Join Host Bree Carlile as she reads the second chapter of Little Men.

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My name is Brie Carlyle and I love to read and wanted to share my passion with listeners like you.

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Today we'll be continuing little Men by Louisa May Alcott.

Chapter Two The Boys while Nat takes a good long sleep, I will tell my little readers something about the boys among whom he found himself when he woke up to begin with are old friends.

Franz was a tall lad of 16 now, a regular German, big, blonde and bookish, and also very domestic, amiable and musical.

His uncle was fitting him for college and his aunt for a happy home of his own hereafter because she carefully fostered in him gentle manners, love of children, respect for women, old and young, and helpful ways about the house.

He was a right hand man on all occasions, steady, kind and patient, and he loved his merry aunt like a mother, for such she had tried to be him.

Emile was quite different, being quick tempered, restless and enterprising, bent on going to sea, for the blood of the old Vikings stirred in his veins and could not be tamed.

His uncle promised that he should go when he was 16 and set him to studying navigation, gave him stories of good and famous, admirals and heroes to read, and let him lead the life of a frog in river, pond and brook.

When lessons were done, his room looked like the cabin of a man of war, for everything was nautical, military and ship shape.

Captain Kidd was his delight, and his favorite amusement was to rig up like that piratical gentleman and roar out sanguinary sea songs at the top of his voice.

He would dance nothing but sailor's hornpipes rolled in his gate, and was as nautical in conversation to his uncle would permit.

The boys called him Commodore, and took great pride in his fleet, which whitened the pond and suffered disasters that would have daunted any commander but a sea struck boy.

Demi was one of the children who showed plainly the effect of intelligent love and care, for soul and body worked harmoniously together.

The natural refinement which nothing but home influence can teach, gave him sweet and simple manners.

His mother had cherished an innocent and loving heart in him.

His father had watched over the physical growth of his boy and kept the little body straight and strong on wholesome food and exercise and sleep, while Grandpa March cultivated the little mind with the tender wisdom of a modern pythagoras.

Not tasking it with long, hard lessons parrot learned, but helping it to unfold as naturally and beautifully as sun and dew.

Help roses bloom.

He was not a perfect child by any means, but his faults were of the better sort, and being early taught the secret of self control, he was not left at the mercy of appetites and passions, as some poor little mortals are, and then punished for yielding to the temptations against which they have no armor.

A quiet, quaint boy was demiseries, yet cheery, quite unconscious that he was unusually bright and beautiful, yet quick to see and love intelligence or beauty in other children.

Very fond of books and full of lively fancies.

Born of a strong imagination and a spiritual nature, these traits made his parents anxious to balance them with useful knowledge and helpful society, as they should make him one of those pale, precocious children who amaze and delight a family sometimes and fade away like hot house flowers because the young soul blooms too soon and has not a hearty body to root it firmly in the wholesome soil of this world.

So Demi was transplanted to Plumfield, and took so kindly to the life there that Meg and John and Grandpa felt satisfied that they had done well mixing with other boys, brought out the practical side of him, roused his spirit, and brushed away the pretty cobwebs he was so fond of spinning in that little brain of his.

To be sure, he rather shocked his mother when he came home by banging dorsang by George, emphatically and demanding tall thick boots that clumped like Papa's.

But John rejoiced over him, laughed at his explosive remarks, got the boots and said contentedly, he is doing well, so let him clump.

I want my son to be a manly boy, and this temporary roughness won't hurt him.

We can polish him up by and by, and as for learning, he will pick that up as pigeons do peas, so don't hurry him.

Daisy was as sunshiny and charming as ever with all sorts of womanliness budding in her, for she was like her gentle mother and delighted in domestic things.

She had a family of dolls whom she brought up in the most exemplary manner.

She could not get on without her little work basket and bits of sewing which she did so nicely that Demi frequently pulled out his handkerchief to display her neat stitches.

And baby Josie had a flannel petticoat, beautifully made by sister Daisy.

She liked to quittill about the china closet prepare the salt cellars, put the spoon straight on the table and every day went round the parlor with her brush, dusting, chairs and tables.

Demi called her a Betty but was very glad to have her keep his things in order lend him her nimble fingers and all sorts of work and help him with his lessons for they kept abreast there and had no thought of rivalry.

The love between them was as strong as ever and no one could laugh Demi out of his affectionate ways with Daisy.

He fought her battles valiantly and never could understand why boys should be ashamed to say ride out.

That they loved their sisters.

