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 THE ALCOTTS 
 
 As I Knew Them 
 
 BY 
 
 CLARA GOWING 
 
 Author of 
 POEMS 
 
 "my chest, or ransacking" 
 
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 THE C. M. CLARK PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 BOSTON MDCCCCIX 
 
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 Copyright, I 90S 
 
 THE C. M. CLARK PUBLISHING CO 
 
 BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 
 U S. A. 
 
 AM Rights Reserved 
 
 CLA258U; 
 
Brtrtrateb 
 
 TO MY OLD SCHOOLMATE 
 
 MRS. S. H. LUNT 
 
 AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 MISS E. H. LUNT 
 

 
 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 
 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Preface by the Author i 
 
 Introduction by F. B. Sanborn ... ii 
 
 Louisa May Alcott 1 
 
 Mr. Alcott 31 
 
 Mrs. Alcott 80 
 
 Anna 107 
 
 May 122 
 

 
 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 
 
 
 
 The Author Frontispiece 
 
 Louisa . . . took me for a short drive . 9 
 She bounded down the path .... 18 
 
 The boys cheered the flag and 
 the maker 
 
 67 
 
 ^[pP 
 
PREFACE 
 
 Having met from time to time, during 
 the past years, many of Louisa Alcott's 
 admirers who were interested in anything 
 that concerned her or her family, I con- 
 ceived the idea of glancing backward 
 threescore years and giving to the public 
 not only some incidents of her girlhood, 
 but also a little sketch of other members 
 of the family. 
 
 In writing of Mr. and Mrs. Alcott I 
 have been indebted to the kindness of 
 Mr. F. B. Sanborn for facts in their early 
 life. He generously gave me permission 
 to "quote all you wish, only give credit 
 to the 'Memoir of Bronson Alcott/' ' and 
 this I have done. 
 
 The writing of this little book has been 
 to me a labor of love, recalling as it has 
 so many happy days spent with my 
 friends "The Alcotts." That it may 
 give the readers pleasure is the wish of 
 The Author, 
 
 Clara Gowing. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 Although Louisa Alcott was of nearly 
 the same age with me (not quite a year 
 younger), I did not see her until I was 
 in college, and she a young woman of 
 nearly twenty. For her earlier life, then, 
 I have had to depend on her own state- 
 ments and those of her family, besides 
 the facts recorded by my friend, Mrs. 
 Cheney (who introduced me to the family 
 in 1852), in her authorized biography of 
 Miss Alcott. It always seemed to me 
 that Mrs. Cheney dwelt rather too much 
 on the somber side of Louisa's life; and 
 it is also true that Louisa herself, in her 
 later years of invalidism, viewed some- 
 what too regretfully the burdens and 
 misfortunes of the family, whose romantic 
 experiences furnished many of the inci- 
 dents of her lively and pathetic tales. 
 ii 
 
Introduction 
 
 I therefore welcome any facts or writ- 
 ings that present this woman of warm 
 fancy and generous heart as she was in 
 her happy childhood; for neither her 
 childhood nor her youth could be very 
 unhappy, with her cheerful, practical 
 and social temper, touched, as it surely 
 was, with an occasional tinge of melan- 
 choly, growing out of the accidents of 
 life, or the development of a rich nature. 
 Such are the artless recollections of Miss 
 Gowing, a Concord playmate of Louisa's 
 after the family returned from the Fruit- 
 lands experiment to the rural life of 
 Concord. These were the years from 
 1845 onward, when the exuberance of 
 her spirits got the better of whatever 
 was depressing in the family fortunes. 
 The four sisters were all together, in 
 good health, of ages ranging from five 
 to fourteen in 1845, and with such varie- 
 ties of talent and character as adapted 
 them to form a happy quartette and to 
 draw about them a variety of character 
 iii 
 
Introduction 
 
 in their childish associates. Although 
 misunderstood and unappreciated by the 
 general society of the small village, the 
 family had warm and admiring friends 
 in the Emersons, the Thoreaus, Chan- 
 nings and Hawthornes, of literary fame, 
 and the children mingled on equal terms 
 with those of other families to whom 
 the opinions and habits of the Alcotts 
 were puzzles. 
 
 Fortunately, children do not much 
 care for the standards by which their 
 elders judge of their own contemporaries. 
 They have standards of their own,, and 
 their intimacies are likely to conform to 
 those, whatever may be the verdict of 
 others. Clara Gowing, therefore, with 
 little interest in the problems which the 
 learned seniors were trying to work out, 
 found herself much interested in Louisa 
 Alcott and her sisters, and in these 
 pages she records what then concerned 
 these playmates. How much she saw, 
 or would have understood had she seen, 
 iv 
 
Introduction 
 
 of the public and social experiments 
 going on in the Transcendental Period, 
 then in its bloom, I cannot say. But 
 this side of Concord life has been fully 
 treated by others, and she only under- 
 takes the simpler task of reporting what 
 went on from day to day in the children's 
 world — often as little understood, even 
 by aunts and cousins, as the child com- 
 prehends what is passing in the elder 
 world, so near and yet so far away. I 
 consider this proper to be done, because 
 the interest of successive cycles of girls 
 in the Alcott view of life, as presented by 
 Louisa, requires that all the incidents, 
 typical or trivial, which made Louisa 
 what she has been to them, should be 
 simply narrated, as is done in these pages, 
 so far as they have come under my notice. 
 
 F. B. Sanborn. 
 
 Concord, Mass. 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 Louisa May Alcott 
 
 In the spring of 1845 the usually 
 tranquil neighborhood in Concord, Massa- 
 chusetts, known as the "East Quarter," 
 was somewhat agitated by learning that 
 Mr. A. Bronson Alcott had purchased a 
 place in that part of the town, which he 
 would occupy with his family. 
 
 Previous to this he had been a citizen 
 of the town long enough to acquire the 
 reputation of being a fanatic in belief 
 and habit, and he had recently come 
 from a community of Transcendentalists 
 in Harvard, Massachusetts. (What the 
 term Transcendentalist really meant was 
 not generally understood, but it was sup- 
 posed to be something entirely unortho- 
 dox.) He attended no church, had been 
 1 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 arrested for not paying his taxes because 
 he would not support a government so 
 false to the law of love as that which was 
 advocated in the Boston papers, es- 
 chewed all animal food, and had attempt- 
 ed to do without everything the use of 
 which cost the life of the creature, such 
 as leather for boots and shoes, and oil 
 for burning; and he carried his anti- 
 slavery principles so far as to give up 
 sugar and molasses made at the South, 
 also cotton, or anything produced by 
 slave labor. In a family of restricted 
 means it was found rather impracticable 
 to carry out all these ideas, and when 
 they came to the "East Quarter" they 
 used oil for light, cotton goods and sugar, 
 and yielding to the wife's and children's 
 requirement, milk. 
 
 The place he purchased, about a mile 
 from the village, consisted of several 
 acres of land and a two -story house 
 standing quite near the main road, with 
 the front door in the middle, on which 
 2 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 was an old-fashioned knocker. A wheel- 
 wright's shop was on one side of the 
 house, and a barn on the opposite side 
 of the road, with a high hill covered with 
 trees for a background. Over this hill 
 a part of the British troops marched 
 when they entered and left Concord on 
 the memorable 19th of April, 1775, the 
 hill being on the north side of the road 
 from Lexington to Concord and extend- 
 ing for a mile, ending just beyond the 
 old church. 
 
 To use Mrs. Alcott's own words, "we 
 moved the barn across the road, cut the 
 shop in two and put a half on each end 
 of the house." On each L so formed 
 was a piazza with a door opening into 
 the front room as well as one into the L. 
 There were no less than eight outside 
 doors to the house. Mrs. Alcott used 
 to say, when a rap was heard, each one 
 started for one of the doors. In the west 
 L each of the two older girls, Anna and 
 Louisa, had a little room for a studio 
 3 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 all her own, in which she reigned su- 
 preme. Louisa loved to be alone when 
 reading or writing, and a door from her 
 room opening toward the hill gave her 
 opportunity to slip out into the woods 
 at her pleasure. 
 
 On the opposite side of the road their 
 land extended to a brook where Mr. 
 Alcott built a rustic bathhouse with a 
 thatched roof, which they used daily 
 in warm weather; the girls scampering 
 across the road and field, plunging into 
 the brook and back again as quickly as 
 possible. In winter time a shower bath 
 in the house was used instead, for bath- 
 ing and outdoor exercise were important 
 elements to the Alcotts. On the hill 
 back of the buildings Mr. Alcott made a 
 rustic summer house and laid out walks 
 and terraces. With a high picket fence 
 and shrubbery in front, the lower rooms 
 were quite screened from the passers-by, 
 and this gave a feeling of retirement 
 which was congenial to them. 
 4 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 The family consisted of Mr. and Mrs. 
 Alcott and four daughters — Anna Bron- 
 son, Louisa May, Elizabeth Sewell and 
 Abby May. On account of the peculiar 
 views held by Mr. Alcott, in many of 
 which his wife felt no sympathy, the 
 neighbors were not forward in calling, 
 and though all summer and fall I passed 
 the house in going to the village to school, 
 my acquaintance with the girls did not 
 progress much beyond our peeping at 
 each other through the fence, and a 
 mutual desire for companionship, each 
 hesitating to make the advance. But 
 the next winter, 1845-46, by dint of 
 much teasing, Anna and Louisa per- 
 suaded their mother to allow them to 
 attend the district public school, some- 
 thing they had never done before. As 
 the teacher was a young man, John 
 Hosmer, who had recently come from 
 the Brook Farm Community School and 
 was in some degree in sympathy with 
 the Alcotts, their desire was more readily 
 5 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 granted than it would otherwise have 
 been. 
 
 Louisa was thirteen years old, tall and 
 slim; in fact, limbs predominated and 
 were used freely, so that she was the 
 fleetest runner in school, and could walk, 
 run and climb like a boy. At one time 
 she trundled her hoop from her home to 
 the foot of Hardy's Hill, the distance of 
 a mile, turned and came back without 
 stopping. She had dark brown hair, 
 pleasant gray eyes with a peculiar twinkle 
 in them, and a sallow complexion. She 
 was not prepossessing in personal appear- 
 ance, and in character a strange combina- 
 tion of kindness and perseverance, shyness 
 and daring; a creature loving and spite- 
 ful, full of energy and perseverance, full 
 of fun, with a keen sense of the ludicrous, 
 apt speech and ready wit; a subject of 
 moods, than whom no one could be jollier 
 and more entertaining when geniality was 
 in ascendency, but if the opposite, let her 
 best friend beware. 
 6 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 That she was not a boy was one of her 
 great afflictions; her impulsive disposi- 
 tion was fretted by the restraint and 
 restrictions which were deemed essential 
 to the proper girl. Most of her books 
 have some one character in which her 
 own traits are more or less conspicuous. 
 In "Hospital Sketches" and " Little 
 Women" they are very prominent; the 
 latter, in fact, as is well known, is a 
 family book, the traits of character, 
 except those of Mr. Alcott, being true 
 to life, and many, though not all of the 
 incidents. The opening chapter of " Hos- 
 pital Sketches" is a good sample of 
 family conversation, and as the following 
 chapters were letters written home, they 
 are really part and parcel of herself, and 
 through them one sees Louisa in maturity 
 in her true self, impulsive, warm-hearted, 
 self-reliant, earnest to do good, self- 
 sacrificing, gentle and tender to the 
 suffering, indignant at wrong, cheerful 
 under difficulties, sympathetic and grate- 
 7 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 ful for kindness, with a quick sense of 
 the comical under all circumstances. 
 
 In regard to the studies of the sisters 
 that winter (for one sister cannot be con- 
 sidered without the other, so closely 
 united were the two) I have only faint 
 recollection, but I am inclined to think 
 they did not join classes in general. 
 Mr. Alcott did not believe in the use of 
 text-books and the usual method of im- 
 parting knowledge, and he had taught 
 them at home by his own method, that 
 of conversation. Grammar they never 
 studied from books. Of the jolly good 
 times during that winter, both at school 
 and at their home, and in the years that 
 followed, I have most pleasant remem- 
 brance. It was a new life to the sisters, 
 who for the first time associated with 
 those of their own age in a promiscuous 
 school, and the friendship then formed 
 between Anna and myself, though inter- 
 rupted by seasons of separation, was 
 never broken. 
 
 8 
 
Louisa took me for a short drive. 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 Louisa, though younger than Anna, 
 was the controlling spirit, and often 
 shocked her sensitive sister by some 
 daring speech or deed. Thus, one morn- 
 ing on their way to school, seeing the 
 horse and sleigh of a neighbor at a house 
 they were passing, Louisa, much to the 
 chagrin of her sister, took possession of 
 it and, coming along as I was starting 
 for school, took me for a short drive, 
 then returned the team to the place 
 where she found it. Years after, when 
 the white mingled with the brown on 
 our heads, reference was made, in our 
 reminiscences, to this schoolgirl episode; 
 she laughing, said, "and Bart kissed me 
 when I got out." (Promiscuous kissing 
 was under a ban in their family.) 
 
 The three months of school being over, 
 we could not of course be together every 
 day, and the plan of having a postoffice 
 was originated; so on the hillside about 
 midway between our homes, a hollow 
 stump was cleared out and a box duly 
 9 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 installed to receive our missives, and 
 much sentiment and much fun passed 
 through this repository. It was visited 
 daily or oftener, and cruelly abused did 
 we feel if on going there we did not find 
 something for ourselves. Each had a 
 fictitious signature. In looking over 
 these little notes, which have been care- 
 fully treasured for more than half a cen- 
 tury, I do not find one commencing in 
 the usual schoolgirl style of that time, 
 " I now take my pen in hand " nor ending 
 with "My pen is poor, my ink is pale," 
 etc. I do not think they ever used such 
 a form; formality in all respects was 
 distasteful to them; but Louisa now and 
 then sent a rhyme. The following ac- 
 companied a bouquet: 
 
 " Clara, my dear, your birthday is here 
 Before I had time to prepare, 
 Yet take these flowers, fresh from Nature's 
 bower, 
 All bright and fair." 
 
 In winter evenings whist was a favorite 
 10 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 diversion, Mrs. Alcott thinking a game 
 of cards much more enjoyable and less 
 harmful than the kissing games usually 
 resorted to among the young. When a 
 little party was invited for the girls, she 
 was always present to suggest and assist 
 in the games, selecting those in which 
 this feature was not admissible. At one 
 time a boy in some game ventured to kiss 
 Anna, much to the indignation of all, and 
 Louisa especially stormed about it. He 
 was ever after known in the family as 
 "Mr. Smack." They were in the habit 
 among themselves of using nicknames 
 for some of their mates, chosen for some 
 incident connected with the person ; thus, 
 a boy at school who would one day wear 
 a pair of mittens, leave one or both on the 
 window seat, and come the next day with 
 another pair, or odd ones, as the case 
 might be, was dubbed "Mr. Mitten." 
 Louisa was very fond of whist and was 
 the life of the party, yet, if she was deeply 
 interested in a book when her presence 
 11 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 was desired, no persuasion could lure her 
 from her den till she chose to come, — 
 then all was sunshine. 
 
 After the winter at school, the girls 
 studied at home, reading French and 
 German, and reciting to George Brad- 
 ford or Henry Thoreau. They spent 
 much time together over their books, 
 one often reading aloud while the others 
 sewed, and Mrs. Alcott was one with her 
 daughters, entering with sympathetic 
 heartiness into all that concerned them, 
 and telling stories of her family and past 
 life, many of which Louisa wove into 
 her writings to give them the charm of 
 naturalness. If there were any school- 
 girl secrets, it was only for a time, to end 
 in a happy surprise. 
 
