back at Laurie’s. It looked ridiculous.
With one swift move, she tore the bonnet from her head.
We all gasped.
Her hair, all that beautiful long chestnut hair, gorgeous as a healthy horse’s mane, had been cut off, leaving her with a short, choppy crop.
“What have you done?” Marmee asked.
I didn’t even have to listen as Jo explained to the others.
She’d sold her own hair, the one thing she could think of for which she could get any cash, so she could give it to Marmee to help out Papa.
I watched as she pressed crumpled bills, totaling twenty-five dollars, into Marmee’s hand.
Jo wasn’t a pretty girl, but her hair had been, and now it was gone. Now she looked like a naked bird.
But she looked like something else too as she stood there, defiant.
She looked glorious, magnificent.
Where others would wring their hands over something but then be content to leave it at that, Jo had taken action.
Tomorrow, I’d no doubt go back to resenting her, thoroughly, but for today she had all the admiration I’d ever felt for anybody.
Sixteen
That night, I lay in bed listening to Jo finally cry over her lost hair and then Meg speaking softly in the most glowing terms yet about Mr. John Brooke. Once the room fell completely silent and the house was fast asleep except for me and one other person, I heard Marmee making her nightly rounds, going from bed to bed to lay a kiss on each of our foreheads. She began in the other room with Beth and Amy before coming to our room, where she kissed Meg and Jo before coming to me last.
I don’t know why she saved me for last, since by rights I should have been third, or middle, but as I heard her approach I made sure to shut my eyes tightly. I didn’t know what words of comfort I could possibly offer this strong woman who was so worried for her husband, the man who was supposed to be my father. So I just lay there feigning sleep when she kissed me, but in my heart I wished her well.
The next morning the household rose at an insanely early hour so that Marmee could catch the first train to Washington. After waving her and Mr. Brooke off with promises on our parts to be good and strong and instructions on her part that we were to rely on Hannah’s faithfulness, Mr. Laurence’s protection, and Laurie’s devotion, saying further that she wanted us to work and hope and remember that we could never be fatherless—oh, right, she was talking about God again; well, I supposed we couldn’t possibly escape a Marmee lecture on such an occasion—we were left on our own.
After Hannah made us a rare pot of coffee and Meg remarked that with Marmee gone the house felt a full half empty—“a full half empty”? Was it full or was it empty? I wished she’d make up her mind!—it was time for Meg to go to the Kings’, Jo to Aunt March’s, Beth and Amy to do housework and schoolwork, and me to go wherever the day of the week told me to go.
Mr. Brooke wrote every day and the news was good: Papa’s pneumonia was getting a little bit better all the time.
Naturally, we were expected to write letters too, first to Marmee, but then as it appeared that Papa was finally strong enough to receive letters, to him too.
This presented me with a huge problem. I saw the others eagerly bend their heads to the task, some thoughtfully (Meg), some energetically (Jo), some gently (Beth), and some with excruciatingly poor spelling and grammar (Amy). They all seemed to have a lot to say, perhaps giving him news or reminding him of shared remembrances to brighten his day. The thing was, I had no past with this man. What could I possibly write that wouldn’t sound totally asinine? What comfort could I possibly offer?
“Haven’t you started yet, Emily?” Jo asked crossly. “We want to get these off with the early post.”
“Simply composing my thoughts here,” I said brightly, while inwardly I groaned.
What do you say to someone you don’t know?
Get well soon was usually a crowd pleaser, but not with this crowd, since Jo would yell at me for not putting enough time and thought into it.
Then I remembered something he had written to me in a packet of letters the household had received shortly after my arrival, and then I too bent my head to the