” Amy’s attraction to French phrases and fashions remains a faint danger signal.

  5. will deliver her famous Lecture on “WOMAN AND HER POSITION.” In her early twenties, Alcott developed the Dickensian persona of Oronthy Bluggage as a mouthpiece for original comic monologues. In her 1855 journal, she writes of delivering “my burlesque lecture on ‘Woman, and Her Position’ ” at the home of her uncle Samuel Greele. As a young woman, Alcott saw women’s rights as the stuff of satire. Later in life, she grew more serious on the subject.

  6. “THE GREEK SLAVE, or Constantine the Avenger.” One of the dramas written by Alcott and her sis
ter Anna and performed by the four Alcott sisters, The Greek Slave concerns a noblewoman, Irene, who disguises herself as a slave to win the love of the handsome Prince Constantine. The Alcotts’ play may have been inspired by American sculptor Hiram Powers’s wildly popular statue The Greek Slave, which attracted more than a hundred thousand viewers when it toured America from 1847 to 1849.

  A daguerreotype from 1848 of Hiram Powers’s The Greek Slave. (Metropolitan Museum of Art; Art Resource NY)

  7. “Sam Weller.” In The Pickwick Papers, Sam Weller is Mr. Pickwick’s cockney servant. Laurie seeks to downplay his intrusion into the club by taking the role of a menial. He also later mimics Weller’s speech by pronouncing a v as a w.

  8. “post-office.” The Alcotts actually did maintain a domestic “post office” that they used to send notes to one another.

  CHAPTER XI.

  Experiments.

  “THE first of June; the Kings are off to the seashore to-morrow, and I’m free! Three months’ vacation! how I shall enjoy it!” exclaimed Meg, coming home one warm day to find Jo laid upon the sofa in an unusual state of exhaustion, while Beth took off her dusty boots, and Amy made lemonade for the refreshment of the whole party.

  “Aunt March went to-day, for which, oh be joyful!” said Jo. “I was mortally afraid she’d ask me to go with her; if she had, I should have felt as if I ought to do it; but Plumfield1 is about as festive as a churchyard, you know, and I’d rather be excused. We had a flurry getting the old lady off, and I had a scare every time she spoke to me, for I was in such a hurry to be through that I was uncommonly helpful and sweet, and feared she’d find it impossible to part from me. I quaked till she was fairly in the carriage, and had a final fright, for, as it drove off, she popped out her head, saying, ‘Josy-phine, won’t you—?’ I didn’t hear any more, for I basely turned and fled; I did actually run, and whisked round the corner, where I felt safe.”

  “Poor old Jo! she came in looking as if bears were after her,” said Beth, as she cuddled her sister’s feet with a motherly air.

  “Aunt March is a regular samphire,2 is she not?” observed Amy, tasting her mixture critically.

  “She means vampire, not sea-weed; but it don’t matter; it’s too warm to be particular about one’s parts of speech,” murmured Jo.

  “What shall you do all your vacation?” asked Amy, changing the subject, with tact.

  “I shall lie abed late, and do nothing,” replied Meg, from the depths of the rocking-chair. “I’ve been routed up early all winter, and had to spend my days working for other people; so now I’m going to rest and revel to my heart’s content.”

  “Hum!” said Jo; “that dozy way wouldn’t suit me. I’ve laid in a heap of books, and I’m going to improve my shining hours reading on my perch in the old apple-tree, when I’m not having l—”

  “Don’t say ‘larks!’ ” implored Amy, as a return snub for the “samphire” correction.

  “I’ll say ‘nightingales,’ then, with Laurie; that’s proper and appropriate, since he’s a warbler.”

  “Don’t let us do any lessons, Beth, for a while, but play all the time, and rest, as the girls mean to,” proposed Amy.

  “Well, I will, if mother don’t mind. I want to learn some new songs, and my children need fixing up for the summer; they are dreadfully out of order, and really suffering for clothes.”

  “May we, mother?” asked Meg, turning to Mrs. March, who sat sewing, in what they called “Marmee’s corner.”

  “You may try your experiment for a week, and see how you like it. I think by Saturday night you will find that all play, and no work, is as bad as all work, and no play.”

  “Oh, dear, no! it will be delicious, I’m sure,” said Meg, complacently.

  “I now propose a toast, as my ‘friend and pardner, Sairy Gamp,’3 says. Fun forever, and no grubbage,” cried Jo, rising, glass in hand, as the lemonade went round.

