Little_Women8.txt

The moment Mrs. Carrol saw the girl’s altered face, she was illuminated
with a new idea, and exclaimed to herself, “Now I understand it
all–the child has been pining for young Laurence. Bless my heart, I
never thought of such a thing!”

With praiseworthy discretion, the good lady said nothing, and betrayed
no sign of enlightenment, but cordially urged Laurie to stay and begged
Amy to enjoy his society, for it would do her more good than so much
solitude. Amy was a model of docility, and as her aunt was a good deal
occupied with Flo, she was left to entertain her friend, and did it
with more than her usual success.

At Nice, Laurie had lounged and Amy had scolded. At Vevay, Laurie was
never idle, but always walking, riding, boating, or studying in the
most energetic manner, while Amy admired everything he did and followed
his example as far and as fast as she could. He said the change was
owing to the climate, and she did not contradict him, being glad of a
like excuse for her own recovered health and spirits.

The invigorating air did them both good, and much exercise worked
wholesome changes in minds as well as bodies. They seemed to get
clearer views of life and duty up there among the everlasting hills.
The fresh winds blew away desponding doubts, delusive fancies, and
moody mists. The warm spring sunshine brought out all sorts of
aspiring ideas, tender hopes, and happy thoughts. The lake seemed to
wash away the troubles of the past, and the grand old mountains to look
benignly down upon them saying, “Little children, love one another.”

In spite of the new sorrow, it was a very happy time, so happy that
Laurie could not bear to disturb it by a word. It took him a little
while to recover from his surprise at the cure of his first, and as he
had firmly believed, his last and only love. He consoled himself for
the seeming disloyalty by the thought that Jo’s sister was almost the
same as Jo’s self, and the conviction that it would have been
impossible to love any other woman but Amy so soon and so well. His
first wooing had been of the tempestuous order, and he looked back upon
it as if through a long vista of years with a feeling of compassion
blended with regret. He was not ashamed of it, but put it away as one
of the bitter-sweet experiences of his life, for which he could be
grateful when the pain was over. His second wooing, he resolved, should
be as calm and simple as possible. There was no need of having a
scene, hardly any need of telling Amy that he loved her, she knew it
without words and had given him his answer long ago. It all came about
so naturally that no one could complain, and he knew that everybody
would be pleased, even Jo. But when our first little passion has been
crushed, we are apt to be wary and slow in making a second trial, so
Laurie let the days pass, enjoying every hour, and leaving to chance
the utterance of the word that would put an end to the first and
sweetest part of his new romance.

He had rather imagined that the denoument would take place in the
chateau garden by moonlight, and in the most graceful and decorous
manner, but it turned out exactly the reverse, for the matter was
settled on the lake at noonday in a few blunt words. They had been
floating about all the morning, from gloomy St. Gingolf to sunny
Montreux, with the Alps of Savoy on one side, Mont St. Bernard and the
Dent du Midi on the other, pretty Vevay in the valley, and Lausanne
upon the hill beyond, a cloudless blue sky overhead, and the bluer lake
below, dotted with the picturesque boats that look like white-winged
gulls.

They had been talking of Bonnivard, as they glided past Chillon, and of
Rousseau, as they looked up at Clarens, where he wrote his Heloise.
Neither had read it, but they knew it was a love story, and each
privately wondered if it was half as interesting as their own. Amy had
been dabbling her hand in the water during the little pause that fell
between them, and when she looked up, Laurie was leaning on his oars
with an expression in his eyes that made her say hastily, merely for
the sake of saying something…

“You must be tired. Rest a little, and let me row. It will do me
good, for since you came I have been altogether lazy and luxurious.”

“I’m not tired, but you may take an oar, if you like. There’s room
enough, though I have to sit nearly in the middle, else the boat won’t
trim,” returned Laurie, as if he rather liked the arrangement.

Feeling that she had not mended matters much, Amy took the offered
third of a seat, shook her hair over her face, and accepted an oar.
She rowed as well as she did many other things, and though she used
both hands, and Laurie but one, the oars kept time, and the boat went
smoothly through the water.

“How well we pull together, don’t we?” said Amy, who objected to
silence just then.

“So well that I wish we might always pull in the same boat. Will you,
Amy?” very tenderly.

“Yes, Laurie,” very low.

Then they both stopped rowing, and unconsciously added a pretty little
tableau of human love and happiness to the dissolving views reflected
in the lake.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

ALL ALONE

It was easy to promise self-abnegation when self was wrapped up in
another, and heart and soul were purified by a sweet example. But when
the helpful voice was silent, the daily lesson over, the beloved
presence gone, and nothing remained but loneliness and grief, then Jo
found her promise very hard to keep. How could she ‘comfort Father and
Mother’ when her own heart ached with a ceaseless longing for her
sister, how could she ‘make the house cheerful’ when all its light and
warmth and beauty seemed to have deserted it when Beth left the old
home for the new, and where in all the world could she ‘find some
useful, happy work to do’, that would take the place of the loving
service which had been its own reward? She tried in a blind, hopeless
way to do her duty, secretly rebelling against it all the while, for it
seemed unjust that her few joys should be lessened, her burdens made
heavier, and life get harder and harder as she toiled along. Some
people seemed to get all sunshine, and some all shadow. It was not
fair, for she tried more than Amy to be good, but never got any reward,
only disappointment, trouble and hard work.

Poor Jo, these were dark days to her, for something like despair came
over her when she thought of spending all her life in that quiet house,
devoted to humdrum cares, a few small pleasures, and the duty that
never seemed to grow any easier. “I can’t do it. I wasn’t meant for a
life like this, and I know I shall break away and do something
desperate if somebody doesn’t come and help me,” she said to herself,
when her first efforts failed and she fell into the moody, miserable
state of mind which often comes when strong wills have to yield to the
inevitable.

But someone did come and help her, though Jo did not recognize her good
angels at once because they wore familiar shapes and used the simple
spells best fitted to poor humanity. Often she started up at night,
thinking Beth called her, and when the sight of the little empty bed
made her cry with the bitter cry of unsubmissive sorrow, “Oh, Beth,
come back! Come back!” she did not stretch out her yearning arms in
vain. For, as quick to hear her sobbing as she had been to hear her
sister’s faintest whisper, her mother came to comfort her, not with
words only, but the patient tenderness that soothes by a touch, tears
that were mute reminders of a greater grief than Jo’s, and broken
whispers, more eloquent than prayers, because hopeful resignation went
hand-in-hand with natural sorrow. Sacred moments, when heart talked to
heart in the silence of the night, turning affliction to a blessing,
which chastened grief and strengthened love. Feeling this, Jo’s burden
seemed easier to bear, duty grew sweeter, and life looked more
endurable, seen from the safe shelter of her mother’s arms.

When aching heart was a little comforted, troubled mind likewise found
help, for one day she went to the study, and leaning over the good gray
head lifted to welcome her with a tranquil smile, she said very humbly,
“Father, talk to me as you did to Beth. I need it more than she did,
for I’m all wrong.”

“My dear, nothing can comfort me like this,” he answered, with a falter
in his voice, and both arms round her, as if he too, needed help, and
did not fear to ask for it.

Then, sitting in Beth’s little chair close beside him, Jo told her
troubles, the resentful sorrow for her loss, the fruitless efforts that
discouraged her, the want of faith that made life look so dark, and all
the sad bewilderment which we call despair. She gave him entire
confidence, he gave her the help she needed, and both found consolation
in the act. For the time had come when they could talk together not
only as father and daughter, but as man and woman, able and glad to
serve each other with mutual sympathy as well as mutual love. Happy,
thoughtful times there in the old study which Jo called ‘the church of
one member’, and from which she came with fresh courage, recovered
cheerfulness, and a more submissive spirit. For the parents who had
taught one child to meet death without fear, were trying now to teach
another to accept life without despondency or distrust, and to use its
beautiful opportunities with gratitude and power.

Other helps had Jo–humble, wholesome duties and delights that would
not be denied their part in serving her, and which she slowly learned
to see and value. Brooms and dishcloths never could be as distasteful
as they once had been, for Beth had presided over both, and something
of her housewifely spirit seemed to linger around the little mop and
the old brush, never thrown away. As she used them, Jo found herself
humming the songs Beth used to hum, imitating Beth’s orderly ways, and
giving the little touches here and there that kept everything fresh and
cozy, which was the first step toward making home happy, though she
didn’t know it till Hannah said with an approving squeeze of the hand…

“You thoughtful creeter, you’re determined we shan’t miss that dear
lamb ef you can help it. We don’t say much, but we see it, and the
Lord will bless you for’t, see ef He don’t.”

As they sat sewing together, Jo discovered how much improved her sister
Meg was, how well she could talk, how much she knew about good, womanly
impulses, thoughts, and feelings, how happy she was in husband and
children, and how much they were all doing for each other.

“Marriage is an excellent thing, after all. I wonder if I should
blossom out half as well as you have, if I tried it?, always
‘perwisin’ I could,” said Jo, as she constructed a kite for Demi in
the topsy-turvy nursery.

“It’s just what you need to bring out the tender womanly half of your
nature, Jo. You are like a chestnut burr, prickly outside, but
silky-soft within, and a sweet kernal, if one can only get at it. Love
will make you show your heart one day, and then the rough burr will
fall off.”

“Frost opens chestnut burrs, ma’am, and it takes a good shake to bring
them down. Boys go nutting, and I don’t care to be bagged by them,”
returned Jo, pasting away at the kite which no wind that blows would
ever carry up, for Daisy had tied herself on as a bob.

Meg laughed, for she was glad to see a glimmer of Jo’s old spirit, but
she felt it her duty to enforce her opinion by every argument in her
power, and the sisterly chats were not wasted, especially as two of
Meg’s most effective arguments were the babies, whom Jo loved tenderly.
Grief is the best opener of some hearts, and Jo’s was nearly ready for
the bag. A little more sunshine to ripen the nut, then, not a boy’s
impatient shake, but a man’s hand reached up to pick it gently from the
burr, and find the kernal sound and sweet. If she suspected this, she
would have shut up tight, and been more prickly than ever, fortunately
she wasn’t thinking about herself, so when the time came, down she
dropped.

Now, if she had been the heroine of a moral storybook, she ought at
this period of her life to have become quite saintly, renounced the
world, and gone about doing good in a mortified bonnet, with tracts in
her pocket. But, you see, Jo wasn’t a heroine, she was only a
struggling human girl like hundreds of others, and she just acted out
her nature, being sad, cross, listless, or energetic, as the mood
suggested. It’s highly virtuous to say we’ll be good, but we can’t do
it all at once, and it takes a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull all
together before some of us even get our feet set in the right way. Jo
had got so far, she was learning to do her duty, and to feel unhappy if
she did not, but to do it cheerfully, ah, that was another thing! She
had often said she wanted to do something splendid, no matter how hard,
and now she had her wish, for what could be more beautiful than to
devote her life to Father and Mother, trying to make home as happy to
them as they had to her? And if difficulties were necessary to
increase the splendor of the effort, what could be harder for a
restless, ambitious girl than to give up her own hopes, plans, and
desires, and cheerfully live for others?

Providence had taken her at her word. Here was the task, not what she
had expected, but better because self had no part in it. Now, could she
do it? She decided that she would try, and in her first attempt she
found the helps I have suggested. Still another was given her, and she
took it, not as a reward, but as a comfort, as Christian took the
refreshment afforded by the little arbor where he rested, as he climbed
the hill called Difficulty.

“Why don’t you write? That always used to make you happy,” said her
mother once, when the desponding fit over-shadowed Jo.

“I’ve no heart to write, and if I had, nobody cares for my things.”

“We do. Write something for us, and never mind the rest of the world.
Try it, dear. I’m sure it would do you good, and please us very much.”

“Don’t believe I can.” But Jo got out her desk and began to overhaul
her half-finished manuscripts.

An hour afterward her mother peeped in and there she was, scratching
away, with her black pinafore on, and an absorbed expression, which
caused Mrs. March to smile and slip away, well pleased with the success
of her suggestion. Jo never knew how it happened, but something got
into that story that went straight to the hearts of those who read it,
for when her family had laughed and cried over it, her father sent it,
much against her will, to one of the popular magazines, and to her
utter surprise, it was not only paid for, but others requested.
Letters from several persons, whose praise was honor, followed the
appearance of the little story, newspapers copied it, and strangers as
well as friends admired it. For a small thing it was a great success,
and Jo was more astonished than when her novel was commended and
condemned all at once.

“I don’t understand it. What can there be in a simple little story
like that to make people praise it so?” she said, quite bewildered.

“There is truth in it, Jo, that’s the secret. Humor and pathos make it
alive, and you have found your style at last. You wrote with no
thoughts of fame and money, and put your heart into it, my daughter.
You have had the bitter, now comes the sweet. Do your best, and grow
as happy as we are in your success.”

“If there is anything good or true in what I write, it isn’t mine. I
owe it all to you and Mother and Beth,” said Jo, more touched by her
father’s words than by any amount of praise from the world.

So taught by love and sorrow, Jo wrote her little stories, and sent
them away to make friends for themselves and her, finding it a very
charitable world to such humble wanderers, for they were kindly
welcomed, and sent home comfortable tokens to their mother, like
dutiful children whom good fortune overtakes.

When Amy and Laurie wrote of their engagement, Mrs. March feared that
Jo would find it difficult to rejoice over it, but her fears were soon
set at rest, for though Jo looked grave at first, she took it very
quietly, and was full of hopes and plans for ‘the children’ before she
read the letter twice. It was a sort of written duet, wherein each
glorified the other in loverlike fashion, very pleasant to read and
satisfactory to think of, for no one had any objection to make.

“You like it, Mother?” said Jo, as they laid down the closely written
sheets and looked at one another.

“Yes, I hoped it would be so, ever since Amy wrote that she had refused
Fred. I felt sure then that something better than what you call the
‘mercenary spirit’ had come over her, and a hint here and there in her
letters made me suspect that love and Laurie would win the day.”