 They were very fond of fairy tales in 
 those days, and writing them was one of 
 Louisa's first attempts at composition. 
 Their library contained all Miss Edge- 
 worth's novels, Scott's, Miss Bremer's 
 and Dickens' works, and other standard 
 12 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 books of the day. Dickens was a great 
 favorite; they never tired of his comic 
 scenes and characters from real life, and 
 frequent peals of laughter were always 
 heard when "Boz" was the entertainer. 
 Having a good memory, Louisa stowed 
 away the funny parts for future diver- 
 sion, recalling them at opportune times 
 for her own amusement and that of 
 others. 
 
 Birthdays were always noticed by the 
 family as well as all holidays; tableaux 
 and plays were then brought out, as they 
 were in fact at any other time when the 
 spirit moved. By enclosing a piazza at 
 the end of the house with draperies, they 
 improvised a stage very easily, and in 
 their attic was a quantity of ancestral 
 finery, brocaded silks, satin slippers, old 
 laces, shawls, wigs, etc., which did duty 
 on these occasions. Louisa usually took 
 a comic or tragic part, or that of an old 
 woman. If memory failed, she never 
 hesitated, but extemporized from her 
 13 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 own brains and often put the other actors 
 to their wits' end by some unexpected 
 originality. If an impromptu play was 
 desired, the mother and sisters could do 
 their part by just knowing the spirit of 
 the subject. 
 
 The Alcotts lived and dressed plainly 
 at this time, ignoring fashion, and thus 
 had much time for outdoor exercise, 
 even while doing their own work. Al- 
 though they lived a mile from the village, 
 the distance was thought nothing of. I 
 have known the girls to walk three miles 
 after dinner, make a good social call, 
 and return to supper. A walk of five or 
 six miles was just good exercise for them. 
 In later years Louisa walked from Boston 
 home one Sunday, a distance of twenty 
 miles, having missed the train Saturday 
 night, and arrived in Concord about 
 1 p. m.; and as there were callers that 
 evening, she walked part way to the 
 village with them, "for exercise," she 
 said. 
 
 14 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 Mrs. Alcott was in the habit of joining 
 her children and a few of their mates in 
 long walks; and days or half -days were 
 spent at Walden Pond, Fairy Land, Fair- 
 haven and other quiet resorts in the 
 woods. Mr. Alcott sometimes accom- 
 panied us and mingled some of his wise 
 thoughts with our pleasure. One day at 
 Walden he wrote on the sand with a 
 stick, much to our amusement, to show 
 how he learned to write when a boy. 
 The sand and his mother's kitchen floor 
 were his copy-book, which he was allowed 
 to use just before it was to be washed. 
 
 A favorite resort with us girls near 
 our homes, where we could go with 
 safety by ourselves, was to a pool which 
 F. B. Sanborn in his " Reminiscences 
 of Seventy Years" calls "Gowing's 
 Swamp"; it was a walk to which he and 
 his group did not invite everyone, he 
 says, but one clay Channing took Haw- 
 thorne there; the latter was not an ob- 
 server or lover of nature, and after giving 
 15 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 a glance around he desired to "get out 
 of this dreadful hole." 
 
 We girls approached the pool by a 
 narrow path at the foot of a wooded hill 
 which skirted a blueberry swamp and 
 led out to a knoll, and there jumping 
 across a narrow stream, we were at the 
 pool which was bordered by flowering 
 shrubs in their season, and in the vicinity 
 were to be found the pyrola with its 
 exquisite waxen blossom, foxberry, or 
 eye-bright whose dainty delicate white 
 bloom changed to the bright red berry, 
 half hidden among the leaves, sweet-fern, 
 Solomon's seal, checkerberry leaves, ferns, 
 and in fact all the rich treasures of nature 
 found in the wild woods and of which 
 we girls plucked abundantly. We named 
 the place Paradise, and spent many 
 happy hours there. 
 
 At the end of three years, in 1848, the 
 
 family moved to Boston, and Louisa 
 
 taught a few pupils, had the care of little 
 
 children or sewed, and wrote fairy tales 
 
 16 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 and stories for papers and magazines as 
 she had time. Writing and enacting 
 dramas engaged her leisure hours, for 
 she had a natural taste for the stage. 
 
 In 1857 the Alcotts returned to Con- 
 cord and purchased, with money left to 
 the girls by a relative, the place adjoin- 
 ing their old home, which was then 
 owned and occupied by Nathaniel Haw- 
 thorne. Here Louisa soon found an 
 agreeable circle of young people and 
 entered into their social functions with 
 the energy and zeal which was character- 
 istic of her; in fact she soon became a 
 leader in their amusements, masquer- 
 ades, tableaux, charades, etc., which 
 were her special delight. Her mirth and 
 good humor made her a favorite every- 
 where. 
 
 An amateur artist of Woburn (C. W. 
 Reed), accepted an invitation from a 
 friend to attend a masquerade in Concord 
 and there met Louisa Alcott; again he 
 met her at a small social party where 
 17 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 the entertainment was chatting, telling 
 stones and music. During the evening 
 Louisa asked him to sketch their house 
 at "The Orchard," or as she sometimes 
 called it, "Apple Slump." Accordingly 
 next morning he took his stand in the 
 field across the road opposite the house 
 and with sketch book and pencil began 
 his work. Louisa, her sister, May, and 
 their friend, Miss Barrett, were sitting 
 on the porch under Louisa's den at the 
 end of the house. When Louisa spied 
 him, she bounded down the path across 
 the road and at a hand vault cleared the 
 bars of the gateway and entered the 
 field where he stood and asked if he 
 minded her looking on while he drew. 
 "Certainly not," replied Reed. Pres- 
 ently she asked where his line of sight- 
 was, his point of sight, his vanishing 
 points, etc. All of which Reed knew 
 nothing about and so informed her. 
 "Then how do you draw your lines?" 
 she inquired. He replied, "I make my 
 18 
 
She bounded down the path. 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 lines where I see they are." Whereupon 
 she called to the girls, " Oh, goody, come 
 quick and see an artist who doesn't 
 bother about making points of sight, lines 
 of sight, or vanishing points." So the 
 two girls ran across the road, jumped 
 the fence in the same way Reed had done 
 when he entered the field, and Louisa, 
 also, and all three watched the sketching. 
 When finished, Louisa said she would 
 like her father to meet Reed and see the 
 picture, so they all went to the house. 
 After Mr. Reed had been presented to 
 Mr. Alcott and the latter had examined 
 the sketch, he placed his hand on the 
 artist's head and said, " Young man, you 
 are a child of light, a child of God." 
 Reed replied he thought he did not quite 
 understand what Mr. Alcott meant by 
 that. Mr. Alcott took him around the 
 house, and, pointing to some bright 
 flowers, said, "These are God-like; they 
 represent all that is good, but the night- 
 shade, belladonna and others of like 
 19 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 nature are of darkness, of evil." Reed, 
 being but a youth, was about to express 
 his lack of conception of the idea, when 
 Louisa gave him a poke with her toe as 
 a hint for him to keep silent and let her 
 father ramble on in his own deep far- 
 away manner, which he did for a time 
 while the young people listened with due 
 respect, then Mr. Alcott retired to his 
 study and the young people chatted 
 after their own manner. Louisa drew a 
 hand in the artist's sketch book on the 
 page opposite the house; it represented a 
 hand, with all but the index finger closed, 
 and showed that the pencil was not her 
 forte. Then she wanted Reed to draw 
 one. He took the book and said, "Hold 
 out your hand, please." "Oh, is that 
 the way you do it?" she said. The old 
 sketch book of more than fifty years ago 
 now bears evidence of this little episode 
 in Louisa's girlhood. 
 
 When the war broke out, Louisa was 
 among the first to go to Washington as 
 20 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 nurse in 1862. Her letters written home 
 during her stay of about two months 
 there were published in the Boston Com- 
 monwealth and copied by other papers all 
 over the North. On her recovery from 
 the fever which had made her stay in 
 Washington so brief, these letters, which 
 had been revised, were published in book 
 form with one or two chapters added, 
 under the title of "Hospital Sketches." 
 As every one at that time was deeply in- 
 terested in anything that pertained to 
 the soldiers, the book made a stir and 
 sold rapidly. 
 
 Thus encouraged, she took to her pen 
 again, writing stories for papers and 
 magazines, and after a while ventured to 
 have "Moods" published. In her "Life, 
 Letters and Journals," edited by Mrs. 
 Ednah D. Cheney, is a graphic description 
 of her trials and discouragements in 
 getting this, her first novel, before the 
 public. It was severely criticised by 
 some on account of its views of marriage, 
 21 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 yet when republished after fame had 
 been acquired from " Little Women," 
 the same persons said " it was not so bad, 
 after all." 
 
 In 1865 she accompanied an invalid 
 lady to Europe, and during her travels 
 she met a Polish youth from whom she 
 conceived the character of Laurie in 
 " Little Women." More than one young 
 man on this side of the water has claimed 
 the distinction, but the Pole in Vevey 
 was the real original. Two years later, 
 in 1867, "Little Women" was written. 
 Its lifelike incidents made it very attrac- 
 tive to both young and old; the children 
 were wild over it, and like Oliver Twist, 
 " asked for more." The financial success 
 of the book made the family independent, 
 and "An Old-Fashioned Girl" followed. 
 
 Another trip was taken to Europe, the 
 incidents of which are given in "Shawl 
 Straps" in her own amusing style; but, 
 on account of nerves shattered by over- 
 work, she did not find the enjoyment or 
 22 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 improvement she had expected. One 
 reason may have been that she continued 
 to use the pen, for while she was in Rome 
 news was received of the death of her 
 sister Anna's husband, and she imme- 
 diately wrote "Little Men," the pro- 
 ceeds of which were devoted to the 
 education of the two little boys left 
 fatherless. 
 
 At one time Scribner wanted her to 
 write a serial for his magazine, and she 
 declined on account of her mother, who 
 was not well, while her own health was 
 also not good. He asked her to set her 
 price; she replied " three thousand dol- 
 lars," thinking he would not give it, but 
 he told her to go on, and "Under the 
 Lilacs" was produced. Other books of 
 hers are "Work," "Eight Cousins," 
 "Rose in Bloom," "Jack and Jill," "A 
 Garland for Girls," "My Boys," "Trans- 
 cendental Wild Oats," "A Modern Me- 
 phistopheles," etc., etc. One of her last 
 books was "Lu Lu's Library," a series of 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 short stories written for her little niece, 
 the daughter of her artist sister. 
 
 In the autumn of 1877 Mrs. Alcott, 
 after much suffering, passed away. 
 Louisa had been able to be with her 
 during most of her sickness and wrote 
 while caring for her. Her death was a 
 severe blow to Louisa, as the tie between 
 them was most tender and sweet. Their 
 dispositions were much alike. Her sister 
 May, who was in Paris at this time, was 
 married the next spring, and the acquisi- 
 tion of a brother, together with May's 
 happiness, served to distract attention 
 from her grief, but the memory of her 
 dear mother was held sacred through life. 
 
 She looked forward to a visit to May, 
 in the near future, her health not per- 
 mitting it then, but two years later the 
 dear petted sister May followed the 
 mother. Anna writes of Louisa at that 
 time: "I have never seen her brave 
 heart so broken; so many hopes are 
 shattered, and so much to which she has 
 24 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 looked forward so long has now vanished 
 forever." Her little namesake, the child 
 of May, became Louisa's, the last bequest 
 of the mother. Of her coming to them, 
 Anna wrote, "a healthy, happy little 
 soul, she comes like sunshine to our sad 
 hearts, and takes us all captive by her 
 winning ways and lovely traits." 
 
 To this child Louisa devoted her time 
 and love until, broken in health, she was 
 obliged to leave her home and cares for 
 a quiet place to rest and recuperate. 
 But she had ventured too much in writing 
 so incessantly in the past. Her nervous 
 system never rallied from the strain and 
 for several years she was an invalid. 
 Though not able to write, her brain still 
 thought stories for the children. 
 
 The last fifteen months of her life she 
 made her home with Dr. Lawrence of 
 Roxbury, who attended her wherever 
 she went for a change. A day or two 
 before her father passed away, she drove 
 to Boston to see him, and as she stood 
 25 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 by his bedside, just before leaving, she 
 said, "As you lie here, father, what do 
 you think about ?" Pointing his finger 
 upward, he said, "I think of the loved 
 ones up there, and I am going to them 
 soon." Louisa replied, "I wish I was 
 going, too." And her wish was gratified; 
 the next day she was taken very ill with 
 meningitis and on the 6th of March, 
 1888, just two days after her father left 
 this life, she followed, not knowing he 
 had gone before. The last service of 
 love which friends give to the departed 
 was paid to her in the same rooms at 
 Louisburg Square so recently left by her 
 father. Her poem, "In Memoriam," to 
 her mother, and a poem from her father 
 to herself formed part of the sacred 
 tribute friends rendered to her life; and 
 the body which had been the dwelling 
 place for the soul of Louisa May Alcott 
 for fifty-six years was taken to Sleepy 
 Hollow Cemetery in Concord and buried 
 with her parents and her sister Elizabeth. 
 26 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 Louisa had a fine figure and a well- 
 formed head, covered with an abundance 
 of brown hair, which she wore in a simple, 
 becoming style, rather than follow the 
 fashion, if not pleasing to her taste. An 
 easy dignity of bearing, a face beaming 
 with intelligence and good nature, and 
 a twinkling of the gray eye when some- 
 thing pleased her, made her an attractive 
 woman, if not what would be called 
 handsome . An hour spent with her when 
 she was feeling well, in listening to some 
 recital of her experience, either pathetic 
 or humorous, was like a refreshing cordial 
 to the spirits. 
 
 Knowing from her own experience the 
 benefit of a little help to a struggling 
 aspirant, she delighted, in her quiet way, 
 in assisting young persons who were thus 
 striving. 
 
 While appreciating with pleasure the 
 honest interest and respect which her 
 talent duly received from those she es- 
 teemed, she instinctively shrank from 
 27 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 the rude and obtrusive curiosity of the 
 mere sight-seers. She once said to some 
 young boys, "Whatever you do, don't 
 do anything to get fame." The many 
 callers which the School of Philosophy 
 brought to Concord, and their curiosity, 
 which drew them to the home of the 
 Alcotts, were truly distasteful to her, and 
 when circumstances favored, she avoided 
 them. 
 
 She advocated " woman suffrage," and 
 when the opportunity to vote for school 
 committee was given to the women, she 
 was the first to register in Concord, and 
 she endeavored to interest the women of 
 the town to do so. She was much tried 
 by their apathy on the subject, but was 
 herself one of the twenty to vote. 
 
 She enjoyed writing and felt she had a 
 special gift for that, which no one will 
 deny, but she was also ever ready to 
 adapt herself to the circumstances of her 
 checkered life. Often in the midst of 
 writing a book she would need to leave 
 28 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 it for days or months, while she attended 
 to the work of the family, cheerfully 
 doing the cooking, washing dishes, clean- 
 ing house, nursing, or sweeping, as the 
 case required, for she could turn her hand 
 to anything. At one time she wished 
 for a hat to match a new dress, and failing 
 to find one to her mind in Boston, she 
 bought a white straw and painted it to 
 suit her taste ; and that was after money 
 was plenty. The desire to write one 
 book at leisure and uninterrupted was 
 never gratified, for when leisure came, ill 
 health prevented her writing more than 
 an hour or two at a time, and at last it 
 was only half an hour. 
 
