CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
FRIEND
Though very happy in the social atmosphere about her, and very busy
with the daily work that earned her bread and made it sweeter for the effort,
Jo still found time for literary labors. The purpose which now took
possession of her was a natural one to a poor and ambitious girl, but the
means she took to gain her end were not the best. She saw that money
conferred power, money and power, therefore, she resolved to have, not to
be used for herself alone, but for those whom she loved more than life. The
dream of filling home with comforts, giving Beth everything she wanted,
from strawberries in winter to an organ in her bedroom, going abroad
herself, and always having more than enough, so that she might indulge in
the luxury of charity, had been for years Jo’s most cherished castle in the
air.
The prize-story experience had seemed to open a way which might, after
long traveling and much uphill work, lead to this delightful chateau en
Espagne. But the novel disaster quenched her courage for a time, for public
opinion is a giant which has frightened stouter-hearted Jacks on bigger
beanstalks than hers. Like that immortal hero, she reposed awhile after the
first attempt, which resulted in a tumble and the least lovely of the giant’s
treasures, if I remember rightly. But the ‘up again and take another’ spirit
was as strong in Jo as in Jack, so she scrambled up on the shady side this
time and got more booty, but nearly left behind her what was far more
precious than the moneybags.
She took to writing sensation stories, for in those dark ages, even all-
perfect America read rubbish. She told no one, but concocted a ‘thrilling
tale’, and boldly carried it herself to Mr. Dashwood, editor of the Weekly
Volcano. She had never read Sartor Resartus, but she had a womanly
instinct that clothes possess an influence more powerful over many than the
worth of character or the magic of manners. So she dressed herself in her
best, and trying to persuade herself that she was neither excited nor
nervous, bravely climbed two pairs of dark and dirty stairs to find herself in
a disorderly room, a cloud of cigar smoke, and the presence of three
gentlemen, sitting with their heels rather higher than their hats, which
articles of dress none of them took the trouble to remove on her appearance.
Somewhat daunted by this reception, Jo hesitated on the threshold,
murmuring in much embarrassment…
“Excuse me, I was looking for the Weekly Volcano office. I wished to see
Mr. Dashwood.”
Down went the highest pair of heels, up rose the smokiest gentleman, and
carefully cherishing his cigar between his fingers, he advanced with a nod
and a countenance expressive of nothing but sleep. Feeling that she must
get through the matter somehow, Jo produced her manuscript and, blushing
redder and redder with each sentence, blundered out fragments of the little
speech carefully prepared for the occasion.
“A friend of mine desired me to offer—a story—just as an experiment—
would like your opinion—be glad to write more if this suits.”
While she blushed and blundered, Mr. Dashwood had taken the
manuscript, and was turning over the leaves with a pair of rather dirty
fingers, and casting critical glances up and down the neat pages.
“Not a first attempt, I take it?” observing that the pages were numbered,
covered only on one side, and not tied up with a ribbon—sure sign of a
novice.
“No, sir. She has had some experience, and got a prize for a tale in the
Blarneystone Banner.”
“Oh, did she?” and Mr. Dashwood gave Jo a quick look, which seemed to
take note of everything she had on, from the bow in her bonnet to the
buttons on her boots. “Well, you can leave it, if you like. We’ve more of this
sort of thing on hand than we know what to do with at present, but I’ll run
my eye over it, and give you an answer next week.”
Now, Jo did not like to leave it, for Mr. Dashwood didn’t suit her at all,
but, under the circumstances, there was nothing for her to do but bow and
walk away, looking particularly tall and dignified, as she was apt to do
when nettled or abashed. Just then she was both, for it was perfectly evident
from the knowing glances exchanged among the gentlemen that her little
fiction of ‘my friend’ was considered a good joke, and a laugh, produced by
some inaudible remark of the editor, as he closed the door, completed her
discomfiture. Half resolving never to return, she went home, and worked off
her irritation by stitching pinafores vigorously, and in an hour or two was
cool enough to laugh over the scene and long for next week.
