The agonizing wait ends as Friday arrives, forcing Jo to face the pragmatic realities of the printing office once more. A surprising revelation about her manuscript challenges her ambitions and forces her to re-evaluate the true audience for her words.
The days between Tuesday and Friday dragged by with excruciating slowness. Jo went through her chores in a mechanical daze, accidentally dusting the parlor mantelpiece twice and pouring vinegar into the bread dough instead of yeast—a blunder that earned her a look of mild despair from Meg.
When Friday morning finally broke, crisp and bitterly cold, Jo was out the door before the frost had even begun to melt off the well-sweep. She walked with a fierce, rapid stride, her hands shoved deep into her pockets, rehearsing a dozen different speeches of dignified acceptance or stoic indifference.
The office of the Concord Weekly Courier was just as loud and chaotic as before, the great iron press in the back churning out sheets with a rhythmic, mechanical thud. Mr. Dashwood sat behind his mountain of ledgers, a thick cloud of pipe smoke swirling around his green eyeshade.
Jo stepped up to the desk, clearing her throat loudly. "Good morning, Mr. Dashwood. I’ve come about the manuscript. The romance."
The editor looked up, blinking his watery eyes as if trying to place her face. He shuffled through a stack of papers near his left elbow, finally pulling out Jo’s bundle. The red ribbon had been untied and carelessly knotted back together.
"Ah, yes. The pirate business," Mr. Dashwood said, tapping the pages against his desk. "Well, Miss March, you have a lively style. Very dramatic. But it’s far too long, and our readers prefer something with a bit more... moral instruction for the New Year. Pirates don't sell as well as they used to."
Jo’s heart plummeted into her boots. "So, you won't take it?"
"I didn't say that," Mr. Dashwood replied, dipping his pen into the ink. "I can take the middle section—the part where the heroine rejects the wealthy suitor to care for her ailing mother. I’ll have to cut the sea battle entirely. If you let me prune it down to two columns, I can give you one dollar and fifty cents."
One dollar and fifty cents. It was less than she had hoped, and the thought of her grand sea battle being sliced away by a stranger's red ink stung her pride fiercely. Rodrigo’s heroic sacrifice was to be discarded for a domestic sermon.
She looked at the editor’s cold, transactional eyes, then down at her own worn boots. She thought of Marmee's tired smile and the missing comforts of their small home.
"Cut it then, sir," Jo said, her voice steady though her chin trembled slightly. "Take what you can use."
Mr. Dashwood nodded, entirely unmoved by her internal struggle. He slid a small, silver coin and a few copper pennies across the ink-stained wood, along with the remnants of her mutilated pages. "Come back if you write something simpler next time, Miss March. Less blood and thunder, more hearth and home."
Jo gathered the money and the papers, walking out into the bright winter sunlight. She felt a strange mixture of triumph and deflation. She was a published author now—the silver coin in her palm proved it—yet the victory felt hollow, stripped of the romantic glory she had imagined in the garret.
As she reached the edge of town, a familiar cutter sleigh pulled up beside her with a jingling of silver bells. Laurie sat at the reins, his dark eyes bright beneath his fur cap.
"Step in, Jo! You look as if you’ve just marched through a battlefield," he called out, throwing back the heavy bear-skin robe to make room for her.
Jo climbed in, letting out a long, ragged sigh as the horses took off down the snowy road. Without a word, she opened her hand to show him the coins.
Laurie looked at the money, then at her face, understanding her completely without needing a grand explanation. He didn't offer empty praise or tell her it was a fortune. Instead, he reached over and gave her mittened hand a firm, brotherly squeeze.
"It's a beginning, Jo," Laurie said softly, the playful teasing entirely gone from his voice. "And the best part is, they couldn't buy the mind that wrote it. You still have all the stories left inside."
Jo looked out over the passing snowdrifts, the cold wind clearing the lingering smell of printer's ink from her clothes. The editor had cut her favorite parts, but looking at the silver coin, she realized it would buy exactly what Marmee needed. The world of commerce was a cold one, but the warmth of her own purpose remained entirely untouched.