  In 1851, at the low ebb of her family’s fortunes, May Alcott practiced her embroidery skills by producing this sampler. (Louisa May Alcott Memorial Association; photograph by James E. Coutré)

  They all drank it merrily, and began the experiment by lounging for the rest of the day. Next morning, Meg did not appear till ten o’clock; her solitary breakfast did not taste good, and the room seemed lonely and untidy, for Jo had not filled the vases, Beth had not dusted, and Amy’s books lay scattered about. Nothing was neat and pleasant but “Marmee’s corner,” which looked as usual; and there she sat, to “rest and read,” which meant yawn, and imagine what pretty summer dresses she would get with her salary. Jo spent the morning on the river, with Laurie, and the afternoon reading and crying over “The Wide, Wide World,”4 up in the apple-tree. Beth began by rummaging everything out of the big closet, where her family resided; but, getting tired before half done, she left her establishment topsy-turvy, and went to her music, rejoicing that she had no dishes to wash. Amy arranged her bower, put on her best white frock, smoothed her curls, and sat down to draw, under the honeysuckles, hoping some one would see and inquire who the young artist was. As no one appeared but an inquisitive daddy-long-legs, who examined her work with interest, she went to walk, got caught in a shower, and came home dripping.

  At tea-time they compared notes, and all agreed that it had been a delightful, though unusually long day. Meg, who went shopping in the afternoon, and got a “sweet blue muslin,” had discovered, after she had cut the breadths off, that it wouldn’t wash, which mishap made her slightly cross.5 Jo had burnt the skin off her nose boating, and got a raging headache by reading too long. Beth was worried by the confusion of her closet, and the difficulty of learning three or four songs at once; and Amy deeply regretted the damage done her frock, for Katy Brown’s party was to be the next day; and now, like Flora McFlimsy, she had “nothing to wear.”6 But these were mere trifles; and they assured their mother that the experiment was working finely. She smiled, said nothing, and, with Hannah’s help, did their neglected work, keeping home pleasant, and the domestic machinery running smoothly. It was astonishing what a peculiar and uncomfortable state of things was produced by the “resting and revelling” process. The days kept getting longer and longer; the weather was unusually variable, and so were tempers; an unsettled feeling possessed every one, and Satan found plenty of mischief for the idle hands to do. As the height of luxury, Meg put out some of her sewing, and then found time hang so heavily, that she fell to snipping and spoiling her clothes, in her attempts to furbish them up, à la Moffat. Jo read till her eyes gave out, and she was sick of books; got so fidgety that even good-natured Laurie had a quarrel with her, and so reduced in spirits that she desperately wished she had gone with Aunt March. Beth got on pretty well, for she was constantly forgetting that it was to be all play, and no work, and fell back into her old ways, now and then; but something in the air affected her, and, more than once, her tranquillity was much disturbed; so much so, that, on one occasion, she actually shook poor dear Joanna, and told her she was “a fright.” Amy fared worst of all, for her resources were small; and, when her sisters left her to amuse and care for herself, she soon found that accomplished and important little self a great burden. She didn’t like dolls; fairy tales were childish, and one couldn’t draw all the time. Tea-parties didn’t amount to much, neither did picnics, unless very well conducted. “If one could have a fine house, full of nice girls, or go travelling, the summer would be delightful; but to stay at home with three selfish sisters, and a grown-up boy, was enough to try the patience of a Boaz,” complained Miss Malaprop,7 after several days devoted to pleasure, fretting, and ennui.

  No one would own that they were tired of the experiment; but, by Friday night, each acknowledged to herself that they were glad the week was nearly done. Hoping to impress the lesson more deeply, Mrs. March, who had a good deal of humor, resolved to finish off the trial in an appropriate manner; so she gave Hannah a holiday, and let the girls enjoy the full effect of the play system.

  When they
got up on Saturday morning, there was no fire in the kitchen, no breakfast in the dining-room, and no mother anywhere to be seen.

  “Mercy on us! what has happened?” cried Jo, staring about her in dismay.

  Meg ran up stairs, and soon came back again, looking relieved, but rather bewildered, and a little ashamed.

  “Mother isn’t sick, only very tired, and she says she is going to stay quietly in her room all day, and let us do the best we can. It’s a very queer thing for her to do, she don’t act a bit like herself; but she says it has been a hard week for her, so we mustn’t grumble, but take care of ourselves.”

  “That’s easy enough, and I like the idea; I’m aching for something to do—that is, some new amusement, you know,” added Jo, quickly.

  In fact it was an immense relief to them all to have a little work, and they took hold with a will, but soon realized the truth of Hannah’s saying, “Housekeeping ain’t no joke.” There was plenty of food in the larder, and, while Beth and Amy set the table, Meg and Jo got breakfast; wondering, as they did so, why servants ever talked about hard work.

  “I shall take some up to mother, though she said we were not to think of her, for she’d take care of herself,” said Meg, who presided, and felt quite matronly behind the teapot.

  So a tray was fitted out before any one began, and taken up, with the cook’s compliments. The boiled tea was very bitter, the omelette scorched, and the biscuits speckled with saleratus;8 but Mrs. March received her repast with thanks, and laughed heartily over it after Jo was gone.

  “Poor little souls, they will have a hard time, I’m afraid; but they won’t suffer, and it will do them good,” she said, producing the more palatable viands with which she had provided herself, and disposing of the bad breakfast, so that their feelings might not be hurt;—a motherly little deception, for which they were grateful.