She and her sisters learned to sew well.  Louisa set up as a doll’s dress-maker.  She was then twelve years old.  She hung out a little sign.  She put some pretty dresses in the window to show how well she could do.

Other girls liked the little dresses that she made.  They came to her to get dresses made for their dolls.  They liked the little doll’s hats she made better than all.  Louisa chased the chickens to get soft feathers for these hats.

She turned the old fairy tales into little plays.  The children played these plays in the barn.

One of these plays was Jack and the Bean-stalk.  A squash vine was put up in the barn.  This was the bean-stalk.  When it was cut down, the boy who played giant would come tumbling out of the hay-loft.

Louisa found it hard to be good and o-be-di-ent.  She wrote some verses about being good.  She was fourteen years old when she wrote them.  Here they are:—­

MY KINGDOM.

     A little kingdom I possess
     Where thoughts and feelings dwell,
     And very hard I find the task
     Of gov-ern-ing it well.

     For passion tempts and troubles me,
     A wayward will misleads,
     And sel-fish-ness its shadow casts
     On all my words and deeds.

     I do not ask for any crown
     But that which all may win,
     Nor seek to conquer any world
     Except the one within.

The Al-cott family were very poor.  Louisa made up her mind to do something to make money when she got big.  She did not like being so very poor.

[Illustration]

One day she was sitting on a cart-wheel thinking.  She was thinking how poor her father was.  There was a crow up in the air over her head.  The crow was cawing.  There was nobody to tell her thoughts to but the crow.  She shook her fist at the big bird, and said,—­

“I will do something by and by.  Don’t care what.  I’ll teach, sew, act, write, do anything to help the family.  And I’ll be rich and famous before I die.  See if I don’t.”

The crow did not make any answer.  But Louisa kept thinking about the work she was going to do.  The other children got work to do that made money.  But Louisa was left at home to do housework.  She had to do the washing.  She made a little song about it.  Here are some of the verses of this song:—­

[Illustration]

A SONG FROM THE SUDS.

Queen of my tub, I merrily sing,
  While the white foam rises high,
And stur-di-ly wash and rinse and wring,
  And fasten the clothes to dry;
Then out in the free fresh air they swing,
  Under the sunny sky.

I am glad a task to me is given,
  To labor at day by day;
For it brings me health and strength and hope,
  And I cheer-ful-ly learn to say,
“Head you may think, Heart you may feel,
  But Hand you shall work alway.”