When she went again, Mr. Dashwood was alone, whereat she rejoiced.
Mr. Dashwood was much wider awake than before, which was agreeable,
and Mr. Dashwood was not too deeply absorbed in a cigar to remember his
manners, so the second interview was much more comfortable than the first.
“We’ll take this (editors never say I), if you don’t object to a few
alterations. It’s too long, but omitting the passages I’ve marked will make it
just the right length,” he said, in a businesslike tone.
Jo hardly knew her own MS. again, so crumpled and underscored were
its pages and paragraphs, but feeling as a tender parent might on being
asked to cut off her baby’s legs in order that it might fit into a new cradle,
she looked at the marked passages and was surprised to find that all the
moral reflections—which she had carefully put in as ballast for much
romance—had been stricken out.
“But, Sir, I thought every story should have some sort of a moral, so I
took care to have a few of my sinners repent.”
Mr. Dashwoods’s editorial gravity relaxed into a smile, for Jo had
forgotten her ‘friend’, and spoken as only an author could.
“People want to be amused, not preached at, you know. Morals don’t sell
nowadays.” Which was not quite a correct statement, by the way.
“You think it would do with these alterations, then?”
“Yes, it’s a new plot, and pretty well worked up—language good, and so
on,” was Mr. Dashwood’s affable reply.
“What do you—that is, what compensation—” began Jo, not exactly
knowing how to express herself.
“Oh, yes, well, we give from twenty-five to thirty for things of this sort.
Pay when it comes out,” returned Mr. Dashwood, as if that point had
escaped him. Such trifles do escape the editorial mind, it is said.
“Very well, you can have it,” said Jo, handing back the story with a
satisfied air, for after the dollar-a-column work, even twenty-five seemed
good pay.
“Shall I tell my friend you will take another if she has one better than
this?” asked Jo, unconscious of her little slip of the tongue, and emboldened
by her success.
“Well, we’ll look at it. Can’t promise to take it. Tell her to make it short
and spicy, and never mind the moral. What name would your friend like to
put on it?” in a careless tone.
“None at all, if you please, she doesn’t wish her name to appear and has
no nom de plume,” said Jo, blushing in spite of herself.
“Just as she likes, of course. The tale will be out next week. Will you call
for the money, or shall I send it?” asked Mr. Dashwood, who felt a natural
desire to know who his new contributor might be.
“I’ll call. Good morning, Sir.”
As she departed, Mr. Dashwood put up his feet, with the graceful remark,
“Poor and proud, as usual, but she’ll do.”
Following Mr. Dashwood’s directions, and making Mrs. Northbury her
model, Jo rashly took a plunge into the frothy sea of sensational literature,
but thanks to the life preserver thrown her by a friend, she came up again
not much the worse for her ducking.
Like most young scribblers, she went abroad for her characters and
scenery, and banditti, counts, gypsies, nuns, and duchesses appeared upon
her stage, and played their parts with as much accuracy and spirit as could
be expected. Her readers were not particular about such trifles as grammar,
punctuation, and probability, and Mr. Dashwood graciously permitted her to
fill his columns at the lowest prices, not thinking it necessary to tell her that
the real cause of his hospitality was the fact that one of his hacks, on being
offered higher wages, had basely left him in the lurch.
She soon became interested in her work, for her emaciated purse grew
stout, and the little hoard she was making to take Beth to the mountains
next summer grew slowly but surely as the weeks passed. One thing
disturbed her satisfaction, and that was that she did not tell them at home.
She had a feeling that Father and Mother would not approve, and preferred
to have her own way first, and beg pardon afterward. It was easy to keep
her secret, for no name appeared with her stories. Mr. Dashwood had of
course found it out very soon, but promised to be dumb, and for a wonder
kept his word.
She thought it would do her no harm, for she sincerely meant to write
nothing of which she would be ashamed, and quieted all pricks of
conscience by anticipations of the happy minute when she should show her
earnings and laugh over her well-kept secret.