Daisy adored her twin fought my brother, the most remarkable boy in the world and every morning in her little rapper trotted to tap at his door with a motherly.

Get up, my dear.

It's most breakfast time and here's your clean collar.

Rob was an energetic morsel of a boy who seemed to have discovered the secret of perpetual motion for he never was still.

Fortunately, he was not mischievous nor very brave so he kept out of trouble pretty well and vibrated between father and mother like an affectionate little pendulum with a lively tick, for Rob was a chatterbox.

Teddy was too young to play a very important part in the affairs of Plumfield yet he had his little sphere and filled it beautifully.

Everyone felt the need of a pet at times and baby was always ready to accommodate for kissing and cuddling suited him excellently.

Mrs.

Joe seldom stirred without him so he had his little finger in all the domestic pies and everyone found them all the better for it for they believed in babies at Plumfield, d*** Brown and Adolfus or Dolly Pettingill were two eight year olds.

Dolly stuttered badly but was gradually getting over it for no one was allowed to mock him and Mr.

Bear tried to cure it by making him talk slowly.

Dolly was a good little lad, quite uninteresting and ordinary but he flourished here and went through his daily duties and pleasures with placid content and propriety.

D*** Brown's affliction was a crooked back yet he bore his burden so cheerfully that Demi once asked in his queer way do humps make people good natured?

I'd like one if they do.

D*** was always merry and did his best to be like other boys for a plucky spirit lived in the feeble little body when first he came.

He was very sensitive about his misfortune, but soon learned to forget it, for no one dared remind him of it after Mr.

Bear had punished one boy for laughing at him.

God don't care, for my soul is straight if my back isn't, sobbed D*** to his tormentor on that occasion, and by cherishing this idea, the Bear soon led him to believe that people also loved his soul and did not mind his body except to pity and help him to bear it.

Playing menagerie once with the others, someone said what animal will you be, D***?

Oh, I'm the dromedary, don't you see?

The hump on my back?

Was the laughing answer.

So you are, my little one that don't carry loathes but marches by the elephant first in the procession, said Demi, who is arranging the spectacle.

I hope others will be as kind to the poor deer as my boys have learned to be, said Mrs.

Jo, quite satisfied with the success of her teaching, as D*** ambled past her looking like a very happy, but a very feeble little dromedary besides stout Stuffy, who did the elephant with ponderous propriety.

Jack Ford was a sharp, rather a sly lad, who was sent to this school because it was cheap.

Many men would have thought him a smart boy, but Mr.

Bear did not like his way of illustrating that Yankee word, and thought his unboyish keenness and money loving as much of an affliction as Dolly's Stutter or D***'s Hump.

Ned Barker was like a thousand other boys of 14, all legs blunder and bluster.

Indeed, the family called him the Blunder Bus, and always expected to see him tumble over the chairs, bump against the tables, and knock down any small articles near him.

He bragged a good deal about what he could do, but seldom did anything to prove it was not brave and a little given to tale telling.

He was apt to bully the small boys and flatter the big ones, and without being at all bad.

He was just the sort of fellow who could very easily be led astray.

George Cole had been spoiled by an overindulgent mother who stuffed him with sweet meats till he was sick, and then thought him too delicate to study, so that at twelve years old he was a pale, puffy boy, dull, fretful and lazy.

A friend persuaded her to send him to Plumfield, and there he soon got waked up, for the sweet things were seldom allowed, much exercise required, and study made so pleasant that Stuffy was gently lured along till he quite amazed his anxious mama by his improvement, and convinced her that there was really something remarkable in Plumfield air.

Billy Ward was what the Scotch tenderly call an innocent, for though 13 years old, he was like a child of six.

He had been an unusually intelligent boy, and his father had hurried him on too fast, giving him all sorts of hard lessons, keeping at his book 6 hours a day and expecting him to absorb knowledge as a Strasbourg Gusta's, the food crammed down its throat.

He thought he was doing his duty, but he nearly killed the boy for a fever, gave the poor child a sad holiday, and when he recovered, the overtasked brain gave out, and Billy's mind was like a slate over which a sponge has passed, leaving it blank.

It was a terrible lesson to his ambitious father, who could not bear the sight of his promising child changed to a feeble idiot, and he sent him away to Plumfield, scarcely hoping that he could be helped, but sure that he would be kindly treated.

Quite docile and harmless was Billy, and it was pitiful to see how hard he tried to learn, as if groping dimly after the lost knowledge which had cost him so much.

