Little Women
river, singing at the tops of their voices. Ned, getting sentimental,
warbled a serenade with the pensive refrain...
Alone, alone, ah! Woe, alone,
and at the lines...
We each are young, we each have a heart,
Oh, why should we stand thus coldly apart?
he looked at Meg with such a lackadaisical expression that she laughed
outright and spoiled his song.
“How can you be so cruel to me?” he whispered, under cover of a lively
chorus. “You’ve kept close to that starched-up Englishwoman all day,
and now you snub me.”
“I didn’t mean to, but you looked so funny I really couldn’t help it,”
replied Meg, passing over the first part of his reproach, for it was
quite true that she had shunned him, remembering the Moffat party and
the talk after it.
Ned was offended and turned to Sallie for consolation, saying to her
rather pettishly, “There isn’t a bit of flirt in that girl, is there?”
“Not a particle, but she’s a dear,” returned Sallie, defending her
friend even while confessing her shortcomings.
“She’s not a stricken deer anyway,” said Ned, trying to be witty, and
succeeding as well as very young gentlemen usually do.
On the lawn where it had gathered, the little party separated with
cordial good nights and good-byes, for the Vaughns were going to
Canada. As the four sisters went home through the garden, Miss Kate
looked after them, saying, without the patronizing tone in her voice,
“In spite of their demonstrative manners, American girls are very nice
when one knows them.”
“I quite agree with you,” said Mr. Brooke.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CASTLES IN THE AIR
Laurie lay luxuriously swinging to and fro in his hammock one warm
September afternoon, wondering what his neighbors were about, but too
lazy to go and find out. He was in one of his moods, for the day had
been both unprofitable and unsatisfactory, and he was wishing he could
live it over again. The hot weather made him indolent, and he had
shirked his studies, tried Mr. Brooke’s patience to the utmost,
displeased his grandfather by practicing half the afternoon, frightened
the maidservants half out of their wits by mischievously hinting that
one of his dogs was going mad, and, after high words with the stableman
about some fancied neglect of his horse, he had flung himself into his
hammock to fume over the stupidity of the world in general, till the
peace of the lovely day quieted him in spite of himself. Staring up
into the green gloom of the horse-chestnut trees above him, he dreamed
dreams of all sorts, and was just imagining himself tossing on the
ocean in a voyage round the world, when the sound of voices brought him
ashore in a flash. Peeping through the meshes of the hammock, he saw
the Marches coming out, as if bound on some expedition.
“What in the world are those girls about now?” thought Laurie, opening
his sleepy eyes to take a good look, for there was something rather
peculiar in the appearance of his neighbors. Each wore a large,
flapping hat, a brown linen pouch slung over one shoulder, and carried
a long staff. Meg had a cushion, Jo a book, Beth a basket, and Amy a
portfolio. All walked quietly through the garden, out at the little
back gate, and began to climb the hill that lay between the house and
river.
“Well, that’s cool,” said Laurie to himself, “to have a picnic and
never ask me! They can’t be going in the boat, for they haven’t got the
key. Perhaps they forgot it. I’ll take it to them, and see what’s going
on.”
Though possessed of half a dozen hats, it took him some time to find
one, then there was a hunt for the key, which was at last discovered in
his pocket, so that the girls were quite out of sight when he leaped
the fence and ran after them. Taking the shortest way to the boathouse,
he waited for them to appear, but no one came, and he went up the hill
to take an observation. A grove of pines covered one part of it, and
from the heart of this green spot came a clearer sound than the soft
sigh of the pines or the drowsy chirp of the crickets.
“Here’s a landscape!” thought Laurie, peeping through the bushes, and
looking wide-awake and good-natured already.
It was a rather pretty little picture, for the sisters sat together in
the shady nook, with sun and shadow flickering over them, the aromatic
wind lifting their hair and cooling their hot cheeks, and all the
little wood people going on with their affairs as if these were no
strangers but old friends. Meg sat upon her cushion, sewing daintily
with her white hands, and looking as fresh and sweet as a rose in her
pink dress among the green. Beth was sorting the cones that lay thick
under the hemlock near by, for she made pretty things with them. Amy
was sketching a group of ferns, and Jo was knitting as she read aloud.
A shadow passed over the boy’s face as he watched them, feeling that he
ought to go away because uninvited; yet lingering because home seemed
very lonely and this quiet party in the woods most attractive to his
restless spirit. He stood so still that a squirrel, busy with its
harvesting, ran down a pine close beside him, saw him suddenly and
skipped back, scolding so shrilly that Beth looked up, espied the
wistful face behind the birches, and beckoned with a reassuring smile.
“May I come in, please? Or shall I be a bother?” he asked, advancing
slowly.
Meg lifted her eyebrows, but Jo scowled at her defiantly and said at
once, “Of course you may. We should have asked you before, only we
thought you wouldn’t care for such a girl’s game as this.”
“I always like your games, but if Meg doesn’t want me, I’ll go away.”
“I’ve no objection, if you do something. It’s against the rules to be
idle here,” replied Meg gravely but graciously.
“Much obliged. I’ll do anything if you’ll let me stop a bit, for it’s
as dull as the Desert of Sahara down there. Shall I sew, read, cone,
draw, or do all at once? Bring on your bears. I’m ready.” And Laurie
sat down with a submissive expression delightful to behold.
