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    Gayle Keresey 13 years ago

    Before the new site, I thought I had read about lodging at Walnut Grove for the optional trip and that it was very limited. I had planned to make a reservation after Christmas, but now I can’t find that information. Did I dream it? 🙂

    Amy 13 years ago

    Nope, you didn’t dream that. I’m pulling together other options, too, but your best bet for Saturday night is The Wilder Inn in Tracy, Minn. Their number is : (507) 629-3350. I have a wonderful public relations senior who is coordinating housing for us this summer, Kelli, and she’s pulling together a list of places within a 45-mile radius of Walnut Grove that might work for any who are staying over.

    Look for more of those technical details in a downloadable handout coming this week. 🙂

    MamaHen 13 years ago

    I too have wondered where Ma got the ginger. I am reading this to my children right now so I am very interested in your thoughts as you read through the chapters.

    Mackenzie Kyle 7 years ago

    I agree. Where the heck would they get ginger from if they hadnt gone to town to get it.

    Melanie Stringer 6 years ago

    They would likely have some dried spices in tins, as spices made up for the otherwise bland routine of eating the same foods most of the time. Caroline could also raise her own ginger root in the garden, just as she could grow sage, onions, mint, basil, etc.

    Sommer 13 years ago

    I too have wondered a bit where Ma got the ginger. Was it easily accessible back then? What a treat, either way 😉
    I also really love Pa’s response to Ma when she asks if the work was too hard for Laura: “Oh, no! She’s as stout as a little French horse. She’s been a great help,” said Pa. “It would have taken me all day to stack that hay alone, and now I have the whole afternoon for mowing.”
    His confidence and appreciation of Laura has always been lovely too me and reminded me a bit of my own father 🙂
    Sommer

    MamaHen 13 years ago

    I’ve always liked this chapter. It just seems more personal and I like the interaction between the sisters.

    Sandra Hume 13 years ago

    I somehow seem to always “forget” (selective memory?) that this is where she meets Almanzo for the first time. Sometimes I try to decide from memory when she meets him: “Is it in Silver Lake or Little Town?” And the answer is neither — it’s The Long Winter!
    Another thing I noticed only recently is that when Carrie says “I know. We’re lost,” she doesn’t actually say it. She thinks it. And it’s written as Laura imagines her thinking it, by reading the look on her face.

    Lauri 13 years ago

    I notice that it’s always been Mary & Laura, and here it’s part of the switch to Laura & Carrie

    Lauri 13 years ago

    **Didn’t mean to post just yet.
    I like how Laura doesn’t want to wear a bonnet, but yet when she goes into town she wants the nicer bonnet. Our little tomboy maybe growing up a bit. 🙂 And this very much is a “meet cute” that a movie would love. It may have been two more years before Laura spent any time thinking of Almanzo, but he noticed her much earlier. And it was a long, cold winter ahead with plenty of time to think…

    Sommer 13 years ago

    This is a great chapter because it does show the developing friendship of Laura and Carrie. Their relationship seems to be really close, it always seemed like there was a strain between Laura and Mary…but not for her and Carrie. Sweet!
    And of course it is a great intro in to the world of Almanzo 🙂

    Susan Barton Malphurs 13 years ago

    As I read this chapter, my heart so identifies with Laura’s feelings of comfort within the wilderness of the prairie versus the unease that sank upon her spirit as she considered town. It particularly strikes me then, when she remarked on the boastful nature of the stores’ false fronts. What wisdom and insight into human nature with one brief notation!
    As the baby in a family with two girls, I could deeply appreciate the warmth, security and admiration of Carrie toward Laura as they walked. Isn’t it impressive how in a few paragraphs, we can so readily know the love and trust between them… as if we could join hands with them… without joining hands?!

    Shelley 13 years ago

    Ooo Amy…I like how you put this about Almanzo: “Almanzo Wilder is intrigued by his new neighbor”. That makes my heart flutter knowing what is to come =)

    Wendy McClure 13 years ago

    It’s funny/interesting how the narration refers to Almanzo as a “boy” in this chapter, but then in the first of his scenes with Royal at the feed store there’s all this stuff about what a MAN he is. It’s a nice way to show that the narrative switches perspective. And it’s kind of perfect that Laura can see how young Almanzo is (the fictional lie-about-his-age-to-get-a-claim Almanzo, that is!), but in his OWN head he’s a man!

    E 13 years ago

    I have to say, I never knew what to make about Pa’s 3 degrees west/1 degree south statement. But now looking at the weather maps (and gardening maps), I understand what he was saying – the cold air plunges down in the middle of the country. 3 degrees west really is 1 degree south! During the really cold days a couple of weeks ago, Kansas was a balmy 4 degrees, while Minnesota was -10. I think SD was also balmy 4 degrees.

    Lauri 13 years ago

    Everything wouldn’t be wonderful if I had to try and fall asleep with water dripping on my face. The Ingalls are way tougher than me, and raw turnips do not sound like a delicious snack to me the way a raw carrott or apple would.