“How sharp you are, Marmee, and how silent! You never said a word to
me.”

“Mothers have need of sharp eyes and discreet tongues when they have
girls to manage. I was half afraid to put the idea into your head,
lest you should write and congratulate them before the thing was
settled.”

“I’m not the scatterbrain I was. You may trust me. I’m sober and
sensible enough for anyone’s confidante now.”

“So you are, my dear, and I should have made you mine, only I fancied
it might pain you to learn that your Teddy loved someone else.”

“Now, Mother, did you really think I could be so silly and selfish,
after I’d refused his love, when it was freshest, if not best?”

“I knew you were sincere then, Jo, but lately I have thought that if he
came back, and asked again, you might perhaps, feel like giving another
answer. Forgive me, dear, I can’t help seeing that you are very
lonely, and sometimes there is a hungry look in your eyes that goes to
my heart. So I fancied that your boy might fill the empty place if he
tried now.”

“No, Mother, it is better as it is, and I’m glad Amy has learned to
love him. But you are right in one thing. I am lonely, and perhaps if
Teddy had tried again, I might have said ‘Yes’, not because I love him
any more, but because I care more to be loved than when he went away.”

“I’m glad of that, Jo, for it shows that you are getting on. There are
plenty to love you, so try to be satisfied with Father and Mother,
sisters and brothers, friends and babies, till the best lover of all
comes to give you your reward.”

“Mothers are the best lovers in the world, but I don’t mind whispering
to Marmee that I’d like to try all kinds. It’s very curious, but the
more I try to satisfy myself with all sorts of natural affections, the
more I seem to want. I’d no idea hearts could take in so many. Mine
is so elastic, it never seems full now, and I used to be quite
contented with my family. I don’t understand it.”

“I do,” and Mrs. March smiled her wise smile, as Jo turned back the
leaves to read what Amy said of Laurie.

“It is so beautiful to be loved as Laurie loves me. He isn’t
sentimental, doesn’t say much about it, but I see and feel it in all he
says and does, and it makes me so happy and so humble that I don’t seem
to be the same girl I was. I never knew how good and generous and
tender he was till now, for he lets me read his heart, and I find it
full of noble impulses and hopes and purposes, and am so proud to know
it’s mine. He says he feels as if he ‘could make a prosperous voyage
now with me aboard as mate, and lots of love for ballast’. I pray he
may, and try to be all he believes me, for I love my gallant captain
with all my heart and soul and might, and never will desert him, while
God lets us be together. Oh, Mother, I never knew how much like heaven
this world could be, when two people love and live for one another!”

“And that’s our cool, reserved, and worldly Amy! Truly, love does work
miracles. How very, very happy they must be!” and Jo laid the rustling
sheets together with a careful hand, as one might shut the covers of a
lovely romance, which holds the reader fast till the end comes, and he
finds himself alone in the workaday world again.

By-and-by Jo roamed away upstairs, for it was rainy, and she could not
walk. A restless spirit possessed her, and the old feeling came again,
not bitter as it once was, but a sorrowfully patient wonder why one
sister should have all she asked, the other nothing. It was not true,
she knew that and tried to put it away, but the natural craving for
affection was strong, and Amy’s happiness woke the hungry longing for
someone to ‘love with heart and soul, and cling to while God let them
be together’. Up in the garret, where Jo’s unquiet wanderings ended
stood four little wooden chests in a row, each marked with its owners
name, and each filled with relics of the childhood and girlhood ended
now for all. Jo glanced into them, and when she came to her own,
leaned her chin on the edge, and stared absently at the chaotic
collection, till a bundle of old exercise books caught her eye. She
drew them out, turned them over, and relived that pleasant winter at
kind Mrs. Kirke’s. She had smiled at first, then she looked
thoughtful, next sad, and when she came to a little message written in
the Professor’s hand, her lips began to tremble, the books slid out of
her lap, and she sat looking at the friendly words, as they took a new
meaning, and touched a tender spot in her heart.

“Wait for me, my friend. I may be a little late, but I shall surely
come.”

“Oh, if he only would! So kind, so good, so patient with me always, my
dear old Fritz. I didn’t value him half enough when I had him, but now
how I should love to see him, for everyone seems going away from me,
and I’m all alone.”

And holding the little paper fast, as if it were a promise yet to be
fulfilled, Jo laid her head down on a comfortable rag bag, and cried,
as if in opposition to the rain pattering on the roof.

Was it all self-pity, loneliness, or low spirits? Or was it the waking
up of a sentiment which had bided its time as patiently as its
inspirer? Who shall say?

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

SURPRISES

Jo was alone in the twilight, lying on the old sofa, looking at the
fire, and thinking. It was her favorite way of spending the hour of
dusk. No one disturbed her, and she used to lie there on Beth’s little
red pillow, planning stories, dreaming dreams, or thinking tender
thoughts of the sister who never seemed far away. Her face looked
tired, grave, and rather sad, for tomorrow was her birthday, and she
was thinking how fast the years went by, how old she was getting, and
how little she seemed to have accomplished. Almost twenty-five, and
nothing to show for it. Jo was mistaken in that. There was a good
deal to show, and by-and-by she saw, and was grateful for it.

“An old maid, that’s what I’m to be. A literary spinster, with a pen
for a spouse, a family of stories for children, and twenty years hence
a morsel of fame, perhaps, when, like poor Johnson, I’m old and can’t
enjoy it, solitary, and can’t share it, independent, and don’t need it.
Well, I needn’t be a sour saint nor a selfish sinner, and, I dare say,
old maids are very comfortable when they get used to it, but…” and
there Jo sighed, as if the prospect was not inviting.

It seldom is, at first, and thirty seems the end of all things to
five-and-twenty. But it’s not as bad as it looks, and one can get on
quite happily if one has something in one’s self to fall back upon. At
twenty-five, girls begin to talk about being old maids, but secretly
resolve that they never will be. At thirty they say nothing about it,
but quietly accept the fact, and if sensible, console themselves by
remembering that they have twenty more useful, happy years, in which
they may be learning to grow old gracefully. Don’t laugh at the
spinsters, dear girls, for often very tender, tragic romances are
hidden away in the hearts that beat so quietly under the sober gowns,
and many silent sacrifices of youth, health, ambition, love itself,
make the faded faces beautiful in God’s sight. Even the sad, sour
sisters should be kindly dealt with, because they have missed the
sweetest part of life, if for no other reason. And looking at them
with compassion, not contempt, girls in their bloom should remember
that they too may miss the blossom time. That rosy cheeks don’t last
forever, that silver threads will come in the bonnie brown hair, and
that, by-and-by, kindness and respect will be as sweet as love and
admiration now.

Gentlemen, which means boys, be courteous to the old maids, no matter
how poor and plain and prim, for the only chivalry worth having is that
which is the readiest to pay deference to the old, protect the feeble,
and serve womankind, regardless of rank, age, or color. Just recollect
the good aunts who have not only lectured and fussed, but nursed and
petted, too often without thanks, the scrapes they have helped you out
of, the tips they have given you from their small store, the stitches
the patient old fingers have set for you, the steps the willing old
feet have taken, and gratefully pay the dear old ladies the little
attentions that women love to receive as long as they live. The
bright-eyed girls are quick to see such traits, and will like you all
the better for them, and if death, almost the only power that can part
mother and son, should rob you of yours, you will be sure to find a
tender welcome and maternal cherishing from some Aunt Priscilla, who
has kept the warmest corner of her lonely old heart for ‘the best nevvy
in the world’.

Jo must have fallen asleep (as I dare say my reader has during this
little homily), for suddenly Laurie’s ghost seemed to stand before her,
a substantial, lifelike ghost, leaning over her with the very look he
used to wear when he felt a good deal and didn’t like to show it. But,
like Jenny in the ballad…

“She could not think it he,”

and lay staring up at him in startled silence, till he stooped and
kissed her. Then she knew him, and flew up, crying joyfully…

“Oh my Teddy! Oh my Teddy!”

“Dear Jo, you are glad to see me, then?”

“Glad! My blessed boy, words can’t express my gladness. Where’s Amy?”

“Your mother has got her down at Meg’s. We stopped there by the way,
and there was no getting my wife out of their clutches.”

“Your what?” cried Jo, for Laurie uttered those two words with an
unconscious pride and satisfaction which betrayed him.

“Oh, the dickens! Now I’ve done it,” and he looked so guilty that Jo
was down on him like a flash.

“You’ve gone and got married!”

“Yes, please, but I never will again,” and he went down upon his knees,
with a penitent clasping of hands, and a face full of mischief, mirth,
and triumph.

“Actually married?”

“Very much so, thank you.”

“Mercy on us. What dreadful thing will you do next?” and Jo fell into
her seat with a gasp.

“A characteristic, but not exactly complimentary, congratulation,”
returned Laurie, still in an abject attitude, but beaming with
satisfaction.

“What can you expect, when you take one’s breath away, creeping in like
a burglar, and letting cats out of bags like that? Get up, you
ridiculous boy, and tell me all about it.”

“Not a word, unless you let me come in my old place, and promise not to
barricade.”

Jo laughed at that as she had not done for many a long day, and patted
the sofa invitingly, as she said in a cordial tone, “The old pillow is
up garret, and we don’t need it now. So, come and 'fess, Teddy.”

“How good it sounds to hear you say ‘Teddy’! No one ever calls me that
but you,” and Laurie sat down with an air of great content.

“What does Amy call you?”

“My lord.”

“That’s like her. Well, you look it,” and Jo’s eye plainly betrayed
that she found her boy comelier than ever.

The pillow was gone, but there was a barricade, nevertheless, a natural
one, raised by time, absence, and change of heart. Both felt it, and
for a minute looked at one another as if that invisible barrier cast a
little shadow over them. It was gone directly however, for Laurie
said, with a vain attempt at dignity…

“Don’t I look like a married man and the head of a family?”

“Not a bit, and you never will. You’ve grown bigger and bonnier, but
you are the same scapegrace as ever.”

“Now really, Jo, you ought to treat me with more respect,” began
Laurie, who enjoyed it all immensely.

“How can I, when the mere idea of you, married and settled, is so
irresistibly funny that I can’t keep sober!” answered Jo, smiling all
over her face, so infectiously that they had another laugh, and then
settled down for a good talk, quite in the pleasant old fashion.

“It’s no use your going out in the cold to get Amy, for they are all
coming up presently. I couldn’t wait. I wanted to be the one to tell
you the grand surprise, and have ‘first skim’ as we used to say when we
squabbled about the cream.”

“Of course you did, and spoiled your story by beginning at the wrong
end. Now, start right, and tell me how it all happened. I’m pining to
know.”

“Well, I did it to please Amy,” began Laurie, with a twinkle that made
Jo exclaim…

“Fib number one. Amy did it to please you. Go on, and tell the truth,
if you can, sir.”

“Now she’s beginning to marm it. Isn’t it jolly to hear her?” said
Laurie to the fire, and the fire glowed and sparkled as if it quite
agreed. “It’s all the same, you know, she and I being one. We planned
to come home with the Carrols, a month or more ago, but they suddenly
changed their minds, and decided to pass another winter in Paris. But
Grandpa wanted to come home. He went to please me, and I couldn’t let
him go alone, neither could I leave Amy, and Mrs. Carrol had got
English notions about chaperons and such nonsense, and wouldn’t let Amy
come with us. So I just settled the difficulty by saying, ‘Let’s be
married, and then we can do as we like’.”

“Of course you did. You always have things to suit you.”

“Not always,” and something in Laurie’s voice made Jo say hastily…

“How did you ever get Aunt to agree?”

“It was hard work, but between us, we talked her over, for we had heaps
of good reasons on our side. There wasn’t time to write and ask leave,
but you all liked it, had consented to it by-and-by, and it was only
‘taking time by the fetlock’, as my wife says.”

“Aren’t we proud of those two words, and don’t we like to say them?”
interrupted Jo, addressing the fire in her turn, and watching with
delight the happy light it seemed to kindle in the eyes that had been
so tragically gloomy when she saw them last.

“A trifle, perhaps, she’s such a captivating little woman I can’t help
being proud of her. Well, then Uncle and Aunt were there to play
propriety. We were so absorbed in one another we were of no mortal use
apart, and that charming arrangement would make everything easy all
round, so we did it.”

“When, where, how?” asked Jo, in a fever of feminine interest and
curiosity, for she could not realize it a particle.

“Six weeks ago, at the American consul’s, in Paris, a very quiet
wedding of course, for even in our happiness we didn’t forget dear
little Beth.”

Jo put her hand in his as he said that, and Laurie gently smoothed the
little red pillow, which he remembered well.

“Why didn’t you let us know afterward?” asked Jo, in a quieter tone,
when they had sat quite still a minute.

“We wanted to surprise you. We thought we were coming directly home,
at first, but the dear old gentleman, as soon as we were married, found
he couldn’t be ready under a month, at least, and sent us off to spend
our honeymoon wherever we liked. Amy had once called Valrosa a regular
honeymoon home, so we went there, and were as happy as people are but
once in their lives. My faith! Wasn’t it love among the roses!”

Laurie seemed to forget Jo for a minute, and Jo was glad of it, for the
fact that he told her these things so freely and so naturally assured
her that he had quite forgiven and forgotten. She tried to draw away
her hand, but as if he guessed the thought that prompted the
half-involuntary impulse, Laurie held it fast, and said, with a manly
gravity she had never seen in him before…

“Jo, dear, I want to say one thing, and then we’ll put it by forever.
As I told you in my letter when I wrote that Amy had been so kind to
me, I never shall stop loving you, but the love is altered, and I have
learned to see that it is better as it is. Amy and you changed places
in my heart, that’s all. I think it was meant to be so, and would have
come about naturally, if I had waited, as you tried to make me, but I
never could be patient, and so I got a heartache. I was a boy then,
headstrong and violent, and it took a hard lesson to show me my
mistake. For it was one, Jo, as you said, and I found it out, after
making a fool of myself. Upon my word, I was so tumbled up in my mind,
at one time, that I didn’t know which I loved best, you or Amy, and
tried to love you both alike. But I couldn’t, and when I saw her in
Switzerland, everything seemed to clear up all at once. You both got
into your right places, and I felt sure that it was well off with the
old love before it was on with the new, that I could honestly share my
heart between sister Jo and wife Amy, and love them dearly. Will you
believe it, and go back to the happy old times when we first knew one
another?”