 Going West with her father in the fall 
 of 1875, she began to realize how famed 
 she was. At Oberlin College the young 
 ladies wished to hear her speak; but as 
 public speaking was not in her line, 
 though she was delightful in conversation, 
 she said she would stand and turn round, 
 so all could see her, and so she did turn 
 29 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 round three times. On the return she 
 stopped in New York City, intending to 
 remain there the rest of the winter, but 
 a sudden return home disclosed a singular 
 fact. Finding herself greatly lionized and 
 having worn her one party dress, a black 
 silk, till "Mrs. Grundy" demanded a 
 new one, she thought best to fly to the 
 home nest before she was led into ex- 
 travagance and become vain through 
 flattery. 
 
 Of the effect of this popularity on 
 her character her sister testifies that she 
 was not made proud by it, but was still 
 the same loving, self-sacrificing, devoted 
 Louisa as of old. Thus her good sense 
 and warm heart kept her soul pure and 
 made her worthy of the love and esteem 
 which she received in life and which 
 makes her memory dear. 
 
 30 
 
Mr. Alcott 
 
 Amos Bronson Alcott was born in 
 Wolcott, Connecticut, November 29, 
 1799. From his mother he inherited a 
 gentle, refined nature. She wished him 
 to have a college education and to study 
 for the ministry, but the circumstances 
 of the family did not permit this. From 
 the age of six to ten he attended the 
 common school nine months of the year, 
 and the next four years during the winter 
 only. This was supplemented by read- 
 ing all the books he could borrow from 
 the families for miles around. Among 
 these books were, "Hervey's Medita- 
 tions," Young's "Night Thoughts/' 
 Burgh's "Dignity of Human Nature," 
 and Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress." The 
 latter he borrowed and read every year 
 while at home. Books were his great 
 
 Note.— All quoted passages are excerpts from "Memoir 
 of Bronson Alcott." 
 
 31 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 delight; he spent his evenings in reading, 
 and took his book to the field to read 
 while uie oxen rested. At the age of 
 twelve he began keeping a diary, using 
 ink which he made himself. In the 
 spring when he was fifteen, being dissatis- 
 fied with farm life, he found employment 
 at a clock factory; but as he was not 
 pleased there, he went home and for 
 three months studied with the minister 
 of the parish. 
 
 After this, with his cousin, William 
 Alcott, he made two trips on foot, 
 peddling small wares, through Western 
 Massachusetts. Then he canvassed in 
 New York for a book. A year later he 
 and his cousin were confirmed in the 
 Episcopal church and he was encouraged 
 in studying for the ministry. The near- 
 est he came to being a clergyman was 
 that, when meetings were held in the 
 schoolhouse by the Episcopalians, he and 
 his cousin took turns in reading prayers 
 and sermons. 
 
 32 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 In later years, when he gave up the 
 idea of the ministry on account of the 
 expense, he drifted away from the rites 
 and forms of the church, never connected 
 himself with any religious body, and was 
 not in the habit of attending church 
 service. For some years he was classed 
 with the Unitarians, but as his ideas 
 became more and more advanced, the 
 Unitarians were shy of adopting his 
 theories, lest they be led into, they knew 
 not what. 
 
 When he was nineteen years old a 
 desire to see something of the world and 
 also to help in the expense of the family, 
 of which there were six children younger 
 than himself (a brother was born two 
 years later), led him to start for Virginia, 
 hoping to obtain a common school to 
 teach near Norfolk. He found a school, 
 but could get no boarding-place, so he 
 bought some almanacs and small articles 
 of tinware and started peddling. When 
 he returned home in the spring he had 
 33 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 eighty dollars for his father, after buying 
 himself new clothes. Pleased with this 
 success, he continued peddling in com- 
 pany with his brother or cousin, for 
 several seasons, changing his goods to 
 fancy articles, and now and then he made 
 a futile attempt for a school. 
 
 The culture of the people he met during 
 this time was agreeable to his taste. He 
 said: "I can make peddling in Virginia 
 as respectable as any other business. I 
 take much pleasure in travelling, and in 
 conversation with the Virginians,— ob- 
 serving their different habits, manners, 
 customs, etc., and I am conscious that 
 it is of great advantage to me in many 
 points of view." Being treated with 
 politeness by the people of good breeding, 
 he often stopped to read or talk with per- 
 fect leisure, and so he acquired a polish 
 of manner unknown in his native town. 
 This became so a part of himself that 
 years after, an Englishman, in speaking 
 of him, said, " Why, your friend has the 
 34 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 most distinguished manners, — the man- 
 ners of a very great peer." This was 
 the greatest compliment an Englishman 
 could pay. But with the refined manners 
 of the gentry he also took on the easy- 
 going, extravagant habits of the young 
 Southerner, and on returning home from 
 his second trip by the way of New York 
 he thus writes in his diary : " I purchased 
 a costly suit of clothes, the best in Broad- 
 way, and wear the same to the surprise 
 of my townspeople and the chagrin of 
 my father and cousin William. Now 
 begin to write my name 'Alcott' instead 
 of 'Alcox/ as my father wrote his, the 
 old spelling being Allcock." 
 
 That summer he spent in frivolous 
 pursuits, displaying his fine clothes and 
 paying attention to the maidens of the 
 neighborhood. The next winter he wrote 
 from Virginia: "The costly coat scorns 
 peddling and sinks money fast. Peddling 
 will never do, — neither profit nor pleasure 
 therein." Of this season of frivolity he 
 35 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 was afterward deeply ashamed, and from 
 this experience, perhaps, came that strong 
 dislike for show and vanity which he had 
 himself in after years, and with which 
 he endeavored to imbue his children. At 
 one time when he moved into a house 
 where the former occupant had left a 
 mirror, he sent word to him to "take 
 away that thing of vanity." 
 
 At the end of that winter he borrowed 
 eight dollars and a half from his brother 
 and started for home, walking much of 
 the way. He entered New York in his 
 stocking feet, for his shoes had become 
 unmanageable, and he had thrown them 
 into the dock at Amboy, New Jersey, 
 when he took the boat for New York. 
 In the dusk of the evening he made his 
 way to a shoe dealer and bought a new 
 pair of shoes, and the tailor mended his 
 coat while he slept. He had only a six- 
 pence in his pocket when he reached 
 home, but the experience was helpful. 
 He abandoned his spendthrift habits, and 
 36 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 hoping to retrieve the past, persuaded 
 his father to help him with an outfit 
 again. This time he applied himself to 
 business, but was taken sick and incurred 
 debt instead of making money. While 
 he was sick among the Quakers of Caro- 
 lina, the religious instruction he received 
 from them and their example had an 
 important influence on his opinions and 
 conduct in after years, and awakened a 
 desire for purity and real worth and a 
 delight in exercises of thought and de- 
 votion. The result of the five years' 
 peddling was to bring upon his father a 
 debt amounting to about the same that 
 would have taken him through college. 
 The experience and education, while very 
 different, may have been in the end quite 
 as helpful. 
 
 When fully recovered from his sick- 
 ness, Mr. Alcott turned to school-teaching 
 in Connecticut, first in Bristol, for a short 
 time, then in Cheshire. There he intro- 
 duced methods never known before in 
 37 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 New England. To gain the confidence 
 and affection of the children was his first 
 aim; then he thought compulsory meas- 
 ures would not be needed; to obey 
 would be a pleasure rather than a dis- 
 tasteful duty. Constant, uniform kind- 
 ness he claimed was more successful than 
 corporal punishment. Correction was 
 aimed at the mind rather than the body, 
 as it was the mind that committed the 
 error and should receive the correction. 
 The spirit of the kindergarten was mani- 
 fest in his system, though the name was 
 not then known. 
 
 At first the earnest and superior manner 
 of the young teacher gave him popularity, 
 and he soon changed the whole atmos- 
 phere of both school and room. For one 
 thing he began a course of gymnastics, 
 probably the first used in a common 
 school in the state. He believed that 
 once the youth were rightly instructed 
 mentally, morally and physically, they 
 would become the reformers of humanity 
 38 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 at home. In fact the redeeming of man- 
 kind through the youth of the country 
 was the idea he started out with. These 
 new methods were variously commented 
 upon. The Boston Recorder of May 14, 
 1827, quotes from a writer in Connecti- 
 cut: " There is one school of a superior 
 or improved kind, viz.; Mr. A. B. Al- 
 cott's school in Cheshire, — the best 
 common school in this State, perhaps in 
 the United States." But a spirit of 
 criticism and complaint was also astir; 
 some of the tales from the children were 
 listened to and talked about by the 
 parents, instead of their seeking to know 
 the truth of the matter for themselves. 
 This resulted in the formation of another 
 school with a lady teacher, and Mr. 
 Alcott concluded to retire, after having 
 spent one hundred and twenty-five dol- 
 lars in changes he desired during the 
 eighteen months he was there. He then 
 went back to Bristol and worked with 
 the same result as at Cheshire. 
 39 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 About this time Dr. William Alcott of 
 Wolcott wrote to Rev. Samuel J. May 
 of Brooklyn, Connecticut, who had in- 
 terested himself in common schools, 
 describing the Cheshire school and its 
 teacher's theory. Mr. May urged this 
 same teacher to visit him, which he did, 
 remaining a week. Mr. May says : " I have 
 never but in one instance been so imme- 
 diately taken possession of by any man I 
 have ever met in life. He seemed to be 
 like a born sage and saint. He was a 
 radical in all matters of reform; went to 
 the root of all theories, especially the 
 subject of education, mental and moral 
 culture." The result of this visit and of 
 his continued acquaintance with the 
 family of Mays, for it was there he met 
 his future wife, was his going to Boston 
 and opening an infant school, in June, 
 1828, which he left the next fall for one 
 of older children. This one commenced 
 with six boys, others coming in after- 
 ward, and of them he says: "They are 
 40 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew them 
 
 the class of children I have desired; ex- 
 cellent material for the study of Nature in 
 her simplicity and innocence. I wish to 
 philosophize upon the pure workman- 
 ship of the Creator, to aid in preserving 
 its symmetry and beauty." 
 
 In February he admitted girls, and 
 soon removed to a more convenient room, 
 and the success of the school was quite 
 encouraging. The next January, 1830, 
 the following entry was made in his 
 diary: "Heard from my companion in 
 Brooklyn. Our marriage in the spring 
 seems to me, on the whole, warranted by 
 existing circumstances. Were none but 
 myself involved in the consequences, I 
 should not hesitate a moment. But the 
 happiness of another may be involved by 
 the decision. But are not the ills of life, 
 as well as its happinesses, alleviated by 
 united sympathy and affection, and can 
 separation avert their presence? Have 
 I not rather listened to a deceitful delu- 
 sion, when I imagined I was obeying the 
 41 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 dictates of reason? Why should we be 
 longer separated in anticipation of dis- 
 tant and dubious evils, when the miseries 
 of absence are the most certain, the most 
 increasing, we can feel? Providence be- 
 stows his bounties equally upon all, and 
 it will be our folly alone if we do not 
 obtain our share. In hope, when founded 
 upon virtue, there is safety ; and in virtue 
 combined with love there is both safety 
 and happiness, though external ills assail 
 and worldly circumstances oppose." 
 
 Their marriage took place the next 
 May, and the next December they went 
 to Philadelphia by invitation of some 
 Quakers who wished Mr. Alcott to open 
 a school there. The plans did not mature 
 rapidly, and not till Februray did they 
 decide upon Germantown, a few miles 
 from the city, as the place to locate. 
 Hiring a house, the Rooker Cottage, they 
 went to the last dollar in furnishing it 
 for housekeeping and thought of board- 
 ing some of the pupils if necessary. 
 42 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 March 16th, 1831, a little girl all their own 
 was given them, whom they named Anna 
 Bronson, this being Mr. Alcott's mother's 
 maiden name. He immediately began 
 her education, and also began to keep a 
 record of her physical and intellectual 
 progress, in so minute a manner that in 
 five months it covered one hundred 
 pages. Of this record he says, "I have 
 attempted to discover, so far as this 
 could be done by external indication, 
 the successive steps of her physical, 
 mental, and moral advancement." Mrs. 
 Alcott in speaking of this record says, 
 " It seems as if she were conscious of his 
 observations, and were desirous of fur- 
 nishing him daily with an item for his 
 record." 
 
 The school opened in May with five 
 pupils; the next month they numbered 
 ten. His main purpose was to form the 
 character, both mental and moral, of the 
 pupils. He says: "They arrive at the 
 school at eight o'clock in the morning, 
 43 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 have an hour's play in the yard, and 
 enjoy a pleasant social intercourse until 
 nine o'clock, when their exercises in the 
 schoolroom commence. The relation of 
 a story by the teacher, involving an illus- 
 tration of some virtue, and designed to 
 excite virtuous feelings in their bosoms, 
 usually begins their exercises. Both 
 teacher and children remark upon the 
 story, and illustrate the principles in- 
 volved in it, by events or feelings drawn 
 from their own reading or experience. 
 This exercise usually occupies an hour, 
 when the children commence writing on 
 their slates, or in books, simple exercises 
 in spelling, reading, definition, expression, 
 drawing, etc. All are competent to write 
 in Roman letters. In a variety of exer- 
 cises on their slates and in their books 
 they pass the day, — three hours in the 
 morning and two hours in the afternoon. 
 Nothing is presented to them without 
 first making it interesting to them, and 
 thus securing their voluntary attention. 
 44 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 They are made happy by taking an inter- 
 est in their own progress and pursuits." 
 
 Their second daughter, Louisa May, 
 was born November 29, 1832, adding one 
 more pupil for her father to observe and 
 to educate. 
 
 Mr. Alcott began to feel that this field 
 was not the best place to develop the 
 scheme for education which had been 
 slowly evolving in his mind since he 
 began to teach, and he inclined toward 
 Boston as a more fitting place for his 
 purposes; but he first tried a school in 
 Philadelphia for one term, with the same 
 lack of success. During his stay in these 
 two places he had enjoyed the best of 
 society; had read extensively the writings 
 of Aristotle, Plato, Bacon, Sir James 
 Mackintosh, Brougham, Carlyle, Cogan, 
 Bulwer's novels, Shelley's poetry, and 
 various works on education, morals and 
 religion, but nothing so absorbed him as 
 studying human nature in his infant 
 daughters. With others he made an 
 45 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 attempt to enlist public thought in ad- 
 vanced ideas of education by lectures 
 and by publishing a journal, but the latter 
 expired at the age of three months. 
 
 Returning to Boston, he opened a 
 school in September, 1834, with thirty 
 pupils between three (his own daughter) 
 and twelve years of age, in Masonic 
 Temple, which was at that time one of 
 the finest buildings in the city. He 
 spared no pains or expense in fitting up 
 the rooms with paintings, busts and 
 books, in order that a picture of ideal 
 beauty and perfection should address 
 itself to the serenity of spirit he con- 
 sidered the native attribute of unspoiled 
 childhood. Thus settled, he indulged 
 in a daydream of a comfortable living 
 and paying up the debts which had 
 naturally accumulated, and he felt that 
 the sensation of thrift was a delight. 
 
