“It’s too bad,” he concluded with a sigh, “that this piano never gets played. I’m so busy with work, and Laurie is so busy with guitar and sports and video games. So here it sits, day after day, lonely for someone to play it.”
“Maybe I could help,” Beth said, almost in a whisper. One thing that could stir Beth out of her shell was the thought that she could help.
“Oh? Do you play?” Mr. Lawrence said gently, careful not to startle her.
“I do. A little. Not very well,” Beth said. Mom elbowed Jo, who was about to loudly contradict her.
“Well, even a little bit of playing now and then would be wonderful. I tell you what, I’m usually gone in the afternoons or working quietly in my study. I’ll give you the code to the front door keypad. You can come in whenever you like and play a few songs. I’d be most grateful.”
“I’d like that, sir. Thank you.” Beth’s face flushed in excitement. “I’ll come tomorrow after school if it’s okay,” she added.
“Perfect,” Mr. Lawrence nodded, writing the code on his business card and handing it to her.
• • •
The next day, true to her word, Beth silently entered the Lawrence mansion at three fifteen on the dot. She quickly scurried to the exquisite piano, opened it up with reverence, and proceeded to play Beethoven with great feeling.
Mr. Lawrence, who was working quietly in his study nearby, made not a peep as he listened to her play. Her talent was so overwhelming that it brought tears to his eyes, for it reminded him of his son, who had once played with a similar depth of emotion. Careful not to alert Beth to his presence, he said not a word and moved not a muscle, only hoping that the girl would return.
And she did. Every day the next week, at precisely three fifteen, Beth visited the Lawrence home to play for exactly one hour. Over time, Mr. Lawrence risked making more and more noise, gradually alerting her to his presence in the study and even occasionally clapping for her. Laurie also greeted Beth several times as he rushed through the house on a search for snacks before a tutoring session or before his Tae Kwon Do class. She got used to it and didn’t even jump anymore.
Beth felt so grateful to Mr. Lawrence for letting her enjoy his piano, she decided to knit him a special scarf as a gift. She explained her plan to Mom and Meg, who both agreed it was a great idea and helped her purchase some fine merino yarn. Beth worked on the project every evening for three weeks until the scarf was complete. She’d had to go back and undo stitches several times to fix mistakes, but she was pleased with the result. The scarf was a deep burgundy color with one debonair gray stripe. Beth wrapped it in tissue paper and placed it in a gift box. She tied the package with a bow and attached a gift tag written in Mom’s pretty script:
To Mr. Lawrence, from Beth March
Handmade with care
Thank you for sharing your beautiful piano with me.
The next day, she placed the box just outside of Mr. Lawrence’s study and backed slowly away, wanting him to discover her gift only once she was safely home. He waited a few minutes after hearing his front door click closed, and scooped up the box. When he saw what she had made, he smiled and his eyes teared up. Not only was the gift beautiful, it was well made and perfectly to his taste. The thought of his young neighbor working on it for weeks touched his heart.
Beth waited patiently for a response from her elder neighbor, fearing he didn’t like her gift when a whole day passed without a word. But then, the following morning, as she sleepily made her way to the kitchen to find some cereal, she noticed all her sisters already at the table, clearly excited about something. A box sat among them with a letter attached.
“Beth, you’re such a sleepyhead! We’ve been waiting for you for ages! Laurie brought this over this morning. It’s from Mr. Lawrence!” Jo was using all her willpower not to open the present herself.
“A present? But . . .” Beth felt embarrassed. The whole reason she’d made Mr. Lawrence the scarf was that he’d already given her more than she’d ever imagined receiving.
“Open it!” Amy yelled. “You’re killing me!”
At this, Beth smiled. She dutifully opened the package. It contained an intricate-looking music box that played “Clair de Lune,” one of Beth’s favorite pieces.
“Wow,” Meg said, stunned. “That’s gorgeous. And it sounds amazing.”
