Little Women
carpet, covering stains on the walls with homemade statuary, which gave
an artistic air to the room, as did the lovely vases of flowers Jo
scattered about.
The lunch looked charming, and as she surveyed it, she sincerely hoped
it would taste well, and that the borrowed glass, china, and silver
would get safely home again. The carriages were promised, Meg and
Mother were all ready to do the honors, Beth was able to help Hannah
behind the scenes, Jo had engaged to be as lively and amiable as an
absent mind, and aching head, and a very decided disapproval of
everybody and everything would allow, and as she wearily dressed, Amy
cheered herself with anticipations of the happy moment when, lunch
safely over, she should drive away with her friends for an afternoon of
artistic delights, for the ‘cherry bounce’ and the broken bridge were
her strong points.
Then came the hours of suspense, during which she vibrated from parlor
to porch, while public opinion varied like the weathercock. A smart
shower at eleven had evidently quenched the enthusiasm of the young
ladies who were to arrive at twelve, for nobody came, and at two the
exhausted family sat down in a blaze of sunshine to consume the
perishable portions of the feast, that nothing might be lost.
“No doubt about the weather today, they will certainly come, so we must
fly round and be ready for them,” said Amy, as the sun woke her next
morning. She spoke briskly, but in her secret soul she wished she had
said nothing about Tuesday, for her interest like her cake was getting
a little stale.
“I can’t get any lobsters, so you will have to do without salad today,”
said Mr. March, coming in half an hour later, with an expression of
placid despair.
“Use the chicken then, the toughness won’t matter in a salad,” advised
his wife.
“Hannah left it on the kitchen table a minute, and the kittens got at
it. I’m very sorry, Amy,” added Beth, who was still a patroness of
cats.
“Then I must have a lobster, for tongue alone won’t do,” said Amy
decidedly.
“Shall I rush into town and demand one?” asked Jo, with the magnanimity
of a martyr.
“You’d come bringing it home under your arm without any paper, just to
try me. I’ll go myself,” answered Amy, whose temper was beginning to
fail.
Shrouded in a thick veil and armed with a genteel traveling basket, she
departed, feeling that a cool drive would soothe her ruffled spirit and
fit her for the labors of the day. After some delay, the object of her
desire was procured, likewise a bottle of dressing to prevent further
loss of time at home, and off she drove again, well pleased with her
own forethought.
As the omnibus contained only one other passenger, a sleepy old lady,
Amy pocketed her veil and beguiled the tedium of the way by trying to
find out where all her money had gone to. So busy was she with her card
full of refractory figures that she did not observe a newcomer, who
entered without stopping the vehicle, till a masculine voice said,
“Good morning, Miss March,” and, looking up, she beheld one of Laurie’s
most elegant college friends. Fervently hoping that he would get out
before she did, Amy utterly ignored the basket at her feet, and
congratulating herself that she had on her new traveling dress,
returned the young man’s greeting with her usual suavity and spirit.
They got on excellently, for Amy’s chief care was soon set at rest by
learning that the gentleman would leave first, and she was chatting
away in a peculiarly lofty strain, when the old lady got out. In
stumbling to the door, she upset the basket, and—oh horror!—the
lobster, in all its vulgar size and brilliancy, was revealed to the
highborn eyes of a Tudor!
“By Jove, she’s forgotten her dinner!” cried the unconscious youth,
poking the scarlet monster into its place with his cane, and preparing
to hand out the basket after the old lady.
“Please don’t—it’s—it’s mine,” murmured Amy, with a face nearly as red
as her fish.
“Oh, really, I beg pardon. It’s an uncommonly fine one, isn’t it?” said
Tudor, with great presence of mind, and an air of sober interest that
did credit to his breeding.
Amy recovered herself in a breath, set her basket boldly on the seat,
and said, laughing, “Don’t you wish you were to have some of the salad
he’s going to make, and to see the charming young ladies who are to eat
it?”
Now that was tact, for two of the ruling foibles of the masculine mind
were touched. The lobster was instantly surrounded by a halo of
pleasing reminiscences, and curiosity about ‘the charming young ladies’
diverted his mind from the comical mishap.
“I suppose he’ll laugh and joke over it with Laurie, but I shan’t see
them, that’s a comfort,” thought Amy, as Tudor bowed and departed.
She did not mention this meeting at home (though she discovered that,
thanks to the upset, her new dress was much damaged by the rivulets of
dressing that meandered down the skirt), but went through with the
preparations which now seemed more irksome than before, and at twelve
o’clock all was ready again. Feeling that the neighbors were interested
in her movements, she wished to efface the memory of yesterday’s
failure by a grand success today, so she ordered the ‘cherry bounce’,
and drove away in state to meet and escort her guests to the banquet.
“There’s the rumble, they’re coming! I’ll go onto the porch and meet
them. It looks hospitable, and I want the poor child to have a good
time after all her trouble,” said Mrs. March, suiting the action to the
word. But after one glance, she retired, with an indescribable
expression, for looking quite lost in the big carriage, sat Amy and one
young lady.
“Run, Beth, and help Hannah clear half the things off the table. It
will be too absurd to put a luncheon for twelve before a single girl,”
cried Jo, hurrying away to the lower regions, too excited to stop even
for a laugh.
