Read "Aunt Jo's Scrap Bag, Volume 4" by Louisa May Alcott online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
It was the day before Christmas, and grandpa's big house was swarming with friends and relations, all brimful of spirits and bent on having a particularly good time. Dinner was over and a brief lull ensued, during which the old folks took naps, the younger ones sat chatting quietly, while the children enlivened the day by a quarrel.
It had been brewing for some time, and during that half hour the storm broke. You see, the boys felt injured because for a week at least the girls had been too busy to pay the slightest attention to them and their affairs, -- and what's the good of having sisters and cousins if they don't make themselves useful and agreeable to a fellow? What made it particularly hard to bear was the fact that there was a secret about it, and all they could discover was that _they_ were to have no part in the fun. This added to their wrath, for they could have borne the temporary neglect, if the girls had been making something nice for them; but they were not, and the irate lads were coolly informed that they would never know the secret, or benefit by it in the least.