#Little women hardcover full#
“I have to get back to school, Amy,” the eldest replied, returning with full hands and her face glistening. “I’ve taught myself to do it just like the dancer in that music box we had to leave behind! Meg, come and see!”
“That was nearly perfect,” she shouted down the hall when she was finished. “I’ve only come back for a moment.”Īmy placed the toe of an unblemished leather boot behind the opposite heel so that she could swivel slowly to watch Meg move through the room, down the hall, past Mammy and Papa’s room on the right and the room their four daughters shared on the left, and into the kitchen at the far end of the long house. And then as though recalling why she’d come back to the house, she hurried past her little sister without unpinning and removing her straw bonnet. “Meg, your hat,” the girl said, mimicking her sister’s disapproving stance, though she didn’t actually care. “In nothing but a chemise and boots? Where’s your sense?” “Amethyst March, how dare you!” Meg pressed her sister out of view of the street, and rushed to close the door. When Meg was nearer, Amy opened the door before her sister’s hand could take hold of the knob. She saw her eldest sister hustle up the avenue and then cross the street, the young woman’s skirt in her hands as she acknowledged a salutation from a colonist Amy couldn’t see. This house on Roanoke Island faced Lincoln, one of three avenues in the village, and that meant that despite it being too hot to amuse herself outdoors, Amy could at least watch the others as they came and went. She was young-as her family reminded her all too frequently because they’d decided to guard it as a precious thing-but Amethyst was already on her second lifetime, and in this one, Papa had built a roof that was whole. Near the fields, her whole family had been able to count the stars between the feeble slats meant to constitute a roof. Amy was certain he couldn’t have done otherwise, since in the old life-which was what the March family had taken to calling everything that came before the circumstance of war had freed them-there had scarcely been enough cover over their heads. He’d had his pick of the lots, Mammy said, and he’d chosen well. If she understood what she’d eavesdropped, the honor of owning one of the first homes in the colony meant he’d proven himself of some importance, and in wartime, important men were rarely at home. Amy’s father had built the house on the corner of 4th Street. The floor was even enough here, and it belonged to her. That or they didn’t share their shoes with siblings at the very least, and perhaps didn’t have to walk far, when they weren’t in a grand house with even flooring. Whatever child had first been in possession of her brown boots before their family escaped Roanoke Island ahead of the battle-or quite possibly evacuated afterward rather than watch the soldiers confiscate their lands, harvest, and cattle-must have owned more than one pair. It naturally caused her to ponder the child from whom she’d inherited them. Amy had never owned anything with very little wear, though until she had her brown boots, she also hadn’t known that. That meant that the brown leather, scallop-top boots that laced up the front, which had been issued to her by whichever Union officer oversaw such things this season, had very little wear. At fourteen, Amethyst March had terribly small feet.
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