The Annotated Little Women Page 24
Many were the complaints below, and great the chagrin of the head cook, at her failures. “Never mind, I’ll get the dinner, and be servant; you be missis, keep your hands nice, see company, and give orders,” said Jo, who knew still less than Meg about culinary affairs.
This obliging offer was gladly accepted; and Margaret retired to the parlor, which she hastily put in order by whisking the litter under the sofa, and shutting the blinds, to save the trouble of dusting. Jo, with perfect faith in her own powers, and a friendly desire to make up the quarrel, immediately put a note in the office, inviting Laurie to dinner.
“You’d better see what you have got before you think of having company,” said Meg, when informed of the hospitable, but rash act.
“Oh, there’s corned beef, and plenty of potatoes; and I shall get some asparagus, and a lobster, ‘for a relish,’ as Hannah says. We’ll have lettuce, and make a salad; I don’t know how, but the book tells. I’ll have blanc-mange and strawberries for dessert; and coffee, too, if you want to be elegant.”
“Don’t try too many messes, Jo, for you can’t make anything but gingerbread and molasses candy,9 fit to eat. I wash my hands of the dinner-party; and, since you have asked Laurie on your own responsibility, you may just take care of him.”
“I don’t want you to do anything but be clever to him, and help to the pudding. You’ll give me your advice if I get stuck, won’t you?” asked Jo, rather hurt.
“Yes; but I don’t know much, except about bread, and a few trifles. You had better ask mother’s leave, before you order anything,” returned Meg, prudently.
“Of course I shall; I ain’t a fool,” and Jo went off in a huff at the doubts expressed of her powers.
“Get what you like, and don’t disturb me; I’m going out to dinner, and can’t worry about things at home,” said Mrs. March, when Jo spoke to her. “I never enjoyed housekeeping, and I’m going to take a vacation today, and read, write, go visiting and amuse myself.”
The unusual spectacle of her busy mother rocking comfortably, and reading early in the morning, made Jo feel as if some natural phenomenon had occurred; for an eclipse, an earthquake, or a volcanic eruption would hardly have seemed stranger.
“Everything is out of sorts, somehow,” she said to herself, going down stairs. “There’s Beth crying; that’s a sure sign that something is wrong with this family. If Amy is bothering, I’ll shake her.”
Feeling very much out of sorts herself, Jo hurried into the parlor to find Beth sobbing over Pip, the canary, who lay dead in the cage, with his little claws pathetically extended, as if imploring the food, for want of which he had died.
“It’s all my fault—I forgot him—there isn’t a seed or drop left—oh, Pip! oh, Pip! how could I be so cruel to you?” cried Beth, taking the poor thing in her hands, and trying to restore him.
Jo peeped into his half-open eye, felt his little heart, and finding him stiff and cold, shook her head, and offered her domino-box for a coffin.
“Put him in the oven, and maybe he will get warm, and revive,” said Amy, hopefully.
“He’s been starved, and he shan’t be baked, now he’s dead. I’ll make him a shroud, and he shall be buried in the grave; and I’ll never have another bird, never, my Pip! for I am too bad to own one,” murmured Beth, sitting on the floor with her pet folded in her hands.
“The funeral shall be this afternoon, and we will all go. Now, don’t cry, Bethy; it’s a pity, but nothing goes right this week, and Pip has had the worst of the experiment. Make the shroud, and lay him in my box; and, after the dinner-party, we’ll have a nice little funeral,” said Jo, beginning to feel as if she had undertaken a good deal.
Leaving the others to console Beth, she departed to the kitchen, which was in a most discouraging state of confusion. Putting on a big apron, she fell to work, and got the dishes piled up ready for washing, when she discovered that the fire was out.
“Here’s a sweet prospect!” muttered Jo, slamming the stove door open, and poking vigorously among the cinders.