“I’ll believe it, with all my heart, but, Teddy, we never can be boy
and girl again. The happy old times can’t come back, and we mustn’t
expect it. We are man and woman now, with sober work to do, for
playtime is over, and we must give up frolicking. I’m sure you feel
this. I see the change in you, and you’ll find it in me. I shall miss
my boy, but I shall love the man as much, and admire him more, because
he means to be what I hoped he would. We can’t be little playmates any
longer, but we will be brother and sister, to love and help one another
all our lives, won’t we, Laurie?”

He did not say a word, but took the hand she offered him, and laid his
face down on it for a minute, feeling that out of the grave of a boyish
passion, there had risen a beautiful, strong friendship to bless them
both. Presently Jo said cheerfully, for she didn’t want the coming
home to be a sad one, “I can’t make it true that you children are
really married and going to set up housekeeping. Why, it seems only
yesterday that I was buttoning Amy’s pinafore, and pulling your hair
when you teased. Mercy me, how time does fly!”

“As one of the children is older than yourself, you needn’t talk so
like a grandma. I flatter myself I’m a ‘gentleman growed’ as Peggotty
said of David, and when you see Amy, you’ll find her rather a
precocious infant,” said Laurie, looking amused at her maternal air.

“You may be a little older in years, but I’m ever so much older in
feeling, Teddy. Women always are, and this last year has been such a
hard one that I feel forty.”

“Poor Jo! We left you to bear it alone, while we went pleasuring. You
are older. Here’s a line, and there’s another. Unless you smile, your
eyes look sad, and when I touched the cushion, just now, I found a tear
on it. You’ve had a great deal to bear, and had to bear it all alone.
What a selfish beast I’ve been!” and Laurie pulled his own hair, with a
remorseful look.

But Jo only turned over the traitorous pillow, and answered, in a tone
which she tried to make more cheerful, “No, I had Father and Mother to
help me, and the dear babies to comfort me, and the thought that you
and Amy were safe and happy, to make the troubles here easier to bear.
I am lonely, sometimes, but I dare say it’s good for me, and…”

“You never shall be again,” broke in Laurie, putting his arm about her,
as if to fence out every human ill. “Amy and I can’t get on without
you, so you must come and teach ‘the children’ to keep house, and go
halves in everything, just as we used to do, and let us pet you, and
all be blissfully happy and friendly together.”

“If I shouldn’t be in the way, it would be very pleasant. I begin to
feel quite young already, for somehow all my troubles seemed to fly
away when you came. You always were a comfort, Teddy,” and Jo leaned
her head on his shoulder, just as she did years ago, when Beth lay ill
and Laurie told her to hold on to him.

He looked down at her, wondering if she remembered the time, but Jo was
smiling to herself, as if in truth her troubles had all vanished at his
coming.

“You are the same Jo still, dropping tears about one minute, and
laughing the next. You look a little wicked now. What is it, Grandma?”

“I was wondering how you and Amy get on together.”

“Like angels!”

“Yes, of course, but which rules?”

“I don’t mind telling you that she does now, at least I let her think
so, it pleases her, you know. By-and-by we shall take turns, for
marriage, they say, halves one’s rights and doubles one’s duties.”

“You’ll go on as you begin, and Amy will rule you all the days of your
life.”

“Well, she does it so imperceptibly that I don’t think I shall mind
much. She is the sort of woman who knows how to rule well. In fact, I
rather like it, for she winds one round her finger as softly and
prettily as a skein of silk, and makes you feel as if she was doing you
a favor all the while.”

“That ever I should live to see you a henpecked husband and enjoying
it!” cried Jo, with uplifted hands.

It was good to see Laurie square his shoulders, and smile with
masculine scorn at that insinuation, as he replied, with his “high and
mighty” air, “Amy is too well-bred for that, and I am not the sort of
man to submit to it. My wife and I respect ourselves and one another
too much ever to tyrannize or quarrel.”

Jo liked that, and thought the new dignity very becoming, but the boy
seemed changing very fast into the man, and regret mingled with her
pleasure.

“I am sure of that. Amy and you never did quarrel as we used to. She
is the sun and I the wind, in the fable, and the sun managed the man
best, you remember.”

“She can blow him up as well as shine on him,” laughed Laurie. “Such a
lecture as I got at Nice! I give you my word it was a deal worse than
any of your scoldings, a regular rouser. I’ll tell you all about it
sometime, she never will, because after telling me that she despised
and was ashamed of me, she lost her heart to the despicable party and
married the good-for-nothing.”

“What baseness! Well, if she abuses you, come to me, and I’ll defend
you.”

“I look as if I needed it, don’t I?” said Laurie, getting up and
striking an attitude which suddenly changed from the imposing to the
rapturous, as Amy’s voice was heard calling, “Where is she? Where’s my
dear old Jo?”

In trooped the whole family, and everyone was hugged and kissed all
over again, and after several vain attempts, the three wanderers were
set down to be looked at and exulted over. Mr. Laurence, hale and
hearty as ever, was quite as much improved as the others by his foreign
tour, for the crustiness seemed to be nearly gone, and the
old-fashioned courtliness had received a polish which made it kindlier
than ever. It was good to see him beam at ‘my children’, as he called
the young pair. It was better still to see Amy pay him the daughterly
duty and affection which completely won his old heart, and best of all,
to watch Laurie revolve about the two, as if never tired of enjoying
the pretty picture they made.

The minute she put her eyes upon Amy, Meg became conscious that her own
dress hadn’t a Parisian air, that young Mrs. Moffat would be entirely
eclipsed by young Mrs. Laurence, and that ‘her ladyship’ was altogether
a most elegant and graceful woman. Jo thought, as she watched the
pair, “How well they look together! I was right, and Laurie has found
the beautiful, accomplished girl who will become his home better than
clumsy old Jo, and be a pride, not a torment to him.” Mrs. March and
her husband smiled and nodded at each other with happy faces, for they
saw that their youngest had done well, not only in worldly things, but
the better wealth of love, confidence, and happiness.

For Amy’s face was full of the soft brightness which betokens a
peaceful heart, her voice had a new tenderness in it, and the cool,
prim carriage was changed to a gentle dignity, both womanly and
winning. No little affectations marred it, and the cordial sweetness of
her manner was more charming than the new beauty or the old grace, for
it stamped her at once with the unmistakable sign of the true
gentlewoman she had hoped to become.

“Love has done much for our little girl,” said her mother softly.

“She has had a good example before her all her life, my dear,” Mr.
March whispered back, with a loving look at the worn face and gray head
beside him.

Daisy found it impossible to keep her eyes off her ‘pitty aunty’, but
attached herself like a lap dog to the wonderful chatelaine full of
delightful charms. Demi paused to consider the new relationship before
he compromised himself by the rash acceptance of a bribe, which took
the tempting form of a family of wooden bears from Berne. A flank
movement produced an unconditional surrender, however, for Laurie knew
where to have him.

“Young man, when I first had the honor of making your acquaintance you
hit me in the face. Now I demand the satisfaction of a gentleman,” and
with that the tall uncle proceeded to toss and tousle the small nephew
in a way that damaged his philosophical dignity as much as it delighted
his boyish soul.

“Blest if she ain’t in silk from head to foot; ain’t it a relishin’
sight to see her settin’ there as fine as a fiddle, and hear folks
calling little Amy ‘Mis. Laurence!’” muttered old Hannah, who could
not resist frequent “peeks” through the slide as she set the table in a
most decidedly promiscuous manner.

Mercy on us, how they did talk! first one, then the other, then all
burst out together–trying to tell the history of three years in half
an hour. It was fortunate that tea was at hand, to produce a lull and
provide refreshment–for they would have been hoarse and faint if they
had gone on much longer. Such a happy procession as filed away into
the little dining room! Mr. March proudly escorted Mrs. Laurence. Mrs.
March as proudly leaned on the arm of ‘my son’. The old gentleman took
Jo, with a whispered, “You must be my girl now,” and a glance at the
empty corner by the fire, that made Jo whisper back, “I’ll try to fill
her place, sir.”

The twins pranced behind, feeling that the millennium was at hand, for
everyone was so busy with the newcomers that they were left to revel at
their own sweet will, and you may be sure they made the most of the
opportunity. Didn’t they steal sips of tea, stuff gingerbread ad
libitum, get a hot biscuit apiece, and as a crowning trespass, didn’t
they each whisk a captivating little tart into their tiny pockets,
there to stick and crumble treacherously, teaching them that both human
nature and a pastry are frail? Burdened with the guilty consciousness
of the sequestered tarts, and fearing that Dodo’s sharp eyes would
pierce the thin disguise of cambric and merino which hid their booty,
the little sinners attached themselves to ‘Dranpa’, who hadn’t his
spectacles on. Amy, who was handed about like refreshments, returned
to the parlor on Father Laurence’s arm. The others paired off as
before, and this arrangement left Jo companionless. She did not mind
it at the minute, for she lingered to answer Hannah’s eager inquiry.

“Will Miss Amy ride in her coop (coupe), and use all them lovely silver
dishes that’s stored away over yander?”

“Shouldn’t wonder if she drove six white horses, ate off gold plate,
and wore diamonds and point lace every day. Teddy thinks nothing too
good for her,” returned Jo with infinite satisfaction.

“No more there is! Will you have hash or fishballs for breakfast?”
asked Hannah, who wisely mingled poetry and prose.

“I don’t care,” and Jo shut the door, feeling that food was an
uncongenial topic just then. She stood a minute looking at the party
vanishing above, and as Demi’s short plaid legs toiled up the last
stair, a sudden sense of loneliness came over her so strongly that she
looked about her with dim eyes, as if to find something to lean upon,
for even Teddy had deserted her. If she had known what birthday gift
was coming every minute nearer and nearer, she would not have said to
herself, “I’ll weep a little weep when I go to bed. It won’t do to be
dismal now.” Then she drew her hand over her eyes, for one of her
boyish habits was never to know where her handkerchief was, and had
just managed to call up a smile when there came a knock at the porch
door.

She opened with hospitable haste, and started as if another ghost had
come to surprise her, for there stood a tall bearded gentleman, beaming
on her from the darkness like a midnight sun.

“Oh, Mr. Bhaer, I am so glad to see you!” cried Jo, with a clutch, as
if she feared the night would swallow him up before she could get him
in.

“And I to see Miss Marsch, but no, you haf a party,” and the Professor
paused as the sound of voices and the tap of dancing feet came down to
them.

“No, we haven’t, only the family. My sister and friends have just come
home, and we are all very happy. Come in, and make one of us.”

Though a very social man, I think Mr. Bhaer would have gone decorously
away, and come again another day, but how could he, when Jo shut the
door behind him, and bereft him of his hat? Perhaps her face had
something to do with it, for she forgot to hide her joy at seeing him,
and showed it with a frankness that proved irresistible to the solitary
man, whose welcome far exceeded his boldest hopes.

“If I shall not be Monsieur de Trop, I will so gladly see them all.
You haf been ill, my friend?”

He put the question abruptly, for, as Jo hung up his coat, the light
fell on her face, and he saw a change in it.

“Not ill, but tired and sorrowful. We have had trouble since I saw you
last.”

“Ah, yes, I know. My heart was sore for you when I heard that,” and he
shook hands again, with such a sympathetic face that Jo felt as if no
comfort could equal the look of the kind eyes, the grasp of the big,
warm hand.

“Father, Mother, this is my friend, Professor Bhaer,” she said, with a
face and tone of such irrepressible pride and pleasure that she might
as well have blown a trumpet and opened the door with a flourish.

If the stranger had any doubts about his reception, they were set at
rest in a minute by the cordial welcome he received. Everyone greeted
him kindly, for Jo’s sake at first, but very soon they liked him for
his own. They could not help it, for he carried the talisman that
opens all hearts, and these simple people warmed to him at once,
feeling even the more friendly because he was poor. For poverty
enriches those who live above it, and is a sure passport to truly
hospitable spirits. Mr. Bhaer sat looking about him with the air of a
traveler who knocks at a strange door, and when it opens, finds himself
at home. The children went to him like bees to a honeypot, and
establishing themselves on each knee, proceeded to captivate him by
rifling his pockets, pulling his beard, and investigating his watch,
with juvenile audacity. The women telegraphed their approval to one
another, and Mr. March, feeling that he had got a kindred spirit,
opened his choicest stores for his guest’s benefit, while silent John
listened and enjoyed the talk, but said not a word, and Mr. Laurence
found it impossible to go to sleep.

If Jo had not been otherwise engaged, Laurie’s behavior would have
amused her, for a faint twinge, not of jealousy, but something like
suspicion, caused that gentleman to stand aloof at first, and observe
the newcomer with brotherly circumspection. But it did not last long.
He got interested in spite of himself, and before he knew it, was drawn
into the circle. For Mr. Bhaer talked well in this genial atmosphere,
and did himself justice. He seldom spoke to Laurie, but he looked at
him often, and a shadow would pass across his face, as if regretting
his own lost youth, as he watched the young man in his prime. Then his
eyes would turn to Jo so wistfully that she would have surely answered
the mute inquiry if she had seen it. But Jo had her own eyes to take
care of, and feeling that they could not be trusted, she prudently kept
them on the little sock she was knitting, like a model maiden aunt.

