"A Merry Christmas" - Page 14

They were all unusually hungry, having waited nearly an hour, and for a minute no one spoke; only a minute, for Jo exclaimed impetuously, - 

“I’m so glad you came before we began!”

“May I go and help carry the things to the poor little children?” asked Beth, eagerly. 

“I shall take the cream and the muffins,” added Amy, heroically giving up the articles she most liked.

Meg was already covering the buckwheats ¹, and piling the bread into one big plate.

“I thought you’d do it,” said Mrs. March, smiling as if satisfied, as much as she could muster. “You shall all go and help me, and when we come back we will have bread and milk for breakfast, and make it up at dinner-time.”

They were soon ready, and the procession set out. Fortunately it was early ², and they went through back streets, so few people saw them, and no one laughed at the funny party.

A poor, bare, miserable room it was, with broken windows, no fire, ragged bed-clothes, a sick mother, wailing baby, and a group of pale, hungry children cuddled under one old quilt, trying to keep warm. How the big eyes stared, and the blue lips smiled, as the girls went in!

“Ach, mein Gott! It is good angels come to us!” cried the poor woman, crying for joy. 

“Funny angels in hoods and mittens,” said Jo, and set them laughing.

In a few minutes it really did seem as if kind spirits had been at work there. Hannah, who had carried wood, made a fire, and stopped up the broken panes with old hats, and her own shawl. ³ Mrs. March gave the mother tea and gruel, and comforted her with promises of help, while she dressed the little baby as tenderly as if it had been her own. The tenderness between the two mothers was multiplied in some measure by the shared understanding of mothers everywhere; the hope that care shown to the growing would be returned as care shown to the fading.

The girls, meantime, spread the table, set the children round the fire, and fed them like so many hungry birds; laughing, talking, and trying to understand the funny broken English. 

“Das is gute!” “Der angel-kinder!” cried the poor things, as they ate, and warmed their purple hands at the comfortable blaze. The girls had never been called angel children before, and thought it very agreeable, especially Jo, who had been considered “a Sancho” ⁴ ever since she was born. 

That was a very happy breakfast, through they didn’t get any of it; and when they went away, leaving comfort behind, I think there were not in all the city four merrier people than the hungry little girls who gave away their breakfasts, and contented themselves with bread and milk on Christmas morning.

¹ _{Which are…distinct from muffins. In some way.}

² _{Remember the girls woke up at sunrise! Marmee has already been out, AMY has already been to the store (which was open that early on Xmas?), and still no one’s on the streets.}

³ _{I promise I’m not going to always harp on the Hannah of it all. But how opted-in can we really assume she is here? I’m sure that part of her is happy to help, and no one said she NEEDED to use her own shawl to stop up the windows, but I remember even when I was a kid it threw me off how much of the March’s largesse relied on other people’s labor. IDK. IDK. I’LL SHUT UP ABOUT IT.}

⁴ _{From the text: “‘a Sancho’: Possibly a reference to Sancho Panza, Don Quixote’s comic sidekick in Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote.” See?? Even Elaine Showalter doesn’t know what Louisa is saying sometimes! It’s not just me! I’m smart!! I’m smart and good!!}

A lovely scene! One that I hope you can hang onto, because after this we’re spending an excruciating amount of pages on the girls’ Christmas play. I’m being mean about it, of course (because I find it annoying to read) but maybe you’ll like it!

I am adding the German family (The Hummels, I believe the text names them) as a collective to the Chapter 2 Death Poll. Adding each individual child plus sick baby plus sick mom felt too sad.

Speaking of sad! Your current standings -