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Today we'll be continuing Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, 34, a friend.

Though very happy in the social atmosphere about her, and very busy with the daily work that earned her bread and made it sweeter for the effort, Jo still found time for literary labors.

The purpose which now took possession of her was a natural one to a poor and ambitious girl.

But the means she took to gain her end were not the best.

She saw that money conferred power.

Money and power, therefore, she resolved to have not to be used for herself alone, but for those whom she loved more than self.

The dream of filling home with comforts, giving Beth everything she wanted from strawberries in winter to an organ in her bedroom, going abroad herself and always having more than enough so that she might indulge in the luxury of charity, had been for years Joe's most cherished castle in the air.

The prize story experience had seemed to open a way which might, after long traveling in much uphill work, lead to this delightful chateau and Espanya.

But the novel disaster quenched her courage for a time, for public opinion is a giant which has frightened stouter hearted Jacks on bigger beanstalks than hers, like that immortal hero she reposed a while after the first attempt, which resulted in a tumble and the least lovely of the giant's treasures, if I remember rightly.

But the up again and take another spirit was as strong in Joe as in Jack.

So she scrambled up on the shady side this time and got more booty but nearly left behind her what was far more precious than the money bags she took to writing sensation stories for in those Dark Ages even all perfect America read rubbish.

She told no one.

Mut concocted a thrilling tale and boldly carried it herself to Mr.

Dashwood, editor of the Weekly Volcano.

She had never read Sardre Rustaris but she had a womanly instinct that clothes possess an influence more powerful over many than the worth of character or the magic of manners.

So she dressed herself in her best and trying to persuade herself that she was neither excited nor nervous, bravely climbed two pairs of dark and dirty stairs to find herself in a disorderly room.

Cloud of cigar smoke in the presence of three gentlemen sitting with their heels rather higher than their hats.

Which articles of dress none of them took the trouble to remove on her appearance.

Somewhat daunted by this reception Jo hesitated on the threshold murmuring in much embarrassment excuse me.

I was looking for the Weekly Volcano office.

I wished to see Mr.

Dashwood.

Down went the highest pair of heels UPROSE the smokiest gentleman and carefully cherishing his cigar between his fingers.

He advanced with a nod and a countenance expressive of nothing but sleep.

Feeling that she must get through the matter somehow Joe produced her manuscript and blushing redder and redder with each sentence blundered out fragments of the little speech carefully prepared for the occasion.

A friend of mine desired me to offer a story just as an experiment.

Would like your opinion.

Be glad to write more if this suits.

She blushed and blundered.

Mr.

Dashwood had taken the manuscript and was turning over the leaves with a pair of rather dirty fingers and casting critical glances up and down the neat pages.

Not a first attempt, I take it, observing the pages that were numbered, covered only on one side and not tied up with a ribbon.

Sure sign of a novice.

No, sir.

She has had some experience and got a prize for a tale in the Blarney Stone Banner.

Oh, did she?

And Mr.

Dashwood gave Joe a quick look which seemed to take note of everything she had on from the bow in her bonnet to the buttons on her boots.

Well, you can leave it if you like.

We've more of this sort of thing on hand than we know what to do with at present but I'll run my eye over it and give you an answer next week.

Now, Joe did not like to leave it for Mr.

Dashwood.

Didn't suit her at all.

But under the circumstances there was nothing for her to do but bow and walk away looking particularly tall and dignified as she was apt to do when Nettled or Abashed.

Just then she was both for it was perfectly evident from the knowing glances exchanged among the gentlemen that her little fiction of my friend was considered a good joke and a laugh produced by some inaudible remark of the editor as he closed the door completed her discomforture.

Half resolving never to return, she went home and worked off her irritation by stitching pinafores vigorously and in an hour or two was cool enough to laugh over the scene and long for next week.

When she went again, Mr.

Dashwood was alone or at.

She rejoiced.

Mr.

Dashwood was much wider awake than before, which was agreeable and Mr.

Dashwood was not too deeply absorbed in a cigar to remember his manners.

So the second interview was much more comfortable than the first.

We'll take this.

Editors never say aye if you don't object to a few alterations.

It's too long.

But emitting the passages I've marked will make it just the right length, he said in a business like tone.

Joe hardly knew her own Ms.

Again so crumbled and underscored were its pages and paragraphs.

