“Get what you like, and don’t disturb me; I’m going out to dinner, and can’t worry about things at home,” said Mrs. March, when Jo spoke to her. “I never enjoyed housekeeping, and I’m going to take a vacation today, and read, write, go visiting, and amuse myself.”
The unusual spectacle of her busy mother rocking comfortably, and reading, early in the morning, made Jo feel as if some natural phenomenon had occurred, for an eclipse, an earthquake, or a volcanic eruption would hardly have seemed stranger.
“Everything is out of sorts, somehow,” she said to herself, going downstairs. “There’s Beth crying; that’s a sure sign that something is wrong with this family. If Amy is bothering, I’ll shake her.”
Feeling very much out of sorts herself, Jo hurried into the parlor to find Beth sobbing over Pip, the canary, who lay dead in the cage, with his little claws pathetically extended, as if imploring the food for want of which he had died.
“It’s all my fault—I forgot him—there isn’t a seed or a drop left. O Pip! O Pip! how could I be so cruel to you?” cried Beth, taking the poor thing in her hands, and trying to restore him.
Jo peeped into his half-open eye, felt his little heart, and finding him stiff and cold, shook her head, and offered her domino-box for a coffin.
“Put him in the oven, and maybe he will get warm and revive,” said Amy hopefully.
“He’s been starved, and he shan’t be baked, now he’s dead. I’ll make him a shroud, and he shall be buried in the garden; and I’ll never have another bird, never, my Pip! for I am too bad to own one,” murmured Beth, sitting on the floor with her pet folded in her hands.
“The funeral shall be this afternoon, and we will all go. Now, don’t cry, Bethy; it’s a pity, but nothing goes right this week, and Pip has had the