Alcott Readathon 2018: Jo's Boys (1886)
"Miss Alcott's books are all delightful, and Jo's Boys is one of the best of them." - Boston Evening Transcript
"Thousands of readers will approach this later book with keen curiosity. They will find it lacking in some of the spontaneity of its predecessors, yet still an interesting volume[.]" - Unknown
"Its romance has a singular strain of youthfulness about it, which hardly enables one to feel in it the dignity of real love, courtship, and marriage." - The Critic
"The fault of the story is that there is too much of it. One is bewildered by the numerous boys and girls, and finds it hard to keep the run of 'who is who.' " - The Providence Sunday Journal
"A trifle labored and tedious." - The Graphic
In 1882 LMA helped start Concord's temperance society, destroyed most of her mother's diaries, raised her niece Lulu, and mourned her hero Emerson. In October she started Jo's Boys, originally intended a St. Nicholas serial. That same month Bronson had a stroke. In February 1884 she described the book's future as uncertain. In December 1884 she started again, writing two hours for three days, which made her ill with vertigo for a week. In April 1886 she mentions working on it for one hour a day, a limit ordered by her doctor. In June she moved from Boston to Concord and was able to finish 15 chapters. July she turned in the manuscript and it was published in England in September and America in October.
1: Ten Years Later
Mr. Laurence is dead and left his fortune to found Laurence College. Marmee is also gone. Hannah is not mentioned. Mr. March is the school chaplain.
Franz is in Germany with his merchant uncle. Emil was sent on a long voyage in the hopes that he would give up on sailing, but the opposite happened. Dolly, George, and Ned study law. Nan and Tom study medicine. It's not mentioned where Nan went, but LMA's friend Dr. Rhoda Lawrence went to Boston University School of Medicine.
Jack is in business in Chicago. Nat attends the Conservatory. Dick and Billy are dead, the narrator claiming "life would never be happy" for them which is both disgusting and an odd contradiction of statements made in Jack and Jill. Rob is gentle and quiet but manly inside. Ted is loud and mischievous. Demi disappointed Meg by becoming a reporter, as LMA's elder nephew Frederick Pratt did. Daisy is "her mother's comfort and companion." Josie, 14, amuses them with her love of theater. Bess, 15, is tall and beautiful. Dan went to South American for a geological expedition, then Australia for sheep farming and is now in California.
Nan and Tom walk to Plumfield. He's in love with her and she brushes him off. He got a blue anchor on his arm to match hers. Josie runs after Ted, who stole her copy of The Lady of Lyons by Edward Bulwer-Lytton.
The four meet Jo, Meg, and Daisy for tea. Demi arrives with the news that Emil will return soon and Franz is engaged to Ludmilla.
2: Parnassus
Amy and Laurie's house. Laurie critiques Bess's clay baby. "You can't see beauty in anything but music," she answers. Amy made marble busts of Beth and John.
Nat's about to leave for Leipzig. He loves Daisy, but Meg disapproves because they don't know his family and music is a hard living.
Josie and Ted ask their grandfather to weigh in on their debate.
'Why, we were pegging away at the Iliad and came to where Zeus tells Juno not to inquire into his plans or he'll whip her, and Jo was disgusted because Juno meekly hushed up. I said it was all right, and agreed with the old fellow that women didn't know much and ought to obey men,' explained Ted, to the great amusement of his hearers.
'Goddesses may do as they like, but those Greek and Trojan women were poor-spirited things if they minded men who couldn't fight their own battles and had to be hustled off by Pallas, and Venus, and Juno, when they were going to get beaten. The idea of two armies stopping and sitting down while a pair of heroes flung stones at one another! I don't think much of your old Homer. Give me Napoleon or Grant for my hero.'
Josie's scorn was as funny as if a humming-bird scolded at an ostrich, and everyone laughed as she sniffed at the immortal poet and criticized the gods.
'Napoleon's Juno had a nice time; didn't she? That's just the way girls argue-first one way and then the other,' jeered Ted.
'Like Johnson's young lady, who was “not categorical, but all wiggle-waggle”,' added Uncle Laurie, enjoying the battle immensely.
'I was only speaking of them as soldiers. But if you come to the woman side of it, wasn't Grant a kind husband and Mrs Grant a happy woman? He didn't threaten to whip her if she asked a natural question; and if Napoleon did do wrong about Josephine, he could fight, and didn't want any Minerva to come fussing over him. They were a stupid set, from dandified Paris to Achilles sulking in his ships, and I won't change my opinion for all the Hectors and Agamemnons in Greece,' said Josie, still unconquered.
'You can fight like a Trojan, that's evident; and we will be the two obedient armies looking on while you and Ted have it out,' began Uncle Laurie, assuming the attitude of a warrior leaning on his spear.
They're interrupted by Emil, Josie's favorite cousin, who has presents for everyone. Nan's earrings are skulls, but Josie says she won't wear them.
3: Jo's Last Scrape
Several years before, when Plumfield was in bad shape, Jo "hastily scribbled a little story" about herself and her sisters. To her astonishment it became a bestseller. Rumors exaggerate her fortune, which makes me wonder about the rumors because in 1887 LMA gave John and Frederick Pratt $25,000 each. In then dollars.
Rob reads her fanmail over breakfast - people seeking autographs, advice, donations; a love poem; and a little boy who thinks her books are first-rate.
