es, Jo, for you can't make anything but
gingerbread and molasses candy fit to eat. I wash my hands of the
dinner party, and since you have asked Laurie on your own
responsibility, you may just take care of him."

"I don't want you to do anything but be civil to him and help to the
pudding. You'll give me your advice if I get in a muddle, won't you?"
asked Jo, rather hurt.

"Yes, but I don't know much, except about bread and a few trifles. You
had better ask Mother's leave before you order anything," returned Meg
prudently.

"Of course I shall. I'm not a fool." And Jo went off in a huff at the
doubts expressed of her powers.

"Get what you like, and don't disturb me. I'm going out to dinner and
can't worry about things at home," said Mrs. March, when Jo spoke to
her. "I never enjoyed housekeeping, and I'm going to take a vacation
today, and read, write, go visiting, and amuse myself."

The unusual spectacle of her busy mother rocking comfortably and
reading early in the morning made Jo feel as if some unnatural
phenomenon had occurred, for an eclipse, an earthquake, or a volcanic
eruption would hardly have seemed stranger.

"Everything is out of sorts, somehow," she said to herself, going
downstairs. "There's Beth crying, that's a sure sign that something is
wrong in this family. If Amy is bothering, I'll shake her."

Feeling very much out of sorts herself, Jo hurried into the parlor to
find Beth sobbing over Pip, the canary, who lay dead in the cage with
his little claws pathetically extended, as if imploring the food for
want of which he had died.

"It's all my fault, I forgot him, there isn't a seed or a drop left.
Oh, Pip! Oh, Pip! How could I be so cruel to you?" cried Beth, taking
the poor thing in her hands and trying to restore him.

Jo peeped into his half-open eye, felt his little heart, and finding
him stiff and cold, shook her head, and offered her domino box for a
coffin.

"Put him in the oven, and maybe he will get warm and revive," said Amy
hopefully.

"He's been starved, and he shan't be baked now he's dead. I'll make
him a shroud, and he shall be buried in the garden, and I'll never have
another bird, never, my Pip! for I am too bad to own one," murmured
Beth, sitting on the floor with her pet folded in her hands.

"The funeral shall be this afternoon, and we will all go. Now, don't
cry, Bethy. It's a pity, but nothing goes right this week, and Pip has
had the worst of the e