 He said: "I shall first remove ob- 
 structions to the growth of the mind; 
 these lie in the appetites, passions, de- 
 46 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 sires, and will. Intellectual results will 
 follow the discipline of Che sentiments; 
 for in these lie the guiding energies of the 
 whole being. He who reaches the will 
 and subdues the desires brings the child 
 under his control, and has commenced 
 the work of human culture on a basis 
 that will sustain and continue. The 
 heart is the seat of action,— material, 
 organic, intellectual, moral— influence 
 this, and the whole being feels the touch. 
 To 'keep this with all diligence ' is the 
 purpose of education, 'for out of it are 
 the issues of life.' " 
 
 Teaching in this high mood, Mr. Alcott 
 found favor with those who were of like 
 faith. Mrs. Alcott's genial spirit and the 
 interest of her brother, S. J. May, added 
 to the influence, and the school went on 
 for the year "from grace to glory." But 
 the difficulties of keeping up to the high 
 mark became evident. 
 
 Mr. Alcott did not find much help from 
 books in his work. He said: "I have 
 47 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 been thrown mostly upon my own re- 
 sources, and have created, from circum- 
 stances and the ideal of my own mind, 
 the material for intellectual and spiritual 
 nurture." 
 
 Miss Elizabeth Peabody assisted him 
 and kept a record of the school from her 
 standpoint, which was published in 1835, 
 and of which it was said, that it was 
 full of interesting Socratic and Platonic 
 matter. Mr. Alcott said of it: "Its ac- 
 ceptance is problematical. It embodies 
 some of my mind and practice, and pre- 
 sents a glimpse of my purpose." William 
 Russell of Philadelphia said of it: "We 
 make use of it at home as a sort of 
 juvenile family Bible. I am truly glad 
 that such a work has come out. I do 
 not know how much good it may do, 
 but it is the most eloquent testimony 
 that I have heard." "The Annals of 
 Education" spoke thus of it: "We must 
 say that while we rejoice to see a ' Record 
 of a School ' from any quarter, while we 
 48 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 wish to see many, and hope to see some 
 called forth to meet the errors of this 
 one, — we regard it as a mingled mass of 
 truth and error, of useful and useless and 
 injudicious principles and methods. It 
 will be interesting to every thinking 
 teacher, but dangerous to the unthinking. 
 We esteem the author highly, and hope 
 reflection and experience will lead him 
 to correct his views." 
 
 Mr. Alcott expressed his satisfaction 
 in the progress of the school thus: "At 
 my school the spiritual fire begins to 
 warm some of the drowsy, cold natures 
 into life and movement; but I have yet 
 much to do. I have succeeded in inter- 
 esting all, have reached the understand- 
 ings of all, and I am feeling my way to 
 their hearts. I am vivifying the imagi- 
 nation; the affections will come along 
 with this. * * * Here are young beings 
 who have lived ten or twelve years, and 
 have not yet learned the first conditions 
 of spiritual progress, — whose views of 
 49 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 obedience and application are adverse 
 to improvement." 
 
 Miss Peabody in describing the school 
 says that about twenty children came 
 the first day, all under ten years of age, 
 except two or three girls. They occupied 
 chairs, sitting in an arc around Mr. Alcott, 
 who began by asking each one his idea of 
 coming to school, and received varied 
 answers, one saying "to learn," another 
 " to behave well," etc., but all agreed that 
 they came to learn, to feel, think and act 
 rightly. Then school discipline was con- 
 sidered, with the conclusion that they 
 would prefer that Mr. Alcott should cor- 
 rect them rather than leave them in their 
 faults. During the talk many anecdotes 
 were related as illustration, and three 
 hours were thus spent with reading. Mr. 
 Alcott was very strict, though mild, re- 
 quiring the closest attention of each one 
 to what he was trying to teach. One of 
 his methods of punishment was to take 
 part of the correction himself, thus prov- 
 50 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 ing that the innocent must suffer with the 
 guilty. The Bible was read constantly 
 in school, Mr. Alcott giving his own 
 peculiar views of the subjects. 
 
 A boy ten years old wrote thus in 1836 : 
 "This morning we began by singing Old 
 Hundred, Mrs. Alcott playing on the 
 piano, and leading us with her voice, 
 which I think is a very fine one. We 
 sang for about a quarter of an hour, and 
 then Mr. Alcott explained to us the words 
 we had just been singing, which I think 
 were very interesting and characteristic. 
 The reading was very interesting. It 
 was about the visitation of God to Moses, 
 from a thunder cloud, on the top of Mt. 
 Sinai, and when he delivered to him the 
 Commandments, which now appear to 
 me much closer and much more strict 
 than before. Mr. Alcott asked all those 
 who had never disobeyed one of the Com- 
 mandments in their whole life to hold up 
 their hands, — not one held up their 
 hands." 
 
 51 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 With the opening of the school, which 
 drew crowds of visitors to its beautiful 
 room, and through the recommendation 
 of Dr. Channing, whom he had met in 
 Philadelphia, and of other influential 
 people, Mr. Alcott became for a while a 
 "Boston favorite" with all that that im- 
 plies. Besides his weekday conversa- 
 tions on Christ and the Gospels, he occa- 
 sionally held Sunday readings in his 
 schoolroom, and from the interest at first 
 shown his ambition pictured "the germ 
 of a church that should bring not only 
 the young but parents and others to hear 
 the simple words of the Gospel, and find 
 something in them suited to their spiritual 
 growth and joy." He says: "I am to 
 teach, — and I am to teach that which is 
 of universal import — the common nature 
 that we inherit. * * * A church, when 
 it shall come, will give me full scope." 
 
 Mr. R. W. Emerson once, after a talk 
 with Mr. Alcott, wrote in his journal: 
 "Friend Alcott declares that a teacher 
 52 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 is one who can assist the child in obeying 
 his own mind, and who can remove all 
 unfavorable circumstances. He believes 
 that from a circle of twenty well-selected 
 children he could draw in their conversa- 
 tion everything that is in Plato, and much 
 better in form than it is in Plato." 
 
 In 1837 Mr. Alcott published the first 
 volume of " Conversations with Children 
 on the Gospels/' which Miss Peabody had 
 reported. In the preface of the book she 
 said they "were recorded, because it was 
 thought that they might prove a model 
 for parents and teachers who were de- 
 sirous of giving a spiritual culture to the 
 young; and also, because Mr. Alcott felt 
 that what the children should freely say 
 would prove to be a new order of Chris- 
 tian Evidences, by showing the affinity 
 of their natures with that of Jesus." Mr. 
 Alcott said of it, " It is the Record of an 
 attempt to unfold the Idea of Spirit from 
 the Consciousness of Childhood; and to 
 trace its Intellectual and Corporal Rela- 
 53 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 tions, its Temptations and Discipline, its 
 Struggles, and Conquests, while in the 
 Flesh. To this end the character of 
 Jesus has been presented to the consider- 
 ation of children, as the brightest Symbol 
 of Spirit, and they have been encouraged 
 to express their views regarding it." 
 
 The book and author alike were severe- 
 ly criticized by the newspapers. A few 
 passages concerning birth were found 
 especially objectionable, although one 
 cultured lady said of them: "I could not 
 have imagined that those conversations 
 about Birth would not be received with 
 reverence and thanks, by all who might 
 have the privilege of either reading or 
 hearing them. I felt my own mind ele- 
 vated by them." The Daily Advertiser 
 complained that " on the most important 
 and difficult questions this teacher, while 
 he endeavors to extract from his pupils 
 every thought which may come upper- 
 most in their minds, takes care studiously 
 to conceal his own opinions." " In some 
 54 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 cases he gives opinions, and sometimes 
 opinions of very questionable soundness." 
 He supposes "that a new era in philos- 
 ophy is dawning upon us in the discovery 
 that childhood is a type of the divinity." 
 The Courier, a paper which afterward 
 stood bravely by the unpopular cause, 
 compared Mr. Alcott with Kneeland, who 
 had been indicted for blasphemy, and 
 suggested that he also be brought before 
 the honorable judge of the municipal 
 court. Mr. Emerson came to his defense 
 and wrote to the Courier a censure for 
 what it published. He said, "In that 
 work [Conversations on the Gospels] a 
 passage or two occurs which, separated 
 from the connection in the book, might 
 give great uneasiness to many readers. 
 Precisely these passages one of the daily 
 papers selected, and dragging them out 
 of the protection of the philosophy and 
 religion which hedged them round, held 
 them up to censure in its columns. These 
 unlucky scriptures, innocent enough to 
 55 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 the reader of the whole book, were copied 
 with horror into another paper and kin- 
 dled the anger of your correspondent. 
 * * * In behalf of this book, I have but 
 one plea to make, — this, namely, let it be 
 read." 
 
 The excitement about the book ran 
 high; at one time a mob threatened to 
 assault him at one of his evening con- 
 versations, but this plan was not carried 
 out, and quiet soon followed. The sale 
 of the book, which at first had been rapid, 
 ceased ; but the next month he published 
 the second volume. Some years after- 
 ward an attorney in Boston sold the re- 
 maining copies by the pound for waste 
 paper. 
 
 The school, which had gradually de- 
 creased from year to year, now numbered 
 only ten. The next year he received a 
 colored girl into the school, and the 
 parents of his other pupils, except one, 
 refused to have their children attend if 
 she remained. Mr. Alcott would not 
 56 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 turn her away, and the school came to an 
 end after five years of existence, there 
 being only his three daughters and one 
 paying pupil besides the colored girl. 
 Thus his idea of laying the foundation of 
 a broad and generous spiritual education 
 for the American people failed, affected 
 by the outcry of the people that he was 
 corrupting the youth of the modern 
 Athens by his conversations. 
 
 During these years Mr. Alcott had in- 
 curred debt, and with all these trials his 
 health was impaired. Now, after con- 
 sidering various plans, he hired a cottage 
 with an acre of land in Concord, Massa- 
 chusetts, where he hoped to support hi 
 family by tilling the land and working 
 for the farmers around him, thus uniting 
 labor with culture, as he " held conversa- 
 tions as well as the plow." The following 
 July, 1840, their fourth daughter, Abby 
 May, was born. 
 
 For a time he worked bravely, but his 
 heart was ever turning toward his mission 
 57 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 in the world — " to inspire thought. " His 
 longings were toward England, where he 
 had made some friends through his books. 
 Through the kindness and liberality of 
 his friend Emerson he went to England 
 in May, 1842, leaving his wife and children 
 in the care of a brother during his absence 
 of six months. In writing to his brother 
 he said: "Come then, — if your wishes 
 and affairs second my request. I find 
 little for my hands to do here; every 
 avenue to honest employment seems 
 closed to me; no one wants me, since I 
 am not a profitable hireling, and rather a 
 questionable person to employ. I have 
 passed days in the woods wielding the 
 axe, but it amounts to little, while my 
 thoughts and interests are far away, and 
 the strokes fall heavy; the best of it is 
 the echo resounding from the blows." 
 
 Arrived in London, he met with a warm 
 reception from his friends, and was soon 
 settled at an institution managed accord- 
 ing to his own ideas and named for him, 
 58 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 "Alcott House." But he failed to find 
 encouragement for his labors there. A 
 few enthusiastic persons were willing to 
 join him in a social reform in New Eng- 
 land, and three men accompanied him 
 home in October for that purpose, and 
 were added to his family for the winter, 
 thus increasing Mrs. Alcott's care and 
 work. 
 
 The next spring they started their ideal 
 community life in Still River, Harvard, 
 purchasing a farm remote from dwellings, 
 and away from any road, and naming the 
 place "Fruitlands," from the imaginary 
 fruit which was to be raised there under 
 their cultivation. 
 
 In "The Dial," a magazine of that 
 time, they thus announced their plan: 
 "Ordinary secular farming is not our 
 objects. Fruit, grain, pulse, herbs, flax 
 and other vegetable products, receiving 
 assiduous attention, will afford ample 
 manual occupation, and chaste supplies 
 for the bodily needs. It is intended to 
 59 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 adorn the pastures with orchards, and to 
 supersede ultimately the labor of the 
 plough and cattle, by the spade and 
 pruning knife. Consecrated to human 
 freedom, the land awaits the sober cul- 
 ture of devout men. * * * The inner 
 nature of every member of the Family 
 is at no time neglected. A constant 
 leaning on the living spirit within the 
 soul should consecrate every talent to 
 holy uses, cherishing the widest charities. 
 The choice library is accessible to all who 
 are desirous of perusing these records of 
 piety and wisdom. Our plan contem- 
 plates all such discipline, cultures, and 
 habits as evidently conduce to the purify- 
 ing of the inmates." 
 
 As they were to have no intercourse 
 with worldly persons, the cares and in- 
 jurious effects of a life of gain would be 
 avoided. The following account of their 
 life has been given: "No animal sub- 
 stance — neither flesh, fish, butter, cheese, 
 eggs nor milk — was allowed to be used at 
 60 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 Fruitlands. They were all denounced as 
 pollution, and as tending to corrupt the 
 body and through that the soul. Tea 
 and coffee, molasses and rice, were also 
 proscribed, — the last two as foreign lux- 
 uries, — and only water was used as a 
 beverage. Mr. Alcott would not allow 
 the land to be manured, which he re- 
 garded as a base and corrupting and un- 
 just mode of forcing nature. He made 
 also a distinction between vegetables 
 which aspired or grew into the air, as 
 wheat, apples, and other fruits, and the 
 base products which grew downwards 
 into the earth, such as potatoes, beets, 
 radishes and the like. These latter he 
 would not allow to be used. The bread 
 of the community he himself made of 
 unbolted flour, and sought to render it 
 palatable by forming loaves into the 
 shape of animals and other pleasant 
 images. He was very strict, indeed 
 rather despotic, in his rule of the com- 
 munity, and some of the members have 
 61 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 told me that they were nearly starved to 
 death there; nay, absolutely would have 
 perished with hunger if they had not 
 furtively gone among the surrounding 
 farmers and begged for food." 
 
 The planting was late, the only crop 
 raised was barley and that was injured 
 in harvesting, and yet Mrs. Alcott was 
 expected to prepare three meals a day 
 for the family, which sometimes num- 
 bered twelve, besides doing the ordinary 
 house work. No wonder she could tell 
 the tragic side of Fruitlands! A cold 
 winter brought Mr. Alcott to realize the 
 necessity of common clothing, for linen 
 garments were not warm enough, cotton 
 clothes had been given up because cotton 
 was produced by slave labor, and wool 
 must not be used, as it was robbing the 
 sheep of their right. The question, how 
 were they to be shod when the shoes they 
 then were wearing were gone, presented 
 itself, " for depriving the cow of her skin 
 was a crime not to be tolerated." Even 
 62 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 the canker-worms on the apple trees were 
 not to be destroyed, as they had a right 
 to the apples, as well as man. 
 
 After a visit to the community Emer- 
 son wrote, "Alcott and Lane are always 
 feeling of their shoulders to find if their 
 wings are sprouting." 
 
 Six months of community life led to 
 its breaking up. By midwinter all had 
 left but Mr. Alcott and his family, and 
 dire poverty stared them in the face. 
 "Then," said Mr. Alcott in telling about 
 it years after with a pathos in his voice, 
 "we put our four little women on an ox 
 sled and made our way to a neighbor's." 
 Broken-hearted, he retired to his chamber, 
 refused food, and was on the point of 
 dying from grief and abstinence, when 
 his wife, the noble heroine that she was, 
 prevailed on him to continue longer in 
 this ungrateful world. 
 
 The next spring found the family 
 settled in East Quarter, Concord; and 
 now for the first time they had a home 
 63 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 of their own, bought with money left to 
 the girls by Mrs. Alcott's father, helped 
 out by a gift from Ralph Waldo Emerson, 
 the never-failing friend of the family. 
 High hopes and ideal dreams had in a 
 few months vanished like a fleeting soap- 
 bubble, leaving only a sad remembrance 
 and perhaps some practical experience. 
 