Ted tells a reporter who visits that, "She is about sixty, born in Nova Zembla, married just forty years ago today, and has eleven daughters." (Forgive me the mixed quotation marks.) A woman and her three daughters come, Fritz with a bunch of his students, and a woman collecting a grasshopper and a shawl to put in a rug.
Jo retreats to her room, determined to finish 30 pages, but there's a man who won't leave. It's Dan. "I've been longing to see you for a year," she says.
4: Dan
He tells her about California and the money he got from investing in mines. He doesn't recognize Bess - "I thought it was a spirit." "Two years have changed you entirely," she replies.
Everyone starts making plans to head West. Dan thinks he might settle on a farm or return to the Montana Indians. They're dying of starvation, "a damned shame."
I don't think I understood before that "she never grudged her Jack a glass" referred to alcohol.
Jo calls the girls and the seven boys "the flower of our flock" and mentions for the first time Alice Heath, a Laurence College student.
Dan brought Ted a mustang, Josie a dress to play Namioka in Metamora, and a buffalo head for Bess.
'Thought it would do her good to model something strong and natural. She'll never amount to anything if she keeps on making namby-pamby gods and pet kittens,' answered irreverent Dan, remembering that when he was last here Bess was vibrating distractedly between a head of Apollo and her Persian cat as models.
'Thank you; I'll try it, and if I fail we can put the buffalo up in the hall to remind us of you,' said Bess, indignant at the insult offered the gods of her idolatry, but too well bred to show it except in her voice, which was as sweet and as cold as ice-cream.
'I suppose you won't come out to see our new settlement when the rest do? Too rough for you?' asked Dan, trying to assume the deferential air all the boys used when addressing their Princess.
'I am going to Rome to study for years. All the beauty and art of the world is there, and a lifetime isn't long enough to enjoy it,' answered Bess.
'Rome is a mouldy old tomb compared to the “Garden of the gods” and my magnificent Rockies. I don't care a hang for art; nature is as much as I can stand, and I guess I could show you things that would knock your old masters higher than kites. Better come, and while Josie rides the horses you can model 'em. If a drove of a hundred or so of wild ones can't show you beauty, I'll give up,' cried Dan, waxing enthusiastic over the wild grace and vigour which he could enjoy but had no power to describe.
'I'll come some day with papa, and see if they are better than the horses of St Mark and those on Capitol Hill. Please don't abuse my gods, and I will try to like yours,' said Bess, beginning to think the West might be worth seeing, though no Raphael or Angelo had yet appeared there.
'That's a bargain! I do think people ought to see their own country before they go scooting off to foreign parts, as if the new world wasn't worth discovering,' began Dan, ready to bury the hatchet.
'It has some advantages, but not all. The women of England can vote, and we can't. I'm ashamed of America that she isn't ahead in all good things,' cried Nan, who held advanced views on all reforms, and was anxious about her rights, having had to fight for some of them.
'Oh, please don't begin on that. People always quarrel over that question, and call names, and never agree. Do let us be quiet and happy tonight,' pleaded Daisy, who hated discussion as much as Nan loved it.
Jo, Meg, and Amy all vote for the school board; Demi says he'll escort Nan and Daisy next year.
5: Vacation
Funny how in books like this and The Secret Garden, exercise makes you grow less thin because working up an appetite makes you eat more.
Demi takes photos, particularly of Bess. Nat and Daisy hang out all they can.
At the good-bye dance Laurie takes Jo on a tour. Emil sits on the roof serenading girls with Mary's Dream and tossing them roses.
The second window framed a very picturesque group of three. Mr March in an arm-chair, with Bess on a cushion at his feet, was listening to Dan, who, leaning against a pillar, was talking with unusual animation. The old man was in shadow, but little Desdemona was looking up with the moonlight full upon her into young Othello's face, quite absorbed in the story he was telling so well. The gay drapery over Dan's shoulder, his dark colouring, and the gesture of his arm made the picture very striking, and both spectators enjoyed it with silent pleasure, till Mrs Jo said in a quick whisper:
'I'm glad he's going away. He's too picturesque to have here among so many romantic girls. Afraid his “grand, gloomy, and peculiar” style will be too much for our simple maids.'
'No danger; Dan is in the rough as yet, and always will be, I fancy; though he is improving in many ways. How well Queenie looks in that soft light!'
'Dear little Goldilocks looks well everywhere.' And with a backward glance full of pride and fondness, Mrs Jo went on. But that scene returned to her long afterward and her own prophetic words also.
Nan takes a splinter out of Tom's hand; he says it's the only time she was kind to him and too bad he didn't lose his arm. "I wish you'd lost your head," she says because his hair pomade stinks.
Ted poses on a stool as Josie and others give commentary. Jo explains they're planning for the upcoming play.
George and eat while complaining about the unladylike amount the girls eat. It proves that studying is bad for them.
A girl says to another that the dress she thought was elegant at home looks countrified here. Second girl tells her to ask Mrs. Brooke for advice.
Nan and Alice interrogate the young men over whether they believe in Women's Suffrage (yes, yes, and yes). You know what I really like? When people recognize that voting isn't the be-all end-all of women's legal right. When people recognize that legal rights aren't social rights and the former existing doesn't magic the latter into existence.
6: Last Words
Meg, weren't you married at 20? Isn't Daisy 20? I'm just saying.
"Girls, have you got nice pocket handkerchiefs?" jokes Jo as her sisters leave for church.
