The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott by Kelly O'Connor McNees Page A

grinned. She loved a good conspiracy. “Samuel’s parents must be happy about the match?”
    Joseph hesitated. “Yes, I believe they are. Mr. Parker is, anyway. Mrs. Parker—well, she can be a tough one to please, especially when it comes to convincing her a young lady is good enough for her son. But I won’t say a thing against her—she has been like a mother to me since my own died.”
    Louisa pressed her lips together. “Well, that is wonderful to hear, though I’m sorry to know about your mother.” Her curiosity prompted her to ask more, but she refrained.
    Joseph shrugged. “Thank you—it was a long time ago. But my father and sister and I were blessed to have Mrs. Parker. When Mother died, we moved to the apartment above the store so Father could keep an eye on us while he was working. We were quite small then. And Samuel’s mother brought us our dinner each afternoon. I don’t know how she did it, but my father was grateful. And Mother too, I’m sure.” He trailed off. “But happy news should be our focus. And Samuel is the happiest of all today, I think.”
    “I’m sure he will make a devoted husband. Our friend deserves only the best.” Something gave a quarter turn in Louisa’s belly as she thought of Anna and their talk on the walk home from the store. “But it’s all so soon, don’t you think? It seems only last summer we were all romping around together and having larks,” she thought, but found she had said out loud.
    “I don’t know. I don’t think age has anything to do with it. Of course, it is a serious endeavor, and one must treat it as such. But more years don’t necessarily better prepare one, I imagine.”
    “I suppose we never know what life is going to send our way.”
    Joseph considered her remark. “Some people just seem to know what they want and go after it full steam ahead.”
    She nodded, thinking that not every woman was so free to pursue what she wanted, if her object went against convention. An awkward moment passed.
    Joseph reached for his pocket and pulled out the thin volume. “Since we talked about these poems the other day at the party, I cannot stop rereading them. They really are remarkable.”
    Louisa cheered a bit. Here was something she could speak freely about; here was a subject that had nothing to do with her.
    “I wonder, what do you think of his punctuation?” Joseph flipped forward a few pages with his index finger and pointed to several ellipses that dotted the page like a strange kind of Morse code. “I’ve never seen poetry set on the page this way.”
    “Neither have I. It is odd—as if the poem is one long sentence. You can scarcely stop for breath as you read it. Perhaps he wanted the appearance of the page to match the content of its message. His philosophy is unorthodox, so why shouldn’t his grammar be as well?”
    Joseph nodded. “He certainly has a way of shocking his reader, does he not?” Louisa looked at her knees. The poetry was full of talk of the body. The first time she read some of the passages, she had blushed to the ends of her hair. “In fact, I wasn’t sure I should bring it with me today. I don’t wish to make you uncomfortable.”
    Louisa felt her temper rear like a colt. “Because I am a woman, you mean?” She snatched his copy of the book from his hand, flipped to the page she’d reread ten times to imprint it on her brain, and recited: “ I am the poet of the woman the same as the man, / And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man. What do you say to that? Is he wrong?”
    Joseph tried to hide his amused smile and gazed admiringly at her. “No, Miss Louisa, I do not think he is wrong,” he replied softly. “If anything, I think he may be underestimating you .”
    Her eyes darted around his face, trying to discern whether he spoke sincerely or was teasing her. She sighed, exhausted by her own defensiveness. She knew her temper made her silly and childish. But it was as easily triggered as