Silver Pitchers: and Independence, a Centennial Love StoryAlcott, Louisa May
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Silver Pitchers: and Independence, a Centennial Love Story
Alcott, Louisa May
Fiction; Short stories, American
One youth, believing that language was of little consequence if the
spirit was only right, startled new-comers by blandly greeting them with
"good-morning, damn you," and other remarks of an equally mixed order. A
second irrepressible being held that all the emotions of the soul should
be freely expressed, and illustrated his theory by antics that would
have sent him to a lunatic asylum, if, as an unregenerate wag said, he
had not already been in one. When his spirit soared, he climbed trees
and shouted; when doubt assailed him, he lay upon the floor and groaned
lamentably. At joyful periods, he raced, leaped, and sang; when sad, he
wept aloud; and when a great thought burst upon him in the watches of
the night, he crowed like a jocund cockerel, to the great delight of the
children and the great annoyance of the elders. One musical brother
fiddled whenever so moved, sang sentimentally to the four little girls,
and put a music-box on the wall when he hoed corn.
Brother Pease ground away at his uncooked food, or browsed over the farm
on sorrel, mint, green fruit, and new vegetables. Occasionally he took
his walks abroad, airily attired in an unbleached cotton _poncho_, which
was the nearest approach to the primeval costume he was allowed to
indulge in. At midsummer he retired to the wilderness, to try his plan
where the woodchucks were without prejudices and huckleberry-bushes were
hospitably full. A sunstroke unfortunately spoilt his plan, and he
returned to semi-civilization a sadder and wiser man.
Forest Absalom preserved his Pythagorean silence, cultivated his fine
dark locks, and worked like a beaver, setting an excellent example of
brotherly love, justice, and fidelity by his upright life. He it was who
helped overworked Sister Hope with her heavy washes, kneaded the endless
succession of batches of bread, watched over the children, and did the
many tasks left undone by the brethren, who were so busy discussing and
defining great duties that they forgot to perform the small ones.
Moses White placidly plodded about, "chorin' raound," as he called it,
looking like an old-time patriarch, with his silver hair and flowing
beard, and saving the community from many a mishap by his thrift and
Yankee shrewdness.
Brother Lion domineered over the whole concern; for, having put the most
money into the speculation, he was resolved to make it pay,--as if any
thing founded on an ideal basis could be expected to do so by any but
enthusiasts.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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