Jo talks to Nat about himself and about Daisy, claiming it's better to have no promises made until his return. "No one will be quicker to see and admire the brave work than my sister Meg. She does not despise your poverty or your past; but mothers are very tender over their daughters, and we Marches, though we have been poor, are, I confess, a little proud of our good family. We don't care for money; but a long line of virtuous ancestors is something to desire and to be proud of."
On the roof she lectures Emil on his new duties as second mate. "Jack ashore is a very different craft from what he is with blue water under his keel," he says. The narrator hints he'll remember this later.
Dan confesses that in San Francisco he gambled a little. Jo cautions him against it and he reassures her. He knows his biggest fault is not gambling but his temper, and he's afraid he'll kill someone one day. She gives him Undine and Sintram to borrow.
7: The Lion and the Lamb
With their parents at the mountains and the Laurences at the shore, Rob and Teddy have the run of the house. Dan's dog Don won't eat or play. Ted suggests he's sicks; Rob says he's just pining for Dan and goes back to writing Latin verses. Ted switches Don, Don gets angry, Rob jumps in front of Ted and Don bites his leg. Nan decides it must be burnt with a poker. Rob takes it like a trooper but Ted faints.
Jo and Fritz note that Rob's even more serious and Ted's a little less wild. Ted claims it's his brother's influence but Jo coaxes the truth out of them.
8: Josie Play Mermaid
Josie's idol Miss Cameron is also at the shore, but she has a private beach and it's hard to see her. One day she loses her bracelet and Josie dives down to fetch it. Miss Cameron invites her over and Josie gives Ophelia's mad scene and a bit from a farce and Portia's speech.
"You've a good voice and natural grace," says the actress and advises her to finish her education and start training when she's older. They blah blah about purifying the stage. Josie starts hitting the books and piano to the delight of her family.
9: The Worm Turns
Tom appears at Jo's with an awful scrape: he's engaged. Oh no Nan didn't! says Jo, but it's not Nan, it's Dora West. Nan mentioned her in Chapter 1.
Down at Quitno he was rowing and the boat capsized but she wasn't mad about it. Later she was riding on the back of his bicycle and a donkey kicked it and they fell. She cracked up and said "Let us go on again" and he replied about going on forever. Jo thinks it's hilarious and a good match. Dora's ability to take things in stride will serve her well if their hypothetical future child is anything like young Tom.
Tom hints that Demi flirted with Alice. "A great dead of courting goes on in those [tennis] courts."
Nan is pleased and resolves to buy Dora a medicine chest for a wedding present. He gives up medicine and goes into business with Bangs Sr.
10: Demi Settles
Demi tells Meg he quit reporting and she's very glad. He got a place at Jo's publisher as Frederick and the real John did.
They talk about Josie and the upcoming plays and Demi promises he'll protect her if she treads the boards.
Josie teases him, via a reference to The Old Curiosity Shop, about spooning with Alice and he tells her not to be silly.
11: Emil's Thanksgiving
My favorite chapter! The Brenda, Englishman Captain Hardy commanding and his wife and daughter Mary aboard, is en route to China when there is a FIRE IN THE HOLD. ABANDON SHIP. Captain Hardy is pushed overboard by a falling mast and knocked out.
They float for three days and then start to worry. During the fourth night two sailors steal the brandy bottle and fall overboard.
A sail appears, but it's too far away to notice the little boat. Emil despairs during the night until Mary singing a hymn he knows from Plumfield brings to mind Jo's talk.
Then it starts to rain and a ship comes to rescue them. What day is it? Emil asks. Thanksgiving!
12: Dan's Christmas
Dan, traveling west, befriends a younger boy, Blair, who reminds him of Ted. Some guys cheat at cards with Blair, Dan calls them out, one draws a pistol, and Dan punches him. The guy hits his head on a stove and dies. Dan gets sentence to a year in prison.
A real life incident appears. LMA and Bronson visited a prison in 1879 and she told the occupants a hospital story. The Sunday before Thanksgiving, the same thing happens to Dan, and it inspires him to not participate in the revolt the other men are planning.
He sends Jo a note at Christmas.
13: Nat's New Year
In Leipzig, Nat brags a little too much about his connections, so people assume he's upper-class and invite him to balls and plays and beer-gardens. He spends a little too much money and plays the gallant with Minna, whose mother confronts him about his intentions. When the bills and a letter from Plumfield arrive at New Year's he resolves to stop being a socialite. His landlady gets him a job teaching English. It must be nice to have connections.
14: Plays at Plumfield
"As it is as impossible for the humble historian of the March family to write a story without theatricals in it as for our dear Miss Yonge to get on with less than twelve or fourteen children in her interesting tales, we will accept the fact, and at once cheer ourselves after the last afflicting events, by proceeding to the Christmas plays at Plumfield; for they influence the fate of several of our characters, and cannot well be skipped."
Everyone is excited by Miss Cameron's attendance. First a farce with Alice as Marquise, Demi as the Baron, and Josie as a soubrette. An accident with the scenery leads to Nan plastering up Demi's injury, but the look on Alice's face makes it worth it to him.
Meg stars as a country widow with Demi and Josie as her kids.
Up until now I thought Owlsdark Marbles was a real play, but turns out it isn't. Laurie is a professor who introduces the audience to his statues: Ted as Mercury, Josie as Hebe, Nan as Minerva, Demi as Apollo, Jo and Fritz as Juno and Jove, someone (Tom?) as Bacchus, and Bess as Diana.
Dan's letter arrives but he gave Jo no address.