 In this dilemma Mr. Alcott applied for 
 a primary school to teach, but was re- 
 fused. He says in his diary: "Are there, 
 then, no avenues open to the sympathies 
 of my townspeople? God! wilt thou 
 permit me to be useful to my fellowmen? 
 Suffer me to use my gifts for my neigh- 
 bors' children, if not for themselves, and 
 thus bless the coming, if not the present 
 generation. How long, O Lord! how 
 long wilt thou try me, by the exclusion 
 from the active duties of Church and 
 State, and more than these, from the 
 discharge of my duties to my neighbors 
 and to my neighbors' children? To what 
 ostracism does the frank declaration of 
 64 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 his opinion sometimes drive a candid and 
 thoughtful man! Yet far better this 
 than to tamper with principles and their 
 God. Even the little primary school was 
 denied me,— but my own children are 
 still within reach of my influences; for 
 which and bread for their mouths, and 
 raiment and shelter for their bodies, 
 thou hast put it into the heart of some 
 to spare me from begging these neces- 
 saries. Blessed be poverty, if it make 
 me rich in gratitude and thankfulness 
 and a temper that rails at none! But 
 forgive me for intimating so much in 
 spoken words." 
 
 Failing to obtain the school, Mr. Alcott 
 turned his attention to improving his 
 place, and to reading and meditation in 
 preparation for giving conversations. 
 Terraces were formed on the hill back 
 of the house, walks laid out, trees planted, 
 a rustic arbor built and a bath house 
 constructed from the most gnarled and 
 crooked sticks that could be found in the 
 65 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 woods, and finished with a thatched roof. 
 With Henry D. Thoreau he built for 
 Mr. Emerson a summer house in rustic 
 style dedicated to the nine Muses. Of 
 this Thoreau said : " As for the building, 
 I feel a little oppressed when I come 
 near it." (He passed it on the way from 
 his hermit cabin in Walden woods to the 
 post office.) "It has no great disposi- 
 tion to be beautiful; it is certainly a 
 wonderful structure, on the whole, and 
 the fame of the architect will endure as 
 long as it shall stand." 
 
 Mr. Sanborn said: "It stood a pic- 
 turesque temple, and then a beautiful 
 ruin, for some fifteen years." The 
 thatched roof seemed not to have been 
 adapted to the rigors of New England 
 winters, for two years later, we find this 
 entry in Mr. Alcott's diary: "This morn- 
 ing repair a little thatching and interior 
 of Emerson's summer-house, standing 
 gracefully on the lawn, and embowered 
 now by evergreens set out by Thoreau 
 66 
 
The boys cheered the flag and the maker. 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 and myself. The front gable is seen 
 from the road, and attracts the notice 
 of passers-by, as it did in that autumn 
 while we were building it, — they wonder- 
 ing and prattling about what it could 
 be for." 
 
 The ferment, as Louisa herself would 
 have called it, occasioned in Kast Quarter 
 by the Alcotts moving there soon sub- 
 sided, as in all yeast of good rising quali- 
 ties it should. With his neighbors Mr. 
 Alcott had not much to do, although he 
 was genial and pleasant when circum- 
 stances brought them together, being too 
 much of a gentleman to be otherwise. 
 To one of them, a man of sterling worth 
 and good sense and a good reader withal, 
 he said one day: " There are three grades 
 in man's life, the animal, the intellectual, 
 and the spiritual. I have been where 
 you are, and in time you may be where 
 I am." The remark meant no offence 
 and gave none, the neighbor retaining 
 his own opinion on the subject. The 
 67 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 children shared in his geniality, as he 
 enjoyed their innocent sports. During 
 the Civil War a simple-minded woman of 
 the neighborhood, with more patriotism 
 than good judgment, made a flag and 
 put hearts on it in place of stars, " because 
 they looked just as well and were easier 
 to make/' she said. Then the "Home 
 Guards," a company composed of the 
 young boys of the neighborhood (D. S. 
 Mason, E. W. and J. C. Bull, E. H. 
 Go wing and Henry Wheeler), escorted 
 Mr. Alcott to her house, the flag was 
 raised, and he made a speech. The boys 
 cheered the flag and the maker, and then 
 three times three were given for Mr. 
 Alcott, and the young patriots felt they 
 were good citizens of "Uncle Sam." 
 
 Mr. Alcott was tall and slender, of 
 impressive presence. With his gray hair 
 falling over his coat collar he reminded 
 one of a Patriarch. A clear, pleasing, 
 blue eye lighted up his features, in which 
 a consciousness of merit was quietly, 
 68 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 though none the less firmly, expressed. 
 
 For companions he had Emerson, living 
 between his own house and the village; 
 Thoreau, in his cabin at Walden pond, 
 as it was then called, now the renowned 
 Lake Walden; Hawthorne at the Old 
 Manse, and Ellery Channing in his home 
 in the village. George William Curtis 
 spent a while with the Concord farmers 
 Barrett and Hosmer in 1844-5; and as 
 visitors at times came Margaret Fuller 
 and James Freeman Clarke. With such 
 a company of thinkers Alcott was well 
 satisfied. He could live in complete 
 serenity with his own high thoughts, 
 and continue — as he had once written to 
 his mother in answer to the query, what 
 was he doing? — ' tf Still at my old trade, 
 hoping, which has thus far given food, 
 shelter, raiment, and a few warm friends, 
 who cherish me and mine in this time 
 of need." 
 
 After three years of this precarious life 
 they sold the place to Nathaniel Haw- 
 69 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 thorne and moved to Boston, where Mrs. 
 Alcott was employed as city missionary 
 and, with the daughters, was the main 
 support of the family. Mr. Alcott gave 
 conversations when he found a circle to 
 listen to him. This was his only means 
 of earning money, yet he knew not how 
 to make a correct price for them. So 
 unskilled was he in money matters that 
 one season he put the price of the single 
 tickets so low that it was cheaper to buy 
 them singly than by the course, and he 
 gave generously to those who wished to 
 hear, seeking for listeners, rather than 
 such as were agreeable to the company. 
 
 It is related that at one time, when by 
 a series of questions he was likely to be 
 " driven to the wall/' instead of giving 
 a simple answer, he began talking most 
 delightfully, soaring higher and higher, 
 as if he had "taken the wings of the 
 morning, and" says the reporter, "he 
 brought us all the glories of heaven. I 
 believe none of us could tell what he 
 70 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 said, but we listened with rapture." 
 Perhaps this was the occasion when he 
 forgot to get something for dinner, which 
 his wife had sent for by him, and his 
 excuse was, "he had been up in the 
 clouds." Of these conversations a Bos- 
 tonian said, "It was like going to heaven 
 in a swing." 
 
 After a while he formed a club number- 
 ing more than a hundred. James Russell 
 Lowell, who was one of the members, 
 said of it: "The Club is a singular ag- 
 glomeration. All the persons whom folks 
 think crazy and who return the compli- 
 ment, belong to it. It is as if all the 
 eccentric particles which had refused 
 to revolve in the regular routine of the 
 world's orbit had come together to make 
 a planet of their own." This Club soon 
 died a natural death for want of money. 
 Had Mr. Alcott been a millionaire, many 
 of his visionary schemes would have de- 
 veloped with an appearance at least of 
 success, greatly to his joy and pride. 
 71 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 Conversations proved no more successful 
 in a financial view than teaching had 
 been, and a change must be made. 
 
 Two years were spent in Walpole, 
 New Hampshire (1855-57), where Mrs. 
 Alcott had family friends who gave them 
 the use of a house, and then Concord 
 became their home for the third time. 
 With money left the girls by a relative, 
 an estate was purchased next the one 
 they formerly owned. The buildings 
 were considered nearly worthless, but 
 gave Mr. Alcott a chance to exercise his 
 love for remodelling, and in time, after 
 many changes, a pleasant, tasteful home 
 was the result, with the comforts of real 
 home life. A grand old elm stood in the 
 front yard, and apple trees surrounded 
 the house, which gave it the name of 
 " Orchard House.' ' Soon after his return 
 to Concord, he was appointed superin- 
 tendent of the public schools, the first 
 person to hold that office in the town; 
 in fact, he was quite instrumental in 
 72 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 creating the office. He made trips in 
 the West, lecturing and holding conver- 
 sations, during the winter months, by 
 which at first he only met his own ex- 
 penses, but after Louisa's popularity 
 came, he was able to take money to his 
 family. 
 
 The success of Louisa's " Little 
 Women/' published in 1868, gave her 
 father courage to publish his " Tablets," 
 which was mostly made up of essays that 
 had been printed in the Boston Common- 
 wealth. That was followed by " Concord 
 Days" and a reprint of the "Record of 
 Mr. Alcott's School." 
 
 In the summer of 1879, the school of 
 Philosophy was opened, holding its first 
 session with thirty pupils in Mr. Alcott's 
 study. This was the realization of a 
 long-dreamed ideal, and the crowning 
 glory of his life. As far back as 1840, 
 Mr. Emerson wrote to Margaret Fuller 
 thus: "Alcott and I projected the other 
 day a whole University out of our 
 73 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 straws." Their plan was that a few kin- 
 dred spirits should in some country town, 
 "hold a semester for the instruction of 
 young men." Each would choose his 
 own subject and give lectures or conver- 
 sations thereon each week. "We may 
 on certain evenings combine our total 
 force for conversations; and on Sunday 
 we may meet for worship, and make the 
 Sabbath beautiful to ourselves. The 
 terms shall be left to the settlement of 
 the scholar himself. He shall under- 
 stand that the teacher will accept a fee, 
 and he shall proportionate it to the sense 
 of benefit received and his means." 
 
 This impracticable idea of fees was 
 not carried out when the school became 
 a reality, but the price for attendance 
 was fixed. People from all classes from 
 far and near were drawn to the school, if 
 only for one session. Many came for 
 instruction, and many to see the old his- 
 toric town and take in the school as a 
 side issue; others came to criticise, and 
 74 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 many hoping to see the noted Louisa. 
 
 Mr. Alcott thoroughly enjoyed the 
 renown which he received as Dean, and 
 also the attention given to his gifted 
 daughter. Writing to a friend he said: 
 " Yes, the school is a delight, and a real- 
 ized dream of happy hours in days of 
 sunshine. Life has been a surprise to 
 me during the latter years, and I allow 
 myself to anticipate yet happier sur- 
 prises in the future still to be mine." 
 
 That many of the lectures were in- 
 structive to an intelligent audience no 
 one would deny; that some dealt with 
 the unknowable and unthinkable was 
 also true. Visitors were fond of reporting 
 according to the impression made on 
 their own individual selves. 
 
 For four years Mr. Alcott participated 
 in the school sessions and lived in the 
 zenith of his glory. During the fall of 
 1882 he engaged in writing two sonnets 
 on Immortality, but was stricken with 
 apoplexy, October 24, from which he 
 75 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 never fully recovered. His speech was 
 never again clear; but after a time he 
 was able to drive out, see his friends and 
 now and then make a call, and he visited 
 the school a few times. 
 
 He made his home with his eldest 
 daughter, Mrs. Pratt, going with her 
 family from town to city according to 
 the season. The writer, calling one day 
 during the last years of his life, found 
 him seated by a window in his comfort- 
 able chair; beside and within easy reach 
 was a revolving book-case. She asked 
 what books he read most, and he pointed 
 to those from his own pen, of which 
 there were eight or ten, and looking up, 
 smiled. He gradually declined and 
 passed away, March 4, 1888, at Louis- 
 burg Square, Boston. 
 
 Through life, Mr. Alcott abstained 
 from meat and confined himself to simple 
 diet, though the rest of the family gradu- 
 ally adopted the use of common but not 
 rich food. One morning during the latter 
 76 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 part of his life a guest at breakfast with 
 them remarked, "So you do not eat 
 meat?" He replied, "No, it is a relic 
 of the savage"; then said the guest, "I 
 must be much of a savage for I depend 
 on meat." His courtesy would not allow 
 that, and he said, "not necessarily so, 
 but it belongs to the savage." 
 
 To one looking over Mr. Alcott's ex- 
 perience the fact becomes apparent that 
 many of his peculiar ideas and of the 
 methods which he endeavored to intro- 
 duce in his schools and which caused his 
 failure then, have since come into general 
 use. With all his fanatical and imprac- 
 ticable theories, which often induced 
 ridicule even among his friends, he was 
 pure in heart and character, strong in 
 friendship, and generous to a fault, and 
 his biographer, F. B. Sanborn, says, 
 "When he died he left fewer enemies 
 than any man of equal age can have 
 provoked or encountered in so long a 
 
 career." 
 
 77 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 Though Mr. Alcott was always fine in 
 conversation, he did not write well until 
 he had passed threescore years and had 
 overcome his great self-consciousness. 
 Mr. Emerson said of him, " When he sits 
 down to write all his genius leaves him; 
 he gives you the shell and throws away 
 the kernel of his thought." Lowell gives 
 a similar idea in his Fable for Critics. 
 
 At different times Emerson expressed 
 himself in regard to Mr. Alcott thus, "A 
 wise man, simply superior to display, 
 and drops the best things as quietly as 
 the least." Again after three days spent 
 with him: "I could see plainly that I 
 conversed with the most extraordinary 
 man and the highest genius of the time. 
 * * * Wonderful is his vision. * * * 
 Last night in the conversation, Alcott 
 appeared to great advantage, and I saw 
 again, as often before, his singular su- 
 periority. As pure intellect I have never 
 seen his equal. * * * Alcott is a ray of 
 the oldest light. They say the light of 
 78 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 some stars that parted from the orb at 
 the deluge of Noah has only now reached 
 our earth." 
 
 79 
 
Mrs. Alcott 
 
 Mrs. Alcott, whose maiden name was 
 Abigail May, was born in Boston, October 
 8, 1800, the youngest of twelve children. 
 Her father was Colonel Joseph May, her 
 mother, Dorothy Sewell; thus she in- 
 herited from the best of New England 
 blood. She says of herself: " My school- 
 ing was much interrupted by ill health, 
 but I danced well and at the dancing 
 school remember having for partners 
 some boys who afterward became eminent 
 divines. I did not love study but books 
 were attractive." When nineteen, she 
 studied with a private teacher, French, 
 Latin and botany, read history exten- 
 sively and made notes of such books as 
 Hume, Gibbon and Hallam's Middle Ages. 
 
 She first met Mr. Alcott at her 
 brother's, Rev. Samuel J. May, when 
 
 Note. — All quoted passages are excerpts from "Memoir 
 of Bronson Alcott." 
 
