Thank you all for my happy wedding day . Good-by , good-by ! '' They stood watching her , with faces full of love and hope and tender pride as she walked away , leaning on her husband 's arm , with her hands full of flowers and the June sunshine brightening her happy face -- and so Meg 's married life began . CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX ARTISTIC ATTEMPTS It takes people a long time to learn the difference between talent and genius , especially ambitious young men and women . Amy was learning this distinction through much tribulation , for mistaking enthusiasm for inspiration , she attempted every branch of art with youthful audacity . For a long time there was a lull in the ` mud-pie ' business , and she devoted herself to the finest pen-and-ink drawing , in which she showed such taste and skill that her graceful handiwork proved both pleasant and profitable . But over-strained eyes caused pen and ink to be laid aside for a bold attempt at poker-sketching . While this attack lasted , the family lived in constant fear of a conflagration , for the odor of burning wood pervaded the house at all hours , smoke issued from attic and shed with alarming frequency , red-hot pokers lay about promiscuously , and Hannah never went to bed without a pail of water and the dinner bell at her door in case of fire . Raphael 's face was found boldly executed on the underside of the moulding board , and Bacchus on the head of a beer barrel . A chanting cherub adorned the cover of the sugar bucket , and attempts to portray Romeo and Juliet supplied kindling for some time . From fire to oil was a natural transition for burned fingers , and Amy fell to painting with undiminished ardor . An artist friend fitted her out with his castoff palettes , brushes , and colors , and she daubed away , producing pastoral and marine views such as were never seen on land or sea . Her monstrosities in the way of cattle would have taken prizes at an agricultural fair , and the perilous pitching of her vessels would have produced seasickness in the most nautical observer , if the utter disregard to all known rules of shipbuilding and rigging had not convulsed him with laughter at the first glance . Swarthy boys and dark-eyed Madonnas , staring at you from one corner of the studio , suggested Murillo ; oily brown shadows of faces with a lurid streak in the wrong place , meant Rembrandt ; buxom ladies and dropiscal infants , Rubens ; and Turner appeared in tempests of blue thunder , orange lightning , brown rain , and purple clouds , with a tomato-colored splash in the middle , which might be the sun or a bouy , a sailor 's shirt or a king 's robe , as the spectator pleased . Charcoal portraits came next , and the entire family hung in a row , looking as wild and crocky as if just evoked from a coalbin . Softened into crayon sketches , they did better , for the likenesses were good , and Amy 's hair , Jo 's nose , Meg 's mouth , and Laurie 's eyes were pronounced ` wonderfully fine ' . A return to clay and plaster followed , and ghostly casts of her acquaintances haunted corners of the house , or tumbled off closet shelves onto people 's heads . Children were enticed in as models , till their incoherent accounts of her mysterious doings caused Miss Amy to be regarded in the light of a young ogress . Her efforts in this line , however , were brought to an abrupt close by an untoward accident , which quenched her ardor . Other models failing her for a time , she undertook to cast her own pretty foot , and the family were one day alarmed by an unearthly bumping and screaming and running to the rescue , found the young enthusiast hopping wildly about the shed with her foot held fast in a pan full of plaster , which had hardened with unexpected rapidity .
With much difficulty and some danger she was dug out , for XXXXX was so overcome with laughter while she excavated that her knife went too far , cut the poor foot , and left a lasting memorial of one artistic attempt , at least .
Jo Raphael cherub coalbin day lightning likenesses palettes pokers tempests