THE Alcott children were brought up to think for themselves, to reflect, and to give expression to their thoughts. Never laughed at, they were not afraid to speak or write of what was in their minds. Each kept a diary, and no incident that concerned the little girls was too trivial for mention in the record of the day. These incidents, collected, give a more comprehensive view of the Alcotts as a family than do the father's voluminous journals.
Anna Bronson Alcott.
From a daguerreotype.
Page 122.
When Anna was ten, she gravely explains under date of April 13, 1841:
Father was too unwell to come down stairs and mother ironed, Louisa and I helped a little while. I wrote my journal and a journal for Louisa as she thought she could not write well enough. I had no other lessons than that. We watched a little spider and gave it some water to drink. In the afternoon mother read loud the story of the good aunt or part of it while we sewed on the clean clothes I mended up the holes and Louisa and Lizzy sewed on a sheet. In the evening we played mother lets us play in the evening. We went to bed soon.
This sewing bee recalls the long evenings in the March home, described in "Little Women," when the four girls and the mother sewed dutifully on sheets for Aunt March, dividing seams into countries, discussing Europe, Asia, Africa, and America as they stitched.
When she was twelve, Anna's literary aspirations sought a vent in attempted poetry. Later she collaborated with Louisa in writing the "Comic Tragedies." Anna's confidante and comrade, Louisa, was frequently the victim of these poetic effusions, her reception of which gives quite a line on her ardent temperament. This entry in Anna's journal for April 23, 1843, is eloquent: