Little Women (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) Page 37

  “Capital boys, aren’t they? I feel quite young and brisk again after that,” said Jo, strolling along with her hands behind her, partly from habit, partly to conceal the bespattered parasol.

  “Why do you always avoid Mr. Tudor?” asked Amy, wisely refraining from any comment upon Jo’s dilapidated appearance.

  “Don’t like him, he puts on airs, snubs his sisters, worries his father, and doesn’t speak respectfully of his mother. Laurie says he is fast, and I don’t consider him a desirable acquaintance, so I let him alone.”

  “You might treat him civilly, at least. You gave him a cool nod, and just now you bowed and smiled in the politest way to Tommy Chamberlain, whose father keeps a grocery store. If you had just reversed the nod and the bow, it would have been right,” said Amy reprovingly.

  “No, it wouldn‘t,” returned perverse Jo, “I neither like, respect, nor admire Tudor, though his grandfather’s uncle’s nephew’s niece was third cousin to a lord. Tommy is poor and bashful and good and very clever. I think well of him, and like to show that I do, for he is a gentleman in spite of the brown-paper parcels.”

  “It’s no use trying to argue with you,” began Amy.

  “Not the least, my dear,” interrupted Jo, “so let us look amiable, and drop a card here, as the Kings are evidently out, for which I’m deeply grateful.”

  The family cardcase having done its duty the girls walked on, and Jo uttered another thanksgiving on reaching the fifth house, and being told that the young ladies were engaged.

  “Now let us go home, and never mind Aunt March today. We can run down there any time, and it’s really a pity to trail through the dust in our best bibs and tuckers, when we are tired and cross.”

  “Speak for yourself, if you please. Aunt likes to have us pay her the compliment of coming in style, and making a formal call; it’s a little thing to do, but it gives her pleasure, and I don’t believe it will hurt your things half so much as letting dirty dogs and clumping boys spoil them. Stoop down, and let me take the crumbs off of your bonnet.”

  “What a good girl you are, Amy!” said Jo, with a repentant glance from her own damaged costume to that of her sister, which was fresh and spotless still. “I wish it was as easy for me to do little things to please people as it is for you. I think of them, but it takes too much time to do them; so I wait for a chance to confer a great favor, and let the small ones slip; but they tell best in the end, I fancy.”

  Amy smiled and was mollified at once, saying with a maternal air, “Women should learn to be agreeable, particularly poor ones, for they have no other way of repaying the kindnesses they receive. If you’d remember that, and practice it, you’d be better liked than I am, because there is more of you.”

  “I’m a crotchety old thing, and always shall be, but I’m willing to own that you are right, only it’s easier for me to risk my life for a person than to be pleasant to him when I don’t feel like it. It’s a great misfortune to have such strong likes and dislikes, isn’t it?”

  “It’s a greater not to be able to hide them. I don’t mind saying that I don’t approve of Tudor any more than you do, but I’m not called upon to tell him so; neither are you, and there is no use in making yourself disagreeable because he is.”

  “But I think girls ought to show when they disapprove of young men, and how can they do it except by their manners? Preaching does not do any good, as I know to my sorrow, since I’ve had Teddy to manage; but there are many little ways in which I can influence him without a word, and I say we ought to do it to others if we can.”

  “Teddy is a remarkable boy, and can’t be taken as a sample of other boys,” said Amy, in a tone of solemn conviction, which would have convulsed the “remarkable boy,” if he had heard it. “If we were belles, or women of wealth and position, we might do something, perhaps, but for us to frown at one set of young gentlemen because we don’t approve of them, and smile upon another set because we do, wouldn’t have a particle of effect, and we should only be considered odd and puritanical.”

  “So we are to countenance things and people which we detest, merely because we are not belles and millionaires, are we? That’s a nice sort of morality.”

  “I can’t argue about it, I only know that it’s the way of the world, and people who set themselves against it only get laughed at for their pains. I don’t like reformers, and I hope you will never try to be one.”

  “I do like them, and I shall be one if I can, for in spite of the laughing the world would never get on without them. We can’t agree about that, for you belong to the old set, and I to the new: you will get on the best, but I shall have the liveliest time of it. I should rather enjoy the brickbatsga and hooting, I think.”

  “Well, compose yourself now, and don’t worry Aunt with your new ideas.”

  “I’ll try not to, but I’m always possessed to burst out with some particularly blunt speech or revolutionary sentiment before her; it’s my doom, and I can’t help it.”

  They found Aunt Carrol with the old lady, both absorbed in some very interesting subject, but they dropped it as the girls came in, with a conscious look which betrayed that they had been talking about their nieces. Jo was not in a good humor, and the perverse fit returned, but Amy, who had virtuously done her duty, kept her temper and pleased everybody, was in a most angelic frame of mind. This amiable spirit was felt at once, and both the aunts “my deared” her affectionately, looking what they afterward said emphatically, “That child improves every day.”

  “Are you going to help about the fair, dear?” asked Mrs. Carrol, as Amy sat down beside her with the confiding air elderly people like so well in the young.

  “Yes, Aunt. Mrs. Chester asked me if I would, and I offered to tend a table, as I have nothing but my time to give.”

