LOUISA MAY ALCOTT, THE CHILDREN’S FRIEND.

By EDNAH D. CHENEY.

Illustrated by LIZBETH B. COMINS.

BOSTON: L. PRANG & COMPANY.

Copyright, 1888, by L. Prang & Co., Boston, Mass.

PREFACE.

No explanation can be necessary for offering to the children of America a memorial of Louisa May Alcott, to whom a whole generation looks up with honor and affection as their benefactor and friend.

This slight sketch of her life is not intended to take the place of the full biography, which, it is hoped, will be prepared under the auspices of her own family. The aim has been to show how truly her writings represented herself, and came out of her own varied and fruitful life.

A word more should be said in regard to the poems. The “Song of the Suds” is introduced to express her sense of the poetry of labor. The lines “To a Robin” are interesting as her childish expression. The poems to her father and mother show the deep, filial reverence and tenderness which were among her strongest traits. The two poems by her father are added to indicate the love with which the orphan child, who became so large a part of her life, was welcomed by her family, and her father’s recognition of the motives which prompted her to exertion, which were, not love of money or fame, but sacred duty to those whom God had given her to cherish and bless.

This book is affectionately dedicated to the children of America.

EDNAH D. CHENEY.

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LOUISA MAY ALCOTT, THE CHILDREN’S FRIEND. 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.

[Pg 6]

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 [Pg 7]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 [Pg 8]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. [Pg 9]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.

[Pg 10]

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.

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 [Pg 13]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.

[Pg 14]

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 [Pg 15]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 [Pg 16]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. [Pg 17] “‘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 [Pg 18]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 [Pg 19]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.”

[Pg 20]

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.

This extract will show how he began life:—