15: Waiting
Word reaches Plumfield of the shipwreck and they all mourn Emil. Jack writes and Ned actually visits. Josie takes it very hard until Miss Cameron tells her to take her tragedy like her fictional heroines do. They learns he's not dead and Ted expresses it: "Now is the winter of our discontent / Made glorious by these sons of Bhaer!"
Nat studies hard, gets a visit from Franz and Emil (a good potential fanfic scene), and is chosen to play in a London concert.
Dan counts the days til he's released in August. He can't bear Ted and Jo knowing his shame so he decides to head back to Montana.
16: In the Tennis Courts
Josie and Dolly play tennis and drag each other's schools. Bess chimes in that the cousins are accustomed to sensible conversation, not gossip. Dolly asks why she wears Harvard's color if it sucks so much and she tells him her hat is scarlet, not crimson.
The cousins leave and Jo brings finds Dolly and George. "I knew the boys would be killing themselves with ice-water; so I strolled down with some of my good, wholesome [root] beer. They drank like fishes. But Silas was with me; so my cruse still holds out. Have some?"
She lectures them about overeating, alcohol, and having sex with girls from the Opera Bouffe.
17: Among the Maids
Jo, Meg, and Amy host a sewing circle for the young women.
Here Mrs Meg was in her glory, and stood wielding her big shears like a queen as she cut out white work, fitted dresses, and directed Daisy, her special aide, about the trimming of hats, and completing the lace and ribbon trifles which add grace to the simplest costume and save poor or busy girls so much money and time. Mrs Amy contributed taste, and decided the great question of colours and complexions; for few women, even the most learned, are without that desire to look well which makes many a plain face comely, as well as many a pretty one ugly for want of skill and knowledge of the fitness of things. She also took her turn to provide books for the readings, and as art was her forte she gave them selections from Ruskin, Hamerton, and Mrs Jameson, who is never old. Bess read these aloud as her contribution, and Josie took her turn at the romances, poetry, and plays her uncles recommended. Mrs Jo gave little lectures on health, religion, politics, and the various questions in which all should be interested, with copious extracts from Miss Cobbe's Duties of Women, Miss Brackett's Education of American Girls, Mrs Duffy's No Sex in Education, Mrs Woolson's Dress Reform, and many of the other excellent books wise women write for their sisters, now that they are waking up and asking: 'What shall we do?'
One girl would like to be George Eliot and Jo likes her but not as much as Charlotte Bronte. I haven't read Eliot and I love Jane Eyre the character but not so much the book.
Amy's friend Lady Ambercrombie visits them.
18: Class Day
I used to think Class Day was a Victorian thing, but I found that Harvard and Yale still use it. Harvard's website has a piece on its history from the year JB was published.
Ted dandies up, leading Jo to call him "the ghost of a waiter" and Josie a "long, black clothespin." For part of the day he wears a false mustache which leaves some visitors thinking there are three Bhaer sons.
Alice gives the best speech of the day.
While everyone's chilling and singing a carriage rolls up. Out step Franz, Ludmilla, and Emil with Mary. "Uncle, Aunt Jo, here's another daughter! Have you room for my wife too?" Wouldn't you love to see this scene on film? I so would. Why not tell us? asks Jo. Because you thought it was hilarious when Uncle Laurie did it, says Emil.
19: White Roses
Demi wants to tell Alice; Josie suggests he copy a Maria Edgeworth story and send her three roses - bud, half-blown, and full-blown. Josie delivers them and Alice ponders the questions. Her parents are ill and need her at home. Is it fair to ask him to wait? She overhears Meg and Daisy praising her and John.
They meet at the party and good old Tom interrupts them. "Music? just the thing." Alice starts to play Bide a Wee, which describes her situation so well she can't even sing the middle verse. It was one of the first things I ever researched on the internet.
20: Life for Life
Dan chances upon a mining friend who hires him as overseer. The mine caves in and Dan leads the rescue of the miners. He gets injured but they all survive. The family learns about it from a newspaper. Ted runs away to see Dan and Laurie chases after him.
When he's better they bring him to Plumfield. He confesses to Jo about prison.
21: Aslauga's Knight
Everyone fusses over Dan; Josie reads to him; Bess molds her buffalo head in his room. He asks Bess to read him Aslauga's Knight. She and Jo are surprised he likes that story. Jo realizes he's in love with Bess. Dan confirms it and tells how he used to dream of Bess in prison.
22: Positively Last Appearance
Laurie's connections get Dan a post as a Native American agent. He startles Bess by kissing her good-bye.
After Dan leaves, Nat returns. It's a bit strange that barely interact in this book. Daisy cries and hugs him. He plays the same song he did at the beginning of LM.
Epilogue time. All the marriages turn out well. Nan, Josie, and Bess have successful careers and the younger two find "worthy mates." I love how mates doesn't mean husbands. "Dan never married, but lived, bravely and usefully, among his chosen people till he was shot defending them, and at last lay quietly asleep in the green wilderness he loved so well, with a lock of golden hair upon his breast, and a smile on his face which seemed to say that Aslauga's Knight had fought his last fight and was at peace." George is an alderman and dies of apoplexy. I don't think LMA likes him. Dolly finds himself in a tailor's employ. Rob is a professor and Ted follows in his grandfather's footsteps as a minister "to the great delight of his astonished mother. And now, having endeavoured to suit everyone by many weddings, few deaths, and as much prosperity as the eternal fitness of things will permit, let the music stop, the lights die out, and the curtain fall for ever on the March family."
The final line gets brought up a lot. IMO it reflects LMA's state of mind and her struggles with her health. She died less than two years later.