But feeling as a tender parent might on being asked to cut off her baby's legs in order that it might fit into a new cradle she looked at the marked passages and was surprised to find that all the moral reflections which she had carefully put in as ballast for much romance had been stricken out.

But, sir, I thought every story should have some sort of a moral so I took care to have a few of my sinners repent.

Mr.

Dashwood's editorial gravity relaxed into a smile for Jo had forgotten her friend and spoken as only an author could.

People want to be amused, not preached at, you know.

Morals don't sell nowadays.

Which was not quite a correct statement, by the way.

You think it would do with these alterations then?

Yes, it's a new plot and pretty well worked up language.

Good and so on, was Mr.

Dashwood's affable reply.

What do you?

That is, what compensation?

Began Joe, not exactly knowing how to express herself.

Oh, yes.

Well, we give from 25 to 30 for things of this sort.

Pay when it comes out, returned Mr.

Dashwood, as if that point had escaped him.

Such trifles often do escape the editorial mind, it is said.

Very well, you can have it, said Joe, handing back the story with a satisfied air.

For after the dollar a column work, even 25 seemed good pay.

Shall I tell my friend you'll take another if she has one.

Better than this?

Asked Joe, unconscious of her little slip of the tongue and emboldened by her success.

Well, we'll look at it.

Can't promise to take it.

Tell her to make it short and spicy and never mind the moral.

What name would your friend like to put to it in a careless tone?

None at all, if you please.

She doesn't wish her name to appear and has nom de plume, said Joe, blushing in spite of herself.

Just as she likes, of course.

The tale be out next week.

Will you call for the money, or shall I send it?

Asked Mr.

Dashwood who felt a natural desire to know who his new contributor might be.

I'll call.

Good morning, sir.

As she departed, Mr.

Dashwood put up his feet with the graceful remark poor and proud as usual, but she'll do.

Following Mr.

Dashwood's directions and making Mrs.

Northbury her model Joe rashley took a plunge into the frothy sea of sensational literature.

But thanks to the life preserver thrown her by a friend she came up again not much the worse for her ducking.

Like most young scribblers, she went abroad for her characters and scenery and Banditi counts.

Gypsies nuns and duchesses appeared upon her stage and played their parts with as much accuracy and spirit as could be expected.

Her readers were not particular about such trifles as grammar, punctuation and probability.

And Mr.

Dashwood graciously permitted her to fill his columns at the lowest prices not thinking it necessary to tell her that the real cause of his hospitality was the fact that one of his hacks on being offered higher wages had basically left him in the lurch.

She soon became interested in her work for her emaciated purse grew stout and the little horde she was making to take Beth to the mountains next summer grew slowly but surely as the weeks passed.

One thing disturbed her satisfaction and that was that she did not tell them at home.

She had a feeling that Father and Mother would not approve and preferred to have her own way first and begged pardon afterward.

It was easy to keep her secret, for no name appeared with her stories.

Mr.

Dashwood had, of course, found it out very soon but promised to be dumb and for a wonder kept his word.

She thought it would do her no harm.

Her.

She sincerely meant to write nothing of which she should be ashamed and quieted all p***** of conscience by anticipations of the happy minute when she should show her earnings and laugh over her well kept secret.

But Mr.

Dashwood rejected any but thrilling tales and his thrills could not be produced except by harrowing up the souls of the readers.

History and romance, land and sea, science and art, police records and lunatic asylums had to be ransacked for the purpose.

Joe soon found that her innocent experience had given her but few glimpses of the tragic world which underlies society.

So regarding it in a business light she set about supplying her deficiencies with characteristic energy.

Eager to find material for stories and bent on making them original in plot if not masterly in execution.

She searched newspapers for accidents, incidents and crimes.

She excited the suspicions of public librarians by asking for works on poisons.

She studied faces in the street and characters good, bad and indifferent all about her.

She delved in the dust of ancient times for facts or fictions so old that they were as good as new, and introduced herself to folly, sin, and misery, as well as her limited opportunities allowed.

She thought she was prospering finally, but unconsciously, she was beginning to desecrate some of the womanliest attributes of a woman's character.

She was living in bad society, and imaginary though it was, its influence affected her, for she was feeding heart and fancy on dangerous and unsubstantial food, and was fast brushing the innocent bloom from her nature by a premature acquaintance with the darker side of life, which comes soon enough to all of us.

She was beginning to feel rather than see this, for much describing of other people's passions and feelings set her to studying and speculating about her own, a morbid amusement in which healthy young minds do not voluntarily indulge.

