in the small head which
later proved to be so full of wonderful material for the delight of
young people.

"Those Concord days were the happiest of my life," says Miss Alcott.
"We had charming playmates in the little Emersons, Channings, Goodwins
and Hawthornes, with the illustrious parents and their friends to
enjoy our pranks and share our excursions.... My wise mother, anxious
to give me a strong body to support a lively brain, turned me loose in
the country and let me run wild, learning of Nature what no books can
teach, and being led--as those who truly love her seldom fail to
be--'through Nature up to Nature's God.'"

The Alcott children were encouraged to keep diaries in which they
wrote down their thoughts and feelings and fancies, and even at that
early age Louisa's journal was a record of deep feelings and of a
child's sacred emotions. In one of her solemn moods, she makes this
entry:

"I had an early run in the woods before the dew was off the grass. The
moss was like velvet, and as I ran under the arch of yellow and red
leaves I sang for joy, my heart was so bright and the world so
beautiful. I stopped at the end of the walk and saw the sunshine out
over the wide 'Virginia meadows.'

"It seemed like going through a dark life or grave into heaven
beyond. A very strange and solemn feeling came over me as I stood
there, with no sound but the rustle of the pines, no one near me, and
the sun so glorious, as for me alone. It seemed as if I _felt_ God as
I never did before, and I prayed in my heart that I might keep that
happy sense of nearness all my life."

To that entry there is a note added, years later: "_I have_, for I
most sincerely think that the little girl 'got religion' that day in
the wood, when dear Mother Nature led her to God."--L. M. A. 1885.

That deep religious note in Louisa Alcott's nature is very marked and
is evident in all of her work, but, on the other hand, she had a
sparkling wit and such a keen sense of humor that in her blackest
moods she could always see something funny to amuse her, and
frequently laughed at her own expense.

That her conscience was as active as her mind and her body is shown by
one of her "private plays," which she makes Demi describe in _Little
Men_. He says:

"I play that my mind is a round room, and my soul is a little sort of
creature with wings that lives in it. The walls are full of shelves
and drawers, and in them I keep my thoughts, and my goodness