I don't know whether it is good or bad but it will keep the pot boiling

Born on 29 November 1832, Louisa May Alcott was the second daughter of Amos Bronson Alcott and Abigail "Abba" May, her elder sister being Anna and her younger sisters Elizabeth and May. Alcott is best known for her novel Little Women (1868), the famous American classic that follows the lives of the four sisters March. She had modelled the March girls after herself and her own sisters, with herself as the inspiration for "Jo", Anna for "Meg", Elizabeth for "Beth" and May for "Amy"; like the March sisters, the Alcott sisters were very close, despite character differences and rivalries. 

The Alcott girls grew up in financial hardship. Their father Amos was an idealistic educator with no steady income, while their mother Abba was a social worker, whose earnings were also irregular. In order to get by, the Alcotts depended on loans and charity from friends and family. When the two eldest daughters, Anna and Louisa, were old enough to work, their income helped keep the Alcott household afloat. They both worked as teachers and governesses and, for additional income, Louisa also took on sewing and wrote poems and stories. Eventually, Louisa became the family’s main breadwinner. The Alcotts' financial situation improved significantly when her writing gained success, especially after the publication of Little Women in 1868.

Ten years before Little Women, 25-year-old Louisa Alcott was still a struggling writer. In November 1858, she wrote the following letter from Boston to her sister Anna, having left home in Concord the previous month. Hunting for work to support her family, she eventually found a position as a governess/ tutor, while also doing sewing work and pursuing her writing. In her letter, Louisa kept Anna updated about her life in Boston, including the latest news on her earnings and her writing. The two sisters had a very close bond; in her journal Louisa described Anna ("Nan") as "my one bosom friend and comforter" and "my conscience, always true and just and good". 

Louisa was governess and tutor to Alice Lovering, so "Mrs. L" referenced in the letter is most likely the girl's mother, Mrs. Lovering. The story Mark Field's Mistake, which is also mentioned, became a succes and was even praised by prominent literary critic E. P. Whipple. It earned Alcott $30, most of which she sent home.

Sunday Eve, November, 1858.

My blessed Nan,

Having finished my story, I can refresh my soul by a scribble to you, though I have nothing to tell of much interest.

Mrs. L. is to pay me my "celery" each month, as she likes to settle all bills in that way; so yesterday she put $20.85 into my willing hands, and gave me Saturday p.m. for a holiday. This unexpected $20, with the $10 for my story (if I get it) and $5 for sewing, will give me the immense sum of $35. I shall get a second-hand carpet for the little parlor, a bonnet for you, and some shoes and stockings for myself, as three times round the Common in cold weather conduces to chilblains, owing to stockings with a profusion of toe, but no heel, and shoes with plenty of heel, but a paucity of toe. The prejudices of society demand that my feet be covered in the houses of the rich and great; so I shall hose and shoe myself, and if any of my fortune is left, will invest it in the Alcott Sinking Fund, the Micawber R. R., and the Skimpole three per cents.

Tell me how much carpet you need, and T. S. will find me a good one. In December I shall have another $20; so let me know what is wanting, and don't live on "five pounds of rice and a couple of quarts of split peas" all winter, I beg.

How did you like "Mark Field's Mistake"? I don't know whether it is good or bad; but it will keep the pot boiling, and I ask no more. I wanted to go and see if "Hope's Treasures" was accepted, but was afeared. M. and H. both appeared; but one fell asleep, and the other forgot to remember; so I still wait like Patience on a hard chair, smiling at an inkstand. Miss K. asked me to go to see Booth for the last time on Saturday. Upon that ravishing thought I brooded all the week very merrily, and I danced, sang, and clashed my cymbals daily. Saturday a.m. Miss K. sent word she couldn't go, and from my pinnacle of joy I was precipitated into an abyss of woe. While in said abyss Mrs. L. put the $20 into my hands. That was a moment of awful trial. Every one of those dollars cried aloud, "What, ho! Come hither, and be happy!" But eight cold feet on a straw carpet marched to and fro so pathetically that I locked up the tempting fiend, and fell to sewing, as a Saturday treat!

But, lo! virtue was rewarded. Mrs. H. came flying in, and took me to the Museum to see "Gold" and "Lend Me Five Shillings." Warren, in an orange tie, red coat, white satin vest, and scarlet ribbons on his ankles, was the funniest creature you ever saw; and I laughed till I cried,–which was better for me than the melancholy Dane, I dare say.

I'm disgusted with this letter; for I always begin trying to be proper and neat; but my pen will not keep in order, and ink has a tendency to splash when used copiously and with rapidity. I have to be so moral and so dignified nowadays that the jocosity of my nature will gush out when it gets a chance, and the consequences are, as you see, rubbish. But you like it; so let's be merry while we may, for to-morrow is Monday, and the weekly grind begins again.

Source letter: "Louisa May Alcott: Her Life, Letters, and Journals" (1898), by Louisa M. Alcott, edited by Ednah Dow Cheney

Via: Project Gutenberg

Image: Louisa May Alcott (left) at age 20, and Anna Alcott Pratt, who was 1 year and 8 months older than Louisa

Sources: Louisa via Wikimedia Commons; Anna via Louisa May Alcott's Orchard House