    Valerie 13 years ago

    Getting ahead of you a little, I’m in the middle of this book with my 5 year-old son. He drew a picture for his K class (a book report) and wrote: “Pa played the fiddle. Laura was listening. It was very cold.” In this reading, I’ve noticed that many meals are lovingly described in a way that they’re not in other books.Foreshadowing of what they’re going to miss. Also, what’s happened to the blizzards in the last century? Do we just not have them any more?
    Last night we read the chapter with the POV switch. It’s nicely handled: Laura looks at the town, mentions each store, then the reader goes inside the Wilder boys’ place, where they’re making pancakes. Still, my son was troubled. He stopped me and said, “How do we know what’s going on over there? “

    Wendy 13 years ago

    Here’s my account of making green pumpkin pie: http://sixboxesofbooks.blogspot.com/2008/09/its-pumpkin-ma-made-it-of-green-pumpkin.html (though I can’t figure out what happened to my photos! they disappeared from the vanity cakes post, too).
    I really like snacking on raw turnips–I think it probably depends on the variety and freshness.

    Wendy McClure 13 years ago

    The images show up for me, Wendy! I remember you telling me that you’d made the pie but I completely blanked out on the fact that you’d blogged about it. Oh, and let me know when your write up your latest Little House food exploits, too…

    MamaHen 13 years ago

    I never noticed that Pa called Grace Blue Eyes. I’ll have to go back and re-read that.

    Wendy 13 years ago

    I ate “bean soup” during Little House Food Week and found it most enjoyable, with sour milk biscuits dipped in… but then, I had plenty of other food.

    Sandra Hume 13 years ago

    Having been in the (to scale) shanty at Ingalls Homestead, and having young kids of my own, the whole idea of Grace “running around” makes me a little bit crazy.
    You’re so right about that “Oc-October.” I swear I can even picture Karen Grassle saying it.

    Lauri 13 years ago

    First, the “wonder of the beans” and everyone in close quarters – oh my! At this point in the book, I wonder if the old Indian could be right. Though this seems like a nice break from the frantic work of the harvest. It will seem less snug and more suffocating as the book continues.

    Jeanine 13 years ago

    I am enjoying the recaps of the chapters – The Long Winter was never one of my favourites when I read the books as a child, but I have come to appreciate it more as an adult, and absolutely love the ending (and…sorry to jump ahead…whenever I mash potatoes I think about that dinner!).
    Wendy – I keep haunting your blog for the report on Little House Food Week!

    Linn 13 years ago

    I love reading your reflections on each chapter. I know these books (perhaps, especially this one since it was always one of my favourites) by heart and recognize each and every detail you mention, but it’s so interesting to hear someone else talk about them for a change.

    MamaHen 13 years ago

    I never likes this chapter because of the cattle. It must have been very scary and surreal.

    Sommer 13 years ago

    Loved the added info about the little bird! Thanks 🙂

    Barb Mayes Boustead 13 years ago

    Hi! According to weather records in the region, after the October blizzard mid-month, temperatures rose back up into the 40s and 50s (and even up to around 60 a couple of days) for almost a month, until a colder spell and possibly another snow hit around November 8-11. It probably felt great at the time after such an early snow, and even better in retrospect with how cold and long the subsequent winter was!
    –Barb Mayes Boustead (meteorologist and LIW fan)

    Stephen tate 10 years ago

    Hey barb. My name is Stephen tate. I live in East Tennessee. How’s my winter going to be here :).

    Barb Mayes Boustead 10 years ago

    Hi Stephen! It looks like the odds are tilting slightly toward a chance for a warmer-than-normal winter in your area. Signals for precipitation aren’t very clear-cut, so it looks like you’ve got equal chances to be above, near, or below normal. This is based on the outlook from the Climate Prediction Center (http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/), and it’s due to update next week, so stay tuned!

    Sandra Hume 13 years ago

    Barb, thanks! That’s fascinating to know.

    Laura Welser 13 years ago

    Barb, how interesting! Do you know about how many blizzards they had to endure that winter?

    Barb Mayes Boustead 13 years ago

    You might find out more about that at Laurapalooza! 🙂 *teaser alert* I’ve submitted an abstract, so we’ll see pretty soon what made the agenda!

    SandyH 13 years ago

    I would love to know where historical weather records for this period can be found. I consider myself internet-savvy, and have had very little luck other than anecdotal accounts. I would like to see actual weather statistics, if they even exist on the internet!

    Barb Mayes Boustead 13 years ago

    Don’t feel too bad! The weather data from that far back usually aren’t online. You can get them from the National Climatic Data Center or the South Dakota State Climate office, but there isn’t much available. There just weren’t very many established official weather stations in the area at the time, with the settlements being so new.

    Cindy 13 years ago

    I recently rediscovered the Little House books and am surprised at how much I have enjoyed re-reading them as an adult. It really gives you some perspective on just how tough the winters would have been. I’m in Minnesota and already getting sick of winter, and I have untold amounts of distractions and creature comforts around me, compared to what they had. It’s amazing what they endured.

    Susan Barton Malphurs 13 years ago

    Another thought from Laura in this chapter leaves an impression on me of her insightfulness. After Pa reports to Ma about the cattle, Laura gasps, “Pa! Their own breath! Smothering them.” The irony was not lost on Laura’s young heart that the same life-giving breath could also be suffocating the cattle… so indicative of Laura’s depth of thought and compassion.