“I love it,” Beth whispered. She reluctantly tore her eyes from the gift to read Mr. Lawrence’s note:
Dear Miss March,
I have had many scarves in my life, but none have suited me so well as yours. Burgundy is my favorite color, and I plan to wear it every day as a pleasant reminder of its gentle and talented maker. This old gentleman likes to pay my debts, so I hope you will accept and enjoy this music box, which once belonged to someone dear to me.
With many thanks, I remain your friend,
James Lawrence
“You’ll have to go thank him,” Jo said, though not really expecting her timid sister to actually do it. The whole family was astonished at what happened next.
Beth nodded and said, “Yes. I’ll go now, before I get too scared.” And with that, she put on her coat and boots and went right out the front door, still in her flannel pajama pants.
With only a slight hesitation at Mr. Lawrence’s study door, Beth walked in and went right up to “the old gentleman.”
“Thank you, sir. . . .” She trailed off, feeling suddenly self-conscious. But Mr. Lawrence looked so friendly and happy to see her that she simply gave him a hug.
If the roof of the house had flown off, the man wouldn’t have been more shocked than he was. He felt many years and many sorrows fall away in that moment.
As if a spell had been broken, Beth stopped being scared of the old man right then. She realized there was much she wanted to tell him, and the two talked cheerfully until it really was time for Beth to go to school. When Beth returned home, looking happy and chattering excitedly about all she and Mr. Lawrence had discussed, Amy fell right off her chair and Meg said simply, “You know, if Aunt Em came over right now and did a headstand, I wouldn’t even be surprised. That’s how odd this day is.”
Mr. Lawrence’s Scarf Pattern
Supplies:
• About 253 yards of super-bulky-weight yarn (Wool is very warm!)
• Size 11 knitting needles
• Crochet hook, any size
• Scissors
Gauge:
4 stitches to an inch, 5 rows to an inch
Scarf:
Cast on 22 stitches.
Row 1: Knit 1, purl 1, alternately across the row.
Row 2: Purl 1, knit 1, alternately across the row.
Repeat rows 1 and 2 until your scarf is about 54 inches long. Feel free to make it longer or shorter as you wish.
Fringe (optional):
Cut two 6-inch strands of yarn. Fold these strands in half to form a loop. With a crochet hook, draw the loop through a stitch at one end of your scarf, then pull the 4 ends through the loop and pull tight. Do this in every other stitch along both short ends of the scarf. Trim fringe so it is all the same length.
Tips:
This pattern will make your scarf about 7.5 inches wide. If you would like a wider or skinnier scarf, cast on more or fewer stitches at the beginning. Make sure you cast on an even number of stitches.
If you lose track of which row you are on, do the opposite of whatever stitches you see in the row below your needle. If the first stitch in the previous row is a knit stitch (the one that looks like a loop), you should start the new row with a purl stitch. If the first stitch in the last row was a purl (the one that looks like a round bump), start the new row with a knit.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Amy Gets in Big Trouble
“I’m not young enough to know everything.”
—J. M. Barrie
Every member of the March family was tired of winter as February dragged on, but Amy imagined that she felt even worse than any of them. The prob
lem was her classmates. Every girl in her group suddenly seemed to have something special to show off at lunch, and Amy had nothing. On Monday, Jamie brought in her playbill from the musical everyone wanted to see but no one could actually get tickets for. She’d seen it over the weekend—her father had gone to college with one of the understudies in the cast—and couldn’t stop talking about how amazing it was. On Tuesday, Sonja brought to school her collection of shark’s teeth, which she had recently acquired during an amazing Florida beach vacation. On Wednesday, Jenny showed up to school with her nails expertly painted in a polka-dot pattern; she’d gotten a mother-daughter manicure with her mom the night before.
Amy could tell that everyone noticed she never had anything new or interesting to wear or talk about. She feared that her friends even pitied her and couldn’t stand it. Something had to be done.
“Mom, I can’t go to school today,” she announced one morning at breakfast, hopeful that a midweek break from school would be just the thing to raise her dragging spirits.
“Why? You’re not sick,” Mom said in a tone that suggested pretending to be so wouldn’t get her very far.
