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    Short Stories Of Louisa May Alcott Volume 2: "I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship."
    Short Stories Of Louisa May Alcott Volume 2: "I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship."
    Short Stories Of Louisa May Alcott Volume 2: "I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship."
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    Short Stories Of Louisa May Alcott Volume 2: "I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship."

    By Louisa May Alcott

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    About this ebook

    Louisa May Alcott (29th November 1832 – 6th March 1888) was an American writer of great renown almost entirely due to her book Little Women which continues to captivate each generation since it was first published in 1868. However, her life was unconventional, interesting and provided much material for the gripping and moving short stories featured in this volume. Although born in Pennsylvania, she and her father are more closely associated with Massachusetts where the family moved to and Louisa continued to live until her ill health forced her to move to Boston to be near her doctors. Her father was Amos Bronson Alcott, a transcendentalist, philosopher and educational experimenter who founded, Fruitlands, a utopian community and her mother, Abigail May, was a relative of abolitionist Samuel May. Although poor, her liberal and progressive parents provided Louisa with much of her education, which was enhanced by many family friends that included Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Ralph Waldo Emerson, a neighbour whose library she was often found reading in. She started writing stories as a way of providing the family with some financial stability. During the Civil War she went to Washington to be a nurse and became ill with typhoid fever although continued to write and become successful. However, the treatment for typhus gave her mercury poisoning which was to make her ill for the rest of her life and eventually killed her. Although she didn’t marry, her sister’s premature death meant she became her niece’s guardian and she also adopted her nephew who she had to hire help to look after as she nursed her mother to her death and struggled with her own failing health. She visited her father on his deathbed and died herself two days later so they had a joint funeral. As well as her writings, she was a strong supporter of all women’s issues, the anti-slavery movement, temperance and social reform. Her work often reflects on the rich experiences in her life and many of these poignant short stories are a fine testament to this. This Volume includes The Candy Country, Naughty Jocko, The Fairy Box, The Skipping Shoes, Marjorie's Three Gifts and The Cross on the Old Church Tower.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCopyright Group
    Release dateAug 20, 2013
    ISBN9781780004914
    Short Stories Of Louisa May Alcott Volume 2: "I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship."
    Author

    Louisa May Alcott

    Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888) is the author of the beloved Little Women, which was based on her own experiences growing up in New England with her parents and three sisters. More than a century after her death, Louisa May Alcott's stories continue to delight readers of all ages.

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      Book preview

      Short Stories Of Louisa May Alcott Volume 2 - Louisa May Alcott

      The Short Stories of Louisa May Alcott

      Volume II

      The short story is often viewed as an inferior relation to the Novel.  But it is an art in itself.  To take a story and distil its essence into fewer pages while keeping character and plot rounded and driven is not an easy task.  Many try and many fail. 

      In this series we look at short stories from many of our most accomplished writers.  Miniature masterpieces with a lot to say.  In this volume we examine some of the short stories of Louisa May Alcott.

      Many great writers are defined and remembered by one piece of work; one novel or poem that embeds itself in Society. For Louisa May Alcott it was Little Women - enjoyed by every generation since its publication. Born in 1832 in Germantown Pennsylvania into a poor family she received part of her education from family friends such as Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Nathaniel Hawthorne. These early influences on the young Louisa together with her early life provided much of the material for her later novels. She was also a poet and a short story writer. Here we have gathered together some of those stories which present her in a very different light. This is a chance to explore her take on other subjects in a different discipline.

      Many of these stories are also available as an audiobook from our sister company Word Of Mouth and can be purchased from iTunes, Amazon and other digital stores.  They are read for you by Patricia Rodriguez, Richard Mitchley & Ghizela Rowe

      Index of Contents

      The Candy Country

      Naughty Jocko

      The Fairy Box

      The Skipping Shoes

      Marjorie's Three Gifts

      The Cross on the Old Church Tower

      The Candy Country

      I shall take mamma's red sun-umbrella, it is so warm, and none of the children at school will have one like it, said Lily, one day, as she went through the hall.

      The wind is very high; I'm afraid you'll be blown away if you carry that big thing, called Nurse from the window, as the red umbrella went bobbing down the garden walk with a small girl under it.

      I wish it would; I always wanted to go up in a balloon, answered Lily, as she struggled out of the gate.

