“There’s no need for me to say it, for everyone can see that I’m far happier than I deserve,” added Jo, glancing from her good husband to her chubby children, tumbling on the grass beside her. “Fritz is getting gray and stout; I’m growing as thin as a shadow, and am thirty; we never shall be rich, and Plumfield may burn up any night, for that incorrigible Tommy Bangs will smoke sweet-fern cigars under the bedclothes, though he’s set himself afire three times already. But in spite of these unromantic facts, I have nothing to complain of, and never was so jolly in my life. Excuse the remark, but living among boys, I can’t help using their expressions now and then.”
“Yes, Jo, I think your harvest will be a good one,” began Mrs. March, frightening away a big black cricket that was staring Teddy out of countenance.
“Not half so good as yours, mother. Here it is, and we never can thank you enough for the patient sowing and reaping you have done,” cried Jo, with the loving impetuosity which she never could outgrow.
“I hope there will be more wheat and fewer tares every year,” said Amy softly.
“A large sheaf, but I know there’s room in your heart for it, Marmee dear,” added Meg’s tender voice.
Touched to the heart, Mrs. March could only stretch out her arms, as if to gather children and grandchildren to herself, and say, with face and voice full of motherly love, gratitude, and humility—
“O, my girls, however long you may live, I never can wish you a greater happiness than this!”
Colophon
Little Women
was published in 1868 and 1869 by
Louisa May Alcott.
This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Alex Cabal and Alina Pyzowski,
and is based on transcriptions produced in 2011 by
David Edwards, Ernest Schaal, and The Online Distributed Proofreading Team
for
Project Gutenberg
and on digital scans available at the
Internet Archive.
The cover page is adapted from
They All Drew to the Fire,
a painting completed in 1915 by
Jessie Willcox Smith.
The cover and title pages feature the
League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
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Uncopyright
May you do good and not evil.
May you find forgiveness for yourself and forgive others.
May you share freely, never taking more than you give.
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