Jo reads in the attic with her pet rat, Scrabble, while eating apples. Meg comes to her and tells her that the two of them have been invited to a New Year's Eve party at the home of Meg's friend, Sallie Gardiner. Meg is very excited, but does not know what to wear. Unlike Meg, Jo is not particularly excited, but agrees to go anyway. Problems plague the girls as they get ready for the party. Jo burns Meg's hair while trying to curl it, and Meg decides to wear shoes that are too tight. Jo must wear a dress that is burned on the back, and she must hold her gloves balled up in her hand in order to hide the lemonade stains that cover them. Meg cares a great deal about social etiquette and has formed a code for her blundering sister: Meg tells Jo that she will raise her eyebrows at the party if Jo is doing anything improper, and she will nod if Jo is acting ladylike.
At the party, Jo hangs back, not knowing anyone. Finally, fearing that a boy is going to ask her to dance, Jo slips behind a curtain. There, she runs into her neighbor, the Laurence boy, who soon introduces himself as Laurie. The two chat and become very comfortable with each other. They dance, but out of the way of everyone else in order to hide Jo's dress. Meg sprains her ankle, and Laurie offers to take her and Jo home in his carriage. When they arrive home, Meg and Jo tell their younger sisters all about the party.
YOU ARE READING
Little Women
General FictionLittle Women is prefaced by an excerpt from John Bunyan's seventeenth-century novel The Pilgrim's Progress, an allegorical, or symbolic, novel about living a Christian life. The excerpt concerns the novel's female character, Mercy, not its main male...
