Little Women
called out, “come in!” she did go in, right up to Mr. Laurence, who
looked quite taken aback, and held out her hand, saying, with only a
small quaver in her voice, “I came to thank you, sir, for...” But she
didn’t finish, for he looked so friendly that she forgot her speech
and, only remembering that he had lost the little girl he loved, she
put both arms round his neck and kissed him.
If the roof of the house had suddenly flown off, the old gentleman
wouldn’t have been more astonished. But he liked it. Oh, dear, yes, he
liked it amazingly! And was so touched and pleased by that confiding
little kiss that all his crustiness vanished, and he just set her on
his knee, and laid his wrinkled cheek against her rosy one, feeling as
if he had got his own little granddaughter back again. Beth ceased to
fear him from that moment, and sat there talking to him as cozily as if
she had known him all her life, for love casts out fear, and gratitude
can conquer pride. When she went home, he walked with her to her own
gate, shook hands cordially, and touched his hat as he marched back
again, looking very stately and erect, like a handsome, soldierly old
gentleman, as he was.
When the girls saw that performance, Jo began to dance a jig, by way of
expressing her satisfaction, Amy nearly fell out of the window in her
surprise, and Meg exclaimed, with up-lifted hands, “Well, I do believe
the world is coming to an end.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
AMY’S VALLEY OF HUMILIATION
“That boy is a perfect cyclops, isn’t he?” said Amy one day, as Laurie
clattered by on horseback, with a flourish of his whip as he passed.
“How dare you say so, when he’s got both his eyes? And very handsome
ones they are, too,” cried Jo, who resented any slighting remarks about
her friend.
“I didn’t say anything about his eyes, and I don’t see why you need
fire up when I admire his riding.”
“Oh, my goodness! That little goose means a centaur, and she called him
a Cyclops,” exclaimed Jo, with a burst of laughter.
“You needn’t be so rude, it’s only a ‘lapse of lingy’, as Mr. Davis
says,” retorted Amy, finishing Jo with her Latin. “I just wish I had a
little of the money Laurie spends on that horse,” she added, as if to
herself, yet hoping her sisters would hear.
“Why?” asked Meg kindly, for Jo had gone off in another laugh at Amy’s
second blunder.
“I need it so much. I’m dreadfully in debt, and it won’t be my turn to
have the rag money for a month.”
“In debt, Amy? What do you mean?” And Meg looked sober.
“Why, I owe at least a dozen pickled limes, and I can’t pay them, you
know, till I have money, for Marmee forbade my having anything charged
at the shop.”
“Tell me all about it. Are limes the fashion now? It used to be
pricking bits of rubber to make balls.” And Meg tried to keep her
countenance, Amy looked so grave and important.
“Why, you see, the girls are always buying them, and unless you want to
be thought mean, you must do it too. It’s nothing but limes now, for
everyone is sucking them in their desks in schooltime, and trading them
off for pencils, bead rings, paper dolls, or something else, at recess.
If one girl likes another, she gives her a lime. If she’s mad with her,
she eats one before her face, and doesn’t offer even a suck. They treat
by turns, and I’ve had ever so many but haven’t returned them, and I
ought for they are debts of honor, you know.”
“How much will pay them off and restore your credit?” asked Meg, taking
out her purse.
“A quarter would more than do it, and leave a few cents over for a
treat for you. Don’t you like limes?”
“Not much. You may have my share. Here’s the money. Make it last as
long as you can, for it isn’t very plenty, you know.”
“Oh, thank you! It must be so nice to have pocket money! I’ll have a
grand feast, for I haven’t tasted a lime this week. I felt delicate
about taking any, as I couldn’t return them, and I’m actually suffering
for one.”
Next day Amy was rather late at school, but could not resist the
temptation of displaying, with pardonable pride, a moist brown-paper
parcel, before she consigned it to the inmost recesses of her desk.
During the next few minutes the rumor that Amy March had got
twenty-four delicious limes (she ate one on the way) and was going to
treat circulated through her ‘set’, and the attentions of her friends
became quite overwhelming. Katy Brown invited her to her next party on
the spot. Mary Kingsley insisted on lending her her watch till recess,
and Jenny Snow, a satirical young lady, who had basely twitted Amy upon
her limeless state, promptly buried the hatchet and offered to furnish
answers to certain appalling sums. But Amy had not forgotten Miss
Snow’s cutting remarks about ‘some persons whose noses were not too
flat to smell other people’s limes, and stuck-up people who were not
too proud to ask for them’, and she instantly crushed ‘that Snow
girl’s’ hopes by the withering telegram, “You needn’t be so polite all
of a sudden, for you won’t get any.”
A distinguished personage happened to visit the school that morning,
and Amy’s beautifully drawn maps received praise, which honor to her
foe rankled in the soul of Miss Snow, and caused Miss March to assume
the airs of a studious young peacock. But, alas, alas! Pride goes
before a fall, and the revengeful Snow turned the tables with
disastrous success. No sooner had the guest paid the usual stale
compliments and bowed himself out, than Jenny, under pretense of asking
an important question, informed Mr. Davis, the teacher, that Amy March
had pickled limes in her desk.