 80 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 he went to confer with Mr. May in regard 
 to schools and education, and though 
 going a stranger, extended his visit 
 through a week. How much the sister's 
 presence had to do with the prolonged 
 stay may not be told, but evidently it 
 was a case of love at first sight on the 
 part of both. She said: "His views of 
 education were very attractive. I was 
 charmed by his modesty, his earnest 
 desire to promote better advantages for 
 the young.' ' 
 
 In after years she used to say he looked 
 to her as she had always fancied Jesus 
 did, and for some time she did not under- 
 stand whether her feeling toward him 
 was love v worship, but after a year's 
 absence nytnt with a brother in the 
 West, by which her father hoped she 
 might outgrow her interest in Mr. Alcott, 
 she decided it was true love. In a letter 
 to him, after reading some pages of his 
 diary, she thus expresses herself: "Your 
 journal has been most interesting and 
 81 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 valuable to me. You have revealed the 
 man I have wished to know, and the 
 being I thought alone I could love. 
 * * * When I speak of Love, I do not 
 mean that flippant little god to whom 
 votaries of fashion address their prayers, 
 whose wings they sometimes borrow and 
 flutter through the bowers of ideal roses 
 and lilies; nor those more careless pur- 
 suers of pleasure who i kneel at every 
 shrine and lay their heart on none/ 
 No, — I mean that clear though deep 
 current of affection which, stealing un- 
 observed into all the recesses of the heart, 
 issues thence only in the pure healthy 
 rills of kindness, tenderness, good will, 
 devotion. This is what I feel for the 
 only being whom I ever loved as com- 
 panionable, or with whom I could asso- 
 ciate in the heavenly tie of matrimony." 
 It was this true love, kindled at first 
 sight and deepened and strengthened 
 through all their married life of nearly 
 fifty years, united with her naturally 
 82 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 cheerful, hopeful disposition, and her 
 firm faith, which never wavered, in Mr. 
 Alcott's real worth and in a better time 
 coming when people would come to 
 understand and appreciate him, which 
 enabled her to bear without complaint 
 his successive failures and the consequent 
 straitened condition of the family. 
 Their marriage was solemnized May 23, 
 1830, in King's Chapel, Boston, where 
 her father was warden for many years. 
 The ceremony was performed by her 
 brother, Rev. Samuel J. May. From 
 this time on, through many years, hope- 
 ful anticipation and sad disappointment 
 alternated in the lives of the couple thus 
 united. Only two months after their 
 marriage she wrote her brother: "My 
 husband is the perfect personification of 
 modesty and moderation. I am not sure 
 that we shall not blush into obscurity 
 and contemplate into starvation. " Little 
 did she then dream how near the truth 
 was this expression. 
 83 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 Mrs. Alcott was a person of energy 
 and executive ability united with real 
 common sense, of which her daughters 
 said in mature years they " would rather 
 have one particle of mother's common 
 sense than all father's philosophy/' and 
 she could not fail to be often sorely tried 
 with the easy-going, impracticable ways 
 of her husband. Yet, with her naturally 
 quick and impulsive temperament, she 
 so schooled herself that impatience was 
 seldom exhibited. Of her patient en- 
 durance with his absent-minded habits 
 one who boarded in the family during 
 their last living in Boston gives this 
 instance, the only time he knew of her 
 speaking impatiently to Mr. Alcott. One 
 morning when he went out she commis- 
 sioned him to procure a certain article 
 needed for dinner; on his return at noon 
 she asked for it; he replied, "he had for- 
 gotten all about it, he had been up in the 
 clouds." In her disappointment she said 
 hastily, "I wish you had stayed there," 
 84 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 and the next instant she would regret 
 the remark. 
 
 The December following their mar- 
 riage their wandering life began with 
 their going to Philadelphia for a few 
 months, then to Germantown, where 
 Mr. Alcott opened a school. She thus 
 writes to her brother in the spring : " This 
 is the anniversary of my wedding day, 
 and I devote an hour to you in living 
 over the past and projecting the future. 
 It has been an eventful year, — a year of 
 trial, of happiness, of improvement. I 
 can wish no better fate to any sister of 
 the sex than has attended me since my 
 entrance into the conjugal state. Our 
 prospects are good. I wish you could 
 see our delightful situation. You would 
 not wonder that we went to our last 
 dollar to establish ourselves in this little 
 paradise. Imagination never pictured 
 out to me a residence so perfectly to my 
 mind. I wish my friends could see how 
 delightfully I am settled. My father has 
 85 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 never married a daughter or seen a son 
 more completely happy than I am. I 
 have cares, and soon they will be arduous 
 ones; but with the mild, constant and 
 affectionate sympathy and aid of my 
 husband, with the increasing health and 
 loveliness of my quiet and bright little 
 Anna, with the co-operation and efficient 
 care of my nurse and housekeeper, a 
 house whose neatness and order would 
 cope with Federal Court, a garden lined 
 with raspberries, currants, gooseberry 
 bushes, a large ground with a beautiful 
 serpentine walk shaded with pines, firs, 
 cedars, apple, pear, peach and plum 
 trees, a long cedar hedge from the back 
 to the front fence, with good health, clear 
 head, grateful heart and ready hand, — 
 what can I not do when surrounded by 
 influences like these? What can I leave 
 undone with so many aids?" 
 
 The society here she found attractive 
 and congenial to her taste, and she later 
 writes to her brother: "Our prospects 
 86 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 are pleasant and encouraging; we have 
 found many very important friends, and, 
 though in Germantown, we shall not be 
 cut off from their generous and intelligent 
 society. We enjoy the simple habits and 
 manners of the people here very much. 
 You would be delighted with the cheerful 
 and natural behavior of the most wealthy 
 and aristocratic part of society. The 
 Friends are the majority, and this, I 
 suppose, gives a dignified, tranquil and 
 simple air to the whole. " 
 
 But this scene of domestic happiness 
 did not long continue. The school was 
 not a success, and in the autumn of 1834 
 they returned to Boston with their two 
 little girls, Anna and Louisa, and teach- 
 ing was again tried with the old lack of 
 success. When the clouds were darken- 
 ing their horizon, this heroic woman thus 
 writes: "You have seen how roughly 
 they have handled my husband. He has 
 been a quiet sufferer, but not the less a 
 sufferer because quiet. He stands to it, 
 87 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 through all, that this is not an ungrate- 
 ful, cruel world. I rail; he reasons, and 
 consoles me as if I were the injured one. 
 I do not know a more exemplary hero 
 under trials than this same i visionary/ 
 He has more philosophy than half the 
 persons who are afraid he is thinking too 
 much. His school is very small, or will 
 be at the commencement of another 
 quarter. He will begin with about ten 
 or a dozen here for the summer term. 
 I sometimes think extreme poverty 
 awaits us. With the idea comes before 
 my mind a thousand enterprises and 
 expedients. But oh, my girls! what ex- 
 posure may they be subjected to! But I 
 do not woo doubt, but I wed sorrow, and 
 I surely do not need that alliance to 
 promote either my faith or hope. * * * 
 I am no angel, though I expect to be one 
 of these days. I never aspired to any kind 
 of a pinion but a goose-quill, and I shall 
 be very apt to flop that about when there 
 is anybody who cares to see my flight." 
 88 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 When trials and persecutions ran high 
 she thus writes: "It is a low state of 
 moral discrimination which will give the 
 man an honorable discharge who has 
 been twenty years gambling in fancy 
 stocks, but drives into the regions of 
 starvation an exalted spirit, whose de- 
 sires and efforts for the twenty best 
 years of his life have been to elevate and 
 improve the moral and intellectual con- 
 dition of mankind. I try not to believe 
 it; but the cruel sacrifices we are daily 
 called upon to make compel me to des- 
 pair of better things yet awhile. Can 
 Mr. Alcott have time to work out his 
 problem, we may yet hide our faces and 
 strike our breasts for shame at our in- 
 credulity. I say ours for I have been 
 among the sceptics, and he still thinks 
 me almost impotent in faith. But his 
 patient endurance often staggers me, and 
 the undaunted manner with which he 
 assumes his burden and cares, giving up, 
 with cheerful submission, those things 
 89 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 which I know are dear to his heart and 
 lovely to his eye, for the rigors of toil 
 and privation — fill me with admiration. 
 There is no sighing nor complaining, but 
 silent bowing to the dispensation of in- 
 justice and ignorance, — where he had 
 reasonably expected intelligent co-opera- 
 tion, or loving patience. Let us, my 
 dear brother, sustain him. This is my 
 resolution. Depend upon it, a reality 
 is here, which does not show itself all on 
 the surface. There is a depth from 
 which pure and living water wells up at 
 times, to refresh thirsty souls, — supplied 
 from the source of all life." 
 
 Probably the experience at Fruitlands 
 was the hardest strain on Mrs. Alcott, 
 both physically and mentally, and must 
 have been a great test of her faith in her 
 husband. With four children, the oldest 
 twelve years, and others, making a family 
 sometimes numbering more than a 
 dozen, the care and work falling mostly 
 upon her, the necessity of preparing three 
 90 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 meals a day principally from barley, 
 and the effort to change the method of 
 cooking that one article, so as to form an 
 appetizing dish, must have told on her 
 strength. She once said that during the 
 stay there the only opportunity given her 
 for a rest was, when suffering with a sick 
 headache, brought on from overwork, 
 she was obliged to keep her bed for a day. 
 Yet when the experiment came to its 
 sad end, she was the one to encourage 
 her husband to try again. 
 
 The years of the Alcotts' first living 
 in the East Quarter were a season of great 
 trial to Mrs. Alcott, as in fact was all her 
 married life, till Louisa's writing brought 
 in money for the family. They owned 
 their house, but it would not feed or 
 clothe six persons. With his failure at 
 Fruitlands Mr. Alcott had given up some 
 of his peculiar views of diet and dress, 
 but he was not a success at tilling the 
 ground. Perhaps his recent experience 
 and disappointment may have tended 
 91 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 to a morbid idea of farming, for he said 
 to a neighbor one day, " Working in the 
 earth soils one's soul." The girls were 
 too young at that time to teach. Their 
 manner of living was inexpensive. Mrs. 
 Alcott with her deft fingers fitted over 
 clothing given by friends for the girls, 
 and by her cheerful, brave spirit made 
 the home pleasant; no one seeing her 
 for a short time would have imagined 
 the wolf was threatening at the door. 
 At one time a simple-minded girl was 
 boarded there to help out the income. 
 When the family went to Boston to live 
 in 1848, Mrs. Alcott was at first employed 
 there as city missionary, then sometimes 
 had boarders, and at one time kept an 
 intelligence office. Mr. Alcott gave con- 
 versations. The quiet gentle Elizabeth 
 (Beth of " Little Women") became the 
 housekeeper, while Anna and Louisa 
 taught, sewed, became companions to 
 friends or invalids, wrote and did what- 
 ever came to hand in their line of talent, 
 92 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 Anna always doing her part to help along. 
 At one time Louisa filled the place of 
 second girl in a family. As it was honest 
 labor, she was glad to do it till something 
 more congenial offered. During this life 
 in Boston Mr. Alcott began his lecturing 
 trips in the West. The return from the 
 first one, with almost an empty pocket- 
 book, is most pathetically described in 
 Louisa's "life, Letters and Journal/' 
 and the noble, self-denying spirit of Mrs. 
 Alcott was exhibited when, though sorely 
 disappointed, she tenderly commended 
 his effort and hoped for better results in 
 the future. It was not till Louisa became 
 noted through "Little Women" that her 
 father's lecture trips brought much 
 money; then at one time he returned 
 with two hundred dollars. As the result 
 of one of his later trips he handed his 
 wife a hundred-dollar bill; she repressed 
 her pleasure and satisfaction; then 
 another was given her, and so on till five 
 hundred dollars was laid in her hand. 
 93 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 His last trip in 1880-81 realized him one 
 thousand dollars, and he enjoyed the 
 notoriety his daughter's fame gave him. 
 A happy and thankful woman was 
 Mrs. Alcott when for the second time 
 they moved to the East Quarter, Concord, 
 into a house all their own, and from this 
 time she enjoyed all the comforts that 
 love and a considerable sum of money 
 could give, the latter increasing as the 
 years went on. This was just after the 
 death of Elizabeth, the quiet, gentle girl 
 whose loving care and service made their 
 home life so beautiful. While living in 
 Walpole, just before their return to 
 Concord, Mrs. Alcott went to a neigh- 
 bor's where the children had the scarlet 
 fever, to see that they had proper care. 
 Through her Elizabeth took the fever 
 and never fully recovered from its effect. 
 A little affair of the heart about that 
 time, which did not meet the approval 
 of her parents, had the effect of causing 
 a gradual decline, and she passed away 
 94 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 from her earthly home at the age of 
 twenty-three years. The mother's heart 
 was sorely bereaved, but her hopeful 
 spirit turned bravely toward those left, 
 with thankfulness trusting for their 
 future usefulness and worth. 
 
 The Civil War came on, and while 
 deprecating war, she thoroughly sympa- 
 thized with and believed in the liberation 
 of the slaves, and was ready to do all she 
 could for them, even to letting Louisa go 
 as nurse. I was calling there one day 
 when a covering for a quilt was needed 
 for the soldiers and she went into the 
 attic and brought down a dress of the 
 dear departed Lizzie's, saying: "The 
 girls think Lizzie's clothes too sacred to 
 be touched, but this had better be in 
 use for the soldiers than lying in the 
 attic. Come again if you need anything 
 else." All through her life the deserving 
 poor received help from her if possible. 
 
 During the years after the close of the 
 war it was a great pleasure to sit by her 
 95 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 as she plied her ever busy needle, sitting 
 in her low rocker beside a window of 
 the sitting room with her basket of work 
 on the deep-cushioned seat, and to listen 
 to her recital of "what the girls were 
 doing/' the one with her pen, the other 
 with her brush. The natural motherly 
 pride and satisfaction she enjoyed was 
 a delight to witness and sympathize with, 
 and has been a pleasant remembrance 
 these many years. She told once how 
 Louisa, by questioning, would get her to 
 tell some of her experiences in the early 
 days in Boston; then with her merry 
 laugh she would add, "The next thing I 
 would know, she had woven the whole 
 into a story, such as you find in ' The Old 
 Fashioned Girl' and others of her books." 
 Once she explained her husband's re- 
 ligious belief, and in what way he differed 
 from Mr. Emerson. And again she told 
 of one evening when company was there 
 and some one proposed taking the lights 
 out of the room and having each one tell 
 96 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 a ghost story to see which could do the 
 best; after several had related their tale, 
 Louisa's turn came, but before she was 
 done someone asked to have the lights 
 brought back, as the scene was becoming 
 too gruesome for the dark. 
 
 Often have I recalled the story of the 
 load of wood which Mrs. Alcott told us 
 during a drive one day. One cold Satur- 
 day morning in early winter, when they 
 lived in the west part of the town, a boy 
 from a poor neighbor came to borrow 
 some wood ; their own supply was 1 early 
 gone, but Mr. Alcott with true generosity 
 if not justice to his own family, rot only 
 gave him a good part of it, but wl ee led 
 it to his home. Mrs. Alcott would gladly 
 share their meagre supply with a needy 
 i cighbor, but felt that their own childrn , 
 the youngest of whom was a baby, should 
 rot suffer, and importuned him to go to 
 the village, three-quarters of a mile away, 
 and order more, but his comfortable 
 room with his books attracted him and 
 97 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 he said they would trust to Providence 
 that wood would come or the weather 
 moderate. Wagon loads of wood did 
 often pass the house on the way to the 
 village. Leaving him to his comfort she 
 went about her work, but with anxious 
 thoughts and wondering what would turn 
 up. As the hours passed the clouds 
 threatened a snowstorm. Along in the 
 afternoon, going into the west room to 
 see that the windows were all secure, 
 she spied a load of wood surely enough 
 coming down the street, but concluded 
 to say nothing to her husband, wishing 
 to see how matters would turn out. In 
 front of the house the driver stopped and 
 called at the door to see if they would 
 not take his load of wood; there was a 
 storm coming on and he wanted to get 
 home; if he could leave it they might 
 pay when convenient. Then Mr. Alcott 
 with his usual calmness, a trait he rather 
 prided himself upon possessing, turned 
 to his wife, saying, " Did I not tell you, 
 98 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 my dear, that Providence would pro- 
 vide?" 
 
