Deeds, not words, characterized Elizabeth Alcott, as readers of "Little Women" will recall. She was about seven when she sent this letter, one of the very few she wrote, to her mother:
May, Friday 29.
Dear Mother,
I thank you very much for your note. I will try to write better than I have done. I have not always had a good pen. I hope I shall improve in all my studies this summer. I hope I can read German & French very well, and know a great deal about the countries. I must write my journal now so I will bid you good bye.
From your loving
Elizabeth.
Birthdays were always celebrated with much rejoicing in the Alcott household, the gift made secondary to the spirit of the day. From the time they were old enough to print, the Alcott children on the mother's birthday made her some little gift, accompanying it with a note. Abba May or May, as she was always called, at nine years old, began in prose but lapsed into poetry:
Dear Mother,
I wish you a very happy birthday. I hope you will find my present Useful, and when you wear it think of me. I have taken a great-deal of Pleasure in making it for you. Please take this Present mother on your 49 birthday
With the dearest Love and wishes
of your little daughter A.
With Mrs. Alcott, hardship, poverty, the grief of seeing her husband misunderstood and often scoffed at, never lessened her love for him, or her contentment in the marriage relation. The year following her marriage in a letter to her brother she wrote: "My father has never married a daughter or son more completely happy than I am. I have cares, and soon they will be arduous ones, but with the mild, constant, and affectionate sympathy and aid of my husband, with the increasing health and loveliness of my quiet and bright little Anna, with good health, clear head, grateful heart and ready hand,—what can I not do when surrounded by influences like this?"