ables_. Now, I must try to sell it."

In September Anna had an offer to become a teacher in the great idiot
asylum in Syracuse. Her sensitive nature shrank from the work, but
with real self-sacrifice she accepted it for the sake of the family,
and went off in October. Meanwhile Louisa had been thinking deeply
about her future, and her diary tells the story of a decision she
made, quite the most important one of her life. She writes:

"November; decided to seek my fortune, so with my little trunk of
home-made clothes, $40 earned by stories sent to the _Gazette_, and my
MSS., I set forth with mother's blessing one rainy day in the dullest
month in the year."

She went straight to Boston, where she writes:

"Found it too late to do anything with the book (the new one she had
written at Walpole) so put it away and tried for teaching, sewing, or
any honest work. Won't go home to sit idle while I have a head and a
pair of hands."

Good for you, Louisa--you are the stuff that success is made of! That
her courage had its reward is shown by the fact that her cousins, the
Sewalls, generously offered her a home for the winter with them which
she gratefully accepted, but insisted on paying for her board by doing
a great deal of sewing for them. She says in her diary: "I sew for
Mollie and others and write stories. C. gave me books to notice. Heard
Thackeray. Anxious times; Anna very home-sick. Walpole very cold and
dull, now the summer butterflies have gone. Got $5 for a tale and $12
for sewing; sent home a Christmas box to cheer the dear souls in the
snow-banks."

In January she writes: "C. paid $6 for _A Sister's Trial_, gave me
more books to notice, and wants more tales." The entries that follow
give a vivid picture of her pluck and perseverance in that first
winter of fortune-seeking, and no record of deeds could be more
graphic than the following entries:

"Sewed for L. W. Sewall and others. Mr. Field took my farce to Mobile
to bring out; Mr. Barry of the Boston Theater has the play. Heard
Curtis lecture. Began a book for summer, _Beach Bubbles_. Mr. F. of
the _Courier_ printed a poem of mine on 'Little Nell'. Got $10 for
'Bertha' and saw great yellow placards stuck up announcing it. Acted
at the W's. March; got $10 for 'Genevieve'. Prices go up as people
like the tales and ask who wrote them.... Sewed a great deal, and got
very tired; one job for Mr. G. of a dozen pillow-cases, one dozen
sheets, six fine cambric neck