This entry was originally posted at https://nocowardsoul.dreamwidth.org/45972.html
"Thousands of readers will approach this later book with keen curiosity. They will find it lacking in some of the spontaneity of its predecessors, yet still an interesting volume[.]" - Unknown
"Its romance has a singular strain of youthfulness about it, which hardly enables one to feel in it the dignity of real love, courtship, and marriage." - The Critic
"The fault of the story is that there is too much of it. One is bewildered by the numerous boys and girls, and finds it hard to keep the run of 'who is who.' " - The Providence Sunday Journal
"A trifle labored and tedious." - The Graphic
In 1882 LMA helped start Concord's temperance society, destroyed most of her mother's diaries, raised her niece Lulu, and mourned her hero Emerson. In October she started Jo's Boys, originally intended a St. Nicholas serial. That same month Bronson had a stroke. In February 1884 she described the book's future as uncertain. In December 1884 she started again, writing two hours for three days, which made her ill with vertigo for a week. In April 1886 she mentions working on it for one hour a day, a limit ordered by her doctor. In June she moved from Boston to Concord and was able to finish 15 chapters. July she turned in the manuscript and it was published in England in September and America in October.
1: Ten Years Later
Mr. Laurence is dead and left his fortune to found Laurence College. Marmee is also gone. Hannah is not mentioned. Mr. March is the school chaplain.
Franz is in Germany with his merchant uncle. Emil was sent on a long voyage in the hopes that he would give up on sailing, but the opposite happened. Dolly, George, and Ned study law. Nan and Tom study medicine. It's not mentioned where Nan went, but LMA's friend Dr. Rhoda Lawrence went to Boston University School of Medicine.
Jack is in business in Chicago. Nat attends the Conservatory. Dick and Billy are dead, the narrator claiming "life would never be happy" for them which is both disgusting and an odd contradiction of statements made in Jack and Jill. Rob is gentle and quiet but manly inside. Ted is loud and mischievous. Demi disappointed Meg by becoming a reporter, as LMA's elder nephew Frederick Pratt did. Daisy is "her mother's comfort and companion." Josie, 14, amuses them with her love of theater. Bess, 15, is tall and beautiful. Dan went to South American for a geological expedition, then Australia for sheep farming and is now in California.
Nan and Tom walk to Plumfield. He's in love with her and she brushes him off. He got a blue anchor on his arm to match hers. Josie runs after Ted, who stole her copy of The Lady of Lyons by Edward Bulwer-Lytton.
The four meet Jo, Meg, and Daisy for tea. Demi arrives with the news that Emil will return soon and Franz is engaged to Ludmilla.
2: Parnassus
Amy and Laurie's house. Laurie critiques Bess's clay baby. "You can't see beauty in anything but music," she answers. Amy made marble busts of Beth and John.
Nat's about to leave for Leipzig. He loves Daisy, but Meg disapproves because they don't know his family and music is a hard living.
Josie and Ted ask their grandfather to weigh in on their debate.
'Why, we were pegging away at the Iliad and came to where Zeus tells Juno not to inquire into his plans or he'll whip her, and Jo was disgusted because Juno meekly hushed up. I said it was all right, and agreed with the old fellow that women didn't know much and ought to obey men,' explained Ted, to the great amusement of his hearers.
'Goddesses may do as they like, but those Greek and Trojan women were poor-spirited things if they minded men who couldn't fight their own battles and had to be hustled off by Pallas, and Venus, and Juno, when they were going to get beaten. The idea of two armies stopping and sitting down while a pair of heroes flung stones at one another! I don't think much of your old Homer. Give me Napoleon or Grant for my hero.'
Josie's scorn was as funny as if a humming-bird scolded at an ostrich, and everyone laughed as she sniffed at the immortal poet and criticized the gods.
'Napoleon's Juno had a nice time; didn't she? That's just the way girls argue-first one way and then the other,' jeered Ted.
'Like Johnson's young lady, who was “not categorical, but all wiggle-waggle”,' added Uncle Laurie, enjoying the battle immensely.
'I was only speaking of them as soldiers. But if you come to the woman side of it, wasn't Grant a kind husband and Mrs Grant a happy woman? He didn't threaten to whip her if she asked a natural question; and if Napoleon did do wrong about Josephine, he could fight, and didn't want any Minerva to come fussing over him. They were a stupid set, from dandified Paris to Achilles sulking in his ships, and I won't change my opinion for all the Hectors and Agamemnons in Greece,' said Josie, still unconquered.
'You can fight like a Trojan, that's evident; and we will be the two obedient armies looking on while you and Ted have it out,' began Uncle Laurie, assuming the attitude of a warrior leaning on his spear.
They're interrupted by Emil, Josie's favorite cousin, who has presents for everyone. Nan's earrings are skulls, but Josie says she won't wear them.
3: Jo's Last Scrape
Several years before, when Plumfield was in bad shape, Jo "hastily scribbled a little story" about herself and her sisters. To her astonishment it became a bestseller. Rumors exaggerate her fortune, which makes me wonder about the rumors because in 1887 LMA gave John and Frederick Pratt $25,000 each. In then dollars.
Rob reads her fanmail over breakfast - people seeking autographs, advice, donations; a love poem; and a little boy who thinks her books are first-rate.
Ted tells a reporter who visits that, "She is about sixty, born in Nova Zembla, married just forty years ago today, and has eleven daughters." (Forgive me the mixed quotation marks.) A woman and her three daughters come, Fritz with a bunch of his students, and a woman collecting a grasshopper and a shawl to put in a rug.
