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At nineteen, one of her early stories was published in Gleason's
Pictorial, and for this she received five dollars. How welcome was
this brain-money! Some months later she sent a story to the Boston
Saturday Gazette, entitled The Rival Prima Donnas, and, to her
great delight, received ten dollars; and what was almost better still,
a request from the editor for another story. Miss Alcott made the
Rival Prima Donnas into a drama, and it was accepted by a theatre,
and would have been put upon the stage but for some disagreement among
the actors. However, the young teacher received for her work a pass to
the theatre for forty nights. She even meditated going upon the stage,
but the manager quite opportunely broke his leg, and the contract
was annulled. What would the boys and girls of America have lost, had
their favorite turned actress!
A second story was, of course, written for the Saturday Evening
Gazette. And now Louisa was catching a glimpse of fame. She says,
"One of the memorial moments of my life is that in which, as I trudged
to school on a wintry day, my eye fell upon a large yellow poster with
these delicious words, 'Bertha, a new tale by the author of The
Rival Prima Donnas, will appear in the Saturday Evening Gazette.' I
was late; it was bitter cold; people jostled me; I was mortally afraid
I should be recognized; but there I stood, feasting my eyes on the
fascinating poster, and saying proudly to myself, in the words of the
great Vincent Crummles, 'This, this is fame!' That day my pupils had
an indulgent teacher; for, while they struggled with their
pot-hooks, I was writing immortal works; and when they droned out the
multiplication table, I was counting up the noble fortune my pen
was to earn for me in the dim, delightful future. That afternoon my
sisters made a pilgrimage to behold this famous placard, and finding
it torn by the wind, boldly stole it, and came home to wave it like
a triumphal banner in the bosom of the excited family. The tattered
paper still exists, folded away with other relics of those early days,
so hard and yet so sweet, when the first small victories were won, and
the enthusiasm of youth lent romance to life's drudgery."
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