But Mr. Dashwood rejected any but thrilling tales, and as thrills could not
be produced except by harrowing up the souls of the readers, history and
romance, land and sea, science and art, police records and lunatic asylums,
had to be ransacked for the purpose. Jo soon found that her innocent
experience had given her but few glimpses of the tragic world which
underlies society, so regarding it in a business light, she set about supplying
her deficiencies with characteristic energy. Eager to find material for
stories, and bent on making them original in plot, if not masterly in
execution, she searched newspapers for accidents, incidents, and crimes.
She excited the suspicions of public librarians by asking for works on
poisons. She studied faces in the street, and characters, good, bad, and
indifferent, all about her. She delved in the dust of ancient times for facts or
fictions so old that they were as good as new, and introduced herself to
folly, sin, and misery, as well as her limited opportunities allowed. She
thought she was prospering finely, but unconsciously she was beginning to
desecrate some of the womanliest attributes of a woman’s character. She
was living in bad society, and imaginary though it was, its influence
affected her, for she was feeding heart and fancy on dangerous and
unsubstantial food, and was fast brushing the innocent bloom from her
nature by a premature acquaintance with the darker side of life, which
comes soon enough to all of us.
She was beginning to feel rather than see this, for much describing of
other people’s passions and feelings set her to studying and speculating
about her own, a morbid amusement in which healthy young minds do not
voluntarily indulge. Wrongdoing always brings its own punishment, and
when Jo most needed hers, she got it.
I don’t know whether the study of Shakespeare helped her to read
character, or the natural instinct of a woman for what was honest, brave,
and strong, but while endowing her imaginary heroes with every perfection
under the sun, Jo was discovering a live hero, who interested her in spite of
many human imperfections. Mr. Bhaer, in one of their conversations, had
advised her to study simple, true, and lovely characters, wherever she found
them, as good training for a writer. Jo took him at his word, for she coolly
turned round and studied him—a proceeding which would have much
surprised him, had he known it, for the worthy Professor was very humble
in his own conceit.
Why everybody liked him was what puzzled Jo, at first. He was neither
rich nor great, young nor handsome, in no respect what is called fascinating,
imposing, or brilliant, and yet he was as attractive as a genial fire, and
people seemed to gather about him as naturally as about a warm hearth. He
was poor, yet always appeared to be giving something away; a stranger, yet
everyone was his friend; no longer young, but as happy-hearted as a boy;
plain and peculiar, yet his face looked beautiful to many, and his oddities
were freely forgiven for his sake. Jo often watched him, trying to discover
the charm, and at last decided that it was benevolence which worked the
miracle. If he had any sorrow, ‘it sat with its head under its wing’, and he
turned only his sunny side to the world. There were lines upon his forehead,
but Time seemed to have touched him gently, remembering how kind he
was to others. The pleasant curves about his mouth were the memorials of
many friendly words and cheery laughs, his eyes were never cold or hard,
and his big hand had a warm, strong grasp that was more expressive than
words.
His very clothes seemed to partake of the hospitable nature of the wearer.
They looked as if they were at ease, and liked to make him comfortable. His
capacious waistcoat was suggestive of a large heart underneath. His rusty
coat had a social air, and the baggy pockets plainly proved that little hands
often went in empty and came out full. His very boots were benevolent, and
his collars never stiff and raspy like other people’s.
“That’s it!” said Jo to herself, when she at length discovered that genuine
good will toward one’s fellow men could beautify and dignify even a stout
German teacher, who shoveled in his dinner, darned his own socks, and was
burdened with the name of Bhaer.
Jo valued goodness highly, but she also possessed a most feminine
respect for intellect, and a little discovery which she made about the
Professor added much to her regard for him. He never spoke of himself, and
no one ever knew that in his native city he had been a man much honored
and esteemed for learning and integrity, till a countryman came to see him.
