Recompense enough, that note, for all a loving mother's sacrifices and
attempts to give her daughter understanding sympathy and love--and it
is small wonder if that Christmas gift always remained one of her most
precious possessions.
Six hundred copies of the little "Flower Fables" were published, and
the book sold very well, although their author only received the sum
of $32 for them, which was in sharp contrast, she says in her journal,
"to the receipts of six months only in 1886, being _eight thousand
dollars_ for the sale of books and no new one; but" she adds, "I was
prouder over the thirty-two dollars than the eight thousand."
Louisa Alcott was now headed toward her destiny, although she was
still a long way from the shining goal of literary success, and had
many weary hills yet to climb.
As soon as _Flower Fables_ was published, she began to plan for a new
volume of fairy tales, and as she was invited to spend the next summer
in the lovely New Hampshire village of Walpole, she thankfully
accepted the invitation, and decided to write the new book there in
the bracing air of the hill town. In Walpole, she met delightful
people, who were all attracted to the versatile, amusing young woman,
and she was in great demand when there was any entertainment on foot.
One evening she gave a burlesque lecture on "Woman, and Her Position,
by Oronthy Bluggage," which created such a gale of merriment that she
was asked to repeat it for money, which she did; and so there was
added to her store of accomplishments another, from which she was to
reap some rewards in coming years.
Her enjoyment of Walpole was so great that her family decided to try
its fine air, as they were tired of city life and needed a change of
scene. A friend offered them a house there, rent free, and in their
usual impromptu way they left Boston and arrived in the country
village, bag and baggage. Mr. Alcott was overjoyed to have a garden in
which to work, and Mrs. Alcott was glad to be near her niece, whose
guest Louisa had been up to that time.
Louisa's comment on their arrival in her diary was:
"Busy and happy times as we settle in the little house in the lane,
near by my dear ravine--plays, picnics, pleasant people and good
neighbors." Despite the good times, it is evident that she was not
idle, for she says, "Finished fairy book in September.... Better than
_Flower Fables_. Now, I must try to sell it."
In September Anna had an offer to become a teacher in the great idiot
asylum in Syracuse. Her sensitive nature shrank from the work, but
with real self-sacrifice she accepted it for the sake of the family,
and went off in October. Meanwhile Louisa had been thinking deeply
about her future, and her diary tells the story of a decision she
made, quite the most important one of her life. She writes:
"November; decided to seek my fortune, so with my little trunk of
home-made clothes, $40 earned by stories sent to the _Gazette_, and my
MSS., I set forth with mother's blessing one rainy day in the dullest
month in the year."
She went straight to Boston, where she writes:
"Found it too late to do anything with the book (the new one she had
written at Walpole) so put it away and tried for teaching, sewing, or
any honest work. Won't go home to sit idle while I have a head and a
pair of hands."
Good for you, Louisa--you are the stuff that success is made of! That
her courage had its reward is shown by the fact that her cousins, the
Sewalls, generously offered her a home for the winter with them which
she gratefully accepted, but insisted on paying for her board by doing
a great deal of sewing for them. She says in her diary: "I sew for
Mollie and others and write stories. C. gave me books to notice. Heard
Thackeray. Anxious times; Anna very home-sick. Walpole very cold and
dull, now the summer butterflies have gone. Got $5 for a tale and $12
for sewing; sent home a Christmas box to cheer the dear souls in the
snow-banks."
In January she writes: "C. paid $6 for _A Sister's Trial_, gave me
more books to notice, and wants more tales." The entries that follow
give a vivid picture of her pluck and perseverance in that first
winter of fortune-seeking, and no record of deeds could be more
graphic than the following entries:
"Sewed for L. W. Sewall and others. Mr. Field took my farce to Mobile
to bring out; Mr. Barry of the Boston Theater has the play. Heard
Curtis lecture. Began a book for summer, _Beach Bubbles_. Mr. F. of
the _Courier_ printed a poem of mine on 'Little Nell'. Got $10 for
'Bertha' and saw great yellow placards stuck up announcing it. Acted
at the W's. March; got $10 for 'Genevieve'. Prices go up as people
like the tales and ask who wrote them.... Sewed a great deal, and got
very tired; one job for Mr. G. of a dozen pillow-cases, one dozen
sheets, six fine cambric neck-ties, and two dozen handkerchiefs, at
which I had to work all one night to get them done, ... I got only
$4.00." The brave, young fortune-seeker adds sensibly, "Sewing won't
make my fortune, but I can plan my stories while I work."