Jo retreats to her room, determined to finish 30 pages, but there's a man who won't leave. It's Dan. "I've been longing to see you for a year," she says.
4: Dan
He tells her about California and the money he got from investing in mines. He doesn't recognize Bess - "I thought it was a spirit." "Two years have changed you entirely," she replies.
Everyone starts making plans to head West. Dan thinks he might settle on a farm or return to the Montana Indians. They're dying of starvation, "a damned shame."
I don't think I understood before that "she never grudged her Jack a glass" referred to alcohol.
Jo calls the girls and the seven boys "the flower of our flock" and mentions for the first time Alice Heath, a Laurence College student.
Dan brought Ted a mustang, Josie a dress to play Namioka in Metamora, and a buffalo head for Bess.
'Thought it would do her good to model something strong and natural. She'll never amount to anything if she keeps on making namby-pamby gods and pet kittens,' answered irreverent Dan, remembering that when he was last here Bess was vibrating distractedly between a head of Apollo and her Persian cat as models.
'Thank you; I'll try it, and if I fail we can put the buffalo up in the hall to remind us of you,' said Bess, indignant at the insult offered the gods of her idolatry, but too well bred to show it except in her voice, which was as sweet and as cold as ice-cream.
'I suppose you won't come out to see our new settlement when the rest do? Too rough for you?' asked Dan, trying to assume the deferential air all the boys used when addressing their Princess.
'I am going to Rome to study for years. All the beauty and art of the world is there, and a lifetime isn't long enough to enjoy it,' answered Bess.
'Rome is a mouldy old tomb compared to the “Garden of the gods” and my magnificent Rockies. I don't care a hang for art; nature is as much as I can stand, and I guess I could show you things that would knock your old masters higher than kites. Better come, and while Josie rides the horses you can model 'em. If a drove of a hundred or so of wild ones can't show you beauty, I'll give up,' cried Dan, waxing enthusiastic over the wild grace and vigour which he could enjoy but had no power to describe.
'I'll come some day with papa, and see if they are better than the horses of St Mark and those on Capitol Hill. Please don't abuse my gods, and I will try to like yours,' said Bess, beginning to think the West might be worth seeing, though no Raphael or Angelo had yet appeared there.
'That's a bargain! I do think people ought to see their own country before they go scooting off to foreign parts, as if the new world wasn't worth discovering,' began Dan, ready to bury the hatchet.
'It has some advantages, but not all. The women of England can vote, and we can't. I'm ashamed of America that she isn't ahead in all good things,' cried Nan, who held advanced views on all reforms, and was anxious about her rights, having had to fight for some of them.
'Oh, please don't begin on that. People always quarrel over that question, and call names, and never agree. Do let us be quiet and happy tonight,' pleaded Daisy, who hated discussion as much as Nan loved it.
Jo, Meg, and Amy all vote for the school board; Demi says he'll escort Nan and Daisy next year.
5: Vacation
Funny how in books like this and The Secret Garden, exercise makes you grow less thin because working up an appetite makes you eat more.
Demi takes photos, particularly of Bess. Nat and Daisy hang out all they can.
At the good-bye dance Laurie takes Jo on a tour. Emil sits on the roof serenading girls with Mary's Dream and tossing them roses.
The second window framed a very picturesque group of three. Mr March in an arm-chair, with Bess on a cushion at his feet, was listening to Dan, who, leaning against a pillar, was talking with unusual animation. The old man was in shadow, but little Desdemona was looking up with the moonlight full upon her into young Othello's face, quite absorbed in the story he was telling so well. The gay drapery over Dan's shoulder, his dark colouring, and the gesture of his arm made the picture very striking, and both spectators enjoyed it with silent pleasure, till Mrs Jo said in a quick whisper:
'I'm glad he's going away. He's too picturesque to have here among so many romantic girls. Afraid his “grand, gloomy, and peculiar” style will be too much for our simple maids.'
'No danger; Dan is in the rough as yet, and always will be, I fancy; though he is improving in many ways. How well Queenie looks in that soft light!'
'Dear little Goldilocks looks well everywhere.' And with a backward glance full of pride and fondness, Mrs Jo went on. But that scene returned to her long afterward and her own prophetic words also.
Nan takes a splinter out of Tom's hand; he says it's the only time she was kind to him and too bad he didn't lose his arm. "I wish you'd lost your head," she says because his hair pomade stinks.
Ted poses on a stool as Josie and others give commentary. Jo explains they're planning for the upcoming play.
George and eat while complaining about the unladylike amount the girls eat. It proves that studying is bad for them.
A girl says to another that the dress she thought was elegant at home looks countrified here. Second girl tells her to ask Mrs. Brooke for advice.
Nan and Alice interrogate the young men over whether they believe in Women's Suffrage (yes, yes, and yes). You know what I really like? When people recognize that voting isn't the be-all end-all of women's legal right. When people recognize that legal rights aren't social rights and the former existing doesn't magic the latter into existence.
6: Last Words
Meg, weren't you married at 20? Isn't Daisy 20? I'm just saying.
"Girls, have you got nice pocket handkerchiefs?" jokes Jo as her sisters leave for church.
Jo talks to Nat about himself and about Daisy, claiming it's better to have no promises made until his return. "No one will be quicker to see and admire the brave work than my sister Meg. She does not despise your poverty or your past; but mothers are very tender over their daughters, and we Marches, though we have been poor, are, I confess, a little proud of our good family. We don't care for money; but a long line of virtuous ancestors is something to desire and to be proud of."