A stealthy glance now and then refreshed her like sips of fresh water
after a dusty walk, for the sidelong peeps showed her several
propitious omens. Mr. Bhaer’s face had lost the absent-minded
expression, and looked all alive with interest in the present moment,
actually young and handsome, she thought, forgetting to compare him
with Laurie, as she usually did strange men, to their great detriment.
Then he seemed quite inspired, though the burial customs of the
ancients, to which the conversation had strayed, might not be
considered an exhilarating topic. Jo quite glowed with triumph when
Teddy got quenched in an argument, and thought to herself, as she
watched her father’s absorbed face, “How he would enjoy having such a
man as my Professor to talk with every day!” Lastly, Mr. Bhaer was
dressed in a new suit of black, which made him look more like a
gentleman than ever. His bushy hair had been cut and smoothly brushed,
but didn’t stay in order long, for in exciting moments, he rumpled it
up in the droll way he used to do, and Jo liked it rampantly erect
better than flat, because she thought it gave his fine forehead a
Jove-like aspect. Poor Jo, how she did glorify that plain man, as she
sat knitting away so quietly, yet letting nothing escape her, not even
the fact that Mr. Bhaer actually had gold sleeve-buttons in his
immaculate wristbands.

“Dear old fellow! He couldn’t have got himself up with more care if
he’d been going a-wooing,” said Jo to herself, and then a sudden
thought born of the words made her blush so dreadfully that she had to
drop her ball, and go down after it to hide her face.

The maneuver did not succeed as well as she expected, however, for
though just in the act of setting fire to a funeral pyre, the Professor
dropped his torch, metaphorically speaking, and made a dive after the
little blue ball. Of course they bumped their heads smartly together,
saw stars, and both came up flushed and laughing, without the ball, to
resume their seats, wishing they had not left them.

Nobody knew where the evening went to, for Hannah skillfully abstracted
the babies at an early hour, nodding like two rosy poppies, and Mr.
Laurence went home to rest. The others sat round the fire, talking
away, utterly regardless of the lapse of time, till Meg, whose maternal
mind was impressed with a firm conviction that Daisy had tumbled out of
bed, and Demi set his nightgown afire studying the structure of
matches, made a move to go.

“We must have our sing, in the good old way, for we are all together
again once more,” said Jo, feeling that a good shout would be a safe
and pleasant vent for the jubilant emotions of her soul.

They were not all there. But no one found the words thoughtless or
untrue, for Beth still seemed among them, a peaceful presence,
invisible, but dearer than ever, since death could not break the
household league that love made dissoluble. The little chair stood in
its old place. The tidy basket, with the bit of work she left
unfinished when the needle grew ‘so heavy’, was still on its accustomed
shelf. The beloved instrument, seldom touched now had not been moved,
and above it Beth’s face, serene and smiling, as in the early days,
looked down upon them, seeming to say, “Be happy. I am here.”

“Play something, Amy. Let them hear how much you have improved,” said
Laurie, with pardonable pride in his promising pupil.

But Amy whispered, with full eyes, as she twirled the faded stool, “Not
tonight, dear. I can’t show off tonight.”

But she did show something better than brilliancy or skill, for she
sang Beth’s songs with a tender music in her voice which the best
master could not have taught, and touched the listener’s hearts with a
sweeter power than any other inspiration could have given her. The
room was very still, when the clear voice failed suddenly at the last
line of Beth’s favorite hymn. It was hard to say…

Earth hath no sorrow that heaven cannot heal;

and Amy leaned against her husband, who stood behind her, feeling that
her welcome home was not quite perfect without Beth’s kiss.

“Now, we must finish with Mignon’s song, for Mr. Bhaer sings that,”
said Jo, before the pause grew painful. And Mr. Bhaer cleared his
throat with a gratified “Hem!” as he stepped into the corner where Jo
stood, saying…

“You will sing with me? We go excellently well together.”

A pleasing fiction, by the way, for Jo had no more idea of music than a
grasshopper. But she would have consented if he had proposed to sing a
whole opera, and warbled away, blissfully regardless of time and tune.
It didn’t much matter, for Mr. Bhaer sang like a true German, heartily
and well, and Jo soon subsided into a subdued hum, that she might
listen to the mellow voice that seemed to sing for her alone.

Know'st thou the land where the citron blooms,

used to be the Professor’s favorite line, for ‘das land’ meant Germany
to him, but now he seemed to dwell, with peculiar warmth and melody,
upon the words…

There, oh there, might I with thee,
O, my beloved, go

and one listener was so thrilled by the tender invitation that she
longed to say she did know the land, and would joyfully depart thither
whenever he liked.

The song was considered a great success, and the singer retired covered
with laurels. But a few minutes afterward, he forgot his manners
entirely, and stared at Amy putting on her bonnet, for she had been
introduced simply as ‘my sister’, and no one had called her by her new
name since he came. He forgot himself still further when Laurie said,
in his most gracious manner, at parting…

“My wife and I are very glad to meet you, sir. Please remember that
there is always a welcome waiting for you over the way.”

Then the Professor thanked him so heartily, and looked so suddenly
illuminated with satisfaction, that Laurie thought him the most
delightfully demonstrative old fellow he ever met.

“I too shall go, but I shall gladly come again, if you will gif me
leave, dear madame, for a little business in the city will keep me here
some days.”

He spoke to Mrs. March, but he looked at Jo, and the mother’s voice
gave as cordial an assent as did the daughter’s eyes, for Mrs. March
was not so blind to her children’s interest as Mrs. Moffat supposed.

“I suspect that is a wise man,” remarked Mr. March, with placid
satisfaction, from the hearthrug, after the last guest had gone.

“I know he is a good one,” added Mrs. March, with decided approval, as
she wound up the clock.

“I thought you’d like him,” was all Jo said, as she slipped away to her
bed.

She wondered what the business was that brought Mr. Bhaer to the city,
and finally decided that he had been appointed to some great honor,
somewhere, but had been too modest to mention the fact. If she had
seen his face when, safe in his own room, he looked at the picture of a
severe and rigid young lady, with a good deal of hair, who appeared to
be gazing darkly into futurity, it might have thrown some light upon
the subject, especially when he turned off the gas, and kissed the
picture in the dark.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

MY LORD AND LADY

“Please, Madam Mother, could you lend me my wife for half an hour? The
luggage has come, and I’ve been making hay of Amy’s Paris finery,
trying to find some things I want,” said Laurie, coming in the next day
to find Mrs. Laurence sitting in her mother’s lap, as if being made
‘the baby’ again.

“Certainly. Go, dear, I forgot that you have any home but this,” and
Mrs. March pressed the white hand that wore the wedding ring, as if
asking pardon for her maternal covetousness.

“I shouldn’t have come over if I could have helped it, but I can’t get
on without my little woman any more than a…”

“Weathercock can without the wind,” suggested Jo, as he paused for a
simile. Jo had grown quite her own saucy self again since Teddy came
home.

“Exactly, for Amy keeps me pointing due west most of the time, with
only an occasional whiffle round to the south, and I haven’t had an
easterly spell since I was married. Don’t know anything about the
north, but am altogether salubrious and balmy, hey, my lady?”

“Lovely weather so far. I don’t know how long it will last, but I’m
not afraid of storms, for I’m learning how to sail my ship. Come home,
dear, and I’ll find your bootjack. I suppose that’s what you are
rummaging after among my things. Men are so helpless, Mother,” said
Amy, with a matronly air, which delighted her husband.

“What are you going to do with yourselves after you get settled?” asked
Jo, buttoning Amy’s cloak as she used to button her pinafores.

“We have our plans. We don’t mean to say much about them yet, because
we are such very new brooms, but we don’t intend to be idle. I’m going
into business with a devotion that shall delight Grandfather, and prove
to him that I’m not spoiled. I need something of the sort to keep me
steady. I’m tired of dawdling, and mean to work like a man.”

“And Amy, what is she going to do?” asked Mrs. March, well pleased at
Laurie’s decision and the energy with which he spoke.

“After doing the civil all round, and airing our best bonnet, we shall
astonish you by the elegant hospitalities of our mansion, the brilliant
society we shall draw about us, and the beneficial influence we shall
exert over the world at large. That’s about it, isn’t it, Madame
Recamier?” asked Laurie with a quizzical look at Amy.

“Time will show. Come away, Impertinence, and don’t shock my family by
calling me names before their faces,” answered Amy, resolving that
there should be a home with a good wife in it before she set up a salon
as a queen of society.

“How happy those children seem together!” observed Mr. March, finding
it difficult to become absorbed in his Aristotle after the young couple
had gone.

“Yes, and I think it will last,” added Mrs. March, with the restful
expression of a pilot who has brought a ship safely into port.

“I know it will. Happy Amy!” and Jo sighed, then smiled brightly as
Professor Bhaer opened the gate with an impatient push.

Later in the evening, when his mind had been set at rest about the
bootjack, Laurie said suddenly to his wife, “Mrs. Laurence.”

“My Lord!”

“That man intends to marry our Jo!”

“I hope so, don’t you, dear?”

“Well, my love, I consider him a trump, in the fullest sense of that
expressive word, but I do wish he was a little younger and a good deal
richer.”

“Now, Laurie, don’t be too fastidious and worldly-minded. If they love
one another it doesn’t matter a particle how old they are nor how poor.
Women never should marry for money…” Amy caught herself up short as
the words escaped her, and looked at her husband, who replied, with
malicious gravity…

“Certainly not, though you do hear charming girls say that they intend
to do it sometimes. If my memory serves me, you once thought it your
duty to make a rich match. That accounts, perhaps, for your marrying a
good-for-nothing like me.”

“Oh, my dearest boy, don’t, don’t say that! I forgot you were rich
when I said ‘Yes’. I’d have married you if you hadn’t a penny, and I
sometimes wish you were poor that I might show how much I love you.”
And Amy, who was very dignified in public and very fond in private,
gave convincing proofs of the truth of her words.

“You don’t really think I am such a mercenary creature as I tried to be
once, do you? It would break my heart if you didn’t believe that I’d
gladly pull in the same boat with you, even if you had to get your
living by rowing on the lake.”

“Am I an idiot and a brute? How could I think so, when you refused a
richer man for me, and won’t let me give you half I want to now, when I
have the right? Girls do it every day, poor things, and are taught to
think it is their only salvation, but you had better lessons, and
though I trembled for you at one time, I was not disappointed, for the
daughter was true to the mother’s teaching. I told Mamma so yesterday,
and she looked as glad and grateful as if I’d given her a check for a
million, to be spent in charity. You are not listening to my moral
remarks, Mrs. Laurence,” and Laurie paused, for Amy’s eyes had an
absent look, though fixed upon his face.

“Yes, I am, and admiring the mole in your chin at the same time. I
don’t wish to make you vain, but I must confess that I’m prouder of my
handsome husband than of all his money. Don’t laugh, but your nose is
such a comfort to me,” and Amy softly caressed the well-cut feature
with artistic satisfaction.

Laurie had received many compliments in his life, but never one that
suited him better, as he plainly showed though he did laugh at his
wife’s peculiar taste, while she said slowly, “May I ask you a
question, dear?”

“Of course, you may.”

“Shall you care if Jo does marry Mr. Bhaer?”

“Oh, that’s the trouble is it? I thought there was something in the
dimple that didn’t quite suit you. Not being a dog in the manger, but
the happiest fellow alive, I assure you I can dance at Jo’s wedding
with a heart as light as my heels. Do you doubt it, my darling?”

Amy looked up at him, and was satisfied. Her little jealous fear
vanished forever, and she thanked him, with a face full of love and
confidence.

“I wish we could do something for that capital old Professor. Couldn’t
we invent a rich relation, who shall obligingly die out there in
Germany, and leave him a tidy little fortune?” said Laurie, when they
began to pace up and down the long drawing room, arm in arm, as they
were fond of doing, in memory of the chateau garden.

“Jo would find us out, and spoil it all. She is very proud of him,
just as he is, and said yesterday that she thought poverty was a
beautiful thing.”

“Bless her dear heart! She won’t think so when she has a literary
husband, and a dozen little professors and professorins to support. We
won’t interfere now, but watch our chance, and do them a good turn in
spite of themselves. I owe Jo for a part of my education, and she
believes in people’s paying their honest debts, so I’ll get round her
in that way.”

“How delightful it is to be able to help others, isn’t it? That was
always one of my dreams, to have the power of giving freely, and thanks
to you, the dream has come true.”

“Ah, we’ll do quantities of good, won’t we? There’s one sort of
poverty that I particularly like to help. Out-and-out beggars get
taken care of, but poor gentle folks fare badly, because they won’t
ask, and people don’t dare to offer charity. Yet there are a thousand
ways of helping them, if one only knows how to do it so delicately that
it does not offend. I must say, I like to serve a decayed gentleman
better than a blarnerying beggar. I suppose it’s wrong, but I do,
though it is harder.”

“Because it takes a gentleman to do it,” added the other member of the
domestic admiration society.

“Thank you, I’m afraid I don’t deserve that pretty compliment. But I
was going to say that while I was dawdling about abroad, I saw a good
many talented young fellows making all sorts of sacrifices, and
enduring real hardships, that they might realize their dreams. Splendid
fellows, some of them, working like heros, poor and friendless, but so
full of courage, patience, and ambition that I was ashamed of myself,
and longed to give them a right good lift. Those are people whom it’s
a satisfaction to help, for if they’ve got genius, it’s an honor to be
allowed to serve them, and not let it be lost or delayed for want of
fuel to keep the pot boiling. If they haven’t, it’s a pleasure to
comfort the poor souls, and keep them from despair when they find it
out.”

“Yes, indeed, and there’s another class who can’t ask, and who suffer
in silence. I know something of it, for I belonged to it before you
made a princess of me, as the king does the beggarmaid in the old
story. Ambitious girls have a hard time, Laurie, and often have to see
youth, health, and precious opportunities go by, just for want of a
little help at the right minute. People have been very kind to me, and
whenever I see girls struggling along, as we used to do, I want to put
out my hand and help them, as I was helped.”

