March 18, 1873

Dear Polly,

Please forgive me for the lengthy time since I last wrote & etc, etc. We needn't stand on such ceremony with each other, I think and hope you feel the same, just as I wouldn't bring a calling card to dear Meg's for her tray. It seems an age and somehow the blink of an eye since last we sat together in your parlor. Now that I am responsible for Plumfield, I appreciate anew what a comfortable sitting room you made it, how full of books I wanted to read, yet so pleasingly arranged—there was always something to rest one's eye upon that was lovely or interesting or intricate. Amy has that same skill, of making a room becoming and easy, but she does lean rather heavily upon paintings. I do like a great, thick musty volume, its cover travel-worn—which is all to the good, as books are not in short supply in my new home. You know how Aunt March left all of Plumfield to me, inclusive of her library, and I have unearthed a gem here and there, and as for the rest, well, they make my eye happy and there is nothing to me like the smell of a library. Of course, my Fritz all but stuffed his trunks with books when he left Germany and I can't be certain if he has even more than three waistcoats! There are so many surprises I have found since becoming a wife—I had never imagined taking my husband to task for forgetting to give me his mending or being woken by the toppling of a great tower of books, which has happened not once, nor twice but three times in the past week alone. Did you find it thus, Polly, when you married? I suppose I mean when you married Dr. Jed, for I must expect you faced such revelations when you were first a bride.

This letter is fearfully out of order, isn't it? I have not asked after your husband or children though I'm certain you know I send only my best love to all of them and a great smacking kiss to the little ones from Aunt Jo. How goes it at the hospital, the clinic for Dr. Jed? Are his experiments proceeding apace? And Dr. Harris, that dear man with his intriguing theories! Perhaps he has yet found a competent housekeeper? I'm not sure you can manage his buttons with all the rest you have to attend to, though I cannot imagine you will stop making him give you his coat when you see it trailing threads… And Miss Watson—you must write me of her and let her know I much desire a correspondence and perhaps she may even send us a student or two for our school. As I suspected, Fritz is completely happy with Plumfield, as president-professor-and-occasional-chief-bottle-washer, and we would welcome more young scholars in our midst. If the Aid Society finds the tuition too costly, please let me know and I will speak with Teddy. It seems since he married golden-haired Amy, everything else he touches turns to gold and he feels he cannot divest himself of the "filthy lucre" fast enough—I know he would be gratified to sponsor one of Miss Watson's protégés, even if the child is not musical or artistic in any way.

Let me see, I haven't written yet of Meg, other than her front hall, what an oversight! She would be the first to expect it of me though, she has a long experience of my missteps and lack of politesse. But of course you know that already from your own acquaintance with her; I do so like to think of you writing each other, two of the best women I know and both so generous and loving to your harum-scarum Jo, only partially concealed in Mrs. Bhaer's sober cloak and bonnet. Meg is well as are the children. I cannot think what the schoolroom would be without Demi and Daisy and Meg has said her own home is a bit more serene and restful for John and little Josy naps more easily without the noise of the twins in and out of the garden all day. She will not own it, but I think the quiet is good for Meg as well—she has had so little of it since the twins were born and even before, when she was a governess before her marriage. Now she may take an hour and spend it as she pleases—perhaps not as you or I would choose, but as she would. To wit, her garden has been glorious this season and I've never seen the like of the embroidery on Daisy's collars or a boy of Demi's age with so many monogrammed handkerchiefs. I must be a good aunt, so I do not tell her the uses Demi finds for them, but you can imagine the frogs he has swaddled and the caterpillars who had have such a lovely hammock. My parents do well, as always. My father's chest has kept him a bit quiet lately, but his writing has not suffered and Marmee is the same Sun for our planets as ever—so warm and loving and mindful of the passage of our days. I shall never equal her.