He never spoke of himself, and in a conversation with Miss Norton
divulged the pleasing fact. From her Jo learned it, and liked it all the better
because Mr. Bhaer had never told it. She felt proud to know that he was an
honored Professor in Berlin, though only a poor language-master in
America, and his homely, hard-working life was much beautified by the
spice of romance which this discovery gave it. Another and a better gift
than intellect was shown her in a most unexpected manner. Miss Norton had
the entree into most society, which Jo would have had no chance of seeing
but for her. The solitary woman felt an interest in the ambitious girl, and
kindly conferred many favors of this sort both on Jo and the Professor. She
took them with her one night to a select symposium, held in honor of
several celebrities.
Jo went prepared to bow down and adore the mighty ones whom she had
worshiped with youthful enthusiasm afar off. But her reverence for genius
received a severe shock that night, and it took her some time to recover
from the discovery that the great creatures were only men and women after
all. Imagine her dismay, on stealing a glance of timid admiration at the poet
whose lines suggested an ethereal being fed on ‘spirit, fire, and dew’, to
behold him devouring his supper with an ardor which flushed his
intellectual countenance. Turning as from a fallen idol, she made other
discoveries which rapidly dispelled her romantic illusions. The great
novelist vibrated between two decanters with the regularity of a pendulum;
the famous divine flirted openly with one of the Madame de Staels of the
age, who looked daggers at another Corinne, who was amiably satirizing
her, after outmaneuvering her in efforts to absorb the profound philosopher,
who imbibed tea Johnsonianly and appeared to slumber, the loquacity of the
lady rendering speech impossible. The scientific celebrities, forgetting their
mollusks and glacial periods, gossiped about art, while devoting themselves
to oysters and ices with characteristic energy; the young musician, who was
charming the city like a second Orpheus, talked horses; and the specimen of
the British nobility present happened to be the most ordinary man of the
party.
Before the evening was half over, Jo felt so completely disillusioned, that
she sat down in a corner to recover herself. Mr. Bhaer soon joined her,
looking rather out of his element, and presently several of the philosophers,
each mounted on his hobby, came ambling up to hold an intellectual
tournament in the recess. The conversations were miles beyond Jo’s
comprehension, but she enjoyed it, though Kant and Hegel were unknown
gods, the Subjective and Objective unintelligible terms, and the only thing
‘evolved from her inner consciousness’ was a bad headache after it was all
over. It dawned upon her gradually that the world was being picked to
pieces, and put together on new and, according to the talkers, on infinitely
better principles than before, that religion was in a fair way to be reasoned
into nothingness, and intellect was to be the only God. Jo knew nothing
about philosophy or metaphysics of any sort, but a curious excitement, half
pleasurable, half painful, came over her as she listened with a sense of
being turned adrift into time and space, like a young balloon out on a
holiday.
She looked round to see how the Professor liked it, and found him
looking at her with the grimmest expression she had ever seen him wear. He
shook his head and beckoned her to come away, but she was fascinated just
then by the freedom of Speculative Philosophy, and kept her seat, trying to
find out what the wise gentlemen intended to rely upon after they had
annihilated all the old beliefs.
Now, Mr. Bhaer was a diffident man and slow to offer his own opinions,
not because they were unsettled, but too sincere and earnest to be lightly
spoken. As he glanced from Jo to several other young people, attracted by
the brilliancy of the philosophic pyrotechnics, he knit his brows and longed
to speak, fearing that some inflammable young soul would be led astray by
the rockets, to find when the display was over that they had only an empty
stick or a scorched hand.
He bore it as long as he could, but when he was appealed to for an
opinion, he blazed up with honest indignation and defended religion with
all the eloquence of truth—an eloquence which made his broken English
musical and his plain face beautiful. He had a hard fight, for the wise men
argued well, but he didn’t know when he was beaten and stood to his colors
like a man. Somehow, as he talked, the world got right again to Jo. The old
beliefs, that had lasted so long, seemed better than the new. God was not a
blind force, and immortality was not a pretty fable, but a blessed fact. She
felt as if she had solid ground under her feet again, and when Mr. Bhaer
paused, outtalked but not one whit convinced, Jo wanted to clap her hands
and thank him.
