Little Women (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) Page 33

  The invitations were sent, nearly all accepted, and the following Monday was set apart for the grand event. Hannah was out of humor because her week’s work was deranged, and prophesied that “ef the washin’ and ironin’ warn’t done reg‘lar nothin’ would go well anywheres.” This hitch in the mainspring of the domestic machinery had a bad effect upon the whole concern, but Amy’s motto was “Nil desperandum,” erand having made up her mind what to do, she proceeded to do it in spite of all obstacles. To begin with, Hannah’s cooking didn’t turn out well: the chicken was tough, the tongue too salty, and the chocolate wouldn’t froth properly; Then the cake and ice cost more than Amy expected, so did the wagon; and various other expenses, which seemed trifling at the outset, counted up rather alarmingly afterward. Beth got cold and took to her bed, Meg had an unusual number of callers to keep her at home, and Jo was in such a divided state of mind that her breakages, accidents, and mistakes were uncommonly numerous, serious, and trying.

  “If it hadn’t been for Mother I never should have got through,” as Amy declared afterward, and gratefully remembered when “the best joke of the season” was entirely forgotten by everybody else.

  If it was not fair on Monday, the young ladies were to come on Tuesday—an arrangement which aggravated Jo and Hannah to the last degree. On Monday morning the weather was in that undecided state which is more exasperating than a steady pour. It drizzled a little, shone a little, blew a little, and didn’t make up its mind till it was too late for anyone else to make up theirs. Amy was up at dawn, hustling people out of their beds and through their breakfasts, that the house might be got in order. The parlor struck her as looking uncommonly shabby, but without stopping to sigh for what she had not, she skillfully made the best of what she had, arranging chairs over the worn places in the carpet, covering stains on the walls with pictures framed in ivy, and filling up empty corners 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, an 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 two 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 unconsciouses 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 to 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 neighborhoo
d 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 lovely 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 sallets,” to the great surprise of the learned gentleman.et

  “Bundle everything into a basket and send it to the Hummels: Germans like messes.eu 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 nut-shell, 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.

  27

  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 than 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 semioccasionally 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 afflatusev 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 Woman’s Rights and making tatting. ew Beyond sat a pair of humble lovers, artlessly holding each other by the hand, a somber spinster eating pepper-mints out of a paper bag, and an old gentleman taking his preparatory nap behind a yellow bandanna. On her right, her only neighbor was a studious-looking lad absorbed in a newspaper.

  It was a pictorial sheet, and Jo examined the work of art nearest her, idly wondering what unfortuitous concatenation of circumstances needed the melodramatic illustration of an Indian in full war costume, tumbling over a precipice with a wolf at his throat, while two infuriated young gentlemen, with unnaturally small feet and big eyes, were stabbing each other close by, and a disheveled female was flying away in the background with her mouth wide open. Pausing to turn a page, the lad saw her looking and, with boyish good nature, offered half his paper, saying bluntly, “Want to read it? That’s a first-rate story.”

  Jo accepted it with a smile, for she had never outgrown her liking for lads, and soon found herself involved in the usual labyrinth of love, mystery, and murder, for the story belonged to that class of light literature in which the passions have a holiday, and when the author’s invention fails, a grand catastrophe clears the stage of one half the dramatis personae, leaving the other half to exult over their downfall.

  “Prime, isn’t it?” asked the boy, as her eye went down the last paragraph of her portion.

  “I think you and I could do as well as that if we tried,” returned Jo, amused at his admiration of the trash.

  “I should think I was a pretty lucky chap if I could. She makes a good living out of such stories, they say.” And he pointed to the name of Mrs. S. L. A. N. G. Northbury,ex under the title of the tale.

  “Do you know her?” asked Jo, with sudden interest.

  “No, but I read all her pieces, and I know a fellow who works in the office where this paper is printed.”

  “Do you say she makes a good living out of stories like this?” And Jo looked more respectfully at the agitated group and thickly sprinkled exclamation points that adorned the page.

  “Guess she does! She knows just what folks like, and gets paid well for writing it.”

  Here the lecture began, but Jo heard very little of it, for while Professor Sands was prosing away about Belzoni, Cheops, scarabei, and hieroglyphics,9 she was covertly taking down the address of the paper, and boldly resolving to try for the hundred-dollar prize offered in its columns for a sensational story. By the time the lecture ended and the audience awoke, she had built up a splendid fortune for herself (not the first founded upon paper), and was already deep in the concoction of her story, being unable to decide whether the duel should come before the elopement or after the murder.

  She said nothing of her plan at home, but fell to work next day, much to the disquiet of her mother, who always looked a little anxious when “genius took to burning.” Jo had never tried this style befo
re, contenting herself with very mild romances for The Spread Eagle. Her theatrical experience and miscellaneous reading were of service now, for they gave her some idea of dramatic effect, and supplied plot, language, and costumes. Her story was as full of desperation and despair as her limited acquaintance with those uncomfortable emotions enabled her to make it, and, having located it in Lisbon,ey she wound up with an earthquake, as a striking and appropriate denouement. The manuscript was privately dispatched, accompanied by a note, modestly saying that if the tale didn’t get the prize, which the writer hardly dared expect, she would be very glad to receive any sum it might be considered worth.

  Six weeks is a long time to wait, and a still longer time for a girl to keep a secret, but Jo did both, and was just beginning to give up all hope of ever seeing her manuscript again, when a letter arrived which almost took her breath away, for on opening it, a check for a hundred dollars fell into her lap. For a minute she stared at it as if it had been a snake, then she read her letter and began to cry. If the amiable gentleman who wrote that kindly note could have known what intense happiness he was giving a fellow creature, I think he would devote his leisure hours, if he has any, to that amusement; for Jo valued the letter more than the money, because it was encouraging, and after years of effort it was so pleasant to find that she had learned to do something, though it was only to write a sensation story.

  A prouder young woman was seldom seen than she, when, having composed herself, she electrified the family by appearing before them with the letter in one hand, the check in the other, announcing that she had won the prize. Of course there was a great jubilee, and when the story came everyone read and praised it; though after her father had told her that the language was good, the romance fresh and hearty, and the tragedy quite thrilling, he shook his head, and said in his unworldly way—