“And so you shall, like an angel as you are!” cried Laurie, resolving,
with a glow of philanthropic zeal, to found and endow an institution
for the express benefit of young women with artistic tendencies. “Rich
people have no right to sit down and enjoy themselves, or let their
money accumulate for others to waste. It’s not half so sensible to
leave legacies when one dies as it is to use the money wisely while
alive, and enjoy making one’s fellow creatures happy with it. We’ll
have a good time ourselves, and add an extra relish to our own pleasure
by giving other people a generous taste. Will you be a little Dorcas,
going about emptying a big basket of comforts, and filling it up with
good deeds?”

“With all my heart, if you will be a brave St. Martin, stopping as you
ride gallantly through the world to share your cloak with the beggar.”

“It’s a bargain, and we shall get the best of it!”

So the young pair shook hands upon it, and then paced happily on again,
feeling that their pleasant home was more homelike because they hoped
to brighten other homes, believing that their own feet would walk more
uprightly along the flowery path before them, if they smoothed rough
ways for other feet, and feeling that their hearts were more closely
knit together by a love which could tenderly remember those less blest
than they.

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

DAISY AND DEMI

I cannot feel that I have done my duty as humble historian of the March
family, without devoting at least one chapter to the two most precious
and important members of it. Daisy and Demi had now arrived at years
of discretion, for in this fast age babies of three or four assert
their rights, and get them, too, which is more than many of their
elders do. If there ever were a pair of twins in danger of being
utterly spoiled by adoration, it was these prattling Brookes. Of
course they were the most remarkable children ever born, as will be
shown when I mention that they walked at eight months, talked fluently
at twelve months, and at two years they took their places at table, and
behaved with a propriety which charmed all beholders. At three, Daisy
demanded a ‘needler’, and actually made a bag with four stitches in it.
She likewise set up housekeeping in the sideboard, and managed a
microscopic cooking stove with a skill that brought tears of pride to
Hannah’s eyes, while Demi learned his letters with his grandfather, who
invented a new mode of teaching the alphabet by forming letters with
his arms and legs, thus uniting gymnastics for head and heels. The boy
early developed a mechanical genius which delighted his father and
distracted his mother, for he tried to imitate every machine he saw,
and kept the nursery in a chaotic condition, with his ‘sewinsheen’, a
mysterious structure of string, chairs, clothespins, and spools, for
wheels to go ‘wound and wound’. Also a basket hung over the back of a
chair, in which he vainly tried to hoist his too confiding sister, who,
with feminine devotion, allowed her little head to be bumped till
rescued, when the young inventor indignantly remarked, “Why, Marmar,
dat’s my lellywaiter, and me’s trying to pull her up.”

Though utterly unlike in character, the twins got on remarkably well
together, and seldom quarreled more than thrice a day. Of course, Demi
tyrannized over Daisy, and gallantly defended her from every other
aggressor, while Daisy made a galley slave of herself, and adored her
brother as the one perfect being in the world. A rosy, chubby,
sunshiny little soul was Daisy, who found her way to everybody’s heart,
and nestled there. One of the captivating children, who seem made to
be kissed and cuddled, adorned and adored like little goddesses, and
produced for general approval on all festive occasions. Her small
virtues were so sweet that she would have been quite angelic if a few
small naughtinesses had not kept her delightfully human. It was all
fair weather in her world, and every morning she scrambled up to the
window in her little nightgown to look out, and say, no matter whether
it rained or shone, “Oh, pitty day, oh, pitty day!” Everyone was a
friend, and she offered kisses to a stranger so confidingly that the
most inveterate bachelor relented, and baby-lovers became faithful
worshipers.

“Me loves evvybody,” she once said, opening her arms, with her spoon in
one hand, and her mug in the other, as if eager to embrace and nourish
the whole world.

As she grew, her mother began to feel that the Dovecote would be
blessed by the presence of an inmate as serene and loving as that which
had helped to make the old house home, and to pray that she might be
spared a loss like that which had lately taught them how long they had
entertained an angel unawares. Her grandfather often called her
‘Beth’, and her grandmother watched over her with untiring devotion, as
if trying to atone for some past mistake, which no eye but her own
could see.

Demi, like a true Yankee, was of an inquiring turn, wanting to know
everything, and often getting much disturbed because he could not get
satisfactory answers to his perpetual “What for?”

He also possessed a philosophic bent, to the great delight of his
grandfather, who used to hold Socratic conversations with him, in which
the precocious pupil occasionally posed his teacher, to the undisguised
satisfaction of the womenfolk.

“What makes my legs go, Dranpa?” asked the young philosopher, surveying
those active portions of his frame with a meditative air, while resting
after a go-to-bed frolic one night.

“It’s your little mind, Demi,” replied the sage, stroking the yellow
head respectfully.

“What is a little mine?”

“It is something which makes your body move, as the spring made the
wheels go in my watch when I showed it to you.”

“Open me. I want to see it go wound.”

“I can’t do that any more than you could open the watch. God winds you
up, and you go till He stops you.”

“Does I?” and Demi’s brown eyes grew big and bright as he took in the
new thought. “Is I wounded up like the watch?”

“Yes, but I can’t show you how, for it is done when we don’t see.”

Demi felt his back, as if expecting to find it like that of the watch,
and then gravely remarked, “I dess Dod does it when I’s asleep.”

A careful explanation followed, to which he listened so attentively
that his anxious grandmother said, “My dear, do you think it wise to
talk about such things to that baby? He’s getting great bumps over his
eyes, and learning to ask the most unanswerable questions.”

“If he is old enough to ask the question he is old enough to receive
true answers. I am not putting the thoughts into his head, but helping
him unfold those already there. These children are wiser than we are,
and I have no doubt the boy understands every word I have said to him.
Now, Demi, tell me where you keep your mind.”

If the boy had replied like Alcibiades, “By the gods, Socrates, I
cannot tell,” his grandfather would not have been surprised, but when,
after standing a moment on one leg, like a meditative young stork, he
answered, in a tone of calm conviction, “In my little belly,” the old
gentleman could only join in Grandma’s laugh, and dismiss the class in
metaphysics.

There might have been cause for maternal anxiety, if Demi had not given
convincing proofs that he was a true boy, as well as a budding
philosopher, for often, after a discussion which caused Hannah to
prophesy, with ominous nods, “That child ain’t long for this world,” he
would turn about and set her fears at rest by some of the pranks with
which dear, dirty, naughty little rascals distract and delight their
parent’s souls.

Meg made many moral rules, and tried to keep them, but what mother was
ever proof against the winning wiles, the ingenious evasions, or the
tranquil audacity of the miniature men and women who so early show
themselves accomplished Artful Dodgers?

“No more raisins, Demi. They’ll make you sick,” says Mamma to the
young person who offers his services in the kitchen with unfailing
regularity on plum-pudding day.

“Me likes to be sick.”

“I don’t want to have you, so run away and help Daisy make patty cakes.”

He reluctantly departs, but his wrongs weigh upon his spirit, and
by-and-by when an opportunity comes to redress them, he outwits Mamma
by a shrewd bargain.

“Now you have been good children, and I’ll play anything you like,”
says Meg, as she leads her assistant cooks upstairs, when the pudding
is safely bouncing in the pot.

“Truly, Marmar?” asks Demi, with a brilliant idea in his well-powdered
head.

“Yes, truly. Anything you say,” replies the shortsighted parent,
preparing herself to sing, “The Three Little Kittens” half a dozen
times over, or to take her family to “Buy a penny bun,” regardless of
wind or limb. But Demi corners her by the cool reply…

“Then we’ll go and eat up all the raisins.”

Aunt Dodo was chief playmate and confidante of both children, and the
trio turned the little house topsy-turvy. Aunt Amy was as yet only a
name to them, Aunt Beth soon faded into a pleasantly vague memory, but
Aunt Dodo was a living reality, and they made the most of her, for
which compliment she was deeply grateful. But when Mr. Bhaer came, Jo
neglected her playfellows, and dismay and desolation fell upon their
little souls. Daisy, who was fond of going about peddling kisses, lost
her best customer and became bankrupt. Demi, with infantile
penetration, soon discovered that Dodo like to play with ‘the bear-man’
better than she did him, but though hurt, he concealed his anguish, for
he hadn’t the heart to insult a rival who kept a mine of chocolate
drops in his waistcoat pocket, and a watch that could be taken out of
its case and freely shaken by ardent admirers.

Some persons might have considered these pleasing liberties as bribes,
but Demi didn’t see it in that light, and continued to patronize the
‘the bear-man’ with pensive affability, while Daisy bestowed her small
affections upon him at the third call, and considered his shoulder her
throne, his arm her refuge, his gifts treasures surpassing worth.

Gentlemen are sometimes seized with sudden fits of admiration for the
young relatives of ladies whom they honor with their regard, but this
counterfeit philoprogenitiveness sits uneasily upon them, and does not
deceive anybody a particle. Mr. Bhaer’s devotion was sincere, however
likewise effective–for honesty is the best policy in love as in law.
He was one of the men who are at home with children, and looked
particularly well when little faces made a pleasant contrast with his
manly one. His business, whatever it was, detained him from day to
day, but evening seldom failed to bring him out to see–well, he always
asked for Mr. March, so I suppose he was the attraction. The excellent
papa labored under the delusion that he was, and reveled in long
discussions with the kindred spirit, till a chance remark of his more
observing grandson suddenly enlightened him.

Mr. Bhaer came in one evening to pause on the threshold of the study,
astonished by the spectacle that met his eye. Prone upon the floor lay
Mr. March, with his respectable legs in the air, and beside him,
likewise prone, was Demi, trying to imitate the attitude with his own
short, scarlet-stockinged legs, both grovelers so seriously absorbed
that they were unconscious of spectators, till Mr. Bhaer laughed his
sonorous laugh, and Jo cried out, with a scandalized face…

“Father, Father, here’s the Professor!”

Down went the black legs and up came the gray head, as the preceptor
said, with undisturbed dignity, “Good evening, Mr. Bhaer. Excuse me for
a moment. We are just finishing our lesson. Now, Demi, make the
letter and tell its name.”

“I knows him!” and, after a few convulsive efforts, the red legs took
the shape of a pair of compasses, and the intelligent pupil
triumphantly shouted, “It’s a We, Dranpa, it’s a We!”

“He’s a born Weller,” laughed Jo, as her parent gathered himself up,
and her nephew tried to stand on his head, as the only mode of
expressing his satisfaction that school was over.

“What have you been at today, bubchen?” asked Mr. Bhaer, picking up the
gymnast.

“Me went to see little Mary.”

“And what did you there?”

“I kissed her,” began Demi, with artless frankness.

“Prut! Thou beginnest early. What did the little Mary say to that?”
asked Mr. Bhaer, continuing to confess the young sinner, who stood upon
the knee, exploring the waistcoat pocket.

“Oh, she liked it, and she kissed me, and I liked it. Don’t little
boys like little girls?” asked Demi, with his mouth full, and an air of
bland satisfaction.

“You precocious chick! Who put that into your head?” said Jo, enjoying
the innocent revelation as much as the Professor.

“'Tisn’t in mine head, it’s in mine mouf,” answered literal Demi,
putting out his tongue, with a chocolate drop on it, thinking she
alluded to confectionery, not ideas.

“Thou shouldst save some for the little friend. Sweets to the sweet,
mannling,” and Mr. Bhaer offered Jo some, with a look that made her
wonder if chocolate was not the nectar drunk by the gods. Demi also
saw the smile, was impressed by it, and artlessy inquired. …

“Do great boys like great girls, to, 'Fessor?”

Like young Washington, Mr. Bhaer ‘couldn’t tell a lie’, so he gave the
somewhat vague reply that he believed they did sometimes, in a tone
that made Mr. March put down his clothesbrush, glance at Jo’s retiring
face, and then sink into his chair, looking as if the ‘precocious
chick’ had put an idea into his head that was both sweet and sour.

Why Dodo, when she caught him in the china closet half an hour
afterward, nearly squeezed the breath out of his little body with a
tender embrace, instead of shaking him for being there, and why she
followed up this novel performance by the unexpected gift of a big
slice of bread and jelly, remained one of the problems over which Demi
puzzled his small wits, and was forced to leave unsolved forever.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

UNDER THE UMBRELLA

While Laurie and Amy were taking conjugal strolls over velvet carpets,
as they set their house in order, and planned a blissful future, Mr.
Bhaer and Jo were enjoying promenades of a different sort, along muddy
roads and sodden fields.

“I always do take a walk toward evening, and I don’t know why I should
give it up, just because I happen to meet the Professor on his way
out,” said Jo to herself, after two or three encounters, for though
there were two paths to Meg’s whichever one she took she was sure to
meet him, either going or returning. He was always walking rapidly, and
never seemed to see her until quite close, when he would look as if his
short-sighted eyes had failed to recognize the approaching lady till
that moment. Then, if she was going to Meg’s he always had something
for the babies. If her face was turned homeward, he had merely
strolled down to see the river, and was just returning, unless they
were tired of his frequent calls.

Under the circumstances, what could Jo do but greet him civilly, and
invite him in? If she was tired of his visits, she concealed her
weariness with perfect skill, and took care that there should be coffee
for supper, “as Friedrich–I mean Mr. Bhaer–doesn’t like tea.”

By the second week, everyone knew perfectly well what was going on, yet
everyone tried to look as if they were stone-blind to the changes in
Jo’s face. They never asked why she sang about her work, did up her
hair three times a day, and got so blooming with her evening exercise.
And no one seemed to have the slightest suspicion that Professor Bhaer,
while talking philosophy with the father, was giving the daughter
lessons in love.

Jo couldn’t even lose her heart in a decorous manner, but sternly tried
to quench her feelings, and failing to do so, led a somewhat agitated
life. She was mortally afraid of being laughed at for surrendering,
after her many and vehement declarations of independence. Laurie was
her especial dread, but thanks to the new manager, he behaved with
praiseworthy propriety, never called Mr. Bhaer ‘a capital old fellow’
in public, never alluded, in the remotest manner, to Jo’s improved
appearance, or expressed the least surprise at seeing the Professor’s
hat on the Marches’ table nearly every evening. But he exulted in
private and longed for the time to come when he could give Jo a piece
of plate, with a bear and a ragged staff on it as an appropriate coat
of arms.