Wrongdoing always brings its own punishment, and when Joe most needed hers, she got it.

I don't know whether the study of Shakespeare helped her to read character or the natural instinct of a woman for what was honest, brave, and strong, but while endowing her imaginary heroes with every perfection under the sun, joe was discovering a live hero who interested her in spite of many human imperfections.

Mr.

Bear, in one of their conversations, had advised her to study simple, true, and lovely characters wherever she found them.

As good training for a writer, joe took him at his word, for she coolly turned round and studied him, a proceeding which would have much surprised him had he known it, for the worthy professor was very humble in his own conceit.

Why everybody liked him was what puzzled Joe at first.

He was neither rich nor great, young nor handsome, and no respect what is called fascinating, imposing or brilliant, and yet he was as attractive as a genial fire, and people seemed to gather about him as naturally as about a warm hearth.

He was poor, yet always appeared to be giving something away, a stranger, yet everyone was his friend, no longer young, but as happy hearted as a boy, plain and peculiar, yet his face looked beautiful to many, and his oddities were freely forgiven for his sake.

Joe often watched him trying to discover the charm, and at last decided that it was Benevolence which worked the miracle.

If he had any sorrow, it sat with its head under its wing, and he turned only his sunny side to the world.

There were lines upon his forehead, but time seemed to have touched him gently remembering how kind he was to others.

The pleasant curves about his mouth were the memorials of many friendly words and cheery laughs.

His eyes were never cold or hard, and his big hand had a warm, strong grasp that was more expressive than words.

His very clothes seemed to partake of the hospitable nature of the wearer.

They looked as if they were at ease and liked to make him comfortable.

His capacious waistcoat was suggestive of a large heart underneath.

His rusty coat had a social air, and the baggy pockets plainly proved that little hands often went in empty and came out full.

His very boots were benevolent and his collars never stiff and raspy like other people's.

That's it, said Joe to herself when she at length discovered that genuine goodwill towards one's fellow men could beautify and dignify.

Even a stout German teacher who shoveled in his dinner, darned his own socks and was burdened with the name of Bear.

Joe valued goodness highly, but she also possessed a most feminine respect for intellect, and a little discovery which she made about the professor added much to her regard for him.

He never spoke of himself, and no one ever knew that in his native city he had been a man much honored and esteemed for learning and integrity till a countryman came to see him and in a conversation with Miss Norton, divulged the pleasing fact from her.

Joe learned it and liked it all the better because Mr.

Bear had never told it.

She felt proud to know that he was an honored professor in Berlin, though only a poor language master in America, and his homely hard working life was much beautified by the spice of romance which this discovery gave it another, and a better gift than intellect was shown her in a most unexpected manner.

Miss Norton had the entree into literary society which Jo would have had no chance of seeing but for her.

The solitary woman felt an interest in the ambitious girl and kindly conferred many favors of this sort, both on Joe and the professor.

She took them with her one night to a select symposium held in honor of several celebrities.

Joe went prepared to bow down and adore the mighty ones whom she had worshipped with youthful enthusiasm afar off.

But her reverence for genius received a severe shock that night, and it took her some time to recover from the discovery that the great creatures were only men and women after all.

Imagine her dismay on stealing a glance of timid admiration at the poet whose lines suggested an ethereal being fed on spirit, fire and dew, to behold him devouring his supper with an ardor which flushed his intellectual countenance, turning us from a fallen idol.

She made other discoveries which rapidly dispelled her romantic illusions.

The great novelist vibrated between two decanters with the regularity of a pendulum.

The famous divine flirted openly with one of the Madame de Stells of the age, who looked daggers at another.

Corinne, who was amiably satirizing her after outmaneuvering her in efforts to absorb the profound philosopher who imbibed tea John Sienali and appeared to slumber the locacity of the lady, rendering speech impossible.

The scientific celebrities, forgetting their mollusks in glacial periods, gossiped about art while devoting themselves to oysters and ices with characteristic energy.

A young musician who was charming the city like a second orpheus talked horses and the specimen of the British nobility present happened to be the most ordinary man of the party.

Before the evening was half over, Jo felt so completely disillusionate that she sat down in a corner to recover herself.

Mr.

Bear soon joined her, looking rather out of his element, and presently several of the philosophers, each mounted on his hobby, came ambling up to hold an intellectual tournament in the recess.

