"Give me health and a day, and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous!" said the sage of Concord. So it was with little Alice Freeman. As she picked wild strawberries on the hills, and climbed the apple-tree to lie for a blissful minute in a nest of swaying blossoms under the blue sky, she was, as she said, "happy all over." The trappings of royalty can add nothing to one who knows how to be royally happy in gingham.
But Alice was not always following the pasture path to her friendly brook, or running across the fields with the calling wind, or dancing with her shadow in the barn-yard, where even the prosy hens stopped pecking corn for a minute to watch. She had work to do for Mother. When she was only four, she could dry the dishes without dropping one; and when she was six, she could be trusted to keep the three toddlers younger than herself out of mischief.
"My little daughter is learning to be a real little mother," said Mrs. Freeman, as she went about her work of churning and baking without an anxious thought.
Alice Freeman Palmer
It was Sister Alice who pointed out the robin's nest, and found funny turtles and baby toads to play with. She took the little brood with her to hunt eggs in the barn and to see the ducks sail around like a fleet of boats on the pond. When Ella and Fred were wakened by a fearsome noise at night, they crept up close to their little mother, who told them a story about the funny screech-owl in its hollow-tree home.
"It is the ogre of mice and bats, but not of little boys and girls," she said.
"It sounds funny now, Alice," they whispered. "It's all right when we can touch you."
When Alice was seven a change came in the home. The father and mother had some serious talks, and then it was decided that Father should go away for a time, for two years, to study to be a doctor.