For a fortnight, the Professor came and went with lover-like
regularity. Then he stayed away for three whole days, and made no
sign, a proceeding which caused everybody to look sober, and Jo to
become pensive, at first, and then–alas for romance–very cross.

“Disgusted, I dare say, and gone home as suddenly as he came. It’s
nothing to me, of course, but I should think he would have come and bid
us goodbye like a gentleman,” she said to herself, with a despairing
look at the gate, as she put on her things for the customary walk one
dull afternoon.

“You’d better take the little umbrella, dear. It looks like rain,”
said her mother, observing that she had on her new bonnet, but not
alluding to the fact.

“Yes, Marmee, do you want anything in town? I’ve got to run in and get
some paper,” returned Jo, pulling out the bow under her chin before the
glass as an excuse for not looking at her mother.

“Yes, I want some twilled silesia, a paper of number nine needles, and
two yards of narrow lavender ribbon. Have you got your thick boots on,
and something warm under your cloak?”

“I believe so,” answered Jo absently.

“If you happen to meet Mr. Bhaer, bring him home to tea. I quite long
to see the dear man,” added Mrs. March.

Jo heard that, but made no answer, except to kiss her mother, and walk
rapidly away, thinking with a glow of gratitude, in spite of her
heartache, “How good she is to me! What do girls do who haven’t any
mothers to help them through their troubles?”

The dry-goods stores were not down among the counting-houses, banks,
and wholesale warerooms, where gentlemen most do congregate, but Jo
found herself in that part of the city before she did a single errand,
loitering along as if waiting for someone, examining engineering
instruments in one window and samples of wool in another, with most
unfeminine interest, tumbling over barrels, being half-smothered by
descending bales, and hustled unceremoniously by busy men who looked as
if they wondered ‘how the deuce she got there’. A drop of rain on her
cheek recalled her thoughts from baffled hopes to ruined ribbons. For
the drops continued to fall, and being a woman as well as a lover, she
felt that, though it was too late to save her heart, she might her
bonnet. Now she remembered the little umbrella, which she had
forgotten to take in her hurry to be off, but regret was unavailing,
and nothing could be done but borrow one or submit to a drenching. She
looked up at the lowering sky, down at the crimson bow already flecked
with black, forward along the muddy street, then one long, lingering
look behind, at a certain grimy warehouse, with ‘Hoffmann, Swartz, &
Co.’ over the door, and said to herself, with a sternly reproachful
air…

“It serves me right! what business had I to put on all my best things
and come philandering down here, hoping to see the Professor? Jo, I’m
ashamed of you! No, you shall not go there to borrow an umbrella, or
find out where he is, from his friends. You shall trudge away, and do
your errands in the rain, and if you catch your death and ruin your
bonnet, it’s no more than you deserve. Now then!”

With that she rushed across the street so impetuously that she narrowly
escaped annihilation from a passing truck, and precipitated herself
into the arms of a stately old gentleman, who said, “I beg pardon,
ma’am,” and looked mortally offended. Somewhat daunted, Jo righted
herself, spread her handkerchief over the devoted ribbons, and putting
temptation behind her, hurried on, with increasing dampness about the
ankles, and much clashing of umbrellas overhead. The fact that a
somewhat dilapidated blue one remained stationary above the unprotected
bonnet attracted her attention, and looking up, she saw Mr. Bhaer
looking down.

“I feel to know the strong-minded lady who goes so bravely under many
horse noses, and so fast through much mud. What do you down here, my
friend?”

“I’m shopping.”

Mr. Bhaer smiled, as he glanced from the pickle factory on one side to
the wholesale hide and leather concern on the other, but he only said
politely, “You haf no umbrella. May I go also, and take for you the
bundles?”

“Yes, thank you.”

Jo’s cheeks were as red as her ribbon, and she wondered what he thought
of her, but she didn’t care, for in a minute she found herself walking
away arm in arm with her Professor, feeling as if the sun had suddenly
burst out with uncommon brilliancy, that the world was all right again,
and that one thoroughly happy woman was paddling through the wet that
day.

“We thought you had gone,” said Jo hastily, for she knew he was looking
at her. Her bonnet wasn’t big enough to hide her face, and she feared
he might think the joy it betrayed unmaidenly.

“Did you believe that I should go with no farewell to those who haf
been so heavenly kind to me?” he asked so reproachfully that she felt
as if she had insulted him by the suggestion, and answered heartily…

“No, I didn’t. I knew you were busy about your own affairs, but we
rather missed you, Father and Mother especially.”

“And you?”

“I’m always glad to see you, sir.”

In her anxiety to keep her voice quite calm, Jo made it rather cool,
and the frosty little monosyllable at the end seemed to chill the
Professor, for his smile vanished, as he said gravely…

“I thank you, and come one more time before I go.”

“You are going, then?”

“I haf no longer any business here, it is done.”

“Successfully, I hope?” said Jo, for the bitterness of disappointment
was in that short reply of his.

“I ought to think so, for I haf a way opened to me by which I can make
my bread and gif my Junglings much help.”

“Tell me, please! I like to know all about the–the boys,” said Jo
eagerly.

“That is so kind, I gladly tell you. My friends find for me a place in
a college, where I teach as at home, and earn enough to make the way
smooth for Franz and Emil. For this I should be grateful, should I
not?”

“Indeed you should. How splendid it will be to have you doing what you
like, and be able to see you often, and the boys!” cried Jo, clinging
to the lads as an excuse for the satisfaction she could not help
betraying.

“Ah! But we shall not meet often, I fear, this place is at the West.”

“So far away!” and Jo left her skirts to their fate, as if it didn’t
matter now what became of her clothes or herself.

Mr. Bhaer could read several languages, but he had not learned to read
women yet. He flattered himself that he knew Jo pretty well, and was,
therefore, much amazed by the contradictions of voice, face, and
manner, which she showed him in rapid succession that day, for she was
in half a dozen different moods in the course of half an hour. When
she met him she looked surprised, though it was impossible to help
suspecting that she had come for that express purpose. When he offered
her his arm, she took it with a look that filled him with delight, but
when he asked if she missed him, she gave such a chilly, formal reply
that despair fell upon him. On learning his good fortune she almost
clapped her hands. Was the joy all for the boys? Then on hearing his
destination, she said, “So far away!” in a tone of despair that lifted
him on to a pinnacle of hope, but the next minute she tumbled him down
again by observing, like one entirely absorbed in the matter…

“Here’s the place for my errands. Will you come in? It won’t take
long.”

Jo rather prided herself upon her shopping capabilities, and
particularly wished to impress her escort with the neatness and
dispatch with which she would accomplish the business. But owing to the
flutter she was in, everything went amiss. She upset the tray of
needles, forgot the silesia was to be ‘twilled’ till it was cut off,
gave the wrong change, and covered herself with confusion by asking for
lavender ribbon at the calico counter. Mr. Bhaer stood by, watching
her blush and blunder, and as he watched, his own bewilderment seemed
to subside, for he was beginning to see that on some occasions, women,
like dreams, go by contraries.

When they came out, he put the parcel under his arm with a more
cheerful aspect, and splashed through the puddles as if he rather
enjoyed it on the whole.

“Should we no do a little what you call shopping for the babies, and
haf a farewell feast tonight if I go for my last call at your so
pleasant home?” he asked, stopping before a window full of fruit and
flowers.

“What will we buy?” asked Jo, ignoring the latter part of his speech,
and sniffing the mingled odors with an affectation of delight as they
went in.

“May they haf oranges and figs?” asked Mr. Bhaer, with a paternal air.

“They eat them when they can get them.”

“Do you care for nuts?”

“Like a squirrel.”

“Hamburg grapes. Yes, we shall drink to the Fatherland in those?”

Jo frowned upon that piece of extravagance, and asked why he didn’t buy
a frail of dates, a cask of raisins, and a bag of almonds, and be done
with it? Whereat Mr. Bhaer confiscated her purse, produced his own,
and finished the marketing by buying several pounds of grapes, a pot of
rosy daisies, and a pretty jar of honey, to be regarded in the light of
a demijohn. Then distorting his pockets with knobby bundles, and
giving her the flowers to hold, he put up the old umbrella, and they
traveled on again.

“Miss Marsch, I haf a great favor to ask of you,” began the Professor,
after a moist promenade of half a block.

“Yes, sir?” and Jo’s heart began to beat so hard she was afraid he
would hear it.

“I am bold to say it in spite of the rain, because so short a time
remains to me.”

“Yes, sir,” and Jo nearly crushed the small flowerpot with the sudden
squeeze she gave it.

“I wish to get a little dress for my Tina, and I am too stupid to go
alone. Will you kindly gif me a word of taste and help?”

“Yes, sir,” and Jo felt as calm and cool all of a sudden as if she had
stepped into a refrigerator.

“Perhaps also a shawl for Tina’s mother, she is so poor and sick, and
the husband is such a care. Yes, yes, a thick, warm shawl would be a
friendly thing to take the little mother.”

“I’ll do it with pleasure, Mr. Bhaer.” “I’m going very fast, and he’s
getting dearer every minute,” added Jo to herself, then with a mental
shake she entered into the business with an energy that was pleasant to
behold.

Mr. Bhaer left it all to her, so she chose a pretty gown for Tina, and
then ordered out the shawls. The clerk, being a married man,
condescended to take an interest in the couple, who appeared to be
shopping for their family.

“Your lady may prefer this. It’s a superior article, a most desirable
color, quite chaste and genteel,” he said, shaking out a comfortable
gray shawl, and throwing it over Jo’s shoulders.

“Does this suit you, Mr. Bhaer?” she asked, turning her back to him,
and feeling deeply grateful for the chance of hiding her face.

“Excellently well, we will haf it,” answered the Professor, smiling to
himself as he paid for it, while Jo continued to rummage the counters
like a confirmed bargain-hunter.

“Now shall we go home?” he asked, as if the words were very pleasant to
him.

“Yes, it’s late, and I’m so tired.” Jo’s voice was more pathetic than
she knew. For now the sun seemed to have gone in as suddenly as it
came out, and the world grew muddy and miserable again, and for the
first time she discovered that her feet were cold, her head ached, and
that her heart was colder than the former, fuller of pain than the
latter. Mr. Bhaer was going away, he only cared for her as a friend,
it was all a mistake, and the sooner it was over the better. With this
idea in her head, she hailed an approaching omnibus with such a hasty
gesture that the daisies flew out of the pot and were badly damaged.

“This is not our omniboos,” said the Professor, waving the loaded
vehicle away, and stopping to pick up the poor little flowers.

“I beg your pardon. I didn’t see the name distinctly. Never mind, I
can walk. I’m used to plodding in the mud,” returned Jo, winking hard,
because she would have died rather than openly wipe her eyes.

Mr. Bhaer saw the drops on her cheeks, though she turned her head away.
The sight seemed to touch him very much, for suddenly stooping down, he
asked in a tone that meant a great deal, “Heart’s dearest, why do you
cry?”

Now, if Jo had not been new to this sort of thing she would have said
she wasn’t crying, had a cold in her head, or told any other feminine
fib proper to the occasion. Instead of which, that undignified
creature answered, with an irrepressible sob, “Because you are going
away.”

“Ach, mein Gott, that is so good!” cried Mr. Bhaer, managing to clasp
his hands in spite of the umbrella and the bundles, “Jo, I haf nothing
but much love to gif you. I came to see if you could care for it, and
I waited to be sure that I was something more than a friend. Am I?
Can you make a little place in your heart for old Fritz?” he added, all
in one breath.

“Oh, yes!” said Jo, and he was quite satisfied, for she folded both
hands over his arm, and looked up at him with an expression that
plainly showed how happy she would be to walk through life beside him,
even though she had no better shelter than the old umbrella, if he
carried it.

It was certainly proposing under difficulties, for even if he had
desired to do so, Mr. Bhaer could not go down upon his knees, on
account of the mud. Neither could he offer Jo his hand, except
figuratively, for both were full. Much less could he indulge in tender
remonstrations in the open street, though he was near it. So the only
way in which he could express his rapture was to look at her, with an
expression which glorified his face to such a degree that there
actually seemed to be little rainbows in the drops that sparkled on his
beard. If he had not loved Jo very much, I don’t think he could have
done it then, for she looked far from lovely, with her skirts in a
deplorable state, her rubber boots splashed to the ankle, and her
bonnet a ruin. Fortunately, Mr. Bhaer considered her the most
beautiful woman living, and she found him more “Jove-like” than ever,
though his hatbrim was quite limp with the little rills trickling
thence upon his shoulders (for he held the umbrella all over Jo), and
every finger of his gloves needed mending.

Passers-by probably thought them a pair of harmless lunatics, for they
entirely forgot to hail a bus, and strolled leisurely along, oblivious
of deepening dusk and fog. Little they cared what anybody thought, for
they were enjoying the happy hour that seldom comes but once in any
life, the magical moment which bestows youth on the old, beauty on the
plain, wealth on the poor, and gives human hearts a foretaste of
heaven. The Professor looked as if he had conquered a kingdom, and the
world had nothing more to offer him in the way of bliss. While Jo
trudged beside him, feeling as if her place had always been there, and
wondering how she ever could have chosen any other lot. Of course, she
was the first to speak–intelligibly, I mean, for the emotional remarks
which followed her impetuous “Oh, yes!” were not of a coherent or
reportable character.

“Friedrich, why didn’t you…”

“Ah, heaven, she gifs me the name that no one speaks since Minna died!”
cried the Professor, pausing in a puddle to regard her with grateful
delight.

“I always call you so to myself–I forgot, but I won’t unless you like
it.”

“Like it? It is more sweet to me than I can tell. Say ‘thou’, also,
and I shall say your language is almost as beautiful as mine.”

“Isn’t ‘thou’ a little sentimental?” asked Jo, privately thinking it a
lovely monosyllable.

