She had icy blue eyes and yellow hair that curled on her shoulders; pale and slender, she always carried herself like a young lady mindful of her manners.

“I have earned a treat, spending my days teaching those dreadful children,” began Meg, in the complaining tone again.

“You don’t have half such a hard time as I do,” said Jo. “How would you like to be shut up for hours with a nervous, fussy old lady, who keeps you trotting, is never satisfied, and worries you till you’re ready to fly out of the window or box her ears?” It was her lot to spend her days reading to Aunt March, her father’s wealthy and grouchy widowed aunt.

“It’s naughty to fret, but I do think washing and cleaning is the worst work of all. It makes me cross, and my hands are as rough as a man’s. I would so like to have soft hands when I sit at the piano and play,” Beth said, looking down at her work-reddened hands.

“I don’t believe that any of you suffer as I do,” cried Amy; “for you don’t have to go to school with impertinent girls, who tease me when I don’t know my lessons, injure me because my coat is worn, stare at my ugly nose, and think their father better than mine because of the contents of his wallet,” cried Amy.

“You certainly mean insult rather than injure, don’t you?” Jo laughed. “It isn’t as if they blacken your eyes, or rip the flesh from your bones like the werewolves would if they could get their sharp teeth around your throat.”

“I know what I mean, and I am correct in saying they injure me. It is in the figurative sense. It’s proper to use good words, and improve your vocabulary,” returned Amy with dignity.

“Don’t fight your own war within these walls when true war rages outside them,” scolded Meg.

“But Jo does use such slang words, as if she were from the lowest of classes,” observed Amy. Hearing that, Jo sat up and began to whistle.

“Don’t, Jo; it’s so boyish!”

“That’s why I do it.”

“I suppose you also howl like the werewolves.”

Jo raised her face to the ceiling and let out a low and fierce howl.

“I detest rude, unladylike girls.”

“I hate affected, niminy-piminy chits.”

“Foxes sharing a den agree,” sang Beth, the peacemaker, with such a fearsome but funny face that both sharp voices softened to a laugh.

“Really, girls, you are both to be blamed,” said Meg, beginning to lecture in her elder-sisterly fashion. “Jo, you could be concentrating on being a young lady, especially as you have grown so tall and look like one with your hair worn up.”

“I ain’t one! And if I look like a lady with my hair up, I shall wear it down till I’m twenty,” Jo cried, pulling down her hair so the chestnut-colored locks fell over her shoulders and down her back. “It’s bad enough to be a girl, anyway, when I like the work and play of boys, and have little time to worry about such things as manners. Why, I should be off fighting with Father, but instead have to stay home and knit like a poky old drooling woman. At least my socks get to see battle.” She shook the blue army sock hanging from the end of her knitting needle till the needles rattled like castanets.

“It is your burden to bear, so make the best of it,” said Beth, stroking her sister’s hair. “Fight werewolves, not your own sister, if you want to fight so badly.”

“As for you, Amy, you are altogether too particular and prim,” continued Meg. “Jo may assume the part of the wolf in our family, but you’ll grow up an affected little goose if you don’t take care.”

“If we have a wolf and a goose, then what am I, please?” Beth asked.

“A dear, and nothing more,” answered Meg warmly; and no one contradicted her. Nobody mentioned aloud that Beth was their mouse, the meek pet of the family, kept carefully caged for her own safety.

The snow fell softly outside as the sisters knit their blue socks for the fighting soldiers. The girls’ father had once been wealthy but had lost a great deal of money, so they were not fully accepted by either the rich or the poor young people in town, but the sisters had, in one another, all the friendship, diversion, and caring they needed. The carpet and furniture in the house were old and well worn, yet it was a comfortable home filled with the warmth of the fire and the scent of Christmas roses that bloomed on the windowsill.

The clock struck the hour of six, and Beth put a pair of slippers by the fire so their mother would have a warm pair to slip into when she returned home. “These are so worn,” she said, holding them out toward her sisters. “I think I’ll buy Marmee a new pair with my dollar.”

“No, I shall!” cried Amy.

“I’m the oldest,” Meg began.

“But I am the man of the family, with our dear father gone, so I shall provide the slippers. It was me that Father asked to take care of Mother while he was away,” Jo said.

“Let’s each get her something for Christmas!” Beth exclaimed. “We don’t really need to get anything for ourselves.”

“But what would we get?” asked Jo.

They thought for a moment, and then suddenly began spilling out ideas.

“A pair of gloves!” Meg announced.

“Army shoes, or perhaps boots, for the nights she insists on standing guard defending us against werewolves,” Jo said. “Or, even better for those nights, a pocket knife with a sharp and ready blade made of real silver.”

“A small bottle of cologne doesn’t cost much, so I could also buy myself a few pencils,” Amy added.

“We can shop tomorrow afternoon. Marmee will think we’re going to buy things for ourselves. There is so much to do yet for our Christmas play, but I can think about it and plan it in my head while we walk,” Jo said, pacing the room, back and forth, back and forth.

“This is my last year acting. I am really too old, even now, to be doing so,” observed Meg, who was as much a child as ever about “dressing up” frolics.

“I’ll believe you are stopping when I see it,” Jo said. “You are our best actress, and our productions will end if you quit the boards.”

“What play will we do, Jo?”

“Mine,” Jo replied, trying not to appear too boastful. “The one I wrote. The Werewolf Curse: An Operatic Tragedy is perfect for the occasion.”

“Oh, yes, Jo! It will be perfect.” Beth sighed, thinking her sister gifted with wonderful genius in all things.

“And I shall play the fiercest werewolf that ever lived!” Jo marched about the room, teeth bared and fingers curled into claws, as her sisters shrieked and laughed.

“How nice to see my girls so merry!” Marmee said, stepping into the room. Although not elegantly dressed, she was tall, had a noble air, and her girls thought her the most splendid mother on earth.

“You look tired, or sad, Marmee,” Meg said.

“I was helping at the clinic, as you know, and the Brigade stormed in and took three women, three patients away.”

“The Brigade!” Jo cried. “I thought they disbanded due to the war.”

“When the men went off to fight, it certainly appeared that way.