In came Amy, quite calm and delightfully cordial to the one guest who
had kept her promise. The rest of the family, being of a dramatic turn,
played their parts equally well, and Miss Eliott found them a most
hilarious set, for it was impossible to control entirely the merriment
which possessed them. The remodeled lunch being gaily partaken of, the
studio and garden visited, and art discussed with enthusiasm, Amy
ordered a buggy (alas for the elegant cherry-bounce), and drove her
friend quietly about the neighborhood till sunset, when ‘the party went
out’.
As she came walking in, looking very tired but as composed as ever, she
observed that every vestige of the unfortunate fete had disappeared,
except a suspicious pucker about the corners of Jo’s mouth.
“You’ve had a loverly afternoon for your drive, dear,” said her mother,
as respectfully as if the whole twelve had come.
“Miss Eliott is a very sweet girl, and seemed to enjoy herself, I
thought,” observed Beth, with unusual warmth.
“Could you spare me some of your cake? I really need some, I have so
much company, and I can’t make such delicious stuff as yours,” asked
Meg soberly.
“Take it all. I’m the only one here who likes sweet things, and it will
mold before I can dispose of it,” answered Amy, thinking with a sigh of
the generous store she had laid in for such an end as this.
“It’s a pity Laurie isn’t here to help us,” began Jo, as they sat down
to ice cream and salad for the second time in two days.
A warning look from her mother checked any further remarks, and the
whole family ate in heroic silence, till Mr. March mildly observed,
“salad was one of the favorite dishes of the ancients, and Evelyn...”
Here a general explosion of laughter cut short the ‘history of salads’,
to the great surprise of the learned gentleman.
“Bundle everything into a basket and send it to the Hummels. Germans
like messes. I’m sick of the sight of this, and there’s no reason you
should all die of a surfeit because I’ve been a fool,” cried Amy,
wiping her eyes.
“I thought I should have died when I saw you two girls rattling about
in the what-you-call-it, like two little kernels in a very big
nutshell, and Mother waiting in state to receive the throng,” sighed
Jo, quite spent with laughter.
“I’m very sorry you were disappointed, dear, but we all did our best to
satisfy you,” said Mrs. March, in a tone full of motherly regret.
“I am satisfied. I’ve done what I undertook, and it’s not my fault that
it failed. I comfort myself with that,” said Amy with a little quiver
in her voice. “I thank you all very much for helping me, and I’ll thank
you still more if you won’t allude to it for a month, at least.”
No one did for several months, but the word ‘fete’ always produced a
general smile, and Laurie’s birthday gift to Amy was a tiny coral
lobster in the shape of a charm for her watch guard.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
LITERARY LESSONS
Fortune suddenly smiled upon Jo, and dropped a good luck penny in her
path. Not a golden penny, exactly, but I doubt if half a million would
have given more real happiness then did the little sum that came to her
in this wise.
Every few weeks she would shut herself up in her room, put on her
scribbling suit, and ‘fall into a vortex’, as she expressed it, writing
away at her novel with all her heart and soul, for till that was
finished she could find no peace. Her ‘scribbling suit’ consisted of a
black woolen pinafore on which she could wipe her pen at will, and a
cap of the same material, adorned with a cheerful red bow, into which
she bundled her hair when the decks were cleared for action. This cap
was a beacon to the inquiring eyes of her family, who during these
periods kept their distance, merely popping in their heads
semi-occasionally to ask, with interest, “Does genius burn, Jo?” They
did not always venture even to ask this question, but took an
observation of the cap, and judged accordingly. If this expressive
article of dress was drawn low upon the forehead, it was a sign that
hard work was going on, in exciting moments it was pushed rakishly
askew, and when despair seized the author it was plucked wholly off,
and cast upon the floor. At such times the intruder silently withdrew,
and not until the red bow was seen gaily erect upon the gifted brow,
did anyone dare address Jo.
She did not think herself a genius by any means, but when the writing
fit came on, she gave herself up to it with entire abandon, and led a
blissful life, unconscious of want, care, or bad weather, while she sat
safe and happy in an imaginary world, full of friends almost as real
and dear to her as any in the flesh. Sleep forsook her eyes, meals
stood untasted, day and night were all too short to enjoy the happiness
which blessed her only at such times, and made these hours worth
living, even if they bore no other fruit. The divine afflatus usually
lasted a week or two, and then she emerged from her ‘vortex’, hungry,
sleepy, cross, or despondent.
She was just recovering from one of these attacks when she was
prevailed upon to escort Miss Crocker to a lecture, and in return for
her virtue was rewarded with a new idea. It was a People’s Course, the
lecture on the Pyramids, and Jo rather wondered at the choice of such a
subject for such an audience, but took it for granted that some great
social evil would be remedied or some great want supplied by unfolding
the glories of the Pharaohs to an audience whose thoughts were busy
with the price of coal and flour, and whose lives were spent in trying
to solve harder riddles than that of the Sphinx.
They were early, and while Miss Crocker set the heel of her stocking,
Jo amused herself by examining the faces of the people who occupied the
seat with them. On her left were two matrons, with massive foreheads
and bonnets to match, discussing Women’s Rights and making tatting.