Part 17 (1/2)

”And for us, it was spring in California!”

LOUISA M ALCOTT: AUTHOR OF ”LITTLE WOMEN”

In a pleasant, shady garden in Concord, Massachusetts, under a gnarled old apple-tree, sat a very studious looking little person, bending over a sheet of paper on which she riting She hada board across two carpenter's horses, whose oorking in the house, and no scholar writing a treatise on some deep subject could have been arden

For a whole long hour she wrote, frequently stopping to look off into the distance and bite the end of her pencil with a very learned look, then she would bend over her paper again and write hard and fast

Finally, she laid down her pencil with an air of triumph, jumped up from the stump and rushed toward the house

”Mother! Anna! I've written a poearden!” Dashi+ng into the library she waved the paper in the air with a still more excited cry: ”Listen!” and dropped on the floor to read her poereat dra up fro the proper effect This is what she read:

TO THE FIRST ROBIN

Welcoer, We are glad to see you here, For you sing ”Sweet Spring is near”

Now the white snow ay, Come, dear bird, and build your nest, For we love our robin best

She finished with an upward tilt of her voice, while herover her head, crying: ”Good! Splendid!” and quiet Anna echoed the words, looking with awe at her small sister, as she added, ”It's just like Shakespeare!”

The proudpoetess's effort, for fear of ht, after the verses had been read to a delighted father, and the young author had gone happily off to bed, the enius, Bronson!”

Yet, despite the prediction, even an appreciative parent would have been more than surprised had she been able to look into the future and had seen her daughter as one of the eneration The little girl who sat under the apple-tree on that day in early spring and wrote the verses was no other than Louisa May Alcott, and her tribute to the robin was to be treasured in after years as the first evidence of its writer's talent

Louisa, the second daughter of Amos Bronson and Abba May Alcott, was born in Germantown, Pa, on the 29th of Nove the child of parents who not only understood the intense, restless and ehter, but were deeply interested in developing it in such a way that her marked traits would be valuable to her in later life To this unfailing sympathy of both father and mother the turbulent nature owed much of its rich achieves and influences had as reat as that was

At the ti school in Gerinal and far in advance of his ti was not liked by the parents of his pupils, so when Louisa o years old and her older sister, Anna, four, the family went to Boston, where Mr Alcott opened his fa by his o methods, and when he was happy his devoted as equally contented

Louisa was too young to go to school then, except as a visitor, but her father developed her youngto his own theories of education, and during the remainder of the all-too short days the active child was free to areat delight, for she was a born investigator, and there she met children of all classes, who appealed to her many-sided nature in different ways Louisa was never a respecter of class distinctions--it did not matter to her where people lived, or whether their hands and faces were dirty, if some personal characteristic attracted her to the hu ready for the work of later years

In her own sketch of those early days, she says:

”Running aas one of hts out of the nest to look about this very interesting world and then go back to report!”

On one of her investigating tours, she hted her, and she spent a wonderful day with the their dinner of cold potatoes, salt fish and bread crusts

Then--delightful pastime--they all played in the ash-heaps for soether But when twilight ca way froly of her mother and sister

But as she did not kno to find her way back she sat down on a door-step, where a big dog was lying He was so friendly that she cuddled up against his broad back and fell asleep How long she slept she did not know, but she akened by the loud ringing of a bell, and a irl lost! Six years old--in a pink frock, white hat and new green shoes Little girl lost! Little girl lost!”

It was the town crier, and as he rang his bell and gave his loud cry, out of the darkness he heard a sreat difficulty the crier was able to persuade the child to unclasp her ar, but at last she left him, and was taken to the crier's home and ”feasted sumptuously on bread and molasses in a tin plate with the alphabet round it,” while her frantic fa to that incident is very tersely told by Louisa, who says: ”My fun ended the next day, when I was tied to the arm of the sofa to repent at leisure!”

That the six years spent in Boston were happy ones, and that the budding spirit of Louisa was filled with joy at , when, at the breakfast table, she suddenly looked up with an all-embrasive smile and exclaimed: