Status Updates From Louisa May Alcott: An Intim...

"Be it so, but remember I have warned you." An exultant expression broke through the gloom of her husband's face as he answered with the grim satisfaction of one who gave restraint to the mind, and stood ready to follow whatever impulse should sway him next. His wife trembled inwardly at what she had done, but was too proud to recall her words and felt a certain bitter pleasure in the excitement of her new position.

You ask if nurses are obliged to witness amputations and such, as part of their duty? I think not, unless they wish; for the patient is under the effects of ether, and needs no care but such as the surgeons can give. Our work begins afterward, when the poor soul comes to himself, sick, faint, and wandering; full of strange pains and disagreeable sensations and sights. Then we must sooth and sustain, tend and watch.

The three meals consisted of beef, evidently put down for the men of '76; pork, just i from the street; army bread, composed of saw-dust and saleratus; butter, salt as if churned by Lot's wife; stewed blackberries, so much like preserved cockroaches, that only those devoid of imagination could partake thereof; coffee, mild and muddy; tea, three dried huckleberry leaves to a quart of water--flavored with lime.

At sixteen I began to teach twenty pupils, and for ten years learned to know and love children. The story writing went on all the while with the usual trials of beginners. Fairy tales told the Emersons made the first printed book, and "Hospital Sketches" the first successful one. Every experience went into the chauldron to come out as froth, or evaporate in smoke.

I spent last night pouring over the introduction to the book, which is filled with biographical information about the Alcott family, as well as the other transcendental writers of Concord, Mass. This book is not meant for quick consumption, but it is a must-read for die-hard fans.