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maidens. Louisa trod the boards of the barn theater through her first play in a
blaze of glory. The curtain went down to applause, which shook the old barn
rafters. Some of the acclaim was for Anna, who was a really gifted actress,
some of it was for Louisa; and a great deal of it was deservedly for the boots.
Excited and delighted by her first success, Louisa worked away in the little
room, writing more and more dramas of the same sort. So many plots came
crowding to her brain that, from plays, she overflowed into stories of the
same grandiloquent sort. They were cut out, as the boots had been, by the
pattern of what she imagined the life of the high nobility to be, and they
were put together with the same industrious ingenuity.
Between the stories and plays she dreamed long dreams of the great things
she hoped to do. "Am I going to be an actress," she wondered, "or a
playwright, or a story writer!" She had no idea, which it was to be.
Whatever it was, she was going to be it with all her might. Yet underneath
her soaring fancies there lay a firm foundation of practical resolution. She
saw plainly that her father, though recovered now, had very little real
knowledge of the jostling world about him, that her mother was worn and
worried over the problems of living. She could see that her sister Anna was
as ambitious as herself that Elizabeth was not strong, and that little May was
growing up with a beauty-loving nature of passionate intensity. No children
ever loved one another and their parents more than did the Alcotts. The way
in which Louisa adored them all as the years passed could never be put into
words -- the way she loved them and intended to take care of them.
There in the little room she made what she called the plan of her life and
vowed to herself that she would give these beloved ones what each one
needed There was to be security for her father, peace and comfort and "a
sunny room" for her mother, opportunity for Anna, care for Beth, education
for May. One of the most interesting tales in the world is the record of how
resolutely Louisa kept that promise and how, no matter what things went
against her, she always refused to be beaten
She was not, however, taken up continually with thoughts of the drama
and of the future. She still ran in the fields and climbed the hills; she loved to
sit under the pine trees on the ridge behind the house and think- long, intense
thoughts. Through all that first summer at Hill- side she was free and happy.
She would write busily in the little room undisturbed and would often work
late into the evening. When she was tired at last she would put down her pen
and run out into the garden. The grass would be dewy and soft under her
feet, the tall fruit trees would be dark against the stars. She loved to climb up
into the crooked, comfortable branches and sit there dreaming until her
thoughts had traveled far away from ordinary things. She would look back
within her memory upon Fruitlands and all that incomprehensible incident
which still cast a dark memory over their lives. She would wonder whether it
was over and whether they were going to follow an ordinary existence now,
to the end of their days. She hoped that they would not.
It is not certain whether she ever knew of the very last act in that curious
drama of Fruitlands. Abba Alcott, whose struggle for the safety of her family
had been so silent and so desperate, Abba whose will had stood against
Charles Lane's and had finally won the day, seems in the end to have
regretted her victory. Bronson's illness and despondency lasted so long, his
heartfelt sorrow over the failure of the experiment was so great, that at last
even his wife's brave determination faltered. She sat down and wrote a letter,
such a letter as once she never would have dreamed that she could indite.
She wrote to Charles Lane and asked him to come back, asked him to take
up work once more with Bronson, so that he might be happy again. She
knew what such a thing meant. But she asked Charles Lane to come.
With what agony of anxiety she must have waited for his answer. As has
been said, she was a woman of most intense feeling. We know she was, for
otherwise she could not have humbled her pride and put by her greatest
desire for the sake of her affection for Bronson Alcott. Perhaps not even he
knew of her offer; it seems scarcely possible that she told the girls of it. The
reply came at last. Charles Lane had not continued with the Shakers, whom
he had joined on leaving Fruitlands. Somehow that connection also had been
unhappy. He was going back to England. With his departure the shadow of
his presence vanished from their lives forever. The Alcotts never saw him
again.
One former member of the Fruitlands establishment, Joseph Palmer, came
back to buy the abandoned land and to keep up a strange sort of idealized
existence on the old place. He vowed that no traveler should ever go away
hungry from his door. On one side of the farmhouse hearth stood a great iron
pot of beans, on the other a similar one full of potatoes. Anyone was
welcome to come in and help himself. Destitute people took refuge there,
sometimes staying for months or years Joseph Palmer and his wife, Nancy,
made no profession of being Transcendental philosophers; their only system
of thought was a complete overflowing of human kindness. Yet there was
nothing weak and vacillating about the character of old Joseph. A farmer
near him, Silas Dudley by name, disputed with Palmer the right of way
across Dudley's land from the Fruitlands farm down the high- road.
Mr. Emerson recounted to the Alcotts how, when a deep snow fell Joseph
Palmer undertook to clear the drifts away from the path across the disputed
land, while Silas, the owner, sallying out with his shovel, fell grimly to work
to shovel it on again. Regardless of the pleas of their alarmed households,
they worked against each other all day long, two old men in the bitter cold
Finally a compromise was suggested. If Mr. Emerson were called upon to
decide which was right, would both agree! They said they would; Emerson's
was a name to conjure with, such was everyone's confidence in his justice
and his impartial friendship. The dispute was decided and the tale carried
home to the Alcotts. Louisa and her sisters could laugh over it, in spite of the
dark memories of Fruitlands. But it is not certain whether Abba could join in
their laughter.
What a friend Mr. Emerson was! Always when things seemed difficult,
when troubles were on the point of overwhelming this happy- go-lucky
family, he was at hand to offer aid. Advice, belief, more substantial things,
he was ready to give them all. His big, square white house was not far away,
a refuge and meeting place, for all of his legion of friends. Here in the
parlor, sitting before the broad, white- paneled fireplace, Bronson Alcott
could talk and talk of the things deepest in his heart and know that he spoke
to one who would truly understand Those red velvet, cushioned chairs, the
long sofa against the wall, the crackling flames shining on Emerson's [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]