Born Nov. 29, 1832; died March 6, 1888.
It was on the twenty-ninth of November, in the good year 1832, when
a dear little baby girl came into a sweet and beautiful home in the
pleasant suburb of Germantown, near the great city of Brotherly
Love--or Philadelphia.
Very welcome was the dear baby, for she came to loving, true hearts: to
a father who was holy and good, and felt a reverence for every child;
to a mother whose great generous heart was ready to hold all in its
loving embrace; and to a little sister who was full of delight in the
baby. This baby was Louisa Alcott, the children’s friend.
A picturesque house it was, and it is still standing, though the
little town has grown into a great one, and is not so country-like and
pretty as it was then.
Her father taught a school in Philadelphia, and the little ones grew
and throve under their mother’s watchful eye.
She lived only a year or two in this first home, when the father was
obliged to give up his school and their pleasant house, and remove to
Boston.
The family went by sea from Philadelphia, and the two little girls were
all nicely dressed in clean nankeen dresses for the voyage; but they
had not been long on board before the lively Louisa was missing, and
after a long search she was brought up from the engine-room, where her
eager curiosity had carried her, and where she had a beautiful time,
with plenty of dirt. You will understand from this early frolic of hers
what a lively little child she was, full of fun and mischief, and will
not be surprised when I tell you that Nan in “Jo’s Boys” represents
herself, and that she can describe her scrapes so well because she had
been in them all.
The little story, “Poppy’s Pranks,” is a true account of the first
years of her life in Boston, when she got lost in the streets, tumbled
into the Frog Pond, and made things generally lively for everybody
about her. She got lost and was cried about the street: “Lost! a little
girl, four years old; curly brown hair, blue eyes, had on a white frock
and green shoes; calls herself Poppy.” Still, the child was good. “Oh,
dreadfully good! for a week. Quite an angel was Poppy. So meek and
gentle, so generous and obedient, you really wouldn’t have known her.”
When she was three years old another little girl came into the home,
and was named Elizabeth, for that dear, good woman, Elizabeth P.
Peabody, who was then helping Mr. Alcott in the school, and who has
loved and helped everybody so much, that she is well called the
“Grandmother of Boston.”
Then a baby brother came, only to die, and the children’s hearts were
sad that they could not keep him. His little body was laid in the tomb
of their grandfather, Col. May, in the old burial-ground on the Common,
and the family always kept his birthday with loving remembrance,
because they felt his soul belonged to them, and they would know him
again in heaven.
Last of all was the little May, who was tenderly cared for by the
oldest sister, and who quarrelled with and adored the gifted Louisa.
When Louisa was only eight years old she was already fond of writing,
and she composed the poem in this book, called “The Robin.” One cold
morning the children found in the garden a little half-starved bird,
and having warmed and fed him, they felt inspired to write a touching
poem. The loving mother was so pleased with these verses that she said,
“You will grow up a Shakespeare.” Her child didn’t become that; but,
as we have one Shakespeare, perhaps it was just as well that she grew
up to be the “children’s friend,” and to write stories for them, which
have added very much to their happiness, and helped them to live better
lives.
At this time Mr. Alcott kept that school in the Masonic Temple, which
has become so famous by the account Miss Peabody has given of it. Some
things in the school at Plumfield are taken from this model, but not
much, for this was only a day school, and I don’t think the teacher
thought quite so much of making the children’s bodies strong and
giving them a jolly time as Mr. Bhaer did. But he did encourage them
to talk and to express all their earnest thoughts. “It was a school of
thirty children, mostly boys under ten years of age; well disposed,
good-natured, overflowing with animal spirits, and all but intoxicated
with play.”
Louisa never went to this school, but the children had very good times
at home. She went later to a smaller school kept by her father in the
home in Beach Street. In fact, Louisa went to school very little,
and learned all she knew from her father and mother, and the bright,
intelligent people they always had about them. She went a little while
once or twice to a child’s school and a few weeks to a district school,
but her education was very varied and irregular.
But the children were taught by their father in the pleasantest way at
home. For two hours in the morning they were either in his study or on
some shady seat in the garden under his care. He taught them much by
writing, and they each kept a journal of their work and their lives.
They wrote down words and their meanings, and often made drawings to
illustrate them. The father sometimes made pictures of the houses in
which they were staying, or the landscapes they loved, and I have seen
in one of the journals a sketch of himself, with the little Elizabeth
in his lap. One of the children wrote once, “She _said_ prayers, but I
think my resolutions to be good are prayers.”
The school in Boston was not prosperous, and Mr. Alcott went to
Concord to live in a small cottage. This house is described in “Little
Women” as Meg’s first home, but Anne never lived there after her
marriage. It had a pleasant garden full of trees; and best of all, it
had a great barn, in which the children had free range, and here they
acted out all the plays which came into their active little brains.
“Jack and the Bean Stalk” was a favorite, and they had many a tumble
from the beams in climbing up to the imaginary giant’s castle.
