Little Women Audiobook and Reader version chapter 13

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Chapter 13


After various lesser mishaps, Meg was finished at last, and by the united exertions of the family, Jo’s hair was got up and her dress on. They looked very well in their simple suits. Meg in silvery drab, with a blue velvet snood, lace frills, and the pearl pin; Jo in maroon, with a stiff, gentlemanly linen collar and a white chrysanthemum or two for her only ornament. Each put on one nice light glove, and carried one soiled one, and all pronounced the effect “quite easy and fine.” Meg’s high-heeled slippers were very dreadfully tight, and hurt her, though she would not own it, and Jo’s nineteen hairpins all seemed stuck straight into her head, which was not exactly comfortable; but, dear me, let us be elegant or die!


“Have a good time, dearies!” said Mrs. March, as the sisters went daintily down the walk. “Don’t eat much supper, and come away at


eleven, when I send Hannah for you.” As the gate clashed behind them, a voice cried from a window:


“Girls, girls! Have you both got nice pocket handkerchiefs?”


“Yes, yes, spandy nice, and Meg has cologne on hers,” cried Jo, adding, with a laugh, as they went on, “I do believe Marmee would ask that if we were all running away from an earthquake.”


“It is one of her aristocratic tastes, and quite proper, for a real lady is always known by neat boots, gloves, and handkerchief,” replied Meg, who had a good many little “aristocratic tastes” of her own.


“Now don’t forget to keep the bad breadth out of sight, Jo. Is my sash right? And does my hair look very bad?” said Meg, as she turned from the glass in Mrs. Gardiner’s dressing room, after a prolonged prink.


“I know I shall forget. If you see me doing anything wrong just remind me by a wink, will you?” returned Jo, giving her collar a twitch and her head a hasty brush.


“No, winking isn’t ladylike; I’ll lift my eyebrows if anything is wrong, and nod if you are all right. Now hold your shoulders straight and take short steps, and don’t shake hands if you are introduced to anyone: it isn’t the thing.”


“How do you learn all the proper ways? I never can. Isn’t that music festive?”


Down they went, feeling a trifle timid, for they seldom went to parties, and, informal as this little gathering was, it was an event to them. Mrs. Gardiner, a stately old lady, greeted them kindly, and handed them over to the eldest of her six daughters. Meg knew Sallie, and was at her ease very soon; but Jo, who didn’t care much for girls or girlish gossip, stood about, with her back carefully


against the wall and felt as much out of place as a colt in a flower garden. Half a dozen jovial lads were talking about skates in another part of the room, and she longed to go and join them, for skating was one of the joys of her life. She telegraphed her wish to Meg, but the eyebrows went up so alarmingly that she dared not stir. No one came to talk to her, and one by one the group near her dwindled away, till she was left alone. She could not roam about and amuse herself, for the burned breadth would show, so she stared at people rather forlornly till the dancing began. Meg was asked at once, and the tight slippers tripped about so briskly that none would have guessed the pain their wearer suffered smilingly. Jo saw a big red-headed youth approaching her corner, and fearing he meant to engage her, she slipped into a curtained recess, intending to peep and enjoy herself in peace. Unfortunately, another bashful person had chosen the same refuge; for, as the curtain fell behind her, she found herself face to face with the “Laurence boy.”


“Dear me, I didn’t know anyone was here!” stammered Jo, preparing to back out as speedily as she had bounced in.


But the boy laughed, and said pleasantly, though he looked a little startled:


“Don’t mind me; stay if you like.”


“Shan’t I disturb you?”


“Not a bit; I only came here because I don’t know many people, and I felt rather strange at first, you know.”


“So did I. Don’t go away, please, unless you’d rather.”


The boy sat down again and looked at his pumps, till Jo said, trying to be polite and easy:


“I think I’ve had the pleasure of seeing you before; you live near us, don’t you?”


“Next door”; and he looked up and laughed outright, for Jo’s prim manner was rather funny, when he remembered how they had chatted about cricket when he brought the cat home.


That put Jo at her ease; and she laughed too, as she said, in her heartiest way:


“We did have such a good time over your nice Christmas present.”


“Grandpa sent it.”


“But you put it into his head, didn’t you, now?”


“How is your cat, Miss March?” asked the boy, trying to look sober, while his black eyes shone with fun.


“Nicely, thank you, Mr. Laurence; but I am not Miss March, I’m only Jo,” returned the young lady.


“I’m not Mr. Laurence, I’m only Laurie.”