  “I’m not,” put in Jo decidedly. “I hate to be patronized, and the Chesters think it’s a great favor to allow us to help with their highly connected fair. I wonder you consented, Amy, they only want you to work.”

  “I am willing to work: it’s for the freedmengb as well as the Chesters, and I think it very kind of them to let me share the labor and the fun. Patronage does not trouble me when it is well meant.”

  “Quite right and proper. I like your grateful spirit, my dear; it’s a pleasure to help people who appreciate our efforts: some do not, and that is trying,” observed Aunt March, looking over her spectacles at Jo, who sat apart, rocking herself, with a somewhat morose expression.

  If Jo had only known what a great happiness was wavering in the balance for one of them, she would have turned dovelike in a minute; but, unfortunately, we don’t have windows in our breasts, and cannot see what goes on in the minds of our friends; better for us that we cannot as a general thing, but now and then it would be such a comfort, such a saving of time and temper. By her next speech, Jo deprived herself of several years of pleasure, and received a timely lesson in the art of holding her tongue.

  I don’t like favors, they oppress and make me feel like a slave. I’d rather do everything for myself, and be perfectly independent.”

  “Ahem!” coughed Aunt Carrol softly, with a look at Aunt March.

  “I told you so,” said Aunt March, with a decided nod to Aunt Carrol.

  Mercifully unconscious of what she had done, Jo sat with her nose in the air, and a revolutionary aspect which was anything but inviting.

  “Do you speak French, dear?” asked Mrs. Carrol, laying her hand on Amy’s.

  “Pretty well, thanks to Aunt March, who lets Esther talk to me as often as I like,” replied Amy, with a grateful look, which caused the old lady to smile affably.

  “How are you about languages?” asked Mrs. Carrol of Jo.

  “Don’t know a word. I’m very stupid about studying anything, can’t bear French, it’s such a slippery, silly sort of language,” was the brusque reply.

  Another look passed between the ladies, and Aunt March said to Amy, “You are quite strong and well, now, dear, I believe? Eyes don�
��t trouble you any more, do they?”

  “Not at all, thank you, ma‘am. I’m very well, and mean to do great things next winter, so that I may be ready for Rome, whenever that joyful time arrives.”

  “Good girl! You deserve to go, and I’m sure you will some day,” said Aunt March, with an approving pat on the head, as Amy picked up her ball for her.

  Crosspatch,gc draw the latch,

  Sit by the fire and spin,

  squalled Polly, bending down from his perch on the back of her chair to peep into Jo’s face, with such a comical air of impertinent inquiry that it was impossible to help laughing.

  “Most observing bird,” said the old lady.

  “Come and take a walk, my dear?” cried Polly, hopping toward the china closet, with a look suggestive of lump sugar.

  “Thank you, I will. Come, Amy.” And Jo brought the visit to an end, feeling more strongly than ever that calls did have a bad effect upon her constitution. She shook hands in a gentlemanly manner, but Amy kissed both the aunts, and the girls departed, leaving behind them the impression of shadow and sunshine, which impression caused Aunt March to say, as they vanished—

  “You’d better do it, Mary, I’ll supply the money,” and Aunt Carrol to reply decidedly, “I certainly will, if her father and mother consent.”

  30

  Consequences

  Mrs. Chester’s fair was so very elegant and select that it was considered a great honor by the young ladies of the neighborhood to be invited to take a table, and everyone was much interested in the matter. Amy was asked, but Jo was not, which was fortunate for all parties, as her elbows were decidedly akimbo at this period of her life, and it took a good many hard knocks to teach her how to get on easily. The “haughty, uninteresting creature” was let severely alone, but Amy’s talent and taste were duly complimented by the offer of the art table, and she exerted herself to prepare and secure appropriate and valuable contributions to it.

  Everything went on smoothly till the day before the fair opened, then there occurred one of the little skirmishes which it is almost impossible to avoid, when some five-and-twenty women, old and young, with all their private piques and prejudices, try to work together.

  May Chester was rather jealous of Amy because the latter was a greater favorite than herself, and just at this time several trifling circumstances occurred to increase the feeling. Amy’s dainty pen-and-ink work entirely eclipsed May’s painted vases—that was one thorn; then the all-conquering Tudor had danced four times with Amy at a late party and only once with May—that was thorn number two; but the chief grievance that rankled in her soul, and gave her an excuse for her unfriendly conduct, was a rumor which some obliging gossip had whispered to her, that the March girls had made fun of her at the Lambs’. All the blame of this should have fallen upon Jo, for her naughty imitation had been too lifelike to escape detection, and the frolicsome Lambs had permitted the joke to escape. No hint of this had reached the culprits, however, and Amy’s dismay can be imagined, when, the very evening before the fair, as she was putting the last touches to her pretty table, Mrs. Chester, who, of course, resented the supposed ridicule of her daughter, said, in a bland tone, but with a cold look—

  “I find, dear, that there is some feeling among the young ladies about my giving this table to anyone but my girls. As this is the most prominent, and some say the most attractive table of all, and they are the chief getters-up of the fair, it is thought best for them to take this place. I’m sorry, but I know you are too sincerely interested in the cause to mind a little personal disappointment, and you shall have another table if you like.”