They lived three years in this cottage, and to the children they were
very happy ones, for they did not then understand the anxieties of the
father and mother, on whom poverty was pressing hard.
During this time Mr. Alcott went to England and brought back a
gentleman with him, who had some peculiar ideas about making a
paradise on earth. The family went to a place called Fruitlands to
try the experiment. Miss Alcott has told the story of this life in
“Transcendental Wild Oats” with such a mixture of pathos and humor that
you cannot tell whether to laugh or to cry.
They returned to Concord to another house in which the great novelist
Hawthorne afterwards lived. Here Mr. Alcott cultivated land, raising
fruit and vegetables, and there the girls first began to realize the
poverty of the family, and to feel that they must try to ease the
burdens of father and mother.
[Illustration: HOME AT CONCORD, MASS.]
And now, dear children, before I tell you how “Little Women” and
all the books you love so much were written, I want you to realize how
fully Miss Alcott had known almost all that she has described. She knew
the bitterness of poverty, when even the daily food, if not scanty,
was simple in quality and sweetened by no luxuries. All that she has
told you of the struggles of young girls, turning their dresses and
painting their shoes, and carrying a torn glove in the hand, and every
little petty misery of the toilet, she has not only seen but known. All
the sacrifices made by one sister or friend to help another, were felt
or observed by her, and all the tender, wise rebukes from father and
mother were treasured up in her memory. Scarcely an adventure in her
stories but is painted from life, altered in time and place, but still
revealing the history of some real person.
Out of their hard trials, borne with love and courage, but felt just as
keenly as other girls feel them, as out of a dark mine, she has drawn
the gold and silver and precious jewels with which she has brightened
the lives of so many children and hard-working girls; for nothing helps
us like knowing that others have suffered as we have and conquered
as we may. What was the secret of her power to do this? It was that
she kept her heart full of love and faith and courage. She was never
ashamed of the poverty or hardships she had been through, but was
proud that she could do whatever work was necessary for herself or her
family, and she was full of loving thought for everybody else, and
longing to help them in the sorrows and trials she knew so well herself.
“This is the famous stone
That turneth all to gold.”
You feel that Miss Alcott tells you the whole story of her life. She
shows you how she loves fun and play, and wants all children to have
plenty of it, and how children’s restless spirits may lead them to
do many wild pranks without their being really wicked; but she also
shows you that when they really do wrong or cherish wrong feelings, or
are careless or inconsiderate of others’ feelings and happiness, they
suffer very much from it, and more in their own hearts than in any
other way.
Here is a little picture of the “rooms in the heart,” which was the
children’s real experience, a lesson which they never lost, but to
which, even to their latest day, they looked for guidance in their
conduct. The passage occurs in “Little Men”:--
“‘Well, it’s one of my private plays, and I’ll tell you, but I
think you’ll laugh at it,’ began Demi, glad to hold forth on this
congenial subject. ‘I play that my mind is a round room, and my soul
is a little sort of creature with wings that lives in it. The walls
are full of shelves and drawers, and in them I keep my thoughts, and
my goodness and badness, and all sorts of things. The goods I keep
where I can see them, and the bads I lock up tight, but they get out,
and I have to keep putting them in and squeezing them down, they are
so strong. The thoughts I play with when I am alone or in bed, and I
make up and do what I like with them. Every Sunday I put my room in
order, and talk with the little spirit that lives there, and tell him
what to do. He is very bad sometimes, and won’t mind me, and I have
to scold him, and take him to grandpa. He always makes him behave,
and be sorry for his faults, because grandpa likes this play, and
gives me nice things to put in the drawers, and tells me how to shut
up the naughties. Hadn’t you better try that way? it’s a very good
one’; and Demi looked so earnest and full of faith that Dan did not
laugh at his quaint fancy, but said soberly:--
“‘I don’t think there is a lock strong enough to keep my badness shut
up. Any way, my room is in such a clutter I don’t know how to clear
it up.’”
In telling you about Miss Alcott’s childhood, I must tell you how fond
she was of animals. She delighted in dogs, though she never possessed
one, but she has made the performing dog Sanch as real and interesting
as any of her children, and the story of the little raspberry girls
watering sheep in the crowded cattle car might well rouse up the
railroad men to their duty of sparing these poor, patient animals all
needless suffering. But cats were the especial pets of the household;
the children played with them and tended them in sickness, and buried
them when dead, and Louisa embalmed their memory in the story of the
“Seven Black Cats.”
Amid the discomforts of travel she could get pleasure from her favorite
animals:--
“Up the hill they went after breakfast; and balm was found for the
old lady’s woes in the sight of many Angora cats, of great size and
beauty. White as snow, with tails like plumes, and mild, yellow eyes,
were these charmers. At every window sat one; on every door-step
sprawled a bunch of down; and frequently the eye of the tabby-loving
spinster was gladdened by the touching spectacle of a blond mamma in
the bosom of her family.
