Miss Dreamsville and the Collier County Women's Literary Society by Amy Hill Hearth

Author:Amy Hill Hearth
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atria Books

Fourteen

I got a frantic call from Jungle Larry’s Safari, hoping I would help them with an ailing snake.

“But I don’t do snakes,” I reminded Larry, a nice-enough man who had retired, along with some weather-beaten animals, from a traveling circus. “Try the vet in Everglades City.”

I didn’t have anything against snakes but they were outside my area of expertise. And besides, I figured I’d never have the option of getting married again—assuming I’d want to—if I became known as the Snake Lady. Turtle Lady was bad enough.

The next meeting of our reading group was the following day. I hoped the evening would go more smoothly than the last time. I saw right away—and was relieved—that everyone seemed to feel the same way. The Feminine Mystique had caused enough trouble.

Miss Lansbury was even prepared for a diversion: she suggested we read aloud from Little Women, and we quickly got into it, passing the book around the circle. For some reason this was strangely soothing, like drinking tea with honey when you’ve got a nasty cold.

Of course every one of us, except Robbie-Lee, had read Little Women several times. The story was all new to Robbie-Lee, which was kind of interesting to watch, almost like reading the book again for the first time. He even cried when he realized sweet little Beth was going to die. This in turn made the rest of us cry, but it was a healthy kind of weeping—a tonic of sorts.

Miss Lansbury pointed out that critics sometimes pooh-poohed Little Women by calling the book a “domestic drama.” Jackie harrumphed. “Of course it was a domestic drama, that’s all women were allowed to do—stay home! The men go away to war, they go to college. I hated it—still do—when Laurence goes off to college, leaving poor Jo behind.”

Jackie, it seemed, was still grappling with The Feminine Mystique.

“But what’s fascinating—is it not?—is that a great deal actually goes on within the March household.” This was Miss Lansbury. “It is the relationships that matter. It’s an ingenious depiction of a sophisticated social sphere—the world of women.”

This was loftier than we were in the mood for. “Oh, let’s just keep reading the book,” said Mrs. Bailey White. “Forget all that other stuff.”

In the car on the way home, Plain Jane made an interesting point. “With all the times I read Little Women when I was growing up,” she said, “would you believe I never really noticed—until tonight—that the father in the story isn’t present because he’s a chaplain in the Union Army? I just thought of him as having ‘gone off to war.’ It’s a wonder they allowed us to read that book south of the Mason-Dixon line.”

“Maybe that’s because the father is a chaplain. He’s not actually gone off to kill anyone. Maybe that made it all right.” This from Jackie.

“And he’s not a main character,” Priscilla added. “I mean, as a character he is mostly absent.”

“I think it’s because the book is about a family and you become attached to them as people,” I suggested.

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