Having rekindled it, she thought she would go to market while the water heated. The walk revived her spirits; and, flattering herself that she had made good bargains, she trudged home again, after buying a very young lobster, some very old asparagus, and two boxes of acid strawberries. By the time she got cleared up, the dinner arrived, and the stove was red-hot. Hannah had left a pan of bread to rise, Meg had worked it up early, set it on the hearth for a second rising, and forgotten it. Meg was entertaining Sallie Gardiner, in the parlor, when the door flew open, and a floury, crocky, flushed and dishevelled figure appeared, demanding, tartly,—
“I say, isn’t bread ‘riz’ enough when it runs over the pans?”
Sallie began to laugh; but Meg nodded, and lifted her eyebrows as high as they would go, which caused the apparition to vanish, and put the sour bread into the oven without further delay. Mrs. March went out, after peeping here and there to see how matters went, also saying a word of comfort to Beth, who sat making a winding-sheet, while the dear departed lay in state in the domino-box. A strange sense of helplessness fell upon the girls as the gray bonnet vanished round the corner; and despair seized them, when, a few minutes later, Miss Crocker appeared, and said she’d come to dinner. Now this lady was a thin, yellow spinster, with a sharp nose, and inquisitive eyes, who saw everything, and gossiped about all she saw. They disliked her, but had been taught to be kind to her, simply because she was old and poor, and had few friends. So Meg gave her the easy-chair, and tried to entertain her, while she asked questions, criticised everything, and told stories of the people whom she knew.
Language cannot describe the anxieties, experiences, and exertions which Jo underwent that morning; and the dinner she served up became a standing joke. Fearing to ask any more advice, she did her best alone, and discovered that something more than energy and good-will is necessary to make a cook. She boiled the asparagus hard for an hour, and was grieved to find the heads cooked off, and the stalks harder than ever. The bread burnt black; for the salad dressing so aggravated her, that she let everything else go, till she had convinced herself that she could not make it fit to eat. The lobster was a scarlet mystery to her, but she hammered and poked, till it was unshelled, and its meagre proportions concealed in a grove of lettuce-leaves. The potatoes had to be hurried, not to keep the asparagus waiting, and were not done at last. The blanc-mange was lumpy, and the strawberries not as ripe as they looked, having been skilfully “deaconed.”10
“Well, they can eat beef, and bread and butter, if they are hungry; only it’s mortifying to have to spend your whole morning for nothing,” thought Jo, as she rang the bell half an hour later than usual, and stood hot, tired, and dispirited, surveying the feast spread for Laurie, accustomed to all sorts of elegance, and Miss Crocker, whose curious eyes would mark all failures, and whose tattling tongue would report them far and wide.
Poor Jo would gladly have gone under the table, as one thing after another was tasted and left; while Amy giggled, Meg looked distressed, Miss Crocker pursed up her lips, and Laurie talked and laughed with all his might, to give a cheerful tone to the festive scene. Jo’s one strong point was the fruit, for she had sugared it well, and had a pitcher of rich cream to eat with it. Her hot cheeks cooled a trifle, and she drew a long breath, as the pretty glass plates went round, and every one looked graciously at the little rosy islands floating in a sea of cream. Miss Crocker tasted first, made a wry face, and drank some water hastily. Jo, who had refused, thinking there might not be enough, for they dwindled sadly after the picking over, glanced at Laurie, but he was eating away manfully, though there was a slight pucker about his mouth, and he kept his eye fixed on his plate. Amy, who was fond of delicate fare, took a heaping spoonful, choked, hid her face in her napkin, and left the table precipitately.
“Oh, what is it?” exclaimed Jo, trembling.
“Salt instead of sugar, and the cream is sour,” replied Meg, with a tragic gesture.
“I haven’t strength of mind enough to clear up now, so we will sober ourselves with a funeral,” said Jo, as they rose; and Miss Crocker made ready to go, being eager to tell the new story at another friend’s dinner-table.
They did sober themselves, for Beth’s sake; Laurie dug a grave under the ferns in the grove, little Pip was laid in, with many tears, by his tender-hearted mistress, and covered with moss, while a wreath of violets and chickweed was hung on the stone which bore his epitaph, composed by Jo, while she struggled with the dinner:—
“Here lies Pip March,
Who died the 7th of June;
Loved and lamented sore,
And not forgotten soon.”
