Here Mr. Alcott could live with little expense and teach his four daughters.  Louisa, the eldest, was an active, enthusiastic child, getting into little troubles from her frankness and lack of policy, but making friends with her generous heart.  Who can ever forget Jo in Little Women, who was really Louisa, the girl who, when reproved for whistling by Amy, the art-loving sister, says:  “I hate affected, niminy-piminy chits!  I’m not a young lady; and if turning up my hair makes me one, I’ll wear it in two tails till I’m twenty.  I hate to think I’ve got to grow up, and be Miss March, and wear long gowns, and look as prim as a china-aster!  Its bad enough to be a girl, anyway, when I like boy’s games and work and manners!”

At fifteen, “Jo was very tall, thin, and brown, and reminded one of a colt; for she never seemed to know what to do with her long limbs, which were very much in her way.  She had a decided mouth, a comical nose, and sharp, gray eyes, which appeared to see everything, and were by turns fierce or funny or thoughtful.  Her long, thick hair was her one beauty, but it was usually bundled into a net to be out of her way.  Round shoulders had Jo, and big hands and feet, a fly-away look to her clothes, and the uncomfortable appearance of a girl who was rapidly shooting up into a woman, and didn’t like it.”

The four sisters lived a merry life in the Concord haunts, notwithstanding their scanty means.  Now, at the dear mother’s suggestion, they ate bread and milk for breakfast, that they might carry their nicely prepared meal to a poor woman, with six children, who called them Engel-kinder, much to Louisa’s delight.  Now they improvised a stage, and produced real plays, while the neighbors looked in and enjoyed the fun.

Louisa was especially fond of reading Shakespeare, Goethe, Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Miss Edgeworth, and George Sand.  As early as eight years of age she wrote a poem of eight lines, To a Robin, which her mother carefully preserved, telling her that “if she kept on in this hopeful way, she might be a second Shakespeare in time.”  Blessings on those people who have a kind smile or a word of encouragement as we struggle up the hard hills of life!

At thirteen she wrote My Kingdom.  When, years afterward, Mrs. Eva Munson Smith wrote to her, asking for some poems for Woman in Sacred Song, Miss Alcott sent her this one, saying, “It is the only hymn I ever wrote.  It was composed at thirteen, and as I still find the same difficulty in governing my kingdom, it still expresses my soul’s desire, and I have nothing better to offer.”

  “A little kingdom I possess
    Where thoughts and feelings dwell,
  And very hard the task I find
    Of governing it well;
  For passion tempts and troubles me,
    A wayward will misleads,
  And selfishness its shadow casts
    On all my words and deeds.

  “How can I learn to rule myself,
    To be the child I should,
  Honest and brave, and never tire
    Of trying to be good? 
  How can I keep a sunny soul
    To shine along life’s way? 
  How can I tune my little heart
    To sweetly sing all day?