Fun forever , and no grubbing ! '' cried Jo , rising , glass in hand , as the lemonade went round . They all drank it merrily , and began the experiment by lounging for the rest of the day . Next morning , Meg did not appear till ten o'clock . Her solitary breakfast did not taste good , and the room seemed lonely and untidy , for Jo had not filled the vases , Beth had not dusted , and Amy 's books lay scattered about . Nothing was neat and pleasant but ` Marmee 's corner ' , which looked as usual . And there Meg sat , to ` rest and read ' , which meant to yawn and imagine what pretty summer dresses she would get with her salary . Jo spent the morning on the river with Laurie and the afternoon reading and crying over The Wide , Wide World , up in the apple tree . Beth began by rummaging everything out of the big closet where her family resided , but getting tired before half done , she left her establishment topsy-turvy and went to her music , rejoicing that she had no dishes to wash . Amy arranged her bower , put on her best white frock , smoothed her curls , and sat down to draw under the honeysuckle , hoping someone would see and inquire who the young artist was . As no one appeared but an inquisitive daddy-longlegs , who examined her work with interest , she went to walk , got caught in a shower , and came home dripping . At teatime they compared notes , and all agreed that it had been a delightful , though unusually long day . Meg , who went shopping in the afternoon and got a ` sweet blue muslin ' , had discovered , after she had cut the breadths off , that it would n't wash , which mishap made her slightly cross . Jo had burned the skin off her nose boating , and got a raging headache by reading too long . Beth was worried by the confusion of her closet and the difficulty of learning three or four songs at once , and Amy deeply regretted the damage done her frock , for Katy Brown 's party was to be the next day and now like Flora McFlimsey , she had ` nothing to wear ' . But these were mere trifles , and they assured their mother that the experiment was working finely . She smiled , said nothing , and with Hannah 's help did their neglected work , keeping home pleasant and the domestic machinery running smoothly . It was astonishing what a peculiar and uncomfortable state of things was produced by the ` resting and reveling ' process . The days kept getting longer and longer , the weather was unusually variable and so were tempers ; an unsettled feeling possessed everyone , and Satan found plenty of mischief for the idle hands to do . As the height of luxury , Meg put out some of her sewing , and then found time hang so heavily , that she fell to snipping and spoiling her clothes in her attempts to furbish them up a la Moffat .
Jo read till her eyes gave out and she was sick of books , got so fidgety that even good-natured XXXXX had a quarrel with her , and so reduced in spirits that she desperately wished she had gone with Aunt March .
Amy Jo Laurie Meg Moffat afternoon days morning muslin trifles