On the roof she lectures Emil on his new duties as second mate. "Jack ashore is a very different craft from what he is with blue water under his keel," he says. The narrator hints he'll remember this later.
Dan confesses that in San Francisco he gambled a little. Jo cautions him against it and he reassures her. He knows his biggest fault is not gambling but his temper, and he's afraid he'll kill someone one day. She gives him Undine and Sintram to borrow.
7: The Lion and the Lamb
With their parents at the mountains and the Laurences at the shore, Rob and Teddy have the run of the house. Dan's dog Don won't eat or play. Ted suggests he's sicks; Rob says he's just pining for Dan and goes back to writing Latin verses. Ted switches Don, Don gets angry, Rob jumps in front of Ted and Don bites his leg. Nan decides it must be burnt with a poker. Rob takes it like a trooper but Ted faints.
Jo and Fritz note that Rob's even more serious and Ted's a little less wild. Ted claims it's his brother's influence but Jo coaxes the truth out of them.
8: Josie Play Mermaid
Josie's idol Miss Cameron is also at the shore, but she has a private beach and it's hard to see her. One day she loses her bracelet and Josie dives down to fetch it. Miss Cameron invites her over and Josie gives Ophelia's mad scene and a bit from a farce and Portia's speech.
"You've a good voice and natural grace," says the actress and advises her to finish her education and start training when she's older. They blah blah about purifying the stage. Josie starts hitting the books and piano to the delight of her family.
9: The Worm Turns
Tom appears at Jo's with an awful scrape: he's engaged. Oh no Nan didn't! says Jo, but it's not Nan, it's Dora West. Nan mentioned her in Chapter 1.
Down at Quitno he was rowing and the boat capsized but she wasn't mad about it. Later she was riding on the back of his bicycle and a donkey kicked it and they fell. She cracked up and said "Let us go on again" and he replied about going on forever. Jo thinks it's hilarious and a good match. Dora's ability to take things in stride will serve her well if their hypothetical future child is anything like young Tom.
Tom hints that Demi flirted with Alice. "A great dead of courting goes on in those [tennis] courts."
Nan is pleased and resolves to buy Dora a medicine chest for a wedding present. He gives up medicine and goes into business with Bangs Sr.
10: Demi Settles
Demi tells Meg he quit reporting and she's very glad. He got a place at Jo's publisher as Frederick and the real John did.
They talk about Josie and the upcoming plays and Demi promises he'll protect her if she treads the boards.
Josie teases him, via a reference to The Old Curiosity Shop, about spooning with Alice and he tells her not to be silly.
11: Emil's Thanksgiving
My favorite chapter! The Brenda, Englishman Captain Hardy commanding and his wife and daughter Mary aboard, is en route to China when there is a FIRE IN THE HOLD. ABANDON SHIP. Captain Hardy is pushed overboard by a falling mast and knocked out.
They float for three days and then start to worry. During the fourth night two sailors steal the brandy bottle and fall overboard.
A sail appears, but it's too far away to notice the little boat. Emil despairs during the night until Mary singing a hymn he knows from Plumfield brings to mind Jo's talk.
Then it starts to rain and a ship comes to rescue them. What day is it? Emil asks. Thanksgiving!
12: Dan's Christmas
Dan, traveling west, befriends a younger boy, Blair, who reminds him of Ted. Some guys cheat at cards with Blair, Dan calls them out, one draws a pistol, and Dan punches him. The guy hits his head on a stove and dies. Dan gets sentence to a year in prison.
A real life incident appears. LMA and Bronson visited a prison in 1879 and she told the occupants a hospital story. The Sunday before Thanksgiving, the same thing happens to Dan, and it inspires him to not participate in the revolt the other men are planning.
He sends Jo a note at Christmas.
13: Nat's New Year
In Leipzig, Nat brags a little too much about his connections, so people assume he's upper-class and invite him to balls and plays and beer-gardens. He spends a little too much money and plays the gallant with Minna, whose mother confronts him about his intentions. When the bills and a letter from Plumfield arrive at New Year's he resolves to stop being a socialite. His landlady gets him a job teaching English. It must be nice to have connections.
14: Plays at Plumfield
"As it is as impossible for the humble historian of the March family to write a story without theatricals in it as for our dear Miss Yonge to get on with less than twelve or fourteen children in her interesting tales, we will accept the fact, and at once cheer ourselves after the last afflicting events, by proceeding to the Christmas plays at Plumfield; for they influence the fate of several of our characters, and cannot well be skipped."
Everyone is excited by Miss Cameron's attendance. First a farce with Alice as Marquise, Demi as the Baron, and Josie as a soubrette. An accident with the scenery leads to Nan plastering up Demi's injury, but the look on Alice's face makes it worth it to him.
Meg stars as a country widow with Demi and Josie as her kids.
Up until now I thought Owlsdark Marbles was a real play, but turns out it isn't. Laurie is a professor who introduces the audience to his statues: Ted as Mercury, Josie as Hebe, Nan as Minerva, Demi as Apollo, Jo and Fritz as Juno and Jove, someone (Tom?) as Bacchus, and Bess as Diana.
Dan's letter arrives but he gave Jo no address.