“Sentimental? Yes. Thank Gott, we Germans believe in sentiment, and
keep ourselves young mit it. Your English ‘you’ is so cold, say
‘thou’, heart’s dearest, it means so much to me,” pleaded Mr. Bhaer,
more like a romantic student than a grave professor.

“Well, then, why didn’t thou tell me all this sooner?” asked Jo
bashfully.

“Now I shall haf to show thee all my heart, and I so gladly will,
because thou must take care of it hereafter. See, then, my Jo–ah, the
dear, funny little name–I had a wish to tell something the day I said
goodbye in New York, but I thought the handsome friend was betrothed to
thee, and so I spoke not. Wouldst thou have said ‘Yes’, then, if I had
spoken?”

“I don’t know. I’m afraid not, for I didn’t have any heart just then.”

“Prut! That I do not believe. It was asleep till the fairy prince
came through the wood, and waked it up. Ah, well, ‘Die erste Liebe ist
die beste’, but that I should not expect.”

“Yes, the first love is the best, but be so contented, for I never had
another. Teddy was only a boy, and soon got over his little fancy,”
said Jo, anxious to correct the Professor’s mistake.

“Good! Then I shall rest happy, and be sure that thou givest me all.
I haf waited so long, I am grown selfish, as thou wilt find,
Professorin.”

“I like that,” cried Jo, delighted with her new name. “Now tell me
what brought you, at last, just when I wanted you?”

“This,” and Mr. Bhaer took a little worn paper out of his waistcoat
pocket.

Jo unfolded it, and looked much abashed, for it was one of her own
contributions to a paper that paid for poetry, which accounted for her
sending it an occasional attempt.

“How could that bring you?” she asked, wondering what he meant.

“I found it by chance. I knew it by the names and the initials, and in
it there was one little verse that seemed to call me. Read and find
him. I will see that you go not in the wet.”

IN THE GARRET

Four little chests all in a row,
Dim with dust, and worn by time,
All fashioned and filled, long ago,
By children now in their prime.
Four little keys hung side by side,
With faded ribbons, brave and gay
When fastened there, with childish pride,
Long ago, on a rainy day.
Four little names, one on each lid,
Carved out by a boyish hand,
And underneath there lieth hid
Histories of the happy band
Once playing here, and pausing oft
To hear the sweet refrain,
That came and went on the roof aloft,
In the falling summer rain.

"Meg" on the first lid, smooth and fair.
I look in with loving eyes,
For folded here, with well-known care,
A goodly gathering lies,
The record of a peaceful life--
Gifts to gentle child and girl,
A bridal gown, lines to a wife,
A tiny shoe, a baby curl.
No toys in this first chest remain,
For all are carried away,
In their old age, to join again
In another small Meg's play.
Ah, happy mother!  Well I know
You hear, like a sweet refrain,
Lullabies ever soft and low
In the falling summer rain.

"Jo" on the next lid, scratched and worn,
And within a motley store
Of headless dolls, of schoolbooks torn,
Birds and beasts that speak no more,
Spoils brought home from the fairy ground
Only trod by youthful feet,
Dreams of a future never found,
Memories of a past still sweet,
Half-writ poems, stories wild,
April letters, warm and cold,
Diaries of a wilful child,
Hints of a woman early old,
A woman in a lonely home,
Hearing, like a sad refrain--
"Be worthy, love, and love will come,"
In the falling summer rain.

My Beth!  the dust is always swept
From the lid that bears your name,
As if by loving eyes that wept,
By careful hands that often came.
Death canonized for us one saint,
Ever less human than divine,
And still we lay, with tender plaint,
Relics in this household shrine--
The silver bell, so seldom rung,
The little cap which last she wore,
The fair, dead Catherine that hung
By angels borne above her door.
The songs she sang, without lament,
In her prison-house of pain,
Forever are they sweetly blent
With the falling summer rain.

Upon the last lid's polished field--
Legend now both fair and true
A gallant knight bears on his shield,
"Amy" in letters gold and blue.
Within lie snoods that bound her hair,
Slippers that have danced their last,
Faded flowers laid by with care,
Fans whose airy toils are past,
Gay valentines, all ardent flames,
Trifles that have borne their part
In girlish hopes and fears and shames,
The record of a maiden heart
Now learning fairer, truer spells,
Hearing, like a blithe refrain,
The silver sound of bridal bells
In the falling summer rain.

Four little chests all in a row,
Dim with dust, and worn by time,
Four women, taught by weal and woe
To love and labor in their prime.
Four sisters, parted for an hour,
None lost, one only gone before,
Made by love's immortal power,
Nearest and dearest evermore.
Oh, when these hidden stores of ours
Lie open to the Father's sight,
May they be rich in golden hours,
Deeds that show fairer for the light,
Lives whose brave music long shall ring,
Like a spirit-stirring strain,
Souls that shall gladly soar and sing
In the long sunshine after rain.

“It’s very bad poetry, but I felt it when I wrote it, one day when I
was very lonely, and had a good cry on a rag bag. I never thought it
would go where it could tell tales,” said Jo, tearing up the verses the
Professor had treasured so long.

“Let it go, it has done its duty, and I will haf a fresh one when I
read all the brown book in which she keeps her little secrets,” said
Mr. Bhaer with a smile as he watched the fragments fly away on the
wind. “Yes,” he added earnestly, “I read that, and I think to myself,
She has a sorrow, she is lonely, she would find comfort in true love.
I haf a heart full, full for her. Shall I not go and say, ‘If this is
not too poor a thing to gif for what I shall hope to receive, take it
in Gott’s name?’”

“And so you came to find that it was not too poor, but the one precious
thing I needed,” whispered Jo.

“I had no courage to think that at first, heavenly kind as was your
welcome to me. But soon I began to hope, and then I said, ‘I will haf
her if I die for it,’ and so I will!” cried Mr. Bhaer, with a defiant
nod, as if the walls of mist closing round them were barriers which he
was to surmount or valiantly knock down.

Jo thought that was splendid, and resolved to be worthy of her knight,
though he did not come prancing on a charger in gorgeous array.

“What made you stay away so long?” she asked presently, finding it so
pleasant to ask confidential questions and get delightful answers that
she could not keep silent.

“It was not easy, but I could not find the heart to take you from that
so happy home until I could haf a prospect of one to gif you, after
much time, perhaps, and hard work. How could I ask you to gif up so
much for a poor old fellow, who has no fortune but a little learning?”

“I’m glad you are poor. I couldn’t bear a rich husband,” said Jo
decidedly, adding in a softer tone, “Don’t fear poverty. I’ve known it
long enough to lose my dread and be happy working for those I love, and
don’t call yourself old–forty is the prime of life. I couldn’t help
loving you if you were seventy!”

The Professor found that so touching that he would have been glad of
his handkerchief, if he could have got at it. As he couldn’t, Jo wiped
his eyes for him, and said, laughing, as she took away a bundle or
two…

“I may be strong-minded, but no one can say I’m out of my sphere now,
for woman’s special mission is supposed to be drying tears and bearing
burdens. I’m to carry my share, Friedrich, and help to earn the home.
Make up your mind to that, or I’ll never go,” she added resolutely, as
he tried to reclaim his load.

“We shall see. Haf you patience to wait a long time, Jo? I must go
away and do my work alone. I must help my boys first, because, even
for you, I may not break my word to Minna. Can you forgif that, and be
happy while we hope and wait?”

“Yes, I know I can, for we love one another, and that makes all the
rest easy to bear. I have my duty, also, and my work. I couldn’t enjoy
myself if I neglected them even for you, so there’s no need of hurry or
impatience. You can do your part out West, I can do mine here, and
both be happy hoping for the best, and leaving the future to be as God
wills.”

“Ah! Thou gifest me such hope and courage, and I haf nothing to gif
back but a full heart and these empty hands,” cried the Professor,
quite overcome.

Jo never, never would learn to be proper, for when he said that as they
stood upon the steps, she just put both hands into his, whispering
tenderly, “Not empty now,” and stooping down, kissed her Friedrich
under the umbrella. It was dreadful, but she would have done it if the
flock of draggle-tailed sparrows on the hedge had been human beings,
for she was very far gone indeed, and quite regardless of everything
but her own happiness. Though it came in such a very simple guise, that
was the crowning moment of both their lives, when, turning from the
night and storm and loneliness to the household light and warmth and
peace waiting to receive them, with a glad “Welcome home!” Jo led her
lover in, and shut the door.

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

HARVEST TIME

For a year Jo and her Professor worked and waited, hoped and loved, met
occasionally, and wrote such voluminous letters that the rise in the
price of paper was accounted for, Laurie said. The second year began
rather soberly, for their prospects did not brighten, and Aunt March
died suddenly. But when their first sorrow was over–for they loved
the old lady in spite of her sharp tongue–they found they had cause
for rejoicing, for she had left Plumfield to Jo, which made all sorts
of joyful things possible.

“It’s a fine old place, and will bring a handsome sum, for of course
you intend to sell it,” said Laurie, as they were all talking the
matter over some weeks later.

“No, I don’t,” was Jo’s decided answer, as she petted the fat poodle,
whom she had adopted, out of respect to his former mistress.

“You don’t mean to live there?”

“Yes, I do.”

“But, my dear girl, it’s an immense house, and will take a power of
money to keep it in order. The garden and orchard alone need two or
three men, and farming isn’t in Bhaer’s line, I take it.”

“He’ll try his hand at it there, if I propose it.”

“And you expect to live on the produce of the place? Well, that sounds
paradisiacal, but you’ll find it desperate hard work.”

“The crop we are going to raise is a profitable one,” and Jo laughed.

“Of what is this fine crop to consist, ma’am?”

“Boys. I want to open a school for little lads–a good, happy,
homelike school, with me to take care of them and Fritz to teach them.”

“That’s a truly Joian plan for you! Isn’t that just like her?” cried
Laurie, appealing to the family, who looked as much surprised as he.

“I like it,” said Mrs. March decidedly.

“So do I,” added her husband, who welcomed the thought of a chance for
trying the Socratic method of education on modern youth.

“It will be an immense care for Jo,” said Meg, stroking the head of her
one all-absorbing son.

“Jo can do it, and be happy in it. It’s a splendid idea. Tell us all
about it,” cried Mr. Laurence, who had been longing to lend the lovers
a hand, but knew that they would refuse his help.

“I knew you’d stand by me, sir. Amy does too–I see it in her eyes,
though she prudently waits to turn it over in her mind before she
speaks. Now, my dear people,” continued Jo earnestly, “just understand
that this isn’t a new idea of mine, but a long cherished plan. Before
my Fritz came, I used to think how, when I’d made my fortune, and no
one needed me at home, I’d hire a big house, and pick up some poor,
forlorn little lads who hadn’t any mothers, and take care of them, and
make life jolly for them before it was too late. I see so many going
to ruin for want of help at the right minute, I love so to do anything
for them, I seem to feel their wants, and sympathize with their
troubles, and oh, I should so like to be a mother to them!”

Mrs. March held out her hand to Jo, who took it, smiling, with tears in
her eyes, and went on in the old enthusiastic way, which they had not
seen for a long while.

“I told my plan to Fritz once, and he said it was just what he would
like, and agreed to try it when we got rich. Bless his dear heart,
he’s been doing it all his life–helping poor boys, I mean, not getting
rich, that he’ll never be. Money doesn’t stay in his pocket long
enough to lay up any. But now, thanks to my good old aunt, who loved
me better than I ever deserved, I’m rich, at least I feel so, and we
can live at Plumfield perfectly well, if we have a flourishing school.
It’s just the place for boys, the house is big, and the furniture
strong and plain. There’s plenty of room for dozens inside, and
splendid grounds outside. They could help in the garden and orchard.
Such work is healthy, isn’t it, sir? Then Fritz could train and teach
in his own way, and Father will help him. I can feed and nurse and pet
and scold them, and Mother will be my stand-by. I’ve always longed for
lots of boys, and never had enough, now I can fill the house full and
revel in the little dears to my heart’s content. Think what luxury–
Plumfield my own, and a wilderness of boys to enjoy it with me.”

As Jo waved her hands and gave a sigh of rapture, the family went off
into a gale of merriment, and Mr. Laurence laughed till they thought
he’d have an apoplectic fit.

“I don’t see anything funny,” she said gravely, when she could be
heard. “Nothing could be more natural and proper than for my Professor
to open a school, and for me to prefer to reside in my own estate.”

“She is putting on airs already,” said Laurie, who regarded the idea in
the light of a capital joke. “But may I inquire how you intend to
support the establishment? If all the pupils are little ragamuffins,
I’m afraid your crop won’t be profitable in a worldly sense, Mrs.
Bhaer.”

“Now don’t be a wet-blanket, Teddy. Of course I shall have rich
pupils, also–perhaps begin with such altogether. Then, when I’ve got
a start, I can take in a ragamuffin or two, just for a relish. Rich
people’s children often need care and comfort, as well as poor. I’ve
seen unfortunate little creatures left to servants, or backward ones
pushed forward, when it’s real cruelty. Some are naughty through
mismanagment or neglect, and some lose their mothers. Besides, the best
have to get through the hobbledehoy age, and that’s the very time they
need most patience and kindness. People laugh at them, and hustle them
about, try to keep them out of sight, and expect them to turn all at
once from pretty children into fine young men. They don’t complain
much–plucky little souls–but they feel it. I’ve been through
something of it, and I know all about it. I’ve a special interest in
such young bears, and like to show them that I see the warm, honest,
well-meaning boys’ hearts, in spite of the clumsy arms and legs and the
topsy-turvy heads. I’ve had experience, too, for haven’t I brought up
one boy to be a pride and honor to his family?”

“I’ll testify that you tried to do it,” said Laurie with a grateful
look.

“And I’ve succeeded beyond my hopes, for here you are, a steady,
sensible businessman, doing heaps of good with your money, and laying
up the blessings of the poor, instead of dollars. But you are not
merely a businessman, you love good and beautiful things, enjoy them
yourself, and let others go halves, as you always did in the old times.
I am proud of you, Teddy, for you get better every year, and everyone
feels it, though you won’t let them say so. Yes, and when I have my
flock, I’ll just point to you, and say ‘There’s your model, my lads’.”

