PREVIOUSLY: Meg and Jo accepted an invitation to a New Year’s Eve party. A New Year’s Eve party is imminent!
On New-Year’s-Eve the parlor was deserted, for the two younger girls played dressing maids, and the two elder were absorbed in the all-important business of “getting ready for the party.”
Simple as the toilets were 1, there was a great deal of running up and down, laughing and talking, and at one time a strong smell of burnt hair pervaded the house. Meg wanted a few curls about her face, and Jo undertook to pinch the papered locks with a pair of hot tongs.
“Ought they to smoke like that?” asked Beth, from her gargoyle-like perch on the bed.
“It’s the dampness drying,” replied Jo.
“What a queer smell! It’s like burnt feathers,” observed Amy, smoothing her own pretty curls with a superior air.
“There, now, I’ll take off the papers and you’ll see a cloud of little ringlets,” said Jo, putting down the tongs.
She did take off the papers, but no cloud of ringlets appeared, for the hair came with the papers, and the horrified hair-dresser laid a row of little scorched bundles on the bureau before her victim.
I’m no end sorry, but the tongs were too hot, and so I’ve made a mess.
“Oh, oh, oh! What have you done! I’m spoilt! I can’t go! My hair, oh my hair!” wailed Meg, looking with despair at the uneven frizzle on her forehead.
“Just my luck! You shouldn’t have asked me to do it; I always spoil everything. I’m no end sorry, but the tongs were too hot, and so I’ve made a mess,” groaned poor Jo, regarding the black pancakes with tears of regret. 2
“It isn’t spoilt; just frizzle it, and tie your ribbon so the ends come on your forehead a bit, and it will look like the last fashion. I’ve seen lots of girls do it so,” said Amy, consolingly. 3
“Serves me right for trying to be fine. I wish I’d let my hair alone,” cried Meg, petulantly.
“So do I, it was so smooth and pretty. But it will soon grow out again,” said Beth, coming to kiss and comfort the shorn sheep.
After various lesser mishaps, Meg was finished at last, and by the united exertions of the family Jo’s hair was got up, and her dress on. They looked very well in their simple suits, Meg in silvery drab, with a blue velvet snood 4, lace frills, and the pearl pin; Jo in maroon, with a stiff, gentlemanly linen collar, and a white chrysanthemum or tow for her only ornament. Each put on one nice light glove, and carried one soiled one, and all pronounced the effect “quite easy and nice.”
Meg’s high-heeled slippers were dreadfully tight, and hurt her, though she would not own it, and Jo’s nineteen hair-pins all seemed stuck straight into her head, which was not exactly comfortable; but, dear me, let us be elegant or die. 5
1 You can probably gather the meaning from context clues, but I found this Reddit thread interesting re: how ‘toilet’ started as a word pertaining to the act of getting ready. I love 2 learn!
2 Who among us has not been strong-armed into doing a girlish task and failed? (And perhaps knew from the beginning that we would fail?) Combine that with Jo’s false confidence and that’s how you get bleach burns at the slumber party.
3 The way Alcott treats Amy sometimes is interesting. You get the hints occasionally that Alcott doesn’t think Amy’s vanity is a bad thing, but can’t come right out and say it. (Gerwig’s adaptation makes this case even more strongly.) Amy often will compliment the girls and improve their appearances as a way of bolstering their self-esteem. If the first half of this book is a parable on Protestant “burdens,” there’s a tinge here that Alcott doesn’t necessarily agree in the all-or-nothing approach to these flaws. She’s more interested in how one can use one’s natural predilections to improve oneself and others. Or maybe I’m giving her too much credit!
4
Snoodin’
5 An all-time-great bitchy line.