Christmas Stories of Louisa May Alcott, The. Louisa May Alcott

to see that all was safe.

      Aunt Jane stopped to watch the little figure standing on the hearth alone, looking into the embers with thoughtful eyes. If Patty could have seen her future there, she would have found a long life spent in glad service to those she loved and who loved her. Not a splendid future, but a useful, happy one—"only a servant" perhaps, yet a good and faithful woman, blessed with the confidence, respect, and affection of those who knew her genuine worth.

      As a smile broke over Patty's face, Miss Jane said with an arm round the little blue-gowned figure—

      "What are you dreaming and smiling about, deary? The friends that are to come for you someday, with a fine fortune in their pockets?"

      "No, Ma'am, I feel as if I've found my folks. I don't want any finer fortune than the love they've given me today. I'm trying to think how I can deserve it, and smiling because it's so beautiful and I'm so happy," answered Patty, looking up at her first friend with full eyes and a glad glance that made her lovely.

       THE EDITOR'S NOTES

      The Quiet Little Woman

      The world of Patty, the orphan girl, was one with which Louisa May Alcott was quite familiar. Louisa's mother had been one of the first paid social workers in the United States, and all of the Alcott family had a strong sense of social obligation. By the standards of their day, they would have been regarded as quite progressive in their views, and many times they showed themselves ready to help those in need even as they had been helped in their impecunious days.

      Nevertheless, Louisa May Alcott would have found it strange indeed if anyone had suggested to her that there could be a general scheme for helping all in need regardless of an individual's efforts and personal morality. She herself had put forth Herculean efforts to write enough stories, including some rather gaudy thrillers, to pull the Alcott family out of debt. Naturally, she came to believe that individual effort made a difference.

      In all her writing, Louisa's characters exhibit virtue and vice within a context of personal responsibility. Characters like poor Patty may indeed need a helping hand from someone like Aunt Jane—especially at Christmastime—but Patty must help too. She has powers of her own and a will of her own that she must draw on to accept her lot and find happiness where she can.

      No one could tell Miss Alcott about the nature of poverty and privation because she knew of it firsthand, and she also knew that there really were people in the world who had earned, or were worthy of, a second chance, while there were others, like the bad maid Lizzie Brown, who "deserved nothing" and squandered her chance at a good life.

      Perhaps we today need to learn a lesson from Miss Alcott and from Patty. All too often we are told there is no limit to what we can do and what personal peace, comfort, and satisfaction we may achieve—if only hindrances to opportunity could be swept from our path, perhaps by the church, perhaps by a social organization, perhaps by the mercy of the government itself, regardless of whether we are worthy of the opportunity or not.

      But for Patty and Louisa May, moral character cannot be excluded as a factor in our own well-being and in what we make of ourselves and of our opportunities. As we awaken morally to what is charitable, truthful, and good, we awaken our own souls to moral transformation. If we have been dealt a bad hand by life, the virtue of accepting what has been dealt to us strengthens us to our challenge. Others have overcome through worthy endeavors; so can we.

      Christmas is a good time to ponder these truths. Charity is a theme of the season, yet how charity is received is important too.

      As Louisa May Alcott knew from her own observations, moral good is rewarded, often in this life, and surely in the world to come. Vice, on the other hand, gives us no aid in battling against the odds of going upstream. Most success and even peace are achieved by overcoming, and goodness helps us rise to our occasion and opportunity, no matter how rarely they might come.

      True, it has been observed that sometimes the unworthy do prosper, but even that cannot take away from the satisfaction of virtue. For virtue itself is a reward, a prosperity to the soul, to be enjoyed equally by both the humble and the great.

      A Hospital Christmas

      Adapted by Stephen W. Hines

      "Merry Christmas!" "Merry Christmas!" "Merry Christmas, and lots of 'em, Ma'am!" echoed from every side as Miss Hale entered her ward in the gray December dawn. No wonder the greetings were hearty, that thin faces brightened, and eyes watched for the coming of this small luminary more eagerly than for the rising of the sun.

      When the patients had awakened that morning, each man found that, in the silence of the night, some friendly hand had laid a little gift beside his bed. Very humble little gifts they were, but well chosen and thoughtfully bestowed by one who made the blithe anniversary pleasant even in a hospital and sweetly taught the lesson of the hour—Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Man.

      "I say, Ma'am, these are just splendid. I've dreamt about such for a week, but I never thought I'd get 'em," cried one poor fellow surveying a fine bunch of grapes with as much satisfaction as if he had found a fortune.

      "Thank you kindly, Miss, for the paper and the fixings. I hated to keep borrowing, but I hadn't any money," said another, eyeing his gift with happy anticipations of the home letters with which the generous pages should be filled.

      "They are dreadful soft and pretty, but I don't believe I'll ever wear 'em out; my legs are so wimbly there's no go in 'em," whispered a fever patient looking sorrowfully at the swollen feet ornamented with a pair of carpet slippers gay with roses and evidently made for his special need.

      "Please hang my posy basket on the gas burner in the middle of the room where all the boys can see it. It's too pretty for one alone."

      "But then you can't see it yourself, Joe, and you are fonder of such things than the rest," said Miss Hale, taking both the little basket and the hand of her pet patient, a lad of twenty, dying of rapid consumption.

      "That's the reason I can spare it for a while, because I shall feel 'em in the room just the same, and they'll do the boys good. You pick out the one you like best for me to keep and hang up the rest till by and by, please."

      She gave him a sprig of mignonette, and he smiled as he took it, for it reminded him of her in her sad-colored gown. Although Miss Hale was quiet and unobtrusive, she had created a gratitude in the hearts of those about her that was like the fresh scent of a flower to the lonely lad who never had known womanly tenderness and care until he found them in a hospital. Joe's prediction was verified; the flowers did do the boys good. All welcomed them with approving glances, and all felt their refining influence more or less keenly, from cheery Ben, who paused to fill the cup inside with fresher water, to surly Sam, who stopped growling as his eye rested on a geranium very like the one blooming in his sweetheart's window when they parted a long year ago.

      "Now, as this is to be a merry day, let us begin to enjoy it at once. Fling up the window, Ben, and Barney, go for breakfast while I finish washing faces and settling bedclothes."

      With which directions the little woman fell to work with such infectious energy that, in fifteen minutes, thirty gentlemen with clean faces and hands were partaking of refreshments with as much appetite as their various conditions would permit. Meantime the sun came up, looking bigger, brighter, and jollier than usual, as he is apt to do on Christmas days. Not a snowflake chilled the air that blew in as blandly as if winter had relented and wished the "boys" the compliments of the season in his mildest mood. A festival smell pervaded the whole house, and appetizing rumors of turkey, mince pie, and oysters for dinner circulated through the wards. When breakfast was done, the wounds dressed, directions for the day delivered, and as many of the disagreeables as possible were over, the fun began. In any other place, that would have been considered a very quiet morning, but to the weary invalids prisoned in that room, it was quite a whirl of excitement. None were dangerously ill but Joe, and all were easily amused since weakness, homesickness, and ennui made every trifle a joke or an event.

      In came Ben, looking like a "Jack in the Green," with his load of hemlock and holly. Such of the men