was not the person to sit down idly and
wait for marriage, or for some rich relation to care for her; but
she determined to make a place in the world for herself. She says in
_Little Women_, "Jo's ambition was to do something very splendid; what
it was she had no idea, as yet, but left it for time to tell her," and
at sixteen the time had come to make the attempt.

She began to teach school with twenty pupils. Instead of the
theological talks which her father gave his scholars, she told them
stories, which she says made the one pleasant hour in her school-day.
Now the long years of work had begun--fifteen of them--which should
give the girl such rich yet sometimes bitter experiences, that she
could write the most fascinating books from her own history. Into her
volume called _Work_, published when she had become famous, she put
many of her own early sorrows in those of "Christie."

Much of this time was spent in Boston. Sometimes she cared for an
invalid child; sometimes she was a governess; sometimes she did
sewing, adding to her slender means by writing late at night.
Occasionally she went to the house of Rev. Theodore Parker, where she
met Emerson, Sumner, Garrison, and Julia Ward Howe. Emerson always had
a kind word for the girl whom he had known in Concord, and Mr. Parker
would take her by the hand and say, "How goes it, my child? God bless
you; keep your heart up, Louisa," and then she would go home to her
lonely room, brave and encouraged.

At nineteen, one of her early stories was published in _Gleason's
Pictorial_, and for this she received five dollars. How welcome was
this brain-money! Some months later she sent a story to the _Boston
Saturday Gazette_, entitled _The Rival Prima Donnas_, and, to her
great delight, received ten dollars; and what was almost better still,
a request from the editor for another story. Miss Alcott made the
_Rival Prima Donnas_ into a drama, and it was accepted by a theatre,
and would have been put upon the stage but for some disagreement among
the actors. However, the young teacher received for her work a pass to
the theatre for forty nights. She even meditated going upon the stage,
but the manager quite opportunely broke his leg, and the contract
was annulled. What would the boys and girls of America have lost, had
their favorite turned actress!

A second story was, of course, written for the _Saturday Evening
Gazette_. And now Louisa was catching a glimpse of fame. She says,