“But we have no money, dear.”
“Yes, we have. I sold all we could spare, and have enough to take us away from this snowbank.”
“Where can we go?”
“I have engaged four rooms at our good neighbor, Lovejoy’s. There we can live cheaply till spring. Then for new plans and a home of our own, please God.”
ORCHARD HOUSE AT CONCORD, MASSACHUSETTS
The Alcott home of later years
“But, Hope, your little store won’t last long, and we have no friends.”
“I can sew and you can chop wood. Lovejoy offers you the same pay as he gives his other men; my old friend, Mrs. Truman, will send me all the work I want; and my blessed brother stands by us to the end. Cheer up, dear heart, for while there is work and love in the world we shall not suffer.”
“And while I have my good angel Hope, I shall not despair, even if I wait another thirty years before I step beyond the circle of the sacred little world in which I still have a place to fill.”
So one bleak December day, with their few possessions piled on an ox-sled, the rosy children perched atop, and the parents trudging arm in arm behind, the exiles left their Eden and faced the world again.