PREVIOUSLY: Meg and Jo were invited to a NYE party. Jo fretted over the fact that her one appropriate dress had a big burn mark in the back. Meg has suggestions.
“You must sit still all you can, and keep your back out of sight; the front is all right. I shall have a new ribbon for my hair, and I’ll borrow Marmee’s little pearl pin, and my new slippers are lovely, and my gloves will do, though they aren’t as nice as I’d like.”
“Mine are spoilt with lemonade, and I can’t get any new ones, so I shall have to go without,” said Jo, who never troubled herself much about dress.
“You must have gloves, or I won’t go,” cried Meg, decidedly. “Gloves are more important than anything else; you can’t dance without them, and if you don’t I should be so mortified.”1
“Then I’ll stay still; I don’t care much for company dancing; it’s no fun to go sailing round, I like to fly about and cut capers.”
Gloves are more important than anything else.
“You can’t ask mother for new ones, they are so expensive, and you are so careless. She said, when you spoilt the others, that she shouldn’t get you any more this winter. Can’t you fix them any way?” said Meg, anxiously. 2
“I can hold them crunched up in my hand, so no one will know how stained they are; that’s all I can do. No! I’ll tell you how we can manage - each wear one good one and carry a bad one; don’t you see?”
“Your hands are bigger than mine, and you will stretch my glove dreadfully,” began Meg, whose gloves were a tender point with her.
“Then I’ll go without. I don’t care what people say,” cried Jo, taking up her book. 3
“You may have it, you may! Only don’t stain it, and do behave nicely; don’t put your hands behind you, or stare, or say ‘Christopher Columbus!” will you?”
“Don’t worry about me; I’ll be prim as a dish, and not get into any scrapes, if I can help it. Now go and answer your note, and let me finish this splendid story.”
So Meg went away to “accept with thanks,” look over her dress and sing blithely as she did up her one real lace frill; while Jo finished her story, her four apples, and had a game of romps with Scrabble. 4
1 I don’t claim to know exactly what American Civil-War era youth-appropriate party gloves look like, and I like to think you’re pure of heart enough to not care either.
2 Oh, how can I say no to you, dear reader! Here they are:
3 As with many of these early scenes, this isn’t really about the gloves. In about half a page Alcott gets a lot of relationship building done - we can imagine that this sort of conversation between Meg and Jo has played out many times. Meg is perpetually embarrassed, and Jo leverages that embarrassment to get her to a more reasonable conclusion. Moreover, replace “gloves” with something like “the car” or “Fortnite season pass” and you could easily have this type of sibling convo today. Teens!
4 Wait! I found a picture of what I think are the right gloves. Sorry for earlier!