Little Women Chapter 27

Every few weeks Jo writes furiously for a time and gives herself to it completely. She finds out about a contest with a prize of $100 for a sensation story. She writes a story and secretly enters it in the contest. She waits six long weeks to hear back. Just when she thinks nothing will come of it, a letter comes, and out of it falls a check for $100. Jo is thrilled and tells her family. Her father tells her to stop thinking about the money and aim higher with her stories. Her sisters think the money is the best part of it. Jo decides to send her mother and Beth to the seaside for a vacation. Her mother and Beth go and come back, but Beth still isn't as plump and rosy as Jo had hoped. But her mother says that she feels ten years younger, so Jo is satisfied.

Jo sets about writing to buy things for her family. She decides to do something bold, and she takes her novel and submits it to three places. One place says it will publish it if she cuts out the parts that she happened to like the most. But she decides to publish it anyway. Although she earns $300 from the venture, she also earns a great deal of criticism, both good and bad, none of it helpful to her at all. "...When the first soreness was over, she could laugh at her poor little book, yet believe in it still, and feel herself the wiser and stronger for the buffeting she had received." Chapter 27, pg. 321

Topic Tracking: Poverty 14