The conversation was miles beyond Joe's comprehension, but she enjoyed it.

Though Kant and Hegel were unknown gods, the subjective and objective unintelligible terms and the only thing evolved from her inner consciousness was a bad headache.

After it was all over, it dawned upon her gradually that the world was being picked to pieces and put together on new and, according to the talkers, on infinitely better principles than before that religion was in a fair way to be reasoned into nothingness, and intellect was to be the only god.

Joe knew nothing about philosophy or metaphysics of any sort, but a curious excitement, half pleasurable, half painful, came over her as she listened, with a sense of being turned adrift into time and space, like a young balloon out on a holiday.

She looked round to see how the professor liked it and found him looking at her with the grimmest expression she had ever seen him.

Wear he shook his head and beckoned her to come away, but she was fascinated just then by the freedom of speculative philosophy and kept her seat, trying to find out what the wise gentleman intended to rely upon after they had annihilated all the old beliefs.

Now, Mr.

Bear was a diffident man and slow to offer his own opinions, not because they were unsettled, but too sincere and earnest to be lightly spoken.

As he glanced from Joe to several other young people attracted by the brilliancy of the philosophic pyrotechnics, he knit his brow and longed to speak, fearing that some inflammable young soul would be led astray by the rockets to find when the display was over, that they had only an empty stick or a scorched hand.

He bored as long as he could, but when he was appealed to for an opinion, he blazed up with honest indignation and defended religion with all the eloquence of truth, an eloquence which made his broken English musical and his plain faiths beautiful.

He had a hard fight, for the wise men, argued well, but he didn't know when he was beaten and stood to his colors like a man.

Somehow, as he talked, the world got right again.

To Joe, the old beliefs that had lasted so long seemed better than the new.

God was not a blind force, and immortality was not a pretty fable, but a blessed fact.

She felt as if she had solid ground under her feet again, and when Mr.

Bear paused out talked, but not one wit convinced Joe wanted to clap her hands and thank him.

She did neither but she remembered this scene and gave the professor her heartiest respect, for she knew it cost him an effort to speak out then and there because his conscience would not let him be silent.

She began to see that character is a better possession than money, rank, intellect or beauty, and to feel that if greatness is what a wise man has defined it to be truth, reverence and goodwill, then her friend Frederick Baer was not only good, but great.

This belief strengthened daily.

She valued his esteem, she coveted his respect.

She wanted to be worthy of his friendship.

And just when the wish was sincerest, she came near losing everything.

It all grew out of a cocked hat, for one evening the professor came in to give Joe her lesson with a paper soldier cap on his head, which Tina had put there and he had forgotten to take off.

It's evident he doesn't look in his glass before coming down, thought Joe with a smile as he said Good evening, and sat soberly down, quite unconscious of the ludicrous contrast between his subject and his headgear, for he was going to read her the Death of Wollenstein.

She said nothing at first, for she liked to hear him laugh out his big hearty laugh when anything funny happened.

So she left him to discover it for himself, and presently forgot all about it.

For to hear a German read Schiller is rather an absorbing occupation.

After the reading came the lesson, which was a lively one, for Jo was in a gay mood that night, and the cocked hat kept her eyes dancing with merriment.

The professor didn't know what to make of her and stopped at last to ask with an air of mild surprise that was irresistible.

Miss March.

For what do you laugh in your master's face?

Have you no respect for me that you go on so bad?

How can I be respectful, sir, when you forget to take your hat off?

Said Joe, lifting his hands to his head.

The absent minded professor gravely felt and removed the little cocked hat, looked at it a minute, and then threw back his head and laughed like a merry base viole.

I see him now.

It is that emptina who makes me a fool with my cap.

Well, it is nothing but see you.

If this lesson goes not well, you too shall wear him.

But the lesson did not go at all for a few minutes, because Mr.

Bear caught sight of a picture on the hat and unfolding it said with an air of great disgust, I wish these papers did not come in the house.

They are not for children to see nor young people to read.

It is not well, and I have no patience with those who make this harm.

Joe glanced at the sheet and saw a pleasing illustration composed of a lunatic, a corpse, a villain and a viper.

She did not like it, but the impulse that made her turn it over was not one of displeasure, but fear, because for a minute she fancied the paper was the volcano.

It was not, however, and her panic subsided as she remembered that even if it had been, and one of her own tales in it, there would have been no name to betray her.