  Mrs. Chester had fancied beforehand that it would be easy to deliver this little speech, but when the time came, she found it rather difficult to utter it naturally, with Amy’s unsuspicious eyes looking straight at her full of surprise and trouble.

  Amy felt that there was something behind this, but could not guess what, and said quietly, feeling hurt, and showing that she did, “Perhaps you had rather I took no table at all?”

  “Now, my dear, don’t have any ill feeling, I beg; it’s merely a matter of expediency, you see; my girls will naturally take the lead, and this table is considered their proper place. I think it very appropriate to you, and feel very grateful for your efforts to make it so pretty; but we must give up our private wishes, of course, and I will see that you have a good place elsewhere. Wouldn’t you like the flower table? The little girls undertook it, but they are discouraged. You could make a charming thing of it, and the flower table is always attractive, you know.”

  “Especially to gentlemen,” added May, with a look which enlightened Amy as to one cause of her sudden fall from favor. She colored angrily, but took no other notice of that girlish sarcasm, and answered with unexpected amiability—

  “It shall be as you please, Mrs. Chester. I’ll give up my place here at once, and attend to the flowers, if you like.”

  “You can put your own things on your own table, if you prefer,” began May, feeling a little conscience-stricken, as she looked at the pretty racks, the painted shells, and quaint illuminations Amy had so carefully made and so gracefully arranged. She meant it kindly, but Amy mistook her meaning, and said quickly—

  “Oh, certainly, if they are in your way”; and sweeping her contributions into her apron, pell-mell, she walked off, feeling that herself and her works of art had been insulted past forgiveness.

  “Now she’s mad. Oh, dear, I wish I hadn’t asked you to speak, Mamma,” said May, looking disconsolately at the empty spaces on her table.

  “Girls’ quarrels are soon over,” returned her mother, feeling a trifle ashamed of her own part in this one, as well she might.

  The little girls hailed Amy and her treasures with delight, which cordial reception somewhat soothed her perturbed spirit, and she fell to work, determined to succeed florally, if she could not artistically. But everything seemed against her: it was late, and she was tired; everyone was too busy with their own affairs to help her; and the little girls were only hindrances, for the dears fussed and chattered like so many magpies, making a great deal of confusion in their artless efforts to preserve the most perfect order. The evergreen arch wouldn’t stay firm after she got it up, but wiggled and threatened to tumble down on her head when the hanging baskets were filled; her best tile got a splash of water, which left a sepia tear on the Cupid’s cheek; she bruised her hands with hammering, and got cold working in a draft, which last affliction filled her with apprehensions for the morrow. Any girl reader who has suffered like afflictions will sympathize with poor Amy and wish her well through with her task.

  There was great indignation at home when she told her story that evening. Her mother said it was a shame, but told her she had done right, Beth declared she wouldn’t go to the fair at all, and Jo demanded why she didn’t take all her pretty things and leave those mean people to get on without her.

  “Because they are mean is no reason why I should be. I hate such things, and though I think I’ve a right to be hurt, I don’t intend to show it. They will feel that more than angry speeches or huffy actions, won’t they, Marmee?”

  “That’s the right spirit, my dear; a kiss for a blow is always best, though it’s not very easy to give it sometimes,” said her mother, with the air of one who had learned the difference between preaching and practicing.

  In spite of various very natural temptations to resent and retaliate, Amy adhered to her resolution all the next day, bent on conquering her enemy by kindness. She began well, thanks to a silent reminder that came to her unexpectedly, but most opportunely. As she arranged her table that morning, while the little girls were in an anteroom filling the baskets, she took up her pet production—a little book, the antique cover of which her father had found among his treasures, and in which on leaves of vellum she had beautifully illuminated different texts. As she turned the pages rich in dainty devices with very pardonable pride, her eye fell upon one verse that made her stop a
nd think. Framed in a brilliant scrollwork of scarlet, blue, and gold, with little spirits of good will helping one another up and down among the thorns and flowers, were the words, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”

  “I ought, but I don‘t,” thought Amy, as her eye went from the bright page to May’s discontented face behind the big vases, that could not hide the vacancies her pretty work had once filled. Amy stood a minute, turning the leaves in her hand, reading on each some sweet rebuke for all heartburnings and uncharitableness of spirit. Many wise and true sermons are preached us every day by unconscious ministers in street, school, office, or home; even a fair table may become a pulpit, if it can offer the good and helpful words which are never out of season. Amy’s conscience preached her a little sermon from that text, then and there, and she did what many of us do not always do—took the sermon to heart, and straightway put it in practice.

  A group of girls were standing about May’s table, admiring the pretty things, and talking over the change of saleswomen. They dropped their voices, but Amy knew they were speaking of her, hearing one side of the story and judging accordingly. It was not pleasant, but a better spirit had come over her, and presently a chance offered for proving it. She heard May say sorrowfully—

  “It’s too bad, for there is no time to make other things, and I don’t want to fill up with odds and ends. The table was just complete then: now it’s spoiled.”

  “I dare say she’d put them back if you asked her,” suggested someone.