      She got on very well till she came to the bridge and stopped to look over the railing at the water running by so fast, and the turtles sunning themselves on the rocks. Lily was fond of throwing stones at them; it was so funny to watch them tumble, heels over head, splash into the water. Now, when she saw three big fellows close by, she stooped for a stone, and just at that minute a gale of wind nearly took the umbrella out of her hand. She clutched it fast; and away she went like a thistle-down, right up in the air, over river and hill, houses and trees, faster and faster, till her head spun round, her breath was all gone, and she had to let go. The dear red umbrella flew away like a leaf; and Lily fell down, down, till she went crash into a tree which grew in such a curious place that she forgot her fright as she sat looking about her, wondering what part of the world it could be.

      The tree looked as if made of glass or colored sugar; for she could see through the red cherries, the green leaves, and the brown branches. An agreeable smell met her nose; and she said at once, as any child would, I smell candy! She picked a cherry and ate it. Oh, how good it was! all sugar and no stone. The next discovery was such a delightful one that she nearly fell off her perch; for by touching her tongue here and there, she found that the whole tree was made of candy. Think what fun to sit and break off twigs of barley sugar, candied cherries, and leaves that tasted like peppermint and sassafras!

      Lily rocked and ate till she finished the top of the little tree; then she climbed down and strolled along, making more surprising and agreeable discoveries as she went.

      What looked like snow under her feet was white sugar; the rocks were lumps of chocolate, the flowers of all colors and tastes; and every sort of fruit grew on these delightful trees. Little white houses soon appeared; and here lived the dainty candy-people, all made of the best sugar, and painted to look like real people.

      Dear little men and women, looking as if they had stepped off of wedding cakes and bonbons, went about in their gay sugar clothes, laughing and talking in the sweetest voices. Bits of babies rocked in open-work cradles, and sugar boys and girls played with sugar toys in the most natural way. Carriages rolled along the jujube streets, drawn by the red and yellow barley horses we all love so well; cows fed in the green fields, and sugar birds sang in the trees.

      Lily listened, and in a moment she understood what the song said,

      "Sweet! Sweet!

      Come, come and eat,

      Dear little girls

      With yellow curls;

      For here you'll find

      Sweets to your mind.

      On every tree

      Sugar-plums you'll see;

      In every dell

      Grows the caramel.

      Over every wall

      Gum-drops fall;

      Molasses flows

      Where our river goes

      Under your feet

      Lies sugar sweet;

      Over your head

      Grow almonds red.

      Our lily and rose

      Are not for the nose;

      Our flowers we pluck

      To eat or suck

      And, oh! what bliss

      When two friends kiss,

      For they honey sip

      From lip to lip!

      And all you meet,

      In house or street,

      At work or play,

      Sweethearts are they.

      So, little dear,

      Pray feel no fear;

      Go where you will;

      Eat, eat your fill.

      Here is a feast

      From west to east;

      And you can say,

      Ere you go away,

      'At last I stand

      In dear Candy-land,

      And no more can stuff;

      For once I've enough.'

      Sweet! Sweet!

      Tweet! Tweet!

      Tweedle-dee!

      Tweedle-dee!"

      That is the most interesting song I ever heard, said Lily, clapping her sticky hands and dancing along toward a fine palace of white cream candy, with pillars of striped peppermint stick, and a roof of frosting that made it look like the Milan Cathedral.

      I'll live here, and eat candy all day long, with no tiresome school or patchwork to spoil my fun, said Lily.

      So she ran up the chocolate steps into the pretty rooms, where all the chairs and tables were of different colored candies, and the beds of spun sugar. A fountain of lemonade supplied drink; and floors of ice-cream that never melted kept people and things from sticking together, as they would have done had it been warm.

      For a long while Lily was quite happy, going about tasting so many different kinds of sweeties, talking to the little people, who were very amiable, and finding out curious things about them and their country.

      The babies were made of plain sugar, but the grown people had different flavors. The young ladies were flavored with violet, rose, and orange; the gentlemen were apt to have cordials of some sort inside of them, as she found when she ate one now and then slyly, and got her tongue bitten by the hot, strong taste as a punishment The old people tasted of peppermint, clove, and such comfortable things, good for pain; but the old maids had lemon, hoarhound, flag-root, and all sorts of sour, bitter things in them, and did not get eaten much. Lily soon learned to know the characters of her new friends by a single taste, and some she never touched but once. The dear babies melted in her mouth, and the delicately flavored young ladies she was very fond of. Dr. Ginger was called to her more than once when so much candy made her teeth ache, and she found him a very hot- tempered little man; but he stopped the pain, so she was glad to see him.

      A lime-drop boy and a little pink checker-berry girl were her favorite playmates; and they had fine times making mud-pies by scraping the chocolate rocks and mixing this dust with

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