“I don’t have any clean underwear,” Amy tried.
Jo started giggling and couldn’t stop.
Mom sighed. “We do laundry every weekend, Amy. How is that possible?”
“I don’t know. It just is.”
“Well, borrow a pair of Beth’s. You’re going to school.”
“No! I can’t! That’s gross!” Amy squealed. But Mom gave her the Look and she gave up.
• • •
Amy got a new idea the next day, while flipping through one of Meg’s glossy celebrity magazines. Several of the actresses and singers carried their pets with them when they went on coffee runs or even on vacation. Amy loved the shots of tiny dogs peeking out of purses, especially when the pups had bows in their fur.
So on Friday morning, while everyone was distracted, Amy carefully placed Snowball in her backpack with several kitty treats, making sure to put his head by the open mesh part, and walked to school with Beth, who conveniently trailed far behind her younger sister. She was distracted by the sight of several cardinals in the trees and didn’t hear her kitten’s occasional meows at all.
Amy went straight to her classroom and took her normal seat by her friends. It took about three seconds for all the attention in the room to swing to her as Snowball’s meows became more insistent. Fortunately, Mr. Davis was looking at his phone and didn’t seem to realize that everyone was crowded around Amy’s desk, eager to pet the kitten, who seemed happy with the attention.
That’s when Amy first realized that maybe her plan was slightly . . . flawed. What was she going to do with the kitten all day? Where would he go to the bathroom?
It didn’t end up being a problem.
“Is that a . . . cat?” Mr. Davis asked incredulously.
“Yup!” Jenny said, not-so-secretly thrilled that Amy was about to get in trouble. “Amy brought him to school in her backpack!”
“I thought we needed a class pet,” Amy said weakly.
“Really,” Mr. Davis replied. It wasn’t a question. He looked pretty mad.
“He’s so cute!” Sonja said, trying to be helpful.
At that moment, Snowball decided to seal Amy’s fate. He peed, right on top of Amy’s desk. The room went wild. “He’s peeing! He’s peeing,” several boys shouted. “EWWWW!” several girls yelled in unison. “SOME GOT ON MY SWEATER!”
Amy blushed a deep shade of red. She loved attention, but this wasn’t exactly what she’d had in mind. Mr. Davis was furious.
To make matters worse, Snowball was an excellent climber. Right after he finished going to the bathroom on Amy’s desk, he leapt gracefully to the bookshelves nearby and used his sharp little claws to climb right up the bulletin board. In two seconds flat, he was perched above the classroom on the little ledge that usually just displayed maps and the periodic table. The classroom turned into a pandemonium; not one student was sitting at their desk anymore.
“Amy March, what were you thinking? Clean up this mess, and figure out a way to get that poor, frightened animal to the principal’s office, where you can call your parents to come pick it up. I’m giving you two detentions.”
Amy was mortified. She’d never gotten a detention in her life, and now she had two. It was so unfair! Didn’t most classrooms have a class pet? Just because Mr. Davis had no imagination at all shouldn’t mean the entire fourth-grade class should have to suffer! She was doing everyone a favor, breaking up the dull winter week with some entertainment and excitement. Her young heart burned with indignation.
Fortunately, Snowball did not seem frightened at all. He calmly licked his paws from his high perch and surveyed the scene of yelling and pointing children below him with satisfaction. Luckily for Amy, he decided to jump down, first onto Mr. Davis’s desk, and then back onto hers. From there, he pranced over to a pillow in the classroom’s reading nook to look for a nice comfortable spot to snooze.
Feeling deeply humiliated, Amy cleaned up the kitty pee using paper towels from the science station in the corner and trudged to the office after she’d successfully placed poor Snowball in her backpack with zero help from her “friends.” He seemed pretty calm about the whole ordeal.
Hannah ended up being the one who came to Amy’s school to retrieve the pet, since Mom was at work. She wasn’t the sort of person who gave lectures to the girls, and today was no different. But what Amy really wanted was understanding and comfort, and she didn’t get that either. Hannah was efficient when things needed to be done; she wasn’t warm and cuddly.