She did neither, but she remembered the scene, and gave the Professor
her heartiest respect, for she knew it cost him an effort to speak out then and
there, because his conscience would not let him be silent. She began to see
that character is a better possession than money, rank, intellect, or beauty,
and to feel that if greatness is what a wise man has defined it to be, ‘truth,
reverence, and good will’, then her friend Friedrich Bhaer was not only
good, but great.
This belief strengthened daily. She valued his esteem, she coveted his
respect, she wanted to be worthy of his friendship, and just when the wish
was sincerest, she came near to losing everything. It all grew out of a
cocked hat, for one evening the Professor came in to give Jo her lesson with
a paper soldier cap on his head, which Tina had put there and he had
forgotten to take off.
“It’s evident he doesn’t look in his glass before coming down,” thought
Jo, with a smile, as he said “Goot efening,” and sat soberly down, quite
unconscious of the ludicrous contrast between his subject and his headgear,
for he was going to read her the Death of Wallenstein.
She said nothing at first, for she liked to hear him laugh out his big,
hearty laugh when anything funny happened, so she left him to discover it
for himself, and presently forgot all about it, for to hear a German read
Schiller is rather an absorbing occupation. After the reading came the
lesson, which was a lively one, for Jo was in a gay mood that night, and the
cocked hat kept her eyes dancing with merriment. The Professor didn’t
know what to make of her, and stopped at last to ask with an air of mild
surprise that was irresistible. . .
“Mees Marsch, for what do you laugh in your master’s face? Haf you no
respect for me, that you go on so bad?”
“How can I be respectful, Sir, when you forget to take your hat off?” said
Jo.
Lifting his hand to his head, the absent-minded Professor gravely felt and
removed the little cocked hat, looked at it a minute, and then threw back his
head and laughed like a merry bass viol.
“Ah! I see him now, it is that imp Tina who makes me a fool with my
cap. Well, it is nothing, but see you, if this lesson goes not well, you too
shall wear him.”
But the lesson did not go at all for a few minutes because Mr. Bhaer
caught sight of a picture on the hat, and unfolding it, said with great disgust,
“I wish these papers did not come in the house. They are not for children to
see, nor young people to read. It is not well, and I haf no patience with
those who make this harm.”
Jo glanced at the sheet and saw a pleasing illustration composed of a
lunatic, a corpse, a villain, and a viper. She did not like it, but the impulse
that made her turn it over was not one of displeasure but fear, because for a
minute she fancied the paper was the Volcano. It was not, however, and her
panic subsided as she remembered that even if it had been and one of her
own tales in it, there would have been no name to betray her. She had
betrayed herself, however, by a look and a blush, for though an absent man,
the Professor saw a good deal more than people fancied. He knew that Jo
wrote, and had met her down among the newspaper offices more than once,
but as she never spoke of it, he asked no questions in spite of a strong desire
to see her work. Now it occurred to him that she was doing what she was
ashamed to own, and it troubled him. He did not say to himself, “It is none
of my business. I’ve no right to say anything,” as many people would have
done. He only remembered that she was young and poor, a girl far away
from mother’s love and father’s care, and he was moved to help her with an
impulse as quick and natural as that which would prompt him to put out his
hand to save a baby from a puddle. All this flashed through his mind in a
minute, but not a trace of it appeared in his face, and by the time the paper
was turned, and Jo’s needle threaded, he was ready to say quite naturally,
but very gravely…
“Yes, you are right to put it from you. I do not think that good young girls
should see such things. They are made pleasant to some, but I would more
rather give my boys gunpowder to play with than this bad trash.”
“All may not be bad, only silly, you know, and if there is a demand for it,
I don’t see any harm in supplying it. Many very respectable people make an
honest living out of what are called sensation stories,” said Jo, scratching
gathers so energetically that a row of little slits followed her pin.
“There is a demand for whisky, but I think you and I do not care to sell it.