She had betrayed herself, however, by a look and a blush, for though an absent man, the professor saw a good deal more than people fancied.

He knew that Joe wrote and had met her down among the newspaper offices more than once, but as she never spoke of it, he asked no questions, in spite of a strong desire to see her work.

Now it occurred to him that she was doing what she was ashamed to own, and it troubled him.

He did not say to himself, it is none of my business.

I have no right to say anything, as many people would have done.

He only remembered that she was young and poor, a girl far away from mother's love and father's care, and he was moved to help her with an impulse as quick and natural as that which would prompt him to put out his hand to save a baby from a puddle.

All this flashed through his mind in a minute, but not a trace of it appeared in his face, and by the time the paper was turned and Joe's needle threaded, he was ready to say, quite naturally, but very gravely, yes, you are right to put it from you.

I do not like to think that young girls should see such things.

They are made pleasant to some, but I would more rather give my boys gunpowder to play with than this bad trash.

All may not be bad, only silly, you know, and if there is a demand for it, I don't see any harm in supplying it.

Many very respectable people make an honest living out of what are called sensation stories, said Joe, scratching gathers so energetically that a row of little slits followed her pin.

There is a demand for whiskey, but I think you and I do not care to sell it.

If the respectable people knew what harm they did, they would not feel that the living was honest.

They have no right to put poison in the sugar plum and let the small ones eat it.

No, they should think a little and sweep mud in the street before they do this thing.

Mr.

Bear spoke warmly and walked to the fire, crumbling the paper in his hands.

Joe sat still, looking as if the fire had come to her, for her cheeks burned long after the cocked hat had turned to smoke and gone harmlessly up the chimney.

I should like very much to send all the rest after him, muttered the professor, coming back with a relieved air.

Joe thought what ablaze her pile of papers upstairs would make, and her hard earned money lay rather heavily on her conscience at that minute, and she thought consolingly to herself, mine are not like that they're only silly, never bad, so I won't be worried.

And taking up her book, she said with a studious face, shall we go on, sir?

I'll be very good and proper now.

I shall hope so, was all he said.

But he meant more than she imagined, and the grave, kind look he gave her made her feel as if the words Weekly Volcano were printed in large type on her forehead.

As soon as she went to her room, she got out her papers and carefully reread every one of her stories.

Being a little short sighted, Mr.

Bear sometimes used eyeglasses, and Jo had tried them once, smiling to see how they magnified the fine print of her book.

Now she seemed to have got on the professor's mental or moral spectacles also, for the faults of these poor stories glared at her dreadfully and filled her with dismay.

They are trash, and will soon be worse than trash if I go on, for each is more sensational than the last.

I've gone blindly on hurting myself and other people for the sake of money.

I know it's so, for I can't read this stuff in sober earnest without being horribly ashamed of it.

And what should I do if they were seen at home or Mr.

Bear got hold of them?

Joe turned hot at the Bear idea and stuffed the whole bundle into her stove, nearly setting the chimney of fire with the blaze.

Yes, that's the best place for such inflammable nonsense.

I'd better burn the house down, I suppose, than let other people blow themselves up with my gunpowder, she thought, as she watched the demon of the Juror whisk away a little black cinder with fiery eyes.

But when nothing remained of all her three months'work except a heap of ashes and the money in her lap, jo looked sober as she sat on the floor, wondering what she ought to do about her wages.

I think I haven't done much harm yet, and may keep this to pay for my time, she said after a long meditation, adding impatiently, I almost wish I hadn't any conscience.

It's so inconvenient.

If I didn't care about doing right and didn't feel uncomfortable when doing wrong, I should get on capital E.

I can't help wishing sometimes that father and mother hadn't been so particular about such things.

Ah, Joe, instead of wishing that, thank God that father and mother were particular, and pity from your heart those who have no such guardians to hedge them round with principles which may seem like prison walls to impatient youth, but which will prove sure foundations to build character upon in womanhood.

Jo wrote no more sensational stories, deciding that the money did not pay for her share of the sensation.

But going to the other extreme, as is the way with people.

Of her stamp.

She took a course of Mrs Sherwood, Miss Edgeworth and Hannah Moore, and then produced a tale which might have been properly called an Essay or A Sermon.

So intensely moral was it, she had her doubts about it from the beginning, for her lively fancy and girlish romance felt as ill at ease in the new style as she would have done masquerading in the stiff and cumbrous costume of the last century.