Day after day he pored over the alphabet proudly said A and B, and thought that he knew them.

But on the morrow they were gone, and all the work was to be done over again.

Mr.

Bear had infinite patience with him and kept on in spite of the apparent hopelessness of the task, not caring for book lessons, but trying gently to clear away the mists from the darkened mind and give it back intelligence enough to make the boy less a burden and an affliction.

Mrs.

Bear strengthened his health by every aid she could invent, and the boys all pitied and were kind to him.

He did not like their active plays, but would sit for hours watching the doves, would dig holes for Teddy till even that ardent grubber was satisfied or followed Silas, the man from place to place.

Seeing him work for honest Sigh was very good to him, and though he forgot his letters, billy remembered friendly faces.

Tommy Bangs was the scapegrace of the school and the most trying scapegace that ever lived.

As full of mischief as a monkey, yet so good hearted that one could not help forgiving his tricks.

So scatter brained that words went by him like the wind, yet so penitent for every misdeed that it was impossible to keep sober when he vowed tremendous vows of reformation or proposed all sorts of queer punishments to be inflicted upon himself.

Mr.

And Mrs.

Bear lived in a state of preparation for any mishap, from the breaking of Tommy's own neck to the blowing up of the entire family with gunpowder.

And NURSEY had a particular drawer in which he kept bandages, plasters, and saves for his especial use, for Tommy was always being brought in half dead, but nothing ever killed him, and he arose from every downfall with redoubled vigor.

The first day he came, he chopped off the top of one finger in the haycutter and during the week fell from the shed roof, was chased by an angry hen who tried to pick his out because he examined her chickens got run away with and had his ears boxed violently by Asia, who caught him luxuriously skimming a pan of cream with half a stolen pie.

Undaunted, however, by any failures or rebuffs, this indomitable youth went on amusing himself with all sorts of tricks till no one felt safe.

If he did not know his lessons, he always had some droll excuse to offer, and as he was usually clever at his books and as bright as a button in composing answers when he did not know them, he'd go on pretty well at school.

Let out of school ye gods and little fishes.

How Tommy did corrals he wound fat Asia up in her own clothesline against the post, and left here there to fume and scold for half an hour.

One busy Monday morning he dropped a hot scent down Marianne's back, as that pretty maid was waiting at table one day when there were gentlemen to dinner, where at the poor girl upset the soup and rushed out of the room in dismay, leaving the family to think that she had gone mad.

He fixed a pail of water up in a tree with a bit of ribbon fastened to the handle, and when Daisy, attracted by the gay steamer, tried to pull it down, she got a douchebath that spoiled her clean frock and hurt her little feelings very much.

He put rough white pebbles in the sugar bowl when his grandmother came to tea, and the poor old lady wondered why they didn't melt in her cup, but was too polite to say anything.

He passed around snuff in church, so that five of the boys sneezed with such violence they had to go out.

He dug paths in wintertime, and then privately watered them so that people should tumble down.

He drove poor Silas near Wilde by hanging his big boots in conspicuous places, for his feet were enormous, and he was very much ashamed of them.

He persuaded confiding little Dolly to tie a thread to one of his loose teeth and leave the string hanging from his mouth when he went to sleep, so that Tommy could pull it out without his feeling the dreaded operation.

But the tooth wouldn't come at the first tweak, and poor Dolly woke up in great anguish of spirit, and lost all faith in Tommy.

From that day forth, the last prank had been to give the hensbread soaked in rum, which made them tipsy and scandalized.

All the other fowls for the respectable old biddies went staggering about, pecking and clucking in the most modlin manner, while the family were convulsed with laughter at their antics, till Daisy took pity on them and shut them up in the hen house to sleep off their intoxication.

These were the boys, and they lived together as happy as twelve lads could, studying and playing, working and squabbling, fighting faults and cultivating virtues in the good old fashioned way.

Boys at other schools probably learned more from books but less of that better wisdom, which makes good men.

Latin, Greek and mathematics were all very well, but in Professor Baer's opinion, self knowledge, self help and self control were more important, and he tried to teach them carefully.

People shook their heads sometimes at his ideas, even while they owned that the boys improved wonderfully in manners and morals.

But then, as Mrs.

Jo said to Nat, it was an odd school.

Thank you for joining Bite at a Time Books today while we read a bite of one of your favorite classics.

Again, my name is Brie Carlyle and I hope you come back tomorrow for the next bite of little Men.

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