|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 56
MISS ALCOTT,
THE FRIEND OF LITTLE WOMEN AND OF LITTLE MEN.
BY F.B.S.
[Illustration]
Would the readers of ST. NICHOLAS, who are all admirers of Miss Louisa
Alcott, like to hear more than they now know about this kind friend of
theirs, who has been giving them so much pleasure by her stories, and
never writes so well as when she writes for boys and girls? Then, let
me tell you something about her own family and childhood, and how she
became the well-known writer that she is. She not only tells you
pleasant stories about "little women" and "old-fashioned girls," "eight
cousins," and children "under the lilacs,"--but she shows you how good
it is to be generous and kind, to love others and not to be always
caring and working for yourselves. And the way she can do this is by
first being noble and unselfish herself. "Look into thine own heart and
write," said a wise man to one who had asked how to make a book. And it
is because Miss Alcott looks into her own heart and finds such kindly
and beautiful wishes there that she has been able to write so many
beautiful books. They tell the story of her life; but they tell many
other stories also. So let me give you a few events and scenes in her
life, by themselves.
Miss Alcott's father was the son of a farmer in Connecticut, and her
mother was the daughter of a merchant in Boston. After growing up in a
pretty, rural town, among hardy people who worked all day in the fields
or the woods, and were not very rich, Mr. Alcott went down into
Virginia and wandered about among the rich planters and the poor slaves
who then lived there; selling the gentlemen and ladies such fine things
as they would buy from his boxes,--for he was a traveling merchant, or
peddler,--staying in their mansions sometimes, and sometimes in the
cabins of the poor; reading all the books he could find in the great
houses, and learning all that he could in other ways. Then, he went
back to Connecticut and became a school-master. So fond was he of
children, and so well did he understand them, that his school soon
became large and famous, and he was sent for to go and teach poor
children in Boston. Miss May, the mother of Miss Alcott, was then a
young lady in that city. She, too, was full of kind thoughts for
children, the poor and the rich, and when she saw how well the young
school-master understood his work, how much good he was seeking to do,
and how well he loved her, why, Miss May consented to marry Mr. Alcott,
and then they went away to Philadelphia together, where Mr. Alcott
taught another school.
Close by Philadelphia, and now a part of that great city, is
Germantown, a quiet and lovely village then, which had been settled
many years before by Germans, for whom it was named, and by Quakers,
such as came to Philadelphia with William Penn. Here Louisa May Alcott
was born, and she spent the first two years of her life in Germantown
and Philadelphia. Then, her father and mother went back to Boston,
where Mr. Alcott taught a celebrated school in a fine large building
called the Temple, close by Boston Common, and about this school an
interesting book has been written, which, perhaps, you will some day
read. The little Louisa did not go to it at first, because she was not
old enough, but her father and mother taught her at home the same
beautiful things which the older children learned in the Temple school.
By and by people began to complain that Mr. Alcott was too gentle with
his scholars, that he read to them from the New Testament too much, and
talked with them about Jesus, when he should have been making them say
their multiplication-table. So his school became unpopular, and all the
more so because he would not refuse to teach a poor colored boy who
wanted to be his pupil. The fathers and mothers of the white children
were not willing to have a colored child in the same school with their
darlings. So they took away their children, one after another, until,
when Louisa Alcott was between six and seven years old, her father was
left with only five pupils, Louisa and her two sisters ("Jo," "Beth"
and "Meg"), one white boy, and the colored boy whom he would not send
away. Mr. Alcott had depended for his support on the money which his
pupils paid him, and now he became poor, and gave up his school.
There was a friend of Mr. Alcott's then living in Concord, not far from
Boston,--a man of great wisdom and goodness, who had been very sad to
see the noble Connecticut school-master so shabbily treated in
Boston,--and he invited his friend to come and live in Concord. So
Louisa went to that old country town with her father and mother when
she was eight years old, and lived with them in a little cottage, where
her father worked in the garden, or cut wood in the forest, while her
mother kept the house and did the work of the cottage, aided by her
three little girls. They were very poor, and worked hard; but they
never forgot those who needed their help, and if a poor traveler came
to the cottage door hungry, they gave him what they had, and cheered
him on his journey. By and by, when Louisa was ten years old, they went
to another country town not far off, named Harvard, where some friends
of Mr. Alcott had bought a farm, on which they were all to live
together, in a religious community, working with their hands, and not
eating the flesh of slaughtered animals, but living on vegetable food,
for this practice, they thought, made people more virtuous. Miss Alcott
has written an amusing story about this, which she calls
"Transcendental Wild Oats." When Louisa was twelve years old, and had a
third sister ("Amy"), the family returned to Concord, and for three
years occupied the house in which Mr. Hawthorne, who wrote the fine
romances, afterward lived. There Mr. Alcott planted a fair garden, and
built a summer-house near a brook for his children, where they spent
many happy hours, and where, as I have heard, Miss Alcott first began
to compose stories to amuse her sisters and other children of the
neighborhood.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|