 Mrs. Alcott, with her large generous 
 heart which took in all who needed help, 
 or sympathy, her motherly ways and 
 practical kindly advice full of useful 
 wisdom, was greatly beloved and re- 
 spected by all who had the pleasure of 
 her friendship. Watching jealously for 
 the good of her own daughters, her in- 
 terest went out to others as well, and 
 many a young person welcomed counsel 
 from her lips. In her concern for the 
 welfare of the rising generation, she 
 endeavored, as opportunity offered, to 
 stimulate in the young mind a love for 
 all that was good and helpful in life. 
 When the Teacher's Institute, the first 
 held in the state, was in session in Con- 
 cord, she sought an interview with the 
 young ladies of that body during a noon 
 intermission, and gave a practical talk 
 on themes of interest to them. Had she 
 lived in the present time, she probably 
 99 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 would have lectured to mothers on home 
 and ethical topics. She was an easy, 
 interesting and instructive talker on all 
 the subjects of the day, never stooping 
 to frivolous talk or gossip. A physician 
 who attended her in sickness said it was 
 wonderful, the range of knowledge she 
 possessed and the pleasure he had in 
 listening to her. None came to my 
 father's house who so engaged my interest 
 in their conversation as did Mrs. Alcott. 
 To listen to her suggestions, her graphic 
 descriptions, her humorous recital of 
 some ludicrous incident, her pathos in 
 serious matters, was a treat to my youth- 
 ful mind. Her hearty but refined laugh 
 was like a cordial, and a call from her 
 left all present in a cheerful, happy 
 mood. 
 
 Vivid in my mind is the picture of a 
 bonnet Mrs. Alcott wore at one time, 
 which had an unique history. A farmer 
 bought it in Boston as a present for his 
 wife, at an exorbitant price, and of a 
 100 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 very beautiful milliner who was after- 
 wards accused of poisoning her husband. 
 The farmer's wife wore it a while, then 
 gave it to a lady in Concord who used to 
 wear it doing her chores round the yard. 
 Mrs. Alcott seeing her one day with it 
 on exclaimed: "What a pretty bonnet! 
 how sensible! just what I would like!" 
 (it was a fine Dunstable straw in what 
 was known as the Quaker style) "so 
 much more comfortable than the present 
 fashion." The bonnet was accordingly 
 passed over to her and worn on her 
 errands to the village and round the 
 neighborhood. It was easily put on, 
 requiring no look in the mirror for its 
 right adjustment, and was also very 
 becoming. 
 
 The Alcotts, while most zealously 
 recommending vegetable diet, daily 
 shower baths and outdoor exercise, with 
 plain living and pure thinking, all of 
 which they practised, did not make them- 
 selves obnoxious with their individual 
 101 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 theories. Of the cold water practice the 
 writer had a personal experience, the 
 recollection of which even to this day 
 causes a shiver. As I was rather a 
 weakly child, Mrs. Alcott thought the 
 cold shower bath would be a benefit to 
 me; so one morning I went there for a 
 bath, which she administered herself, 
 following it by a faithful rubbing; then 
 I started for home with the injunction to 
 "walk fast/' but alas! I reached home 
 with shivering limbs and chattering teeth. 
 Another time a cold sheet pack was 
 administered ; blankets and comfortables 
 were of no avail to bring the desired re- 
 action; after waiting the usual time, I 
 was dressed and sent to walk in the 
 summer sunshine to regain a normal 
 condition. Thus ended the heroic cold 
 water treatment for me, and without it 
 I have outlived their entire family. 
 
 As age came on, the hardships of her 
 earlier life began to tell on Mrs. Alcott's 
 health, and in September, 1866, just 
 102 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 after Louisa's return from her last trip 
 to Europe, she was very sick, and she 
 was never again the same strong, ener- 
 getic woman as before. The next sum- 
 mer the dropsy which accompanied her 
 heart trouble affected the brain, and 
 for a little while bewilderment followed. 
 Through the last decade of her life, ill 
 turns were frequent, but her patience 
 failed not, and she enjoyed the continued 
 success of "the girls" as she always 
 called Louisa and May. Her little grand- 
 sons were a delight to her. She was fre- 
 quently able to drive out and she enjoyed 
 the old scenes. In September, 1877, 
 came the final illness. May was abroad, 
 but Louisa nursed her, writing stories 
 while the mother slept. In October a 
 nurse was procured to assist Louisa. 
 The previous summer Anna (Mrs. Pratt) 
 had bought a house in the village which 
 she and her boys were occupying; Mrs. 
 Alcott was carried there November 14, 
 her husband and Louisa going with her. 
 103 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 Anna thus writes of her mother's last 
 days: "About a week before her death, 
 at her earnest request we brought her 
 to my house, hoping the change might 
 help her. But it was too late. As she 
 was borne up stairs in her chair she said, 
 'The ascension has begun/ and so it 
 proved, for she slowly drifted upward 
 until just at night, November 25, she 
 fell asleep peacefully. So tranquil was 
 the departure we hardly realized she had 
 left us, and sat long about her, watching 
 the happy face and rejoicing that she was 
 at rest. All day she had been murmuring 
 to herself of the joy at going, saying again 
 and again, ' Oh, how beautiful it is to die, 
 how happy I am.' How can we mourn 
 when she was so glad? And yet so large 
 a heart cannot cease to beat without 
 leaving a sad void behind, and no words 
 can express how we miss her." Quiet 
 services were held at the house on the 
 28th, and she was laid beside the beloved 
 Lizzie in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. 
 104 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 Mr. Sanborn says of the Alcotts, in 
 his memoir of Mr. Aleott: " Scarcely any 
 family in America lias published more 
 volumes, and no portion of our New 
 England literature is more characteristic, 
 or will furnish more material for the 
 future critic, than these books. But the 
 best writer in the Aleott family was she 
 who never published a book, and perhaps 
 never thought of writing one, — Mrs. 
 Aleott, whose literary gift was greater 
 than that of her famous daughter, or 
 that of her more original husband." 
 
 Mr. Aleott in his sonnets pays this 
 tribute to his wife : 
 
 "Dear heart! If aught to human love I've owed 
 For noble furtherance of the good and fair; 
 Climbed I, by bold emprise, the dizzying stair 
 To excellence, and was by thee approved, 
 In memory cherished and the more beloved; 
 If fortune smiled, and late-won liberty, — 
 'Twas thy kind favor all, thy generous legacy. 
 Nor didst thou spare thy large munificence 
 Me here to pleasure amply and maintain, 
 But conjured from suspicion and mischance, 
 105 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 Exile, misapprehension, cold disdain, 
 For my loved cloud-rapt dream, supremacy; 
 To bright reality transformed romance, 
 Crowning with smiles the hard-earned victory." 
 
 106 
 
Anna 
 
 Perhaps no babe was ever so closely 
 watched, with her every motion, look, 
 growth of body and development of 
 mind more minutely and carefully re- 
 corded by a father, as was Anna Bronson, 
 the eldest child of Mr. and Mrs. Alcott, 
 born in Germantown, Pennsylvania, 
 March 16, 1831. Yet she grew up quite 
 a child of nature, inheriting from each 
 parent their best qualities; from the 
 father a gentle and hopeful spirit, with 
 her mother's large-heartedness, affection, 
 cheerfulness and enduring love. With 
 her a real friendship once formed was 
 never broken or slighted, unless the 
 object proved unworthy; then she relent- 
 lessly tore it from her heart. 
 
 With her friends she was open-hearted 
 and affectionate, her greeting to them 
 was such as to leave no doubt in their 
 107 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 mind of her sincerity and devotion. 
 From her modest and retiring manner, 
 no one meeting her casually would ever 
 imagine the amount of sentiment and 
 romance in her nature. Of lively imagi- 
 nation and quick perception of the lu- 
 dicrous, she found much even in the 
 details of everyday life to amuse, and 
 had a happy faculty of picturing it to 
 others. This was a strong trait in the 
 whole family, and gave them much 
 simple diversion among themselves at 
 their own fireside. It was as good as a 
 play to hear from each the several recita- 
 tions of their experience of the day, as 
 they gathered round the table at night, 
 each vying with the other to add her part 
 to the family entertainment. 
 
 Anna was a natural actor and delighted 
 in tableaux and simple plays, never out- 
 growing the pleasure thus afforded. In- 
 deed at one time she hoped to make 
 acting her profession, and had she done 
 so, no doubt another name of the family 
 108 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 would have acquired fame, but partial 
 deafness affecting her at that time, she 
 was obliged to relinquish the idea, much 
 to her regret and the delight of her 
 parents, who did not favor the plan. 
 
 A graceful and interesting writer, she 
 sometimes indulged in composing short 
 stories, and the incident told in " Little 
 Women" of "Jo" writing a story and 
 reading it to her mother and sisters as 
 if it was in a newspaper, really belongs 
 to the modest, unpretentious Anna. 
 Their appreciation of the story was a 
 great pleasure to her, yet she never 
 aspired to writing a book in those days. 
 After her mother's death she hoped 
 sometime she might have the leisure 
 to prepare a memorial befitting that 
 noble woman, but the opportunity never 
 came. 
 
 Had she chosen authorship instead of 
 marriage and motherhood, she would 
 have made a success in that line. Ro- 
 mance would have been her forte; sweet, 
 109 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 noble characters would have developed 
 under her pen, while every unworthy act 
 would have received condign punish- 
 ment. Her letters to her friends were 
 delightful; one of her correspondents 
 wrote on receiving a letter from her, "A 
 real feast of kind-heartedness, love and 
 sympathy." 
 
 When quite young she began to teach, 
 but never in a public school; usually a 
 few pupils in the family of some friend. 
 When they lived in Boston she and 
 Louisa had a school of girls at one time 
 in the house where they lived. After- 
 ward, through her mother's brother, who 
 was the pastor of a church in Syracuse, 
 New York, she obtained a position in a 
 state institution there, an asylum for 
 feeble-minded children. She disliked it, 
 but concluded to try to be contented be- 
 cause it was duty. Thus here and there, 
 teaching, sewing, or as companion, she 
 did her part to the support of the family, 
 sometimes enduring untoward treatment 
 110 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 without complaint because money was 
 needed. 
 
 During a winter spent at home when 
 Elizabeth (Beth) was not well and was 
 confined to the house, the girls took part 
 in acting plays with a few of the young 
 people of the village; Elizabeth enjoyed 
 seeing them dress, and their description 
 of the fun; it served to brighten her 
 shut-in hours. When the play required 
 lovers it somehow came about that their 
 parts were given to Anna and to John 
 Pratt, the son of one of Concord's honored 
 farmers, who came there from the " Brook 
 Farm community. " The young man 
 was just home from the West, which fact, 
 with his manly appearance, made him 
 attractive to a girl of a romantic turn of 
 mind like Anna, and so quite naturally, 
 from acting they became lovers in truth, 
 and in early spring surprised their friends 
 by announcing their engagement. 
 
 After two years of sweet wooing they 
 were married on the 23rd day of May, 
 111 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 1860, the anniversary of the marriage 
 of her father and mother; Mrs. Alcott's 
 brother performing the ceremony as he 
 had the parents' thirty years before. 
 It was a quiet family wedding service 
 which united these two young people for 
 life; the concluding festivities, after 
 some old custom, of a dance by the elder 
 people circling the bridal pair under the 
 old Revolutionary elm, which gracefully 
 bent its branches over them within hand- 
 reach from the lawn, formed a pretty and 
 unique final to their romantic wooing. 
 
 A pretty, simple cottage in Chelsea, 
 surrounded by apple trees which had put 
 on their bridal costume of delicate pink 
 and white for the occasion was the home 
 where John Pratt took his dear Anna. 
 Here the young bride, who possessed her 
 mother's domestic qualities, devoted her- 
 self to making her home an attractive 
 place for enjoyment for her adored hus- 
 band. Two boys came to complete their 
 happiness, but they were not twins as 
 112 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 Louisa represented in " Little Women," 
 there being two years between their 
 births. As her deafness increased, Mrs. 
 Pratt withdrew more and more from the 
 outside world and found her greatest 
 delight in doing for her family, not, how- 
 ever, neglecting kind offices for others, 
 when opportunity and calls came to her. 
 As the talents of her sisters became 
 developed, she was very proud of them, 
 and justly so, and loved to tell incidents 
 of their experiences, ever placing herself 
 in the background. What was said of 
 her grandmother May was equally true 
 of her: "She was reserved in her deport- 
 ment; she loved the doing of a good 
 action better than the describing it. 
 She never said great things, but did ten 
 thousand generous ones. Her heart was 
 all tenderness." Thus loving and loved, 
 ten years of happy wedded life passed, 
 and then the shadow of death came and 
 the husband and father was taken from 
 them. 
 
 113 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 Now her life became bound up in her 
 two boys, and for their sakes she moved 
 to Concord, and with money from the 
 life insurance of her husband, helped out 
 by a sum from Louisa, bought a home in 
 the village, known as the "Thoreau 
 house." It had been the home of the 
 mother and sisters of Henry D. Thoreau, 
 and he had died there. In one of the 
 rooms hung a painting of him, taken 
 when he was a young man. When the 
 last sister died, she requested that the 
 picture remain in the house so long as 
 it was occupied by people who were in- 
 terested in her brother, and then be 
 placed in the library of the town. Mr. 
 F. B. Sanborn was the first occupant, 
 and Mrs. Pratt followed him, and so the 
 portrait was there for years, but it now 
 hangs on the walls of the library. 
 
 The winter after her mother's death, 
 
 which occurred at her house, she wrote 
 
 to a friend thus: "Father and Louisa 
 
 are with me now ; our plans are unsettled 
 
 114 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 for another year. I think it doubtful if 
 they ever return to the old house (the 
 Orchard House). It will never be home 
 to us without the dear mother. She was 
 for so many years the centre of all our 
 hopes and plans; we hardly feel recon- 
 ciled to the change, and life seems empty 
 and sad enough. And yet we cannot 
 wish her back, when she so longed to go. 
 The end so beautiful, so happy, so peace- 
 ful, all suffering past and only present 
 the joyful thought of the speedy release, 
 the longed-for reunion. I am now the 
 house mother and full of cares, every- 
 one coming to me for everything, but 
 it is good to feel so necessary and I 
 keep up good heart and feel glad my 
 shoulders are so broad and strong for 
 the burden." 
 
 As her two boys, Fred and John, ar- 
 rived at the age to have some occupation, 
 they both entered the publishing house 
 of Roberts Brothers, in Boston, the firm 
 who had been not only Miss Alcott's 
 115 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 publishers but her kindly advisers and 
 warm friends. 
 
 Mr. Alcott and Louisa continued the 
 rest of their lives to make their home 
 with Mrs. Pratt. The house was large 
 and old-fashioned, with front door in 
 the middle; but soon Anna writes: " We 
 are always trying something new, for 
 perhaps you will remember ' The Alcotts ' 
 can never be quiet. So we have been 
 improving a little and puttirg a wing to 
 my already big house. In this we have 
 a fine new study, with piazza and room 
 above for Louisa. This gives us more 
 convenience and father a room for his 
 library. How I wish you would come 
 here to live. What good times we would 
 have together reading and walking, etc. 
 When you come to Concord it must 
 always be a part of your plan to make 
 Annie's home one of your abiding places. 
 I am almost as romantic as when we 
 wrote sixteen love letters a day to each 
 other. I find my old friends so much 
 116 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 more satisfactory than my new ones I 
 make nowadays that I seem to cling to 
 them." 
 
