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
deliverance when she first found that the products of her brain would
bring in the needed money for family support.
[_L. in Boston to A. in Syracuse_]
THURSDAY, 27th.
DEAREST NAN: I was so glad to hear from you, and hear that all are well.
I am grubbing away as usual, trying to get money enough to buy mother a
nice warm shawl. I have eleven dollars, all my own earnings--five for
a story, and four for the pile of sewing I did for the ladies of Dr.
Gray's society, to give him as a present.
. . . I got a crimson ribbon for a bonnet for May, and I took my straw
and fixed it nicely with some little duds I had. Her old one has
haunted me all winter, and I want her to look neat.
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