Harvest Season

[Writers Plot]

Posted by Sheila Connolly

In case I haven't mentioned it, I'm writing a mystery series that involves an apple orchard. Set in the rolling hills of western Massachusetts, the story begins when my protagonist decides to fix up a colonial house her family owns in order to sell it, and finds that it comes with an orchard. I would say an "old orchard," except that apples trees don't live for centuries. But she learns that there has been an orchard on that (fictional) spot since the (fictional) town was founded a couple of centuries earlier.

My heroine is an unemployed banker and knows diddly-squat about orchards. She can't even keep an African violet alive. So obviously she has a lot to learn about apple trees, and crop management, and...a whole shopping list of things. And so do I. Not that this is particularly taxing research: I get to wander from orchard to orchard, sampling the current crop, talking to orchard managers, checking out fall harvest festivals in scenic New England. No, you don't have to feel sorry for me. The apple season is upon us, and I am ready and willing to learn!

In the course of this research, recently I visited Orchard House, the Concord home of the Alcott family. Actually I had been there before when I lived near Concord for a short time, but I wasn't writing then. Still, I remember reading Little Women for the first time (when I had the measles in fourth grade), and in fact, I still have that copy, and can find it, which is even more amazing. I read it more than once, and even adopted some of the catchphrases for my own use ("in a tearing hurry, yours ever, Laurie"). The Alcotts, particularly Louisa May, are part of the American literary core (sorry, bad pun), known and beloved by one and all. They're as American as apple pie. (I'll stop, I promise.)

Visiting Orchard House is interesting for unexpected reasons. To begin with, it is, to put it kindly, in rather rough shape. (In fact, my first visit was prompted by a This Old House episode where Norm Abram toured the place and commented on the physical condition of the house.) This is not a criticism of the owners and managers of the house, who do what they can with the resources they have (and if you want to support them, visit their website http://www.louisamayalcott.org/). And the condition of the house is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it's hard to ignore peeling wallpaper, waterstains, creaking floor boards, and crumbling plaster. On the other hand, the house remains much as it was when the Alcotts lived there, down to the furniture and the articles scattered around the bedrooms, the artwork on the walls (in some cases, literally on the walls, thanks to artistic sister May) and the books in the study. No prettified, sanitized showcase this: it's a real, shabby and ultimately endearing glimpse into the working environment of one of our most beloved writers.

And the docents provide some insights into why Louisa May came to achieve that position. For one thing, she didn't want to write Little Women–her editor wanted it, and she needed the money. For another, she didn't plan to include romance in what became a series, but her readers clamored for some sort of resolution for Laurie (who apparently was modeled on Henry David Thoreau, a neighbor), so Louisa May had to marry him off–but not to Jo. Overall, Louisa May comes across as a true heroine: chronically sick after serving as a nurse in the Civil War, trying to support an impoverished family, she just kept writing. One of the more touching aspects of the house tour is seeing the desk in her bedroom, built into the wall of the house itself by her father, who also built the bookshelves there. He was proud of her writing (and no doubt enjoyed the income).

One more interesting fact: when Louisa received her first "real" payment for her writing, she used it to buy...a soapstone sink for the kitchen, to make her mother's life easier.

If we as writers want a role model, we could do worse than Louisa May Alcott.