“Finish this story while I set my heel,” said Jo, handing him the book.
“Yes’m.” was the meek answer, as he began, doing his best to prove his
gratitude for the favor of admission into the ‘Busy Bee Society’.
The story was not a long one, and when it was finished, he ventured to
ask a few questions as a reward of merit.
“Please, ma’am, could I inquire if this highly instructive and charming
institution is a new one?”
“Would you tell him?” asked Meg of her sisters.
“He’ll laugh,” said Amy warningly.
“Who cares?” said Jo.
“I guess he’ll like it,” added Beth.
“Of course I shall! I give you my word I won’t laugh. Tell away, Jo,
and don’t be afraid.”
“The idea of being afraid of you! Well, you see we used to play
Pilgrim’s Progress, and we have been going on with it in earnest, all
winter and summer.”
“Yes, I know,” said Laurie, nodding wisely.
“Who told you?” demanded Jo.
“Spirits.”
“No, I did. I wanted to amuse him one night when you were all away, and
he was rather dismal. He did like it, so don’t scold, Jo,” said Beth
meekly.
“You can’t keep a secret. Never mind, it saves trouble now.”
“Go on, please,” said Laurie, as Jo became absorbed in her work,
looking a trifle displeased.
“Oh, didn’t she tell you about this new plan of ours? Well, we have
tried not to waste our holiday, but each has had a task and worked at
it with a will. The vacation is nearly over, the stints are all done,
and we are ever so glad that we didn’t dawdle.”
“Yes, I should think so,” and Laurie thought regretfully of his own
idle days.
“Mother likes to have us out-of-doors as much as possible, so we bring
our work here and have nice times. For the fun of it we bring our
things in these bags, wear the old hats, use poles to climb the hill,
and play pilgrims, as we used to do years ago. We call this hill the
Delectable Mountain, for we can look far away and see the country where
we hope to live some time.”
Jo pointed, and Laurie sat up to examine, for through an opening in the
wood one could look cross the wide, blue river, the meadows on the
other side, far over the outskirts of the great city, to the green
hills that rose to meet the sky. The sun was low, and the heavens
glowed with the splendor of an autumn sunset. Gold and purple clouds
lay on the hilltops, and rising high into the ruddy light were silvery
white peaks that shone like the airy spires of some Celestial City.
“How beautiful that is!” said Laurie softly, for he was quick to see
and feel beauty of any kind.
“It’s often so, and we like to watch it, for it is never the same, but
always splendid,” replied Amy, wishing she could paint it.
“Jo talks about the country where we hope to live sometime—the real
country, she means, with pigs and chickens and haymaking. It would be
nice, but I wish the beautiful country up there was real, and we could
ever go to it,” said Beth musingly.
“There is a lovelier country even than that, where we shall go,
by-and-by, when we are good enough,” answered Meg with her sweetest
voice.
“It seems so long to wait, so hard to do. I want to fly away at once,
as those swallows fly, and go in at that splendid gate.”
“You’ll get there, Beth, sooner or later, no fear of that,” said Jo.
“I’m the one that will have to fight and work, and climb and wait, and
maybe never get in after all.”
“You’ll have me for company, if that’s any comfort. I shall have to do
a deal of traveling before I come in sight of your Celestial City. If I
arrive late, you’ll say a good word for me, won’t you, Beth?”
Something in the boy’s face troubled his little friend, but she said
cheerfully, with her quiet eyes on the changing clouds, “If people
really want to go, and really try all their lives, I think they will
get in, for I don’t believe there are any locks on that door or any
guards at the gate. I always imagine it is as it is in the picture,
where the shining ones stretch out their hands to welcome poor
Christian as he comes up from the river.”
“Wouldn’t it be fun if all the castles in the air which we make could
come true, and we could live in them?” said Jo, after a little pause.
“I’ve made such quantities it would be hard to choose which I’d have,”
said Laurie, lying flat and throwing cones at the squirrel who had
betrayed him.
“You’d have to take your favorite one. What is it?” asked Meg.
“If I tell mine, will you tell yours?”
“Yes, if the girls will too.”
“We will. Now, Laurie.”
“After I’d seen as much of the world as I want to, I’d like to settle
in Germany and have just as much music as I choose. I’m to be a famous
musician myself, and all creation is to rush to hear me. And I’m never
to be bothered about money or business, but just enjoy myself and live
for what I like. That’s my favorite castle. What’s yours, Meg?”
Margaret seemed to find it a little hard to tell hers, and waved a
brake before her face, as if to disperse imaginary gnats, while she
said slowly, “I should like a lovely house, full of all sorts of
luxurious things—nice food, pretty clothes, handsome furniture,
pleasant people, and heaps of money. I am to be mistress of it, and
manage it as I like, with plenty of servants, so I never need work a
bit. How I should enjoy it! For I wouldn’t be idle, but do good, and
make everyone love me dearly.”
“Wouldn’t you have a master for your castle in the air?” asked Laurie
slyly.
“I said ‘pleasant people’, you know,” and Meg carefully tied up her
shoe as she spoke, so that no one saw her face.
“Why don’t you say you’d have a splendid, wise, good husband and some
angelic little children? You know your castle wouldn’t be perfect
without,” said blunt Jo, who had no tender fancies yet, and rather
scorned romance, except in books.