“Laurie Laurence—what an odd name!”


“My first name is Theodore, but I don’t like it, for the fellows called me Dora, so I made them say Laurie instead.”


“I hate my name, too—so sentimental! I wish everyone would say Jo, instead of Josephine. How did you make the boys stop calling you Dora?”


“I thrashed ’em.”


“I can’t thrash Aunt March, so I suppose I shall have to bear it”; and Jo resigned herself with a sigh.


“Don’t you like to dance, Miss Jo?” asked Laurie, looking as if he thought the name suited her.


“I like it well enough if there is plenty of room, and everyone is lively. In a place like this I’m sure to upset something, tread on


people’s toes, or do something dreadful, so I keep out of mischief and let Meg sail about. Don’t you dance?”


“Sometimes; you see I’ve been abroad a good many years, and haven’t been in company enough yet to know how you do things here.”


“Abroad!” cried Jo. “Oh, tell me about it! I love dearly to hear people describe their travels.”


Laurie didn’t seem to know where to begin; but Jo’s eager questions soon set him going, and he told her how he had been at school in Vevey, where the boys never wore hats, and had a fleet of boats on the lake, and for holiday fun went on walking trips about Switzerland with their teachers.


“Don’t I wish I’d been there!” cried Jo. “Did you go to Paris?”


“We spent last winter there.” “Can you talk French?”


“We were not allowed to speak anything else at Vevey.” “Do say some! I can read it, but can’t pronounce.”


“Quel nom a cette jeune demoiselle en les pantoufles jolies?” said Laurie good-naturedly.


“How nicely you do it! Let me see—you said, ‘Who is the young lady in the pretty slippers,’ didn’t you?”


“Oui, mademoiselle.”


“It’s my sister Margaret, and you knew it was! Do you think she is pretty?”


“Yes; she makes me think of the German girls, she looks so fresh and quiet, and dances like a lady.”


Jo quite glowed with pleasure at this boyish praise of her sister, and stored it up to repeat to Meg. Both peeped, and criticized and chatted, till they felt like old acquaintances. Laurie’s bashfulness soon wore off; for Jo’s gentlemanly demeanor amused and set him at his ease, and Jo was her merry self again, because her dress was forgotten, and nobody lifted their eyebrows at her. She liked the “Laurence boy” better than ever, and took several good looks at him, so that she might describe him to the girls; for they had no brothers, very few male cousins, and boys were almost unknown creatures to them.


Curly black hair; brown skin; big black eyes; handsome nose; fine teeth; small hands and feet; taller than I am; very polite for a boy, and altogether jolly. Wonder how old he is?


It was on the tip of Jo’s tongue to ask; but she checked herself in time, and with unusual tact, tried to find out in a roundabout way.


“I suppose you are going to college soon? I see you pegging away at your books—no, I mean studying hard”; and Jo blushed at the dreadful “pegging” which had escaped her.


Laurie smiled, but didn’t seem shocked, and answered, with a shrug:


“Not for two or three years yet; I won’t go before seventeen, anyway.”


“Aren’t you but fifteen?” asked Jo, looking at the tall lad, whom she had imagined seventeen already.


“Sixteen, next month.”


“How I wish I was going to college! You don’t look as if you liked it.”


“I hate it! Nothing but grinding or skylarking. And I don’t like the way fellows do either in this country.”


“What do you like?”


“To live in Italy, and to enjoy myself in my own way.”


Jo wanted very much to ask what his own way was: but his black brows looked rather threatening as he knit them; so she changed the subject by saying, as her foot kept time, “That’s a splendid polka. Why don’t you go and try it?”


“If you will come too,” he answered, with a funny little French bow.


“I can’t; for I told Meg I wouldn’t, because—” There Jo stopped, and looked undecided whether to tell or to laugh.


“Because what?” asked Laurie, curiously.


“You won’t tell?”


“Never!”


“Well, I have a bad trick of standing before the fire, and so I burn my frocks, and I scorched this one; and, though it’s nicely mended, it shows, and Meg told me to keep still, so no one would see it. You may laugh, if you want to, it is funny, I know.”


But Laurie didn’t laugh; he only looked down a minute, and the expression of his face puzzled Jo, when he said very gently: “Never mind that. I’ll tell you how we can manage: there’s a long hall out there, and we can dance grandly, and no one will see us. Please come?”


Jo thanked him, and gladly went, wishing she had two neat gloves, when she saw the nice, pearl-colored ones her partner wore.