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Show CONDENSED f CLASSICS I I LITTLE WOMEN X By LOUISA M. ALCOTT i Condensation by 1' Miss Carolyn Wells x":-"X":::m-:"::"M--X":"X' Louisa Mtiy Alcott Al-cott wits burn In 1N:12 and died In 1SSH. She wan the dnuKbtcr of A. llronson Alcott, the Saico of Concord." Con-cord." Her early aurronndlnira were of a highly Intellectual Intel-lectual and literary lit-erary chnracter and ihe naturally took to writing while still very young. ! In her sketch, "T r n n accndental I Oats," Hue de- crlbes In on aiuuftlns; woy the experience of a i year at Krnltlnnds, where an attempt was made to es tablish an Ideal community. Miss Alcott waa obliged to be n wage earner to help out the fumlly Income, and ao taught school, aerved as a goveruenn and at times worked as a seamstress. Wearying of thin, she wrote for the papers stories of a sensutlonal nature, which were remunerative nnnnclnlly but unsatisfactory to her as a literary pursuit, and she abandoned this style of writing. In a Wnnhlngton hoHpltnl she served as a nurse for a time, but the work was so hard that she failed In health, and when she recovered she had to find new fields of work; then she traveled aa attendant to an lnvnlld, and with her visited Europe. After aevcral attempts nt literature Miss Alcott wrote "I.lttle Women," which was an Immediate success, rench-tng rench-tng a sale of 87,000 copies In three years. "She wrote from the heart, Rail wove Into the story Incidents from the lives of herself and her three sisters at Concord. She afterward wrote "An Old Fashioned Girl," "Mttie Men," "Aunt Jo's Scrap Bag," "The Eight Cousins" and "Kose In' Bloom," besides other stories and sketches. Miss Alcott had ambition and ability for a high grnde of literary work sbe made her success as a writer of children's chil-dren's stories. While her receipts from ome later work were large for those times, sbe declared that she was more proud of the first $32 she received than of the larger amounts later. One generation after another of young renders finds pleasure In Miss Alton's Al-ton's cheery, healthful stories, and their vitality la Indicated by their appearance ap-pearance on the movie screen. IX their old-fashioned New England home the little women lived with Mrs. March, their brisk and cheery mother, who always had a "cnn-I-help you" look about her, and whom her Cour girls lovingly called "Marmee." Pretty Meg, the oldest, was sixteen, and already showed domestic tastes and talents, though she detested the drudgery of household work ; and, a little vain of her white hands, longed at heart to be a fine lady. Jo, fifteen, was tall, thin and coltish, and gloried in an unconcealed scorn of polite conventions. con-ventions. Beth, thirteen, was a lovable lov-able little thing, shy, fond of her dolls and devoted to music, which she tried hopefully to produce from the old, jingling tinpan of a piano. Amy, twelve, considered herself the flower of the family. An adorable blonde, she admitted that the trial of her life was her nose. For, when she was a baby, Jo had accidentally dropped her Into the coal-hod and permanently flattened that feature, and though poor Amy slept with a patent clothespin pinching it, she couldn't attain the Grecian effect she so much desired. Father March was an army chaplain chap-lain in the Civil war, and In his absence ab-sence Jo declared herself to be the man of the family. To add to their slender income, she went every day to read to Aunt March, a peppery old lady ; and Meg, too, earned a small salary as daily nursery governess to a neighbor's children. In the big house next door to the Marches lived a rich old gentleman, Mr. Laurence, and his grandson, a iolly chummy boy called Laurie. Though awe-inspiring at first, Mr. Laurence proved both kindly and generous, gen-erous, and even timid Beth mustered up courage to go over to the "Palace Beautiful" at twilight and play softly on the grand piano there. But, as she confessed to her mother, when she began be-gan she was so frightened her feet chattered on the floor. The night Laurie took the two older girls to the theater, Amy, though not invited, insisted on going, too. Jo crossly -declared she wouldn't go if Amy did, and furiously scolding her little sister, she slammed the door and went off, as Amy called out : "You'll be sorry for this, Jo March ! See if you ain't!" The child made good her threat by burning up the manuscript of a precious book which Jo had written writ-ten and on which she had spent three years of hard work. There was a terrible ter-rible fracas, and, though at her moth er's bidding Amy made contrite apology, apol-ogy, Jo refused to be pacified. It was only when poor little Amy was nearly drowned by falling through the ice that conscience-stricken Jo forgave her sisteT and learned a much-needed lesson les-son of self-control. Meg, too, learned a salutary lesson, when she went to visit some fashionable fash-ionable friends and had her first taste of "Vanity Fair." Her sisters' gladly lent her all their best things, and, as she said to Jo: "You're a