ome people predicted that his
admission would ruin the school.

Yes, Jo was a very happy woman there, in spite of hard work, much
anxiety, and a perpetual racket. She enjoyed it heartily and found the
applause of her boys more satisfying than any praise of the world, for
now she told no stories except to her flock of enthusiastic believers
and admirers. As the years went on, two little lads of her own came to
increase her happiness--Rob, named for Grandpa, and Teddy, a
happy-go-lucky baby, who seemed to have inherited his papa's sunshiny
temper as well as his mother's lively spirit. How they ever grew up
alive in that whirlpool of boys was a mystery to their grandma and
aunts, but they flourished like dandelions in spring, and their rough
nurses loved and served them well.

There were a great many holidays at Plumfield, and one of the most
delightful was the yearly apple-picking. For then the Marches,
Laurences, Brookes and Bhaers turned out in full force and made a day
of it. Five years after Jo's wedding, one of these fruitful festivals
occurred, a mellow October day, when the air was full of an
exhilarating freshness which made the spirits rise and the blood dance
healthily in the veins. The old orchard wore its holiday attire.
Goldenrod and asters fringed the mossy walls. Grasshoppers skipped
briskly in the sere grass, and crickets chirped like fairy pipers at a
feast. Squirrels were busy with their small harvesting. Birds
twittered their adieux from the alders in the lane, and every tree
stood ready to send down its shower of red or yellow apples at the
first shake. Everybody was there. Everybody laughed and sang, climbed
up and tumbled down. Everybody declared that there never had been such
a perfect day or such a jolly set to enjoy it, and everyone gave
themselves up to the simple pleasures of the hour as freely as if there
were no such things as care or sorrow in the world.

Mr. March strolled placidly about, quoting Tusser, Cowley, and
Columella to Mr. Laurence, while enjoying...

The gentle apple's winey juice.

The Professor charged up and down the green aisles like a stout
Teutonic knight, with a pole for a lance, leading on the boys, who made
a hook and ladder company of themselves, and performed wonders in the
way of ground and lofty tumbling. Laurie devoted himself to the little
ones, rode his small daughter in a bushel-basket, took Daisy up among
the bird's nests, and kept adventurous Ro