Amy was miserable when she returned to class a bit later, miserable when she served the first of her two detentions after school, and miserable when she finally returned home at the end of the day. She was in no mood to apologize to Beth or anyone else for her behavior.
Mom sized up her gloomy youngest daughter at the dinner table and decided to be gentle with her. She knew what had happened.
“Amy, we need to talk about what happened today,” she began.
“Haven’t I suffered enough?” Amy asked cheekily. Her face flushed and her voice wobbled.
“I’d like you to apologize to Beth. I got a call from your principal when I was at work today. It sounds like you made an unwise decision this morning,” Mom said.
“I just wanted to do something fun for a change! Every day is the same! Nothing good ever happens!” Amy wailed. “And then I got two detentions! Cody didn’t even get one detention last week for pinching me on the playground and pulling my hair! It’s so unfair.”
Mom, and everyone else at the table, stayed silent while Amy dissolved into tears.
“Mr. Davis is pretty harsh,” Meg said in a voice just above a whisper. She couldn’t help defending Amy, at least a little.
Mom nodded. “I agree the punishment was a lot, Amy. But I hope it gives you a little bit of time to think. School is for learning, not for showing off.”
“Tell that to my friends,” Amy muttered.
“I suppose you are right,” Mom said kindly, “that every day can feel a little repetitive in the middle of the winter, but it’s up to us to find little things to make us happy and to appreciate what we do have.”
Amy thought about this for a moment and sighed a big sigh. “I’m sorry, Beth,” she said finally. “I didn’t mean to cause problems. I hope Snowball isn’t upset.”
“It’s okay,” Beth said gravely. “He’s fine.”
“Can we go to Florida on school break like Sonja’s family?” Amy asked hopefully.
Now it was Mom’s turn to sigh deeply. “Definitely not.”
Amy and Beth’s Kitty Grass Planter
Materials:
• Grass seed (choose a shade variety)
• Container (a wooden box looks nice as long as it’s lined)
• Misting spray bottle
• Soil (topsoil or potting soil will do the trick)
• Pebbles
Directions:
1. Find a sturdy container with sides. We used a wood box 2 feet long and 10 inches wide that Jo had made for Beth, lined with thick plastic on the bottom to prevent leaks.
2. Place a 1-inch layer of small pebbles in the bottom of the box for water drainage. You can also use marbles from a crafting store.
3. Cover the pebbles with a couple of inches of potting soil and sprinkle the soil with grass seeds.
4. Press the seeds into the soil. Be gentle!
5. Mist with water until the whole surface is slightly wet and put your box in a spot where it will get at least a little sunlight each day.
7. Mist the seeds 3 or 4 times per week. You’ll see baby grass in a few days; when it gets longer you can keep it neat and trim with scissors! Let your kitty chew on the grass; it’s good for her.
CHAPTER EIGHT
A Scary Day
“We should regret our mistakes and learn from them, but never carry them forward into the future with us.”
—Lucy Maud Montgomery
One Friday night, when the first signs of spring were just starting to appear in the air, Meg and Jo got a special invitation from Laurie and Mr. Lawrence to attend a play with them in a small, recently restored opera house downtown. Mr. Lawrence was a show sponsor, and he thought the two eldest March sisters might enjoy it. They were both very excited, especially Jo, who didn’t even mind the thought of wearing a dress.
As she and Meg got ready, hogging the bathroom for a full hour as Meg curled her hair and Jo put on a headband and fought with her tights, Amy refused to leave them alone.
“But I want to go! Why can’t I go?” she cried, over and over, bouncing up and down and begging Jo to call Laurie and wrangle an extra ticket.
“Amy! Calm down!” Jo shouted, getting exasperated. She almost tugged a hole in her tights. “I already told you that Laurie only invited us for opening night. Mr. Lawrence gave Mom a pack of extra matinee tickets, so you and Beth and Hannah are going with her on Sunday.”
“I want to go nooooow,” Amy whined. “I want to get all dressed up and ride in the town car and be fancy.”
Littler Women Page 5