Free The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott by Kelly O'Connor McNees Page B

Lizzie still had the voice and mien of a much younger girl.
    Bronson hesitated a moment as if he were weighing the risk of taxing his soft-spoken daughter against enabling any self-indulgence. Abba spoke before his mind was settled.
    “No, little bird. Your sisters are strong and healthy, but your burden is a weaker constitution. We must at all times be cautious.”
    “But Marmee,” Lizzie said, touching her forehead to prove she did not have a fever. “I’m well.”
    “It may seem so, but you’ve only just recovered from that dreadful spring cough. Please—rest.”
    Lizzie looked at Bronson and he nodded, giving her a gentle smile Louisa rarely saw. Lizzie seemed to think it over a moment longer and relented. “Perhaps tomorrow, then,” she said.
    “You can read mine now, Father.” Anna handed over her journal and sat back with her hands folded on her lap. They were white and fine like two little doves.
    Bronson glanced over her pages, his eyes full of pride. “Anna writes that she was sad to leave Pinckney Street but eager for the challenge of a new town. ‘Hard work,’ she says, ‘is God’s design for our bodies and minds, and we must not question His will.’ She is grateful for the new embroidery needles from Mrs. Emerson and longs to put them to use in readying the new home.”
    Anna beamed as she saw she had won his coveted approval once more. It was among these sisters nearly as important as water or oxygen.
    Bronson looked in turn at each of his daughters. “I wish we were all as diffident and unpretending as this sister of yours.”
    Louisa nodded with a clenched jaw and thought about how her father had approached child-rearing like a scientific study. He collected evidence, keeping written observations of his subjects and, as the girls grew, reviewing their own journals. And like any scientist worth his salt, Bronson formed theories and then constructed experiments to test their veracity. One of Louisa’s earliest memories was of such a test, designed to assess his young daughters’ moral fortitude.
    Bronson sat five-year-old Anna and four-year-old Louisa in two chairs in his study that faced his desk, on which he placed a polished apple. He glanced deliberately at the fruit to ensure the girls had noticed it, then addressed Anna. “Anna, should little girls take things that do not belong to them, things they might like to eat or drink?”
    Anna’s face grew solemn. “No, Father, they should not.”
    He nodded and turned to Louisa. “And you, little one—would you do such a thing?” Louisa shook her head.
    “Very good,” Bronson said, then crossed the room toward the door. “Now I must go fetch some wood for the fire. I shall return in a moment. Please keep your seats—and remember what you said.”
    “Yes, Father,” the girls replied in unison. Bronson closed the door softly behind him and Anna and Louisa were alone with the beguiling fruit. When he returned with an armload of cedar the girls remained in their places, but the apple had been reduced to a spindly core.
    Bronson pressed his lips into a line, more intellectually intrigued than angry. He pointed at the apple core. “What is this?”
    Louisa’s legs were too short to reach the floor and they swung beneath the seat of her chair. “Apple,” she said.
    “Well,” Anna added, her linguistic abilities slightly more developed, “it was an apple.”
    Bronson nodded. “And what happened to it?”
    Louisa looked blankly at her father. Anna spoke up. “Louisa took it. I told her she must not, but she did. And then I took a little bite but I knew I was naughty. So I threw it on the floor, but Louisa ,” she said, pointing her finger at her sister, “ Louisa picked it up and ate the rest.”
    “Is this true?” Bronson questioned his younger child. Louisa nodded. The notion of telling a lie to cover her misdeeds had not occurred to her.
    “I was naughty, wasn’t I, Father?” Anna asked, twisting her fingers together.