I have hopes I may persuade Fritz the seaside will be all to the good for Franz and Emil this summer and then we may sit upon the shore with our parasols again and we will talk as we did before, your thoughtful advice sprinkled so judiciously amidst talk of novels and matters scientific or politic, the children's little victories and your recounting of Dr. Jed's good works and discoveries. I will not leap to jump up and join the children this time, though I will long to, as I have… expectations of my own now. Oh, Polly, now I must confess as I have nothing else to delay me and I hope quite sincerely you will not think any less of me, but I am not happy I am to be a mother. Even to write it, "to be a mother" gives me a pang but the whole together, the unhappiness linked to it and the clear admission, that is worse, like a great bolt that strikes me. For I know I should be pleased, I should be overjoyed to be so lately married, who never thought to be, and to be happily settled and now with the blessing of a child…but I am not. And you are the only one I feel I can tell this to, this secret within a secret, for who would understand? Who would not judge me?

I have not told Fritz yet about the baby but I have spoken with Marmee. She knows a little of what is in my heart I suspect (will this be a gift I receive with the birth, to read everything in my child's eyes, a compensation of sorts?) and she laid her hand on my cheek and said, "Dear Jo, how glad I am" and then she shortly turned the conversation and she suggested I write to you of my news "for I think our friend Mary may prove a confidante well-suited to you as you have been to her." And then she called for tea and toast from Hannah and so aptly timed it was, for I had started feeling ill as I do quite often now. I must trust you as Marmee has directed me and so I will tell you what is in my heart.

Polly, it all feels too much, too soon—I am trapped now though I did not feel so before, when I only had to manage being Fritz's Professorin and Franz and Emil's Aunt Jo and Plumfield's Mrs. Bhaer, old Mrs. March's niece. What is become of Jo? What will become of her? I am happy with my husband, truly so happy, but there are days, times when I still feel most bitterly that Aunt March took Amy with her to Europe, hours when I long for the bustle of New York outside my window and not a grassy verge in need of mowing, the murmur only of bees and not the chatter in the boarding house halls and parlor. I think of those weeks I spent in your home, the lectures I attended, the frank talk at Miss Watson's and also the small society we made, you and I, Dr. Jed and Dr. Harris, as you poured out the coffee, that convivial spirit, and I wish for it still. I feel I am trying, have been trying, to make the small world around me so much larger, with just enough room for me to spread out me wings if I am not meant to fly, and now I am clipped and jessed.

For I know my duty and I think I will find it in my heart to love this baby when it arrives, but I am not sure who that Jo must be, how she will come to be. How will I put aside all the desires of my heart? I am wicked perhaps—Amy would scratch out my eyes if she knew, after her sad losses, and Meg, Meg would only look at me a little blankly or she would see just another failing. She would forgive me but she would not know why it was called for. And sweet Beth would pat my hand and start working me a pair of slippers and a little white bonnet, both embroidered with sweet peas and snapdragons. She at least would not judge me, though she would not understand either, as she never traveled far into womanhood before she traveled where I could not follow.

Polly, I do not see how I can tell Fritz this news, this great and transfiguring news, without joy in my heart and I so not see how I can tell him without falling into his arms and crying. He will want to comfort me but he will not know how and I fear neither Erasmus nor Dickens, a cup of tea or a cuddle, all his preferred strategies, none will do for this. I want to see the smile on his face, I want so much to please him, to be a good wife but in yet one more aspect of our marriage, I feel incompetent, a fraud. He has not minded so much, that I can only cook him simple food and hardly anything he misses from home, or that my mending is serviceable but crooked, the shelves a little dusty, my collar and cuffs perpetually askew. But in this I must be sincere and adept at once; I cannot tell him the truth and I cannot lie. I would say I could hardly sleep for turning it round in my head, but I have found my energy sapped and sweet Morpheus has been my only surcease from the illness plaguing me morning and night.

Even now, I must close this letter, though there is more I could write, should write and would, if my eyes were not so heavy. I imagine you have read this while the children nap or Daniel at least works at his book of flowers, quite the young botanist I recall from your last letter. It gives my weary head a little peace to think of you reading this scrawl and nodding your head, considering your response, which I eagerly await—I have lived in your house and so I feel I know a little more of your nature and I think you will have some wisdom to impart, calm, practical Polly! but you will find a way to write me your smile too and something in place of the cup of tea you would hand me, the clasp of your hand as you do so. I know you will not be speechless at least, that is never you, and I will trust in you and Marmee's guidance and God's goodness.

Most fondly,

"Jo" Josephine March Bhaer