Now Mr. Davis had declared limes a contraband article, and solemnly
vowed to publicly ferrule the first person who was found breaking the
law. This much-enduring man had succeeded in banishing chewing gum
after a long and stormy war, had made a bonfire of the confiscated
novels and newspapers, had suppressed a private post office, had
forbidden distortions of the face, nicknames, and caricatures, and done
all that one man could do to keep half a hundred rebellious girls in
order. Boys are trying enough to human patience, goodness knows, but
girls are infinitely more so, especially to nervous gentlemen with
tyrannical tempers and no more talent for teaching than Dr. Blimber.
Mr. Davis knew any quantity of Greek, Latin, algebra, and ologies of
all sorts so he was called a fine teacher, and manners, morals,
feelings, and examples were not considered of any particular
importance. It was a most unfortunate moment for denouncing Amy, and
Jenny knew it. Mr. Davis had evidently taken his coffee too strong that
morning, there was an east wind, which always affected his neuralgia,
and his pupils had not done him the credit which he felt he deserved.
Therefore, to use the expressive, if not elegant, language of a
schoolgirl, “He was as nervous as a witch and as cross as a bear”. The
word ‘limes’ was like fire to powder, his yellow face flushed, and he
rapped on his desk with an energy which made Jenny skip to her seat
with unusual rapidity.
“Young ladies, attention, if you please!”
At the stern order the buzz ceased, and fifty pairs of blue, black,
gray, and brown eyes were obediently fixed upon his awful countenance.
“Miss March, come to the desk.”
Amy rose to comply with outward composure, but a secret fear oppressed
her, for the limes weighed upon her conscience.
“Bring with you the limes you have in your desk,” was the unexpected
command which arrested her before she got out of her seat.
“Don’t take all.” whispered her neighbor, a young lady of great
presence of mind.
Amy hastily shook out half a dozen and laid the rest down before Mr.
Davis, feeling that any man possessing a human heart would relent when
that delicious perfume met his nose. Unfortunately, Mr. Davis
particularly detested the odor of the fashionable pickle, and disgust
added to his wrath.
“Is that all?”
“Not quite,” stammered Amy.
“Bring the rest immediately.”
With a despairing glance at her set, she obeyed.
“You are sure there are no more?”
“I never lie, sir.”
“So I see. Now take these disgusting things two by two, and throw them
out of the window.”
There was a simultaneous sigh, which created quite a little gust, as
the last hope fled, and the treat was ravished from their longing lips.
Scarlet with shame and anger, Amy went to and fro six dreadful times,
and as each doomed couple, looking oh, so plump and juicy, fell from
her reluctant hands, a shout from the street completed the anguish of
the girls, for it told them that their feast was being exulted over by
the little Irish children, who were their sworn foes. This—this was too
much. All flashed indignant or appealing glances at the inexorable
Davis, and one passionate lime lover burst into tears.
As Amy returned from her last trip, Mr. Davis gave a portentous “Hem!”
and said, in his most impressive manner...
“Young ladies, you remember what I said to you a week ago. I am sorry
this has happened, but I never allow my rules to be infringed, and I
never break my word. Miss March, hold out your hand.”
Amy started, and put both hands behind her, turning on him an imploring
look which pleaded for her better than the words she could not utter.
She was rather a favorite with ‘old Davis’, as, of course, he was
called, and it’s my private belief that he would have broken his word
if the indignation of one irrepressible young lady had not found vent
in a hiss. That hiss, faint as it was, irritated the irascible
gentleman, and sealed the culprit’s fate.
“Your hand, Miss March!” was the only answer her mute appeal received,
and too proud to cry or beseech, Amy set her teeth, threw back her head
defiantly, and bore without flinching several tingling blows on her
little palm. They were neither many nor heavy, but that made no
difference to her. For the first time in her life she had been struck,
and the disgrace, in her eyes, was as deep as if he had knocked her
down.
“You will now stand on the platform till recess,” said Mr. Davis,
resolved to do the thing thoroughly, since he had begun.
That was dreadful. It would have been bad enough to go to her seat, and
see the pitying faces of her friends, or the satisfied ones of her few
enemies, but to face the whole school, with that shame fresh upon her,
seemed impossible, and for a second she felt as if she could only drop
down where she stood, and break her heart with crying. A bitter sense
of wrong and the thought of Jenny Snow helped her to bear it, and,
taking the ignominious place, she fixed her eyes on the stove funnel
above what now seemed a sea of faces, and stood there, so motionless
and white that the girls found it hard to study with that pathetic
figure before them.
During the fifteen minutes that followed, the proud and sensitive
little girl suffered a shame and pain which she never forgot. To others
it might seem a ludicrous or trivial affair, but to her it was a hard
experience, for during the twelve years of her life she had been
governed by love alone, and a blow of that sort had never touched her
before. The smart of her hand and the ache of her heart were forgotten
in the sting of the thought, “I shall have to tell at home, and they
will be so disappointed in me!”
The fifteen minutes seemed an hour, but they came to an end at last,
and the word ‘Recess!’ had never seemed so welcome to her before.
“You can go, Miss March,” said Mr. Davis, looking, as he felt,
uncomfortable.
He did not soon forget the reproachful glance Amy gave him, as she
went, without a word to anyone, straight into the anteroom, snatched
her things, and left the place “forever,” as she passionately declared
to herself. She was in a sad state when she got home, and when the