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For those people who've read the last of the "Little Women" books, "Jo's Boys", I have a puzzle for you. For those that don't know the book, it's set 20 years after Jo and Herr Bhaer marry, and all the next generation who appeared in "Little Men" are growing or fully grown.
There's a theatrical performance in Chapter 14 which includes a piece of pathos involving a poor woman and her children. She is grandmother to a baby, and said baby is played by a real baby on stage, (wearing little blue shoes).
Nowhere is it mentioned whose baby it is. Meg, playing the grandmother, has been a widow for 10 years. There's no mention of Jo or Amy having another child so late, and none of the children (either the actual children of the "Little Women" nor any of the assorted extras who have been brought on) have had time to have a child at all.
Yet Jo and Laurie, the authors of the play, obviously know this child well and are ready to soothe him if he cries. He's old enough to be sitting up later, banging his spoon on the table, which means that he must be known to the family else he'd never have stayed quiet for them. He's referred to as Roscius once, but that's an allusion to a Roman actor and not the child's real name.
So who is this baby? Another convenient Hummel? A little accident by one of the girls at the Academy? Supposed to be a late arrival of Jo's but was written out and forgotten except for this one part? Tell me, if you know!
There's a theatrical performance in Chapter 14 which includes a piece of pathos involving a poor woman and her children. She is grandmother to a baby, and said baby is played by a real baby on stage, (wearing little blue shoes).
Nowhere is it mentioned whose baby it is. Meg, playing the grandmother, has been a widow for 10 years. There's no mention of Jo or Amy having another child so late, and none of the children (either the actual children of the "Little Women" nor any of the assorted extras who have been brought on) have had time to have a child at all.
Yet Jo and Laurie, the authors of the play, obviously know this child well and are ready to soothe him if he cries. He's old enough to be sitting up later, banging his spoon on the table, which means that he must be known to the family else he'd never have stayed quiet for them. He's referred to as Roscius once, but that's an allusion to a Roman actor and not the child's real name.
So who is this baby? Another convenient Hummel? A little accident by one of the girls at the Academy? Supposed to be a late arrival of Jo's but was written out and forgotten except for this one part? Tell me, if you know!