“‘If I could only carry it, I’d have one of those dears, no matter
what it cost!’ cried Lavinia, more captivated by a live cat than by
all the dead Huguenots that Catherine de Medicis hung over the castle
walls on a certain memorable occasion.”
Dolls were equally dear to her. They seem to form the “missing link” in
a child’s heart between animate and inanimate nature. Louisa made hers
do everything that a human being could do. They were fed, educated,
punished, rewarded, nursed, and even hung and buried; and the story of
the little girls who sent their dolls on a journey for the pleasure of
hearing their adventures, seemed hardly an exaggeration to her:--
“As soon as Flora and Dora recovered from the bewilderment occasioned
by the confusion of the post-office, they found themselves in one of
the many leathern mail-bags rumbling Eastward. As it was perfectly
dark, they could not see their companions, so listened to the
whispering and rustling that went on about them. The newspapers all
talked politics, and some of them used such bad language that the
dolls would have covered their ears, if their hands had not been tied
down. The letters were better behaved and more interesting, for they
told one another the news they carried, because nothing is private in
America, and even gummed envelopes cannot keep gossip from leaking
out.
“‘It is very interesting, but I should enjoy it more if I was
not grinding my nose against the rough side of this leather bag,’
whispered Dora, who lay undermost just then.
“‘So should I, if a heavy book was not pinching my toes. I’ve tried
to kick it away, but it won’t stir, and keeps droning on about
reports and tariffs and such dull things,’ answered Flora, with a
groan.
“‘Do you like travelling?’ asked Dora, presently, when the letters
and papers fell asleep, lulled by the motion of the cars.
“‘Not yet, but I shall when I can look about me. This bundle near by
says the mails are often sorted in the cars, and in that way we shall
see something of the world, I hope,’ answered Flora, cheering up,
for, like her mamma, she was of an inquiring turn.
“The dolls took a nap of some hours, and were roused by a general
tumbling out on a long shelf, where many other parcels lay, and
lively men sent letters and papers flying here and there as if a
whirlwind was blowing. A long box lay beside the dolls who stood
nearly erect leaning against a pile of papers. Several holes were
cut in the lid, and out of one of them was thrust a little black
nose, as if trying to get air.”
This real feeling of the Alcott children adds to the pathos of the
sacrifice to the Kitty Mouse in “Little Men”:--
“The superb success of this last offering excited Teddy to such
a degree that he first threw his lamb into the conflagration, and
before it had time even to roast he planted poor, dear Annabella on
the funeral pyre. Of course she did not like it, and expressed her
anguish and resentment in a way that terrified her infant destroyer.
Being covered with kid, she did not blaze, but did what was worse,
she _squirmed_. First one leg curled up, then the other, in a very
awful and life-like manner; next, she flung her arms over her head
as if in great agony; her head itself turned on her shoulders, her
glass eyes fell out, and with one final writhe of her whole body she
sank down a blackened mass on the ruins of the town. This unexpected
demonstration startled every one, and frightened Teddy half out of
his little wits. He looked, then screamed, and fled toward the house,
roaring ‘Marmar,’ at the top of his voice.”
As soon as the girls were old enough to comprehend the needs of the
family, their earnest desire was to help in its support.
Louisa naturally chose her father’s profession of teaching, and began
when very young to teach some of the children of the neighborhood. One
or both the sisters taught school at various times, and Louisa was
governess in a rich family in Boston.
She never disdained any work that promised help towards her object. Her
mother at one time opened an intelligence office, and when a gentleman
applied for some one to “help” in the family, “to be treated with the
greatest consideration and kindness,” she said, “Mother, why can’t I
go?” Her mother allowed her to try the experiment, but it proved a hard
experience. She has herself told the story, and it shows how much a
poor “hired girl” may suffer from want of respect and consideration,
even from the “best families.”
The family struggled long with poverty, and often ate the bitter bread
of dependence. But they were never so poor but they had something
to share with those in need, and the generous spirit of the mother
is justly shown in the opening scene of “Little Women,” where the
Christmas breakfast is given to the poor German family.
The fugitive slave was safe within their territory, and was hidden in
the barn, and even in the old brick oven, when his persecutors came in
search of him. From stories which Louisa learned from these men, came
the wonderful tale of “My Contraband,” the most powerful and passionate
of any of her stories in “Hospital Sketches,” and also “An Hour,” which
tells of the slaves’ eager longing for liberty.
At a later period a band of houseless emigrants were encamped in the
yard of their house in Boston, from which act of perhaps inconsiderate
charity came a run of smallpox for all the household.
This period of the girlish life of the family is represented in her
famous “Little Women,” the most popular story book for children ever
written.
The father’s character is but slightly indicated, and he does not take
a very active share in this story. But as if, of purpose to give him
due respect, in the opening chapter of the second volume, she describes
his life, saying, “the quiet man sitting among his books was still head
of the family, the household conscience, anchor and comforter.”
In “Eli’s Education” she has given the early life of her father,
who had to struggle hard for his education. His influence upon his
daughters was very strong and deep, although less apparent than the
mother’s.