She sent this Didactic Gem to several markets, but it found no purchaser, and she was inclined to agree with Mr Dashwood that morals didn't sell.

Then she tried a child story, which she could easily have disposed of if she had not been mercenary enough to demand filthy lucre for it.

The only person who offered enough to make it worth her while to try juvenile literature was a worthy gentleman who felt it his mission to convert all the world to his particular belief.

But much as she liked to write for children, jo could not consent to depict all her naughty boys as being eaten by bears or tossed by mad bulls because they did not go to a particular Sabbath school.

Nor all the good infants who did go as rewarded by every kind of bliss, from gilded gingerbread to escorts of angels when they departed this life with psalms or sermons on their listing tongues.

So nothing came of these trials, and Jo corked up her ink stand and said in a fit of very wholesome humility, I don't know anything.

I'll wait till I do before I try again.

And meantime, sweet mud in the street, if I can't do better.

That's honest, at least.

Which decision proved that her second tumble down the beanstalk had done her some good?

While these internal revolutions were going on, her external life had been as busy and uneventful as usual, and if she sometimes looked serious or a little sad, no one observed it but Professor Bear.

He did it so quietly that Joe never knew he was watching to see if she would accept and profit by his reproof.

But she stood the test, and he was satisfied.

For though no words passed between them, he knew that she had given up writing.

Not only did he guess it by the fact that the second finger of her right hand was no longer inky, but she spent her evenings downstairs, now was met no more among newspaper offices, and studied with a dogged patience, which assured him that she was bent on occupying her mind with something useful, if not pleasant.

He helped her in many ways, proving himself a true friend.

And Jo was happy.

For while her pin lay idle, she was learning other lessons beside German and laying a foundation for the sensation story of her own life.

It was a pleasant winter and a long one, for she did not leave Mrs Kirk till June.

Everyone seemed sorry when the time came.

The children were inconsolable, and Mr.

Bear's hair stuck straight up all over his head, for he always rumbled it wildly when disturbed in mind going home.

Ah, you are happy that you have a home to go in, he said when she told him, and sat silently pulling his beard in the corner while she held a little levy.

On that last evening she was going early, so she bade them all goodbye overnight, and when his turn came, she said warmly, now, sir, you won't forget to come and see us if you ever travel our way, will you?

I'll never forgive you if you do, for I want them all to know, my friend.

Do you?

Shall I come?

He asked, looking down at her with an eager expression which she did not see.

Yes, come next month.

Lori graduates then, and you'd enjoy commencement as something new.

That is your best friend of whom you speak, he said in an altered tone.

Yes, my boy Teddy.

I'm very proud of him and should like you to see him.

Joe looked up then, quite unconscious of anything but her own pleasure in the prospect of showing them to one another.

Something in Mr.

Bear's face suddenly recalled the fact that she might find Lori more than a best friend, and simply because she particularly wished not to look as if anything was the matter, she involuntarily began to blush, and the more she tried not to, the redder she grew.

If it had not been for Tina on her knee, she didn't know what would have become of her.

Fortunately, the child was moved to hug her, so she managed to hide her face an instant, hoping the professor did not see it.

But he did, and his own changed again from that momentary anxiety to its usual expression as he said cordially, I fear I shall not make the time for that, but I wish the friend much success and you all happiness.

God bless you.

And with that he shook hands warmly, shouldered Tina, and went away.

But after the boys were a bed, he sat long before his fire with a tired look on his face and the heimway or homesickness lying heavy at his heart.

Once, when he remembered Joe as she sat with the little child in her lap and that new softness in her face, he leaned his head on his hand a minute and then roamed about the room as if in search of something that he could not find.

It is not for me.

I must not hope it now, he said to himself, with a sigh that was almost a groan.

Then, as if reproaching himself for the longing that he could not repress, he went and kissed the two tousled heads upon the pillow.

He took down his seldom used Mirsham and opened his Play DOH.

He did his best and did it, manfully, but I don't think he found that a pair of rampant boys, a pipe or even the divine Play DOH were very satisfactory substitutes for wife and child and home early as it was, he was at the station next morning to see Joe off.

And thanks to him, she began her solitary journey with the pleasant memory of a familiar face smiling its farewell, a bunch of violets to keep her company and best of all, the happy thought.

Well, the winter's gone and I've written no books, earned no fortune, but I've made a friend worth having and I'll try to keep him all my life.

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 Women.

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