"Not far away from here lies a poor woman with a little newborn baby. Six children are huddled into one bed to keep from freezing, for they have no fire. There is nothing to eat over there, and the oldest boy came to tell me they were suffering hunger and cold. My girls, will you give them your breakfast as a Christmas present?"They were all unusually hungry, having waited nearly an hour, and for a minute no one spoke, only a minute, for Jo exclaimed impetuously,"I'm glad you came before we began!""May I go and help carry the things to the poor little children?" asked Beth eagerly."I shall take the cream and the muffings," added Amy, heroically giving up the article she most liked. Meg was already covering the buckwheats, and piling the bread into one big plate."I thought you'd do it," said Mrs. March, smiling as if satisfied. "You shall all go and help me, and when we come back we will have bread and milk for breakfast, and make it up at dinnertime."They were soon ready, and the procession set out. Fortunately it was early, and they "went through back streets, so few people saw them, and no one laughed at the queer party. A poor, bare, miserable room it was, with broken windows, no fire, ragged bedclothes, a sick mother, wailing baby, and a group of pale, hungry children cuddled under one old quilt, trying to keep warm. How the big eyes stared and the blue lips smiled as the girls went in."Ach, mein Gott! It is good angels come to us!" said the poor woman, crying for joy."Funny angels in hoods and mittens," said Jo, and set them to laughing. In a few minutes it really did seem as if kind spirits had been at "work there. Hannah, who had carried wood, made a fire, and stopped up the broken panes with old hats and her own cloak. Mrs. March gave the mother tea and gruel, and comforted her with promises of help, while she dressed the little baby as tenderly as if it had been her own. The girls meantime spread the table, set the children round the fire, and fed them like so many hungry birds, laughing, talking, and trying to understand the funny broken English."Das ist gut!" "Die Engel-kinder!" cried the poor things as they ate and warmed their purple hands at the comfortable blaze.
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.