At the conclusion of the ceremonies, Beth retired to her room, overcome with emotion and lobster; but there was no place of repose, for the beds were not made, and she found her grief much assuaged by beating up pillows and putting things in order. Meg helped Jo clear away the remains of the feast, which took half the afternoon, and left them so tired that they agreed to be contented with tea and toast for supper. Laurie took Amy to drive, which was a deed of charity, for the sour cream seemed to have had a bad effect upon her temper. Mrs. March came home to find the three older girls hard at work in the middle of the afternoon; and a glance at the closet gave her an idea of the success of one part of the experiment.
Before the housewives could rest, several people called, and there was a scramble to get ready to see them; then tea must be got, errands done; and one or two bits of sewing were necessary, but neglected till the last minute. As twilight fell, dewy and still, one by one they gathered in the porch where the June roses were budding beautifully, and each groaned or sighed as she sat down, as if tired or troubled.
“What a dreadful day this has been!” begun Jo, usually the first to speak.
“It has seemed shorter than usual, but so uncomfortable,” said Meg.
“Not a bit like home,” added Amy.
“It can’t seem so without Marmee and little Pip,” sighed Beth, glancing, with full eyes, at the empty cage above her head.
“Here’s mother, dear, and you shall have another bird to-morrow, if you want it.”12
As she spoke, Mrs. March came and took her place among them, looking as if her holiday had not been much pleasanter than theirs.
“Are you satisfied with your experiment, girls, or do you want another week of it?” she asked, as Beth nestled up to her, and the rest turned toward her with brightening faces, as flowers turn toward the sun.
“I don’t!” cried Jo, decidedly.
“Nor I,” echoed the others.
“You think, then, that it is better to have a few duties, and live a little for others, do you?”
“Lounging and larking don’t pay,” observed Jo, shaking her head. “I’m tired of it, and mean to go to work at something right off.”
“Suppose you learn plain cooking; that’s a useful accomplishment, which no woman should be without,” said Mrs. March, laughing audibly at the recollection of Jo’s dinner-party; for she had met Miss Crocker, and heard her account of it.
“Mother! did you go away and let everything be, just to see how we’d get on?” cried Meg, who had had suspicions all day.
“Yes; I wanted you to see how the comfort of all depends on each doing her share faithfully. While Hannah and I did your work, you got on pretty well, though I don’t think you were very happy or amiable; so I thought, as a little lesson, I would show you what happens when every one thinks only of herself. Don’t you feel that it is pleasanter to help one another, to have daily duties which make leisure sweet when it comes, and to bear or forbear, that home may be comfortable and lovely to us all?”
“We do, mother, we do!” cried the girls.
“Then let me advise you to take up your little burdens again; for though they seem heavy sometimes, they are good for us, and lighten as we learn to carry them. Work is wholesome, and there is plenty for every one; it keeps us from ennui and mischief; is good for health and spirits, and gives us a sense of power and independence better than money or fashion.”
“We’ll work like bees, and love it too; see if we don’t!” said Jo. “I’ll learn plain cooking for my holiday task; and the next dinner-party I have shall be a success.”
“I’ll make the set of shirts for father, instead of letting you do it, Marmee. I can and I will, though I’m not fond of sewing; that will be better than fussing over my own things, which are plenty nice enough as they are,” said Meg.
“I’ll do my lessons every day, and not spend so much time with my music and dolls. I am a stupid thing, and ought to be studying, not playing,” was Beth’s resolution; while Amy followed their example, by heroically declaring, “I shall learn to make button-holes, and attend to my parts of speech.”
“Very good! then I am quite satisfied with the experiment, and fancy that we shall not have to repeat it; only don’t go to the other extreme, and delve like slaves. Have regular hours for work and play; make each day both useful and pleasant, and prove that you understand the worth of time by employing it well. Then youth will be delightful, old age will bring few regrets, and life become a beautiful success, in spite of poverty.”
“We’ll remember, mother!” and they did.
