ry simple fare, which the
children disliked, as their rice had to be eaten without sugar and
their mush without butter or molasses. Nor did Mr. Alcott allow meat
on his table, as he thought it wrong to eat any creature which had to
be killed for the purpose. An old family friend who lived at a Boston
hotel sympathized strongly with the children's longing for sweets, and
every day at dinner she saved them a piece of pie or cake, which
Louisa would call for, carrying a bandbox for the purpose. The friend
was in Europe for years, and when she returned Louisa Alcott had
become famous. Meeting her on the street one day, Louisa greeted her
old friend, eagerly:

"Why, I did not think you would remember me!" said the old lady.

"Do you suppose I shall ever forget that bandbox!" was the quick
reply.

As time went on, Mr. Alcott's school dwindled until he had only five
scholars, and three of them were his own children. Something new had
to be tried, and quickly, so the family moved out of the city, into a
small house at Concord, Mass., which had an orchard and a garden, and,
best of all, the children had a big barn, where they gave all sorts of
entertainments; mostly plays, as they were born actors. Their mother,
or "Marmee," as the girls called her, loved the fun as well as they
did, and would lay aside her work at any moment to make impossible
costumes for fairies, gnomes, kings or peasants, who were to take the
principal parts in some stirring melodrama written by the girls
themselves, or some adaptation of an old fairy tale. They acted Jack
the Giant-killer in fine style, and the giant came tumbling headlong
from a loft when Jack cut down the squash-vine running up a ladder and
supposed to represent the immortal beanstalk. At other performances
Cinderella rolled away in an impressive pumpkin, and one of their star
plays was a dramatic version of the story of the woman who wasted her
three wishes, in which a long black pudding was lowered by invisible
hands and slowly fastened onto her nose.

But though the big barn often echoed with the sound of merry voices,
at other times the girls dressed up as pilgrims, and journeyed over
the hill with scrip and staff, and cockle shells in their hats;
fairies held their revels among the whispering birches, and strawberry
parties took place in the rustic arbor of the garden.

And there we find eight-year-old Louisa writing her verses to the
robin, with genius early beginning to burn