Read The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott for Free Online Page B

conversation. “And now to you. Did I answer your question about Mr. Emerson well, my child? It is time for me to work.”
    “Yes, Father. Very well.” Louisa marked the place on the desk where Whitman’s book lay concealed, already calculating the hours until her father’s evening constitutional when the study would be empty and she might slip in and claim it. “Very well indeed.”
     
     
    That evening, Louisa climbed wearily up the steps under the strain of a feigned headache and waited until she was safely ensconced in the attic room before liberating the book from the waistband of her dress. She settled upon the sagging bed and leaned back against the wall, feeling her chignon press against the faded wallpaper.
    The book felt smaller than she’d expected after dreaming about it all afternoon. She stared at the frontispiece image of the poet. He did indeed look like a scoundrel, with his hat tipped to the side and a rumpled shirt, open at the collar. He reminded her of the vagrants she’d seen lurking in Boston Common when she crossed the park on walks with her father. All the poets she’d ever seen had gray hair, wore neat, if not new, frock coats and top hats, and took their tea in parlors. Whitman looked like the sort who might tear across a parlor like a maniac, frightening the ladies and overturning all the furniture. She thought back to Mr. Emerson’s warning that the book was not meant for a woman’s eyes, though she didn’t for a second consider retreating from her investigations.
    And then she turned past the introduction to the opening verse.
    I celebrate myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
    She turned the pages and a glowing candle on the table beside the bed sank into its pricket. The verse was at once crude and reverent, panoramic and microscopic. With a kinetic rhythm, the poet wrote of an America Louisa scarcely knew, of bodies at work, sweating, cursing, praying; of slaves; of lovers; of buds folded in the earth. Line by line, the words lapped at her like waves crawling the shore. When she finally slept she dreamed of train whistles and the rhythmic clang of a blacksmith’s hammer, her hand clutched as if it held a pen.
    All I have to say is, that you men have more liberty than you know what to do with, and we women haven’t enough.
     
—“The King of Clubs and the Queen of Hearts”

Chapter Three
    Wednesday
     
    To the Misses Alcott:
     
    If you find you can set your sewing aside, please join me and the other young Walpoleans for an afternoon of picnicking and swimming at the riverbank near the Arch Bridge , this Saturday at one o’clock.
     
    Yours,
    J. Singer
     
    N ew Englanders spent much of the year shrouding their bodies from winter’s frigid gloom, but August, hot and fragrant, drew them into the open. Out-of-doors became a state of mind as well as a place. In the meadows, vanilla-scented wildflowers the locals called “ joe pye weed” broke into pink feathering blossoms and were soon papered with monarchs. Spicy bergamot edged the woods. In the shadow of the canopy, the crisp scent of teaberry filled the air; beneath its waxy leaves, white flowers draped like a string of pearls. A week passed in which no rain fell and the heat stretched from mid-morning until late into the evening. All that sunlight was cultivating something in Louisa as well, though she wouldn’t know it for a while.
    Louisa and Anna walked with Margaret Lewis along the narrow forest path that led from town to the muddy bank of the Connecticut River. Besides the relatives who had provided their accommodations, Margaret was the only other person in town the sisters had known before they arrived. Margaret’s uncle lived in Concord with his wife and children, and she had visited the relatives for a fortnight each spring and fall. Unfortunately, she could scarcely bear the company of her cousins, three dreadfully dull and pious young ladies who