If the respectable people knew what harm they did, they would not feel that
the living was honest. They haf no right to put poison in the sugarplum, and
let the small ones eat it. No, they should think a little, and sweep mud in the
street before they do this thing.”
Mr. Bhaer spoke warmly, and walked to the fire, crumpling the paper in
his hands. Jo sat still, looking as if the fire had come to her, for her cheeks
burned long after the cocked hat had turned to smoke and gone harmlessly
up the chimney.
“I should like much to send all the rest after him,” muttered the Professor,
coming back with a relieved air.
Jo thought what a blaze her pile of papers upstairs would make, and her
hard-earned money lay rather heavily on her conscience at that minute.
Then she thought consolingly to herself, “Mine are not like that, they are
only silly, never bad, so I won’t be worried,” and taking up her book, she
said, with a studious face, “Shall we go on, Sir? I’ll be very good and
proper now.”
“I shall hope so,” was all he said, but he meant more than she imagined,
and the grave, kind look he gave her made her feel as if the words Weekly
Volcano were printed in large type on her forehead.
As soon as she went to her room, she got out her papers, and carefully
reread every one of her stories. Being a little shortsighted, Mr. Bhaer
sometimes used eye glasses, and Jo had tried them once, smiling to see how
they magnified the fine print of her book. Now she seemed to have on the
Professor’s mental or moral spectacles also, for the faults of these poor
stories glared at her dreadfully and filled her with dismay.
“They are trash, and will soon be worse trash if I go on, for each is more
sensational than the last. I’ve gone blindly on, hurting myself and other
people, for the sake of money. I know it’s so, for I can’t read this stuff in
sober earnest without being horribly ashamed of it, and what should I do if
they were seen at home or Mr. Bhaer got hold of them?”
Jo turned hot at the bare idea, and stuffed the whole bundle into her
stove, nearly setting the chimney afire with the blaze.
“Yes, that’s the best place for such inflammable nonsense. I’d better burn
the house down, I suppose, than let other people blow themselves up with
my gunpowder,” she thought as she watched the Demon of the Jura whisk
away, a little black cinder with fiery eyes.
But when nothing remained of all her three month’s work except a heap
of ashes and the money in her lap, Jo looked sober, as she sat on the floor,
wondering what she ought to do about her wages.
“I think I haven’t done much harm yet, and may keep this to pay for my
time,” she said, after a long meditation, adding impatiently, “I almost wish I
hadn’t any conscience, it’s so inconvenient. If I didn’t care about doing
right, and didn’t feel uncomfortable when doing wrong, I should get on
capitally. I can’t help wishing sometimes, that Mother and Father hadn’t
been so particular about such things.”
Ah, Jo, instead of wishing that, thank God that ‘Father and Mother were
particular’, and pity from your heart those who have no such guardians to
hedge them round with principles which may seem like prison walls to
impatient youth, but which will prove sure foundations to build character
upon in womanhood.
Jo wrote no more sensational stories, deciding that the money did not pay
for her share of the sensation, but going to the other extreme, as is the way
with people of her stamp, she took a course of Mrs. Sherwood, Miss
Edgeworth, and Hannah More, and then produced a tale which might have
been more properly called an essay or a sermon, so intensely moral was it.
She had her doubts about it from the beginning, for her lively fancy and
girlish romance felt as ill at ease in the new style as she would have done
masquerading in the stiff and cumbrous costume of the last century. She
sent this didactic gem to several markets, but it found no purchaser, and she
was inclined to agree with Mr. Dashwood that morals didn’t sell.
Then she tried a child’s story, which she could easily have disposed of if
she had not been mercenary enough to demand filthy lucre for it. The only
person who offered enough to make it worth her while to try juvenile
literature was a worthy gentleman who felt it his mission to convert all the
world to his particular belief. But much as she liked to write for children, Jo
could not consent to depict all her naughty boys as being eaten by bears or
tossed by mad bulls because they did not go to a particular Sabbath school,
nor all the good infants who did go as rewarded by every kind of bliss, from
gilded gingerbread to escorts of angels when they departed this life with
psalms or sermons on their lisping tongues. So nothing came of these trials,
and Jo corked up her inkstand, and said in a fit of very wholesome
humility…
“I don’t know anything. I’ll wait until I do before I try again, and
meantime, ‘sweep mud in the street’ if I can’t do better, that’s honest, at
least.” Which decision proved that her second tumble down the beanstalk
had done her some good.
