Whereat the renovated fowl
With grateful thanks profuse,
Took from her wing a quill and wrote
This lay of a Golden Goose.
Bex, Switzerland, August, 1870.
THE year 1869 was less fruitful in work than the preceding one. Miss Alcott spent the winter in Boston and the summer in Concord. She was ill and very tired, and felt little inclined for mental effort. "Hospital Sketches," which had been first published by Redpath, was now republished by Roberts Brothers, with the addition of six shorter "Camp and Fireside Stories." The interest of the public in either the author or the work had not lessened; for two thousand copies of the book in its new form were sold the first week. In her weary condition she finds her celebrity rather a burden than a pleasure, and says in her journal:–
People begin to come and stare at the Alcotts. Reporters haunt the place to look at the authoress, who dodges into the woods à la Hawthorne, and won't be even a very small lion.
Refreshed my soul with Goethe, ever strong and fine and alive. Gave S. E. S. $200 to invest. What richness to have a little not needed!
Miss Alcott had some pleasant refreshment in travelling during the summer.
July.– ... Spent in Canada with my cousins, the Frothinghams, at their house at Rivière du Loup,–a little village on the St. Lawrence, full of queer people. Drove, read, and walked with the little ones. A pleasant, quiet time.
August.– ... A month with May at Mt. Desert. A gay time, and a little rest and pleasure before the old pain and worry began again.
Made up $1,000 for S. E. S. to invest. Now I have $1,200 for a rainy day, and no debts. With that thought I can bear neuralgia gayly.
In the autumn the whole family went to Boston, the father and mother staying with Mrs. Pratt; while Louisa and her sister May, "the workers," occupied rooms in Pinckney Street. Not being well enough to do much new work, Louisa began using up her old stories, and found that the little women "helped their rejected sisters to good places where once they went a-begging." In January, 1870, she suffered from loss of voice, for which she tried "heroic treatment" under a distinguished physician. She got well enough to write a little, and in February wrote the conclusion to "The Old-fashioned Girl," which was published in March. She says:–