tender woman gave one another. It was half tragic and comic, for
father was very dirty and sleepy, and mother in a big nightcap and
funny old jacket.

[I began to see the strong contrasts and the fun and follies in
every-day life about this time--L. M. A.]

Anna came home in March. Kept our school all summer. I got "Flower
Fables" ready to print.

Louisa also tried service with a relative in the country for a short
time, but teaching, sewing, and writing were her principal occupations
during this residence in Boston.

These seven years, from Louisa's sixteenth to her twenty-third year,
might be called an apprenticeship to life. She tried various paths,
and learned to know herself and the world about her, although she was
not even yet certain of success in the way which finally opened before
her and led her so successfully to the accomplishment of her
life-purpose. She tried teaching, without satisfaction to herself or
perhaps to others. The kind of education she had herself received
fitted her admirably to understand and influence children, but not to
carry on the routine of a school. Sewing was her resource when nothing
else offered, but it is almost pitiful to think of her as confined to
such work when great powers were lying dormant in her mind. Still
Margaret Fuller said that a year of enforced quiet in the country
devoted mainly to sewing was very useful to her, since she reviewed and
examined the treasures laid up in her memory; and doubtless Louisa
Alcott thought out many a story which afterward delighted the world
while her fingers busily plied the needle. Yet it was a great