"You didn't have half such a hard time as I do," said Jo." How would u like to be shut up for hours with a nervous, fussy old lady, who keeps you trotting, is never satisfied, and worries you till you're ready to fly out the window or cry?"
"It's naughty to fret "but I do think washing dishes and keeping things tidy is the worst work in the world. It makes me cross, and my hands get so stiff, I can't practice well at all." And Beth looked at her rough with a sign that anyone could hear this time. "I don't believe any of you suffer as I do," cried Amy, "for you don't have to go to school with impertinent girls who plague you if you don't know your lessons, and laughs at your dresses, and label your father if he isn't rich, and insult you when your nose isn't nice."If you mean libel, I'd say so, and not talk about labels, as if Papa was a pickle bottle," advised Jo, laughing.
"I know what I mean, and you needn't be statirical about it. It's proper to use good words and improve your vocabulary," return Amy, with dignity."Dont peck at another, children. Don't you wish we had the money Papa lost when we were little, Jo? Dear me! How happy and good we be, if we had no worries!" Said Meg who could remember better times."You said the other day you thought we were a deal happier then the King children, for they were fighting and fretting all the time, in spite of their money."
"So I did, Beth. Well, I think we are. For though we do have to work, we make fun of ourselves, and are a pretty jolly set, as Jo would say."" Jo does use a lot of slang words!" Observed Amy, with a reproving look at the look figure stretched on the rug. Jo immediately sat up, put her hands on her pockets, and began to whistle."Don't, Jo! It's so boyish!""Thats why I do it.""I detest rude, unladylike girls!""I hate affected niminy-miminy chits!"
"Birds in their little nests agree," sang Beth, the peacemaker, with such a funny face that both sharp voices softened to a laugh, and the "pecking" ended for that time.
"Really, girls, you are both to be blamed," said Meg,""beginning to lecture in her elder-sisterly fashion. "You are old enough to leave off boyish tricks, and to behave better, Josephine. It didn't matter so much when you were a little girl, but now you are so tall, and turn up your hair, you should remember that you are a young lady."
"I'm not! And if turning up my hair makes me one,""I'll wear it in two tails till I'm twenty," cried Jo, pulling off her net, and shaking down a chestnut mane. "I hate to think I've got to grow up, and be Miss March, and wear long gowns, and look as prim as a China Aster! It's bad enough to be a girl, anyway, when I like boy's games and work and manners! I can't get over my disappointment in not being a boy. And it's worse than ever now, for I'm dying to go and fight with Papa. And I can only stay home and knit, like a poky old woman!"
And Jo shook the blue army sock till the needles rattled like castanets, and her ball bounded across the room.
"Poor Jo! It's too bad, but it can't be helped. So you must try to be contented with making you."
YOU ARE READING
The Four Little Women
Non-Fiction1939: This book is about four young girl how live in a small room with little food and water. They worry about their father, who is over in a country fair away, fighting in world war 1.