dear to "Mid me your gloves! I feel so rich and elegnnt wlllf two new pntrs and the old ones cleaned up for common I" Yet she soon saw that her wardrobe wuh sadly Inadequate to the environment environ-ment In which she found herself. Whereupon the rich friends lent hor some of their own finery; and, nfler laughingly applying paint and powder, they laced her Into a sky-blue silk dress, so low that modest Meg blushed at herself In the mirror, and Laurie, who was at the party, openly expressed express-ed his surprised disapproval. Chagrin and remorse followed, and it was not until after full confession to Marmee, that Meg realized the trumpery value of fashionable rivalry and the real worth of simplicity and contentment. All four of the girls had leanings to-ward to-ward a life of luxury and ease, and when Mrs. March mulllngly proposed that they try a whole week of "all play (nd no work," they agreed eagerly. But the experiment was a miserable failure; and after mortifying scenes nt a company luncheon, a canary bird dead from neglect, several slight illnesses ill-nesses and lost tempers, the girls decided de-cided that lounging and larking didn't pay. Now John Brooke, the tutor of Laurie, Lau-rie, was a secret admirer of pretty Meg. Discovering this, the mischievous mischiev-ous boy wrote Meg a passionate love letter, purporting to Iw from Brooke. This prank caused a terrible upset in both houses, but later on Brooke put the momentous question, and Meg meekly whispered, "Yes, John," and hid her face on his waistcoat. Jo, blundering in, was transfixed with astonishment as-tonishment and dismay, and exclaimed, exclaim-ed, "Oh, do somebody come quick ! John Brooke Is acting dreadfully, and Meg likes It !" At Christmas, father March enma home from the war, and great celebration cele-bration was made. The neighbors from the Laurence house were invited, and there never was such a Christmas dinner as they bad that day ! Lnter came the first break in their restored home circle. The Dovecote was the name of the little brown house that John Brooke had prepared for li9 bride, and it was a tiny affair with a lawn, in front about as big as a handkerchief! The wedding, beneath be-neath the June roses was a simple homey one, and the bridal journey was only the walk from the March home to the dear little new house. "I'm too happy to care what anyone says I'm going to have my wedding just as I want it !" Meg bad declared ; and so, leaning on her husband's arm, her hands full of flowers, she went away, saying, "Thank you all for my happy wedding day. Good-by, good-by!" good-by!" Jo developed into a writer of sensational sen-sational stories. This, however, was because she found a profitable market for such work and she wanted the money for herself and the others. For little Beth was ailing, and a summer stay at the seashore might, they all hoped, bring back the roses to her cheeks. But It didn't, and after a time the dark days came when gentle Beth, like a tired but trustful child, clung to the hands that had led her all through life, as her father and mother guided her tenderly through the valley of the shadow and gave her up to God. Then came a day when Laurie was invited to the Dovecote to see Meg's new baby. Jo appeared, a proud aunt, bearing a bundle on a pillow. "Shut your eyes and hold out your arms," she ordered, and Laurie, obeying, opened open-ed his eyes again, to see two babies! "Twins, by Jupiter!" he cried; "take 'em, quick, somebody ! I'm going to laugh, and I shall drop 'em !" Laurie had loved Jo for years, but Jo, though truly sorry, couldn't respond. re-spond. As she said, "It's impossible for people to make themselves love other people if they don't !" And so, after a time, Laurie decided that Amy was the only woman in the world who could fill Jo's place and make him happy. And the two were very happy together, Amy taking great pride in her handsome husband. "Don't laugh," she said to him, "but your nose is such a comfort to me !" and she caressed ca-ressed the well-cut feature with artistic artis-tic satisfaction. Jo found her fate in an elderly professor, pro-fessor, wise and kind, but too poor to think of marriage. For a year the pair worked and waited and hoped and loved, and then Aunt March died and left Jo her fine old country place. Here Jo and her professor set up their home, and established a boys' school, which became a great success. Jo lived a very happy life, and as the years went on, two little lads of her own came to increase her happiness. Amy, too, had a dear child named Beth, but she was a frail little creature crea-ture and the dread of losing her was the shadow over Amy's sunshine. But the little women and all their dear ones formed a happy, united family, fam-ily, of whom Jo truly wrote: Lives whose brave music long shall ring Like a spirit-stirring strain. Copyright. 1919. by Post Publishing- Co. (The Boston Post). Copyright, 1919. by Post Publishing Co. (The Boston Post). All rights reserved. Printed by permission of, and arrangement arrange-ment with. Little, Brown Co.," authorized author-ized publishers. |