15: Waiting
Word reaches Plumfield of the shipwreck and they all mourn Emil. Jack writes and Ned actually visits. Josie takes it very hard until Miss Cameron tells her to take her tragedy like her fictional heroines do. They learns he's not dead and Ted expresses it: "Now is the winter of our discontent / Made glorious by these sons of Bhaer!"
Nat studies hard, gets a visit from Franz and Emil (a good potential fanfic scene), and is chosen to play in a London concert.
Dan counts the days til he's released in August. He can't bear Ted and Jo knowing his shame so he decides to head back to Montana.
16: In the Tennis Courts
Josie and Dolly play tennis and drag each other's schools. Bess chimes in that the cousins are accustomed to sensible conversation, not gossip. Dolly asks why she wears Harvard's color if it sucks so much and she tells him her hat is scarlet, not crimson.
The cousins leave and Jo brings finds Dolly and George. "I knew the boys would be killing themselves with ice-water; so I strolled down with some of my good, wholesome [root] beer. They drank like fishes. But Silas was with me; so my cruse still holds out. Have some?"
She lectures them about overeating, alcohol, and having sex with girls from the Opera Bouffe.
17: Among the Maids
Jo, Meg, and Amy host a sewing circle for the young women.
Here Mrs Meg was in her glory, and stood wielding her big shears like a queen as she cut out white work, fitted dresses, and directed Daisy, her special aide, about the trimming of hats, and completing the lace and ribbon trifles which add grace to the simplest costume and save poor or busy girls so much money and time. Mrs Amy contributed taste, and decided the great question of colours and complexions; for few women, even the most learned, are without that desire to look well which makes many a plain face comely, as well as many a pretty one ugly for want of skill and knowledge of the fitness of things. She also took her turn to provide books for the readings, and as art was her forte she gave them selections from Ruskin, Hamerton, and Mrs Jameson, who is never old. Bess read these aloud as her contribution, and Josie took her turn at the romances, poetry, and plays her uncles recommended. Mrs Jo gave little lectures on health, religion, politics, and the various questions in which all should be interested, with copious extracts from Miss Cobbe's Duties of Women, Miss Brackett's Education of American Girls, Mrs Duffy's No Sex in Education, Mrs Woolson's Dress Reform, and many of the other excellent books wise women write for their sisters, now that they are waking up and asking: 'What shall we do?'
One girl would like to be George Eliot and Jo likes her but not as much as Charlotte Bronte. I haven't read Eliot and I love Jane Eyre the character but not so much the book.
Amy's friend Lady Ambercrombie visits them.
18: Class Day
I used to think Class Day was a Victorian thing, but I found that Harvard and Yale still use it. Harvard's website has a piece on its history from the year JB was published.
Ted dandies up, leading Jo to call him "the ghost of a waiter" and Josie a "long, black clothespin." For part of the day he wears a false mustache which leaves some visitors thinking there are three Bhaer sons.
Alice gives the best speech of the day.
While everyone's chilling and singing a carriage rolls up. Out step Franz, Ludmilla, and Emil with Mary. "Uncle, Aunt Jo, here's another daughter! Have you room for my wife too?" Wouldn't you love to see this scene on film? I so would. Why not tell us? asks Jo. Because you thought it was hilarious when Uncle Laurie did it, says Emil.
19: White Roses
Demi wants to tell Alice; Josie suggests he copy a Maria Edgeworth story and send her three roses - bud, half-blown, and full-blown. Josie delivers them and Alice ponders the questions. Her parents are ill and need her at home. Is it fair to ask him to wait? She overhears Meg and Daisy praising her and John.
They meet at the party and good old Tom interrupts them. "Music? just the thing." Alice starts to play Bide a Wee, which describes her situation so well she can't even sing the middle verse. It was one of the first things I ever researched on the internet.
20: Life for Life
Dan chances upon a mining friend who hires him as overseer. The mine caves in and Dan leads the rescue of the miners. He gets injured but they all survive. The family learns about it from a newspaper. Ted runs away to see Dan and Laurie chases after him.
When he's better they bring him to Plumfield. He confesses to Jo about prison.
21: Aslauga's Knight
Everyone fusses over Dan; Josie reads to him; Bess molds her buffalo head in his room. He asks Bess to read him Aslauga's Knight. She and Jo are surprised he likes that story. Jo realizes he's in love with Bess. Dan confirms it and tells how he used to dream of Bess in prison.
22: Positively Last Appearance
Laurie's connections get Dan a post as a Native American agent. He startles Bess by kissing her good-bye.
After Dan leaves, Nat returns. It's a bit strange that barely interact in this book. Daisy cries and hugs him. He plays the same song he did at the beginning of LM.
Epilogue time. All the marriages turn out well. Nan, Josie, and Bess have successful careers and the younger two find "worthy mates." I love how mates doesn't mean husbands. "Dan never married, but lived, bravely and usefully, among his chosen people till he was shot defending them, and at last lay quietly asleep in the green wilderness he loved so well, with a lock of golden hair upon his breast, and a smile on his face which seemed to say that Aslauga's Knight had fought his last fight and was at peace." George is an alderman and dies of apoplexy. I don't think LMA likes him. Dolly finds himself in a tailor's employ. Rob is a professor and Ted follows in his grandfather's footsteps as a minister "to the great delight of his astonished mother. And now, having endeavoured to suit everyone by many weddings, few deaths, and as much prosperity as the eternal fitness of things will permit, let the music stop, the lights die out, and the curtain fall for ever on the March family."
The final line gets brought up a lot. IMO it reflects LMA's state of mind and her struggles with her health. She died less than two years later.
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