March returns from Washington, much to everyone’s relief. Beth’s sickness finally abates the morning Mrs. March is away, Beth contracts scarlet fever, and she grows so sick that the March girls and their servant Hannah fear that she won’t survive. Toward the end of the year, they learn their father has fallen ill, and Mrs. Vain Meg, for instance, burns off a lock of her hair, conceited Amy is beaten in front of her classmates at school when she’s discovered hoarding pickled limes in her desk, and Jo (blinded by anger) carelessly allows Amy to fall into an icy river. Over the course of the following year, the girls encounter a number of trials that put their readings of Pilgrim’s Progress to the test. Brooke, also becomes a fixture in the March household, and he takes a special liking to Meg. Laurence befriends the girls and becomes a surrogate grandfather to them. Laurie becomes a fixture at the March household, and old Mr. While attending a dance thrown by a local rich family, Meg and Jo meet Laurie, the grandson of the March family’s rich neighbor, Mr. Together, they resolve to read a little from their books each day, and to put the morals they learn into practice. On Christmas morning, the girls wake to discover that they’ve each received a copy of Pilgrim’s Progress, an allegorical novel about Christian morals. Though impoverished, the March family is rich in spirit they are bolstered by their familial love and steered by strong Christian morals. March, has volunteered to serve in the Union army as a chaplain, leaving his wife and daughters to fend for themselves in his absence. The four March girls – motherly Meg (age 16), boyish Jo (age 15), frail yet pious Beth (age 13), and elegant Amy (age 12) – live alone with their mother, Mrs. The story opens in Concord, Massachusetts, just a few days before Christmas in the year 1860.

Little women book