Poor Laurie didn’t know where to look, for, man though he was,
something of the old bashfulness came over him as this burst of praise
made all faces turn approvingly upon him.

“I say, Jo, that’s rather too much,” he began, just in his old boyish
way. “You have all done more for me than I can ever thank you for,
except by doing my best not to disappoint you. You have rather cast me
off lately, Jo, but I’ve had the best of help, nevertheless. So, if
I’ve got on at all, you may thank these two for it,” and he laid one
hand gently on his grandfather’s head, and the other on Amy’s golden
one, for the three were never far apart.

“I do think that families are the most beautiful things in all the
world!” burst out Jo, who was in an unusually up-lifted frame of mind
just then. “When I have one of my own, I hope it will be as happy as
the three I know and love the best. If John and my Fritz were only
here, it would be quite a little heaven on earth,” she added more
quietly. And that night when she went to her room after a blissful
evening of family counsels, hopes, and plans, her heart was so full of
happiness that she could only calm it by kneeling beside the empty bed
always near her own, and thinking tender thoughts of Beth.

It was a very astonishing year altogether, for things seemed to happen
in an unusually rapid and delightful manner. Almost before she knew
where she was, Jo found herself married and settled at Plumfield. Then
a family of six or seven boys sprung up like mushrooms, and flourished
surprisingly, poor boys as well as rich, for Mr. Laurence was
continually finding some touching case of destitution, and begging the
Bhaers to take pity on the child, and he would gladly pay a trifle for
its support. In this way, the sly old gentleman got round proud Jo,
and furnished her with the style of boy in which she most delighted.

Of course it was uphill work at first, and Jo made queer mistakes, but
the wise Professor steered her safely into calmer waters, and the most
rampant ragamuffin was conquered in the end. How Jo did enjoy her
‘wilderness of boys’, and how poor, dear Aunt March would have lamented
had she been there to see the sacred precincts of prim, well-ordered
Plumfield overrun with Toms, Dicks, and Harrys! There was a sort of
poetic justice about it, after all, for the old lady had been the
terror of the boys for miles around, and now the exiles feasted freely
on forbidden plums, kicked up the gravel with profane boots unreproved,
and played cricket in the big field where the irritable ‘cow with a
crumpled horn’ used to invite rash youths to come and be tossed. It
became a sort of boys’ paradise, and Laurie suggested that it should be
called the ‘Bhaer-garten’, as a compliment to its master and
appropriate to its inhabitants.

It never was a fashionable school, and the Professor did not lay up a
fortune, but it was just what Jo intended it to be–‘a happy, homelike
place for boys, who needed teaching, care, and kindness’. Every room
in the big house was soon full. Every little plot in the garden soon
had its owner. A regular menagerie appeared in barn and shed, for pet
animals were allowed. And three times a day, Jo smiled at her Fritz
from the head of a long table lined on either side with rows of happy
young faces, which all turned to her with affectionate eyes, confiding
words, and grateful hearts, full of love for ‘Mother Bhaer’. She had
boys enough now, and did not tire of them, though they were not angels,
by any means, and some of them caused both Professor and Professorin
much trouble and anxiety. But her faith in the good spot which exists
in the heart of the naughtiest, sauciest, most tantalizing little
ragamuffin gave her patience, skill, and in time success, for no mortal
boy could hold out long with Father Bhaer shining on him as
benevolently as the sun, and Mother Bhaer forgiving him seventy times
seven. Very precious to Jo was the friendship of the lads, their
penitent sniffs and whispers after wrongdoing, their droll or touching
little confidences, their pleasant enthusiasms, hopes, and plans, even
their misfortunes, for they only endeared them to her all the more.
There were slow boys and bashful boys, feeble boys and riotous boys,
boys that lisped and boys that stuttered, one or two lame ones, and a
merry little quadroon, who could not be taken in elsewhere, but who was
welcome to the ‘Bhaer-garten’, though some people predicted that his
admission would ruin the school.

Yes, Jo was a very happy woman there, in spite of hard work, much
anxiety, and a perpetual racket. She enjoyed it heartily and found the
applause of her boys more satisfying than any praise of the world, for
now she told no stories except to her flock of enthusiastic believers
and admirers. As the years went on, two little lads of her own came to
increase her happiness–Rob, named for Grandpa, and Teddy, a
happy-go-lucky baby, who seemed to have inherited his papa’s sunshiny
temper as well as his mother’s lively spirit. How they ever grew up
alive in that whirlpool of boys was a mystery to their grandma and
aunts, but they flourished like dandelions in spring, and their rough
nurses loved and served them well.

There were a great many holidays at Plumfield, and one of the most
delightful was the yearly apple-picking. For then the Marches,
Laurences, Brookes and Bhaers turned out in full force and made a day
of it. Five years after Jo’s wedding, one of these fruitful festivals
occurred, a mellow October day, when the air was full of an
exhilarating freshness which made the spirits rise and the blood dance
healthily in the veins. The old orchard wore its holiday attire.
Goldenrod and asters fringed the mossy walls. Grasshoppers skipped
briskly in the sere grass, and crickets chirped like fairy pipers at a
feast. Squirrels were busy with their small harvesting. Birds
twittered their adieux from the alders in the lane, and every tree
stood ready to send down its shower of red or yellow apples at the
first shake. Everybody was there. Everybody laughed and sang, climbed
up and tumbled down. Everybody declared that there never had been such
a perfect day or such a jolly set to enjoy it, and everyone gave
themselves up to the simple pleasures of the hour as freely as if there
were no such things as care or sorrow in the world.

Mr. March strolled placidly about, quoting Tusser, Cowley, and
Columella to Mr. Laurence, while enjoying…

The gentle apple’s winey juice.

The Professor charged up and down the green aisles like a stout
Teutonic knight, with a pole for a lance, leading on the boys, who made
a hook and ladder company of themselves, and performed wonders in the
way of ground and lofty tumbling. Laurie devoted himself to the little
ones, rode his small daughter in a bushel-basket, took Daisy up among
the bird’s nests, and kept adventurous Rob from breaking his neck.
Mrs. March and Meg sat among the apple piles like a pair of Pomonas,
sorting the contributions that kept pouring in, while Amy with a
beautiful motherly expression in her face sketched the various groups,
and watched over one pale lad, who sat adoring her with his little
crutch beside him.

Jo was in her element that day, and rushed about, with her gown pinned
up, and her hat anywhere but on her head, and her baby tucked under her
arm, ready for any lively adventure which might turn up. Little Teddy
bore a charmed life, for nothing ever happened to him, and Jo never
felt any anxiety when he was whisked up into a tree by one lad,
galloped off on the back of another, or supplied with sour russets by
his indulgent papa, who labored under the Germanic delusion that babies
could digest anything, from pickled cabbage to buttons, nails, and
their own small shoes. She knew that little Ted would turn up again in
time, safe and rosy, dirty and serene, and she always received him back
with a hearty welcome, for Jo loved her babies tenderly.

At four o’clock a lull took place, and baskets remained empty, while
the apple pickers rested and compared rents and bruises. Then Jo and
Meg, with a detachment of the bigger boys, set forth the supper on the
grass, for an out-of-door tea was always the crowning joy of the day.
The land literally flowed with milk and honey on such occasions, for
the lads were not required to sit at table, but allowed to partake of
refreshment as they liked–freedom being the sauce best beloved by the
boyish soul. They availed themselves of the rare privilege to the
fullest extent, for some tried the pleasing experiment of drinking milk
while standing on their heads, others lent a charm to leapfrog by
eating pie in the pauses of the game, cookies were sown broadcast over
the field, and apple turnovers roosted in the trees like a new style of
bird. The little girls had a private tea party, and Ted roved among
the edibles at his own sweet will.

When no one could eat any more, the Professor proposed the first
regular toast, which was always drunk at such times–“Aunt March, God
bless her!” A toast heartily given by the good man, who never forgot
how much he owed her, and quietly drunk by the boys, who had been
taught to keep her memory green.

“Now, Grandma’s sixtieth birthday! Long life to her, with three times
three!”

That was given with a will, as you may well believe, and the cheering
once begun, it was hard to stop it. Everybody’s health was proposed,
from Mr. Laurence, who was considered their special patron, to the
astonished guinea pig, who had strayed from its proper sphere in search
of its young master. Demi, as the oldest grandchild, then presented
the queen of the day with various gifts, so numerous that they were
transported to the festive scene in a wheelbarrow. Funny presents,
some of them, but what would have been defects to other eyes were
ornaments to Grandma’s–for the children’s gifts were all their own.
Every stitch Daisy’s patient little fingers had put into the
handkerchiefs she hemmed was better than embroidery to Mrs. March.
Demi’s miracle of mechanical skill, though the cover wouldn’t shut,
Rob’s footstool had a wiggle in its uneven legs that she declared was
soothing, and no page of the costly book Amy’s child gave her was so
fair as that on which appeared in tipsy capitals, the words–“To dear
Grandma, from her little Beth.”

During the ceremony the boys had mysteriously disappeared, and when
Mrs. March had tried to thank her children, and broken down, while
Teddy wiped her eyes on his pinafore, the Professor suddenly began to
sing. Then, from above him, voice after voice took up the words, and
from tree to tree echoed the music of the unseen choir, as the boys
sang with all their hearts the little song that Jo had written, Laurie
set to music, and the Professor trained his lads to give with the best
effect. This was something altogether new, and it proved a grand
success, for Mrs. March couldn’t get over her surprise, and insisted on
shaking hands with every one of the featherless birds, from tall Franz
and Emil to the little quadroon, who had the sweetest voice of all.

After this, the boys dispersed for a final lark, leaving Mrs. March and
her daughters under the festival tree.

“I don’t think I ever ought to call myself ‘unlucky Jo’ again, when my
greatest wish has been so beautifully gratified,” said Mrs. Bhaer,
taking Teddy’s little fist out of the milk pitcher, in which he was
rapturously churning.

“And yet your life is very different from the one you pictured so long
ago. Do you remember our castles in the air?” asked Amy, smiling as
she watched Laurie and John playing cricket with the boys.

“Dear fellows! It does my heart good to see them forget business and
frolic for a day,” answered Jo, who now spoke in a maternal way of all
mankind. “Yes, I remember, but the life I wanted then seems selfish,
lonely, and cold to me now. I haven’t given up the hope that I may
write a good book yet, but I can wait, and I’m sure it will be all the
better for such experiences and illustrations as these,” and Jo pointed
from the lively lads in the distance to her father, leaning on the
Professor’s arm, as they walked to and fro in the sunshine, deep in one
of the conversations which both enjoyed so much, and then to her
mother, sitting enthroned among her daughters, with their children in
her lap and at her feet, as if all found help and happiness in the face
which never could grow old to them.

“My castle was the most nearly realized of all. I asked for splendid
things, to be sure, but in my heart I knew I should be satisfied, if I
had a little home, and John, and some dear children like these. I’ve
got them all, thank God, and am the happiest woman in the world,” and
Meg laid her hand on her tall boy’s head, with a face full of tender
and devout content.

“My castle is very different from what I planned, but I would not alter
it, though, like Jo, I don’t relinquish all my artistic hopes, or
confine myself to helping others fulfill their dreams of beauty. I’ve
begun to model a figure of baby, and Laurie says it is the best thing
I’ve ever done. I think so, myself, and mean to do it in marble, so
that, whatever happens, I may at least keep the image of my little
angel.”

As Amy spoke, a great tear dropped on the golden hair of the sleeping
child in her arms, for her one well-beloved daughter was a frail little
creature and the dread of losing her was the shadow over Amy’s
sunshine. This cross was doing much for both father and mother, for
one love and sorrow bound them closely together. Amy’s nature was
growing sweeter, deeper, and more tender. Laurie was growing more
serious, strong, and firm, and both were learning that beauty, youth,
good fortune, even love itself, cannot keep care and pain, loss and
sorrow, from the most blessed for …

Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and sad and dreary.

“She is growing better, I am sure of it, my dear. Don’t despond, but
hope and keep happy,” said Mrs. March, as tenderhearted Daisy stooped
from her knee to lay her rosy cheek against her little cousin’s pale
one.

“I never ought to, while I have you to cheer me up, Marmee, and Laurie
to take more than half of every burden,” replied Amy warmly. “He never
lets me see his anxiety, but is so sweet and patient with me, so
devoted to Beth, and such a stay and comfort to me always that I can’t
love him enough. So, in spite of my one cross, I can say with Meg,
‘Thank God, I’m a happy woman.’”

“There’s no need for me to say it, for everyone can see that I’m far
happier than I deserve,” added Jo, glancing from her good husband to
her chubby children, tumbling on the grass beside her. “Fritz is
getting gray and stout. I’m growing as thin as a shadow, and am
thirty. We never shall be rich, and Plumfield may burn up any night,
for that incorrigible Tommy Bangs will smoke sweet-fern cigars under
the bed-clothes, though he’s set himself afire three times already.
But in spite of these unromantic facts, I have nothing to complain of,
and never was so jolly in my life. Excuse the remark, but living among
boys, I can’t help using their expressions now and then.”

“Yes, Jo, I think your harvest will be a good one,” began Mrs. March,
frightening away a big black cricket that was staring Teddy out of
countenance.

“Not half so good as yours, Mother. Here it is, and we never can thank
you enough for the patient sowing and reaping you have done,” cried Jo,
with the loving impetuosity which she never would outgrow.

“I hope there will be more wheat and fewer tares every year,” said Amy
softly.

“A large sheaf, but I know there’s room in your heart for it, Marmee
dear,” added Meg’s tender voice.

Touched to the heart, Mrs. March could only stretch out her arms, as if
to gather children and grandchildren to herself, and say, with face and
voice full of motherly love, gratitude, and humility…

“Oh, my girls, however long you may live, I never can wish you a
greater happiness than this!”

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