1. “Plumfield.” This is Alcott’s first mention of Aunt March’s estate, which will become the site of the school and college that provide the principal setting for the sequels Little Men and Jo’s Boys. The name “Plumfield” seems intentionally similar to Fruitlands, Bronson Alcott’s experimental commune. Jo’s aversion to housework reflects that of Alcott herself, who admitted “never being able to conquer my prejudices regarding them. . . . If I live alone I should make the beds once a week, clean house every ten years, never cook at all which would simplify things grandly” (Schlesinger, “The Alcotts through Thirty Years,” p. 375).
2. “samphire.” Actually not a seaweed, as Jo would have it, samphire is the name given to a variety of salty edible plants that grow in salt marshes, on beaches, or among mangroves. The kind most likely familiar to Jo is marsh samphire, or glasswort.
3. “ ‘friend and pardner, Sairy Gamp.’ ” In Dickens’s novel The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, Sairey Gamp is a nurse much given to tippling. Alcott, who played Gamp in one of her family’s theatricals, was quite fond of the character. She sometimes jokingly signed Gamp’s name to her letters, and she referred to the upstairs room she rented in Boston in 1867–68 as “Gamp’s Garret.” The quotation spouted by Jo does not appear in Dickens’s novel.
4. “The Wide, Wide World.” The Wide, Wide World was a best-selling sentimental novel published in 1850 by Susan Warner, under the nom de plume Elizabeth Wetherell.
5. cut the breadths off, that it wouldn’t wash, which mishap made her slightly cross. The breadths of a fabric were treated to prevent raveling and were meant to be cut off and discarded after purchase. Since Meg has cut the breadths off the muslin, she can no longer return it.
6. like Flora McFlimsy, she had “nothing to wear.” “Miss Flora McFlimsey of Madison Square” is the comic heroine of William Allen Butler’s poem “Nothing to Wear,” first published by Harper’s Weekly in 1857. The poem concludes by advising fashionable young ladies to clothe themselves “with purity, truth, faith, meekness, and love . . . lest in [Heaven] you have nothing to wear!”
7. “enough to try the patience of a Boaz,” comp
lained Miss Malaprop. Amy muddles her recollection of the Old Testament, confusing Ruth’s husband Boaz with the proverbially patient Job. Miss Malaprop, a character in Irish playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s The Rivals (1775), continually mixes up her words to unintentionally comic effect.
8. saleratus. A now-obsolete term for baking soda.
9. “gingerbread and molasses candy.” A contemporary cookbook offers the following recipe for hard molasses gingerbread:
A half a pint of molasses, a gill of butter, half a gill of nice drippings, half a gill of sour milk, two teaspoonfuls of saleratus, and the same of ginger. Melt the butter, drippings, and molasses together, and pour hot upon a quart of flour; add the ginger and saleratus, and when well mixed add more flour until it can be handled without sticking. Then roll it out about as thick as the little finger, stamp or mark it, and bake in shallow iron or tin pans. Bake it in a moderate heat. When done, cut it up before you take it out of the pans, as it cannot be done after it is cold without crumbling the edges.
If you prefer to have it thin, and cut into rounds like cookies, it is a very good way.
By omitting the sour milk and adding a cup of sugar, a rather nicer gingerbread is made.
The same source gives the following molasses candy recipe:
To one pint of best molasses put four ounces of brown sugar. Boil in a porcelain saucepan, and stir often, taking care that it does not burn. Boil until it will become hard and brittle; put a teaspoonful upon ice, or into cold water, in order to ascertain this. Before taking up, add a teaspoonful of essence of lemon and a plenty of almonds, chopped. Pour into a tin well buttered; or take some of the candy without nuts (first rubbing your hands with butter), and, while warm, pull until it is of as light a color as you wish (Cornelius, The Young Housekeeper’s Friend, p. 255).
10. “deaconed.” To “deacon” a package of fruit is to arrange them so that the best are on the top and the inferior ones are hidden from view.
11. refrigerator. Here, not an electrical appliance, but merely a cabinet for keeping food cool. Early refrigerators, using vapor compression, began to appear during Alcott’s lifetime. It is very unlikely, however, that the Marches would have used such an advanced form of icebox.