periences of the following winter. A
frequent entry in her journal for this period is "$5.00 for a story"
and her winter's earnings are summed up, "school, one quarter, $50,
sewing $50, stories, $20." In December we read, "Got five dollars for
a tale and twelve for sewing." Teaching, writing, and sewing alternate
in her life for the next five years, and, for a year or two yet, the
needle is mightier than the pen; but in 1856, she began to be paid $10
for a story, and, in 1859, the _Atlantic_ accepted a story and paid
her $50.

A friend for whose encouragement during these hard years, she
acknowledges great indebtedness and who appears as one of the
characters in her story, entitled "Work," was Rev. Theodore Parker, a
man as helpful, loving, and gentle as she depicts him, but then much
hated by those called orthodox and hardly in good standing among his
Unitarian brethren. Miss Alcott, then as ever, had the courage of her
convictions, was a member of his Music Hall congregation, and a
regular attendant at his Sunday evening receptions, finding him "very
friendly to the large, bashful girl who adorns his parlor regularly."
She "fought for him," she says, when some one said Mr. Parker "was not
a Christian. He is my sort; for though he may lack reverence for other
people's God, he works bravely for his own, and turns his back on no
one who needs help, as some of the pious do." After Mr. Parker's
death, Miss Alcott, when in Boston, attended the church of Dr. C. A.
Bartol, who buried her mother, her father and herself.

In 1857, the Alcotts returned to Concord, buying and occupying the
Orchard House, which thenceforth became their home. Other family
events of the period were, the death of Miss Alcott's sister
Elizabeth, Beth in "Little Women," the marriage of Anna, Meg in
"Little Women," and a proposal of marriage to Louisa, serious enough
for her to hold a consultation over it with her mother. Miss Alcott is
said to have been averse to entangling alliances for herself, to have
married off the heroines in her novels reluctantly at the demand of
her readers, and never to have enjoyed writing the necessary
love-passages.

The year 1860, when Miss Alcott is twenty-seven, has the distinction
of being marked in the heading of her journal as "A Year of Good
Luck." Her family had attained a comfortable, settled home in Concord;
Mr. Alcott had been appointed superintendent of public schools, an
office for which he was peculiarly