Humor Reigns

Still More Characters:

Miss Crocker: a gossipy spinster neighbor who happens to drop by the day Marmee & Hannah take the day off.

Ned Moffat: of the Moffat family that Meg earlier visited. Says he came just to see Meg.

Miss Kate, Fred Vaughn, Grace: guests at Camp Lawrence



Summaries:

Chapter 10: A hilarious peek into a "secret society" meeting. I wish that I had someone to be in a secret society with and a nice purple martin house to use as a post office! It sounds like a wonderful time!

Chapter 11: I nearly spit out the water I was drinking when I read "He's been starved, and he shan't be baked now he's dead." What a funny mess the girls have made! I'll have to remember this little lesson Marmee is teaching her girls about work and play.

Chapter 12: All four of the girls enjoy a lovely day with Laurie and some of his invited friends. Meg is showing signs of growing up, the boys are interested; she appears "womanly." Jo, for all her resistance to acting like a lady, is not far behind.



Vocabulary:

Ennui: I blogged this one a while back when I ran across it in Ivanhoe. It's still a very cool word.

Dyspeptic: suffering from dyspepsia (deranged or impaired digestion; indigestion)

Lexicon: a word book describing language with definitions; dictionary [What a funny thing to fire at someone!]



Ponderings:

I don't find as much to say about these chapters in the way of deep thoughts, but if you were looking for wholesome amusements, these chapters are chock full! The secret club with the funny funny newspaper, the bird-house post office, the failed dinner party, the picnic all sound like such a good time! Ideas for things to do on long summer afternoons was not what I was expecting when we started reading this book, but it's a pleasant find!

I find the English-American interactions of the last chapter to be pretty interesting. The only Englishwomen I've ever met have been expatriates who had both been in the States for quite some time and have been wonderful women with fabulous accents. We didn't seem to have the sort of conflict that the book is depicting between the American Marches and the English Vaughns. Makes me curious to know if that's a fictional bit or if that's a detail that comes from Miss Alcott's experience.