In May she had a welcome visit from Anna on her way home from
Syracuse, as the work there was too hard for her, and the sisters
spent some happy days together in Boston. Then they were obliged to go
home, as dear little Beth was very sick with scarlet-fever which she
caught from some poor children Mrs. Alcott had been nursing. Both Beth
and May had the dangerous disease, and Beth never recovered from the
effects of it, although she lived for two years, a serene, patient
invalid, who shed a benediction on the sorrowing household. That
summer was an anxious time for the family. In her usual way Louisa
plunged headlong into housework and nursing, and when night came she
would scribble one of the stories which the papers were now glad to
accept whenever she could send them. So with varying degrees of
apprehension and rejoicing, the weary months passed, and as Beth was
slowly improving and she was not needed at home, Louisa decided to
spend another winter in the city. Her diary says:
"There I can support myself and help the family. C. offers $10 a month
and perhaps more.... Others have plenty of sewing; the play may come
out, and Mrs. R. will give me a sky-parlor for $3 a week, with fire
and board. I sew for her also." With practical forethought, she adds,
"If I can get A. L. to governess I shall be all right."
Then in a burst of the real spirit which had animated her ever since
she first began to write and sew and teach and act, and make over old
clothes given her by rich friends that she need not spend any money on
herself, she declares in her diary:
"I was born with a boy's spirit under my bib and tucker. I _can't
wait_ when I _can work_; so I took my little talent in my hand and
forced the world again, braver than before, and wiser for my
failures."
That the decision was no light one, and that the winter in Boston was
not merely an adventure, is shown by her declaration:
"I don't often pray in words; but when I set out that day with all my
worldly goods in the little old trunk, my own earnings ($25) in my
pocket, and much hope and resolution in my soul, my heart was very
full, and I said to the Lord, 'Help us all, and keep us for one
another,' as I never said it before, while I looked back at the dear
faces watching me, so full of love, and hope, and faith."
Louisa Alcott's childhood and girlhood, with all the hardships and
joys which went into the passing years, had been merged in a
triumphant young womanhood--a fitting preface to the years of fame and
fortune which were to follow. A brave, interesting girl had become a
courageous older woman, who faced the untried future with her small
earnings in her pocket, her worldly goods in her trunk, and hopeful
determination in her heart to do some worth-while thing in the world,
for the sake of those she dearly loved. She had started up the steep
slope of her life's real adventuring, and despite the rough paths over
which she must still travel before reaching her goal, she was more and
more a sympathetic comrade to the weak or weary, ever a gallant
soldier, and a noble woman, born to do great deeds. So enthusiastic
was she in playing her part in the world's work, that when she was
twenty-seven years old, and still toiling on, with a scant measure of
either wealth or fame, she exclaimed at a small success:
"Hurrah! My story was accepted and Lowell asked if it was not a
translation from the German, it was so unlike other tales. I felt much
set up, and my fifty dollars will be very happy money.... I have not
been pegging away all these years in vain, and I may yet have books
and publishers, and a fortune of my own. Success has gone to my head,
and I wander a little.
"Twenty-seven years old and very happy!"
* * * * *
The prediction of "books, publishers and a fortune" came true in 1868,
when a Boston firm urged her to write a story for girls, and she had
the idea of describing the early life of her own home, with its many
episodes and incidents. She wrote the book and called it _Little
Women_, and was the most surprised person in the world, when from her
cozy corner of Concord she watched edition after edition being
published, and found that she had become famous. From that moment
Louisa Alcott belonged to the public, and one has but to turn to the
pages of her ably edited _Life, Letters and Journals_, to realize the
source from which she got the material for her "simple story of simple
girls," bound by a beautiful tie of family love, that neither poverty,
sorrow nor death could sever. Four little pilgrims, struggling onward
and upward through all the difficulties that beset them on their way,
in Concord, Boston, Walpole and elsewhere, had provided human
documents which the genius of Louisa Alcott made into an imperishable
story for the delight and inspiration of succeeding generations of
girls.
_Little Women_ was followed by _Little Men_, _Old Fashioned Girl_,
_Eight Cousins_, _Rose in Bloom_, _Under the Lilacs_, and a long line
of other charming books for young people. And, although the incidents
in them were not all taken from real life as were those of her first
"immortal," yet was each and every book a faithful picture of
every-day life. That is where the genius of Louisa Alcott came in.
From the depicting of fairies and gnomes, princes and kings, she early
turned to paint the real, the vital and the heroic, which is being
lived in so many households where there is little money and no luxury,
but much light-hearted laughter, tender affection for one another, and
a deep and abiding love of humanity.
Well may all aspiring young Americans take example from the author of
_Little Women_, and when longing to set the world on fire in the
expression of their genius, learn not to despise or to turn away from
the simple, commonplace details of every-day life.
And for successful life and work, there is no better inspiration than
the three rules given Louisa Alcott in girlhood for her daily
guidance:
Rule yourself;
Love your neighbor;
Do the duty which lies nearest you.