 The opening of the " School of Phil- 
 osophy" in 1879 added much to her cares, 
 because of the numerous visitors eager 
 to see, not only the home of Louisa, but 
 herself if possible. Her father asked 
 one day why they did not go to the 
 School? Al 1 a handed him a long list 
 of names of four hundred callers and he 
 said no more. Writing to a friend at 
 one time, she said: "I have just returned 
 from the seashore where I have been 
 spending a month with my boys, and 
 enjoying myself as only a very tired 
 woman can enjoy perfect rest and free- 
 dom from care. I went to Nonquit 
 where Louisa has a cottage, a lovely 
 green paradise which offers everything 
 one can wish. Here I rested, and for 
 fun got up theatricals (as usual), cha- 
 rades, etc., and grew quite young and 
 festive, and enjoyed my lark so much I 
 117 " 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 did not want to come home when my 
 summons arrived, but Louisa must have 
 her turn, and as baby needed change 
 they wished to spend August among the 
 sea breezes. Thus we take turns and 
 so keep our boys there eight or ten weeks. 
 So I am alone in my glory in the old 
 house, where father lives with me. As 
 the 'School' is in session I can hardly 
 call it quiet, for the study door stands 
 open and all who wish come in. As I sit 
 writing in my room no less than ten phi- 
 losophers, men and women, have strolled 
 in, and father is in his element. I keep 
 out of the way and as 'Miss Alcott' is 
 not at home and few of the wise ones are 
 aware of my existence I keep out of a 
 good deal of fuss. You see I do not ap- 
 preciate my advantages and shun the 
 ways of wisdom. I am like the confec- 
 tioner who having all the sweets he wishes 
 chooses plain bread and butter for supper. 
 I have had so much of the so-called phi- 
 losophy in my life that I care nothing 
 118 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 for it, but content myself with what 
 seems to me the true philosophy of every- 
 day life. Louisa's motto, 'Do the duty 
 that is nearest thee/ seems to me to em- 
 brace as much philosophy as most of us 
 need ; so few of us are able to do the duty 
 uncomplainingly and bravely." 
 
 Another time she wrote, "I am well, 
 though at fifty-two one does not grow 
 younger and I am getting to be a very 
 stout gray old woman and find I don't 
 spring up and down stairs as I once did. 
 I still love novels and plays, and am about 
 sixteen in heart, so I have something 
 to comfort me in my old age. Concord 
 is very jolly and I enjoy all the fun with 
 my boys." Writing of Louisa's desire 
 to go to Europe again she said: "You 
 know in old times she was always longing 
 for something, always in search of ad- 
 venture, never contented with humdrum 
 home life. It is the temperament of genius 
 the world over, this aspiration for some- 
 thing beyond their reach. Their dis- 
 119 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 content and moody views of life seem 
 inseparable from the gifted natures. So 
 I sometimes thank heaven I am a hum- 
 drum, and cannot be gloomy or down- 
 hearted long. Though I have many sad 
 hours, something within always bids me 
 hope, and I have a happy faculty for 
 seeing the silver lining to every cloud." 
 The marriage of her eldest son, which 
 occurred in due time, gave Mrs. Pratt 
 great pleasure, and as one and then 
 another grandchild came, her cup seemed 
 full of happiness. And so her bright, 
 hopeful disposition tided her over the 
 seasons of trial and affliction, through 
 her father's long sickness of paralysis, 
 and when one by one every member of 
 her family but her two boys were called 
 away to the land beyond. To the last 
 she was brave and cheerful, doing loving 
 acts when she could, thinking of others 
 rather than self. In July, 1893, a slight 
 ill turn occurred, which did not alarm 
 her friends, and suddenly she was not. 
 120 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 The last member of A. B. Alcott's family 
 had passed from earth, each leaving an 
 individual record. In a Boston daily 
 paper was the following obituary notice: 
 "Mrs. Anna Bronson Alcott Pratt, 
 widow of John Pratt and eldest daughter 
 of A. Bronson Alcott, died at Concord, 
 Massachusetts, Monday (July 17th). 
 She was the original of 'Meg/ the sweet 
 eldest one of the four 'Little Women ' 
 who have been like sisters to all the young 
 girls of America since they first appeared 
 in literature. And many women who 
 used to know 'Meg/ 'Jo' and 'Amy' 
 almost as well as their own sisters and 
 who rejoiced in 'MegV brave industry 
 and endearing womanliness and happy 
 home life will feel a pang as at the loss 
 of a familiar flesh and blood friend of 
 school-girl days, in learning that 'Meg' 
 too has followed her sisters into the 
 silent land." 
 
 121 
 
May 
 
 Abby May Alcott was the favored 
 child of the family, arriving at young 
 womanhood after Louisa had acquired 
 money and could give her advantages in 
 education and travel which money alone 
 could procure. She was born in Con- 
 cord, in 1840, just before her father's 
 unfortunate Fruitlands' experience; and 
 during her early childhood the family 
 passed through the most severe season 
 of adversity in their struggling life; but 
 she was too young to realize the strait, 
 and all took pains to shield the youngest 
 from trial. 
 
 Owing to the varied and trying de- 
 mands on Mrs. Alcott, the care of the 
 young child fell in a great measure to 
 the loving, motherly Anna, and between 
 the two a strong affection existed. Abby, 
 for so she was called in her childhood, 
 122 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 was of quick temper and exacting in 
 disposition, but sunny withal, when not 
 crossed. The Bcei e which Louisa de- 
 scribes in "Little Women" of the break- 
 ing of her shoestring when she was in a 
 hurry one day was quite natural, and the 
 picture is very vivid to the mind of one 
 who knew her in early youth. But love 
 was a strong element ii her nature, and 
 quick return to sunshine always followed 
 such an outburst. Her temperament 
 being much like Louisa's, they often dis- 
 agreed, and then Anna would prove the 
 peacemaker. The bond of affection with 
 all the family did not permit a variance 
 of any length of time. 
 
 As a child she could not be called 
 pretty, though interesting. The mouth 
 was not delicate, the nose decidedly like 
 her father's and prominent; she had his 
 eyes also, pleasant deep blue. But the 
 years softened the nose, gave character 
 to the mouth and with her clear com- 
 plexion, loose flowing curls of delicate 
 123 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 brown, clear, dancing, blue eye, winsome, 
 artless manner, graceful motion, and 
 artistic dress she was a very attractive 
 young lady. One mother, at least, com- 
 plained that her son's attention was taken 
 too much from his college studies to play 
 croquet with their pretty neighbor, May 
 Alcott; for as a young lady she discarded 
 the plain old-fashioned name of Abby, 
 which was her mother's, for the more 
 classic and modern one of May. 
 
 Very early her books gave evidence 
 of her love for drawing, and frequently 
 among the sketches was to be found her 
 ideal of a Grecian nose, which she sorely 
 deplored not possessing herself. As her 
 talent developed, all through the "Or- 
 chard House" were traces of her brush, 
 a panel here, birds or flowers elsewhere, 
 to adorn the nooks and corners of the 
 rooms, so that the old house which had 
 been transformed from an old wreck, 
 became the fitting home to please the 
 cultivated taste. Over the mantle in 
 124 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 her father's study she painted in Old 
 English letters the epigram that Ellery 
 Channing wrote for that place: 
 
 The hills arc reared, the valleys scooped, in vain, 
 If learning's altar vanish from the plain. 
 
 With Louisa's first success, May was 
 sent to the School of Design at the age 
 of nineteen, and afterward had the best 
 of instruction that Boston afforded. A 
 friend gave her the opportunity of going 
 to Europe, and Louisa and another young 
 lady accompanied her. This was merely 
 a pleasure trip, but three years later 
 Louisa sent her there to study for a year, 
 and the time was well improved by her, 
 with different masters. Copies which 
 she made from the paintings of Turner 
 were highly prized. 
 
 A young lady in the studio with her 
 was ambitious to have a painting in the 
 exhibition at Paris and was working for 
 that purpose. May had not thought of 
 such an honor for herself, but one day 
 125 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 as they finished their simple lunch a 
 sudden inspiration seized her to make a 
 picture of the table and what was on it, 
 plate, fruit, flagon and glass. When 
 finished, she sent it to the Salon, where 
 it was not only accepted but hung on the 
 eye line, the place of special honor, much 
 to her surprise as well as delight. The 
 letter bearing the good news home was 
 read in the sick room of the mother 
 where the family were gathered. When 
 the first flush of joyful excitement was 
 passed, Anna exclaimed, "each one has 
 acquired fame but poor I, who have 
 done nothing. " Her father pointing to 
 her two boys said, "Here is what you 
 have done; it is more than all the rest." 
 The painting attracted much attention 
 and was noticed by the London Journal 
 in flattering terms. In the joy of her 
 own success May did not fail in sympathy 
 for her friend whose picture was not 
 accepted. 
 
 Returning to Concord after her year 
 126 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 of study, she endeavored to interest the 
 young people there in the art she so 
 dearly loved, and to this end opened her 
 studio to them and directed their instruc- 
 tion. French and Ehvell, who have 
 since become distinguished, were among 
 those who availed themselves of her 
 generosity and interest. She shared the 
 family talent in using the pen gracefully, 
 but preferred the brush and easel to the 
 goose-quill and inkstand. 
 
 At that time California was an attrac- 
 tive place for travellers, and Louisa gave 
 her the money to go there, or to Europe 
 again; she chose the latter, and in 
 September, 1876, put the ocean between 
 herself and her loved family for further 
 prosecution of her life work in art. 
 
 Her mother's health, which had been 
 precarious for some time, failed, and she 
 passed from earthly scenes in November 
 of the following year. May felt the blow 
 keenly, alone in a foreign land, and hav- 
 ing with the grief a sense of self-accusa- 
 127 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 tion that perhaps she ought to have 
 returned home, though not summoned. 
 For a week she shut herself in her room, 
 not going to the table to meals. In the 
 room opposite hers was a young Swiss 
 gentleman of fine musical talent, who, 
 feeling a sympathy for the beautiful 
 young American in her sorrow, used to 
 open his door and play sweet strains on 
 his violin. When her retirement ended 
 they became not only well acquainted 
 but friends, then lovers, and as their 
 artistic tastes were harmonious, were 
 soon betrothed. In a short time Mr. 
 Nieriker, the young man, was called 
 away from London by business, and not 
 wishing to be separated, they were 
 privately married, March 22, 1878. 
 
 Anna in a letter to a friend thus writes 
 of them : " We are of course still absorbed 
 in May and the new brother, and live in 
 anticipation of our weekly letters which 
 continue to bring such happy news. 
 The newly married are now in their own 
 128 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 home just out of Park, and full of de- 
 light in everything, and each other, and 
 leading a delicious life. All we hear con- 
 firms our first pleasant impression of Mr. 
 Nieriker, and his letters to us show him 
 to be a gentleman of culture and refine- 
 ment; also the possessor of a warm, 
 loving heart and domestic qualities, 
 
 which promise well for the future happi- 
 ness of his wife. 
 
 "May seems to have given him her 
 whole heart, and to be quite willing to 
 settle down into a housekeeper whose 
 sole desire is to make home happy. She 
 will, however, continue her art, as Ernest 
 is very ambitious for her, and takes great 
 pride in his gifted wife. Ernest Nieriker 
 is a Swiss, son of a lawyer of good stand- 
 ing in Baden, his grandfather being one 
 of the eminent physicians of the Baths 
 there. The family are very accom- 
 plished, musical and fine linguists. 
 Ernest is a banker. May is perfectly 
 happy, and perfectly well, what more can 
 129 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 we ask?" And later she writes: "Our 
 i.ews of May is the happiest possible, 
 she is full of delight with her home, hus- 
 band, and the world in general." 
 
 Her husband united with her in an 
 invitation to "sister Louisa" to spend a 
 year with them, but she thought it better 
 for them to be by themselves for a while. 
 Her health, also, was hardly equal to the 
 trip just then, but she held it in pleasant 
 anticipation for the near future, never 
 to be realized. Prospect of motherhood 
 was joyously anticipated by both families. 
 Mr. Nieriker's mother and sister joined 
 the young couple for the time. Mrs. 
 Pratt (sister Anna) thus writes in Jan- 
 uary, 1880, of the sad sequel to this 
 happy term of life : 
 
 " We have felt somewhat anxious about 
 May ever since the birth of her child, 
 November 8th. She has not seemed 
 strong and her recovery was so slow, 
 still she did gain, and was beginning to 
 sit up and plan for the future. But it 
 130 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 did not last. She was seized with an 
 attack of brain fever and after a week of 
 severe illness fell into a deep slumber 
 from which she never fully awoke. 
 Early in the morning of December 29th, 
 she folded her hands upon her breast and 
 passed peacefully away. The last days 
 were happy, she lay dreaming, her hand 
 moving as if it held the beloved pencil, 
 and she murmured to herself, rousing 
 once or twice to recognize her husband 
 for a moment, or speak a few words. 
 
 "It is hard to be reconciled to this 
 great sorrow, May was so happy, so use- 
 ful, so content to live, so blessed in all 
 that makes life beautiful. Why should 
 she not stay? In truth God's ways are 
 full of mystery. We can only submit 
 and wait. Somewhere in the future com- 
 fort awaits us. Her husband is heart- 
 broken and so desolate. Through all 
 her illness he has been beside her day and 
 night. No stranger has been allowed 
 to touch her. Ernest, his mother and 
 131 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 sister, have watched over her every 
 moment, and been untiring in their de- 
 votion. This is one comfort, and the 
 dear little Louisa who is to be ours if she 
 lives till spring. May gave her to Louisa, 
 and the husband promised to fulfill the 
 wish if she did not recover. At her own 
 desire, expressed long ago in anticipa- 
 tion of the possibility of the event, she 
 was laid in a green churchyard just out- 
 side of the city, where her husband can 
 go with flowers and feel that she is still 
 near him." On this side the ocean, in 
 the family lot in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery 
 in Concord, a little headstone bears the 
 inscription, "M. A. Nieriker." 
 
 In September the little Swiss " Louisa," 
 May's legacy to her sister, came to 
 America to be loved, petted and watched 
 over by her aunts and grandfather, and 
 she proved to the latter a source of great 
 delight and comfort in his declining 
 years. Mr. Nieriker's sister accompanied 
 the nurse who was sent to bring her. 
 132 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 No pains or expense was spared to make 
 her young life one of joy. Anna writes: 
 " Louisa is devoted to her, and the tie 
 between them is very sweet. I hope we 
 may keep her to fill May's place in our 
 hearts; her father is still in Brazil trying 
 to outlive his sorrow in work, and laying 
 up money for the education of his little 
 girl. We write regularly and love him 
 very much for he is worthy of our esteem 
 and affection. She is a beautiful child, 
 full of life and talent like her mother, 
 and an active brain which shows she is 
 also a Nieriker." A year or two later 
 she writes, " Our little Swiss maid is now 
 a big bouncing bonny girl, making noise 
 enough for a dozen boys and keeping the 
 whole family in commotion. Louisa's 
 life is devoted to this child and leaves 
 her time for nothing else." 
 
 As Louisa's health failed, the care of 
 
 the child naturally fell to her aunt, Mrs. 
 
 Pratt. When Louisa passed away, the 
 
 little Lu Lu wrote thus to her father, 
 
 133 
 
The Alcotts as I Knew Them 
 
 "Dear papa, Grand-pa is dead, and now 
 Aunt Louisa has gone and I am very 
 lonely, you must come and take your 
 little girl home." The father answered 
 the pathetic summons of his little 
 daughter, by coming to see her that 
 summer, but not having a home of his 
 own at that time, returned without her, 
 to prepare for her coming at a later date. 
 In June, 1889, Mrs. Pratt went with her 
 to Zurich, Switzerland, where the father 
 with his sister had made a home. 
 
 Years after the little Louisa married 
 an author named Razim and became 
 a mother. They lived in Zurich. Her 
 father never married again. 
 
 134 
 
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