er as I do," cried Amy, "for you don't
have to go to school with impertinent girls, who plague you if you
don't know your lessons, and laugh at your dresses, and label your
father if he isn't rich, and insult you when your nose isn't nice."

"If you mean libel, I'd say so, and not talk about labels, as if Papa
was a pickle bottle," advised Jo, laughing.

"I know what I mean, and you needn't be statirical about it. It's
proper to use good words, and improve your vocabilary," returned Amy,
with dignity.

"Don't peck at one another, children. Don't you wish we had the money
Papa lost when we were little, Jo? Dear me! How happy and good we'd
be, if we had no worries!" said Meg, who could remember better times.

"You said the other day you thought we were a deal happier than the
King children, for they were fighting and fretting all the time, in
spite of their money."

"So I did, Beth. Well, I think we are. For though we do have to work,
we make fun of ourselves, and are a pretty jolly set, as Jo would say."

"Jo does use such slang words!" observed Amy, with a reproving look at
the long figure stretched on the rug.

Jo immediately sat up, put her hands in her pockets, and began to
whistle.

"Don't, Jo. It's so boyish!"

"That's why I do it."

"I detest rude, unladylike girls!"

"I hate affected, niminy-piminy chits!"

"Birds in their little nests agree," sang Beth, the peacemaker, with
such a funny face that both sharp voices softened to a laugh, and the
"pecking" ended for that time.

"Really, girls, you are both to be blamed," said Meg, beginning to
lecture in her elder-sisterly fashion. "You are old enough to leave off
boyish tricks, and to behave better, Josephine. It didn't matter so
much when you were a little girl, but now you are so tall, and turn up
your hair, you should remember that you are a young lady."

"I'm not! And if turning up my hair makes me one, I'll wear it in two
tails till I'm twenty," cried Jo, pulling off her net, and shaking down
a chestnut mane. "I hate to think I've got to grow up, and be Miss
March, and wear long gowns, and look as prim as a China Aster! It's
bad enough to be a girl, anyway, when I like boy's games and work and
manners! I can't get over my disappointment in not being a boy. And
it's worse than ever now, for I'm dying to go and fight with Papa. And
I can only stay home and knit, like a poky old woman!"

And Jo shook the blue army sock till the need