While these internal revolutions were going on, her external life had been
as busy and uneventful as usual, and if she sometimes looked serious or a
little sad no one observed it but Professor Bhaer. He did it so quietly that Jo
never knew he was watching to see if she would accept and profit by his
reproof, but she stood the test, and he was satisfied, for though no words
passed between them, he knew that she had given up writing. Not only did
he guess it by the fact that the second finger of her right hand was no longer
inky, but she spent her evenings downstairs now, was met no more among
newspaper offices, and studied with a dogged patience, which assured him
that she was bent on occupying her mind with something useful, if not
pleasant.
He helped her in many ways, proving himself a true friend, and Jo was
happy, for while her pen lay idle, she was learning other lessons besides
German, and laying a foundation for the sensation story of her own life.
It was a pleasant winter and a long one, for she did not leave Mrs. Kirke
till June. Everyone seemed sorry when the time came. The children were
inconsolable, and Mr. Bhaer’s hair stuck straight up all over his head, for he
always rumpled it wildly when disturbed in mind.
“Going home? Ah, you are happy that you haf a home to go in,” he said,
when she told him, and sat silently pulling his beard in the corner, while she
held a little levee on that last evening.
She was going early, so she bade them all goodbye overnight, and when
his turn came, she said warmly, “Now, Sir, you won’t forget to come and
see us, if you ever travel our way, will you? I’ll never forgive you if you do,
for I want them all to know my friend.”
“Do you? Shall I come?” he asked, looking down at her with an eager
expression which she did not see.
“Yes, come next month. Laurie graduates then, and you’d enjoy
commencement as something new.”
“That is your best friend, of whom you speak?” he said in an altered tone.
“Yes, my boy Teddy. I’m very proud of him and should like you to see
him.”
Jo looked up then, quite unconscious of anything but her own pleasure in
the prospect of showing them to one another. Something in Mr. Bhaer’s face
suddenly recalled the fact that she might find Laurie more than a ‘best
friend’, and simply because she particularly wished not to look as if
anything was the matter, she involuntarily began to blush, and the more she
tried not to, the redder she grew. If it had not been for Tina on her knee. She
didn’t know what would have become of her. Fortunately the child was
moved to hug her, so she managed to hide her face an instant, hoping the
Professor did not see it. But he did, and his own changed again from that
momentary anxiety to its usual expression, as he said cordially…
“I fear I shall not make the time for that, but I wish the friend much
success, and you all happiness. Gott bless you!” And with that, he shook
hands warmly, shouldered Tina, and went away.
But after the boys were abed, he sat long before his fire with the tired
look on his face and the ‘heimweh’, or homesickness, lying heavy at his
heart. Once, when he remembered Jo as she sat with the little child in her
lap and that new softness in her face, he leaned his head on his hands a
minute, and then roamed about the room, as if in search of something that
he could not find.
“It is not for me, I must not hope it now,” he said to himself, with a sigh
that was almost a groan. Then, as if reproaching himself for the longing that
he could not repress, he went and kissed the two tousled heads upon the
pillow, took down his seldom-used meerschaum, and opened his Plato.
He did his best and did it manfully, but I don’t think he found that a pair
of rampant boys, a pipe, or even the divine Plato, were very satisfactory
substitutes for wife and child at home.
Early as it was, he was at the station next morning to see Jo off, and
thanks to him, she began her solitary journey with the pleasant memory of a
familiar face smiling its farewell, a bunch of violets to keep her company,
and best of all, the happy thought, “Well, the winter’s gone, and I’ve written
no books, earned no fortune, but I’ve made a friend worth having and I’ll
try to keep him all my life.”
