Alcott family’s legacy lives on in Concord

My husband, never having read Alcott’s books, gamely agreed to an hourlong guided tour through the simple home in which “Little Women’’ is set. “She must be an important writer if they’ve preserved her house,’’ he speculated as we strolled with our toddler down Lexington Road beside centuries-old houses and a pub that served as a meeting place for rebels on the eve of the American Revolution. We passed the Concord Historical Museum and Ralph Waldo Emerson’s house, then walked along fields once frequented by my heroine.

A tidy garden leads up to Orchard House. Built in the 18th century, it contains a rich collection of photographs and paintings, first-edition books, and furniture owned by a family that quietly helped to define American education, art, and literature in the 19th century.

My husband entertained our daughter outside while I watched a short documentary on the Alcotts in a small room, its walls covered with sketches of people who had visited the family. When Alcott’s younger sister May — Amy in her books — showed artistic talent as a child, her parents allowed her to draw on the walls.

After the film, the tour guide led a small group of us through a low door that reminded us how much shorter people were then. In the kitchen, we learned that Alcott’s father, Bronson, had purchased 12 acres in 1857 and joined two structures to create the home. The guide pointed out the soapstone sink, which Louisa bought for her mother from her earnings, and related the author’s quote now immortalized on aprons and magnets in the gift shop: “Housekeeping ain’t no joke.’’

We moved into the dining room, where I gazed at the piano and the only known picture of Alcott’s sister Beth, who died at 22. A formidable portrait of Alcott hangs on the opposite wall, painted after she had contracted typhoid fever as a nurse in the Civil War. Her sunken cheeks and grim mouth testify to a cure worse than the disease — mercury poisoning.