    Amy Lauters 13 years ago

    This topic–the American Indian side of the Little House story–will be addressed this summer in a special panel at LauraPalooza, featuring both an Osage and a Dakota tribe member, as well as scholars who have studied that period of conflict. It’s going to be a can’t-miss event, I think.

    Eliza 13 years ago

    I was reading in the Washington Post this morning that seats on planes and trains out of DC are at a premium, with all the snow there and another big storm coming. Even today, people fly away from the storm if they can.

    Lauri 13 years ago

    The set up to this interests me. Pa walking into the store to buy salt pork – can the family afford it? Mr. Boast is keeping everyone laughing. Everyone in town seems to like and respect him. We see Almanzo again after his and Laura’s meet cute. Notice he’s sitting on a barrel which seems like something a teenager might do rather than a grown man. I wonder which he is?
    “It was only an Indian” – I always thought this to mean it wasn’t claim jumpers or horse theives, but one unarmed Indian. However the English, yeah bad. Of course not only was Laura writing it in the 30s, Rose and an editor were offering suggestions in the 30s as well.
    I’ve found it more interesting that Ma will let Laura help with the hay at home, but not in town. It’s okay for her to be the son Pa doesn’t have at home, but in public, it’s not allowed.

    Eric 13 years ago

    I love these analyses of the chapters of The Long Winter, but what is it with some peoples’ obsessions with the so-called “racism” in the Little House Books? In my opinion, the Ingalls were the victims of racism in LHOP, as were other European-American immigrants to the region. They were threatened with violence and murder because of their race, The locals apparently could not tolerate the rich diversity that European-American immigrants brought to the area.
    Speaking of which, I don’t see these politically correct, social justice people citing the sexism and homophobia in the LH books. Nobody comments on the first chapter of the Long Winter when Ma is quoted as saying “Ma and her girls were Americans, above doing men’s work”. Single characters in the books are referred to as “old maids” (Miss Wilder) and “bachelors” (Mr. Edwards). How come these racism-obsessed people don’t cite the other “isms” of the books?

    Wayne Johnson 12 years ago

    Hi Eric,
    I have often wondered the same thing, but we have to realize that
    there was very little ‘political correctness’ in this country until
    late last century. In the 1930’s-40’s when Laura and Rose wrote
    these books, ‘bachelors’ didn’t necessarily mean anything other
    than a man who simply didn’t want to get married for whatever reason,
    nothing more. Also have wondered sometimes what Pa and Ma would
    think of the world we live in today–I think it would really sadden them.

    Dr Laura 13 years ago

    I cannot say exactly how much salt pork cost in 1879 but it would have been one of the cheaper cuts so it most likely didn’t cost much. It was used mostly for flavoring and fat/grease. Pa probably could at that point afford a slab of salt pork. I meant to mention that I think this is the first time we see Mr. Boast in LW. My thought about the Boast’s staying in the country is how frail Ellie was and could she really stand being out of town even if the shanty was snug and warm. As for Laura not going to town with Pa, I think it was a shared sentiment between Pa and Ma and probably a common thought of the time that girls should not do the work of boys in public anyway.

    Lauri 13 years ago

    I assume salt pork is cheap. It’s more that they have to pay for meat rather than having it free from Pa’s hunting.
    For the Boasts, I’ve never thought of how Ellie fared through the winter though I wish they and the Ingalls had shared the house in town. Of course, I know that Laura ruled this out even if Rose agreed with me.
    I don’t think it was an unusual choice for 1880 or 1930, but in 2010 I think it is interesting to us.

    Amy Lauters 13 years ago

    “Now is the time for the girls to be getting some schooling.” Could it be Ma is thinking about socialization as much as education? After all, she’s been competently teaching her girls at home, and later makes the point that nothing will or should hinder Laura’s studying.
    BTW, I’ll take Chapter 10.

    T Lynn 13 years ago

    Could be, but on the other hand, “You know Ma has her heart set on one of you girls teaching school, and I guess it will have to be you (Laura).” Quote may not be exact, but the point is, to get a teaching certificate, wouldn’t she have needed formal schooling?

    E 13 years ago

    She didn’t really need formal schooling, since she just had to pass the exam in order to teach (after all, they waived the age requirement). But I never realized until pointed out in this post that they were living close enough to town for the girls to walk to school and they were old timers to the town, why on earth would the girls not have been enrolled to start in school on the very first day?
    As a side note, I just read a book about Eliza Jane Wilder, A Wilder in the West and learned that Eliza Jane was there in town as long as the Ingalls family were – and that the store building that they lived in for the long winter had been purchased by Caroline Ingalls from Eliza Jane Wilder.

    smittykins 7 years ago

    This is obviously just a guess on my part, but I think the girls were most likely in school from the first day IRL, and Laura took a little dramatic license here.

    Lauri 13 years ago

    The Ingalls seem way to confident in this chapter, don’t they? I want to tell them to buy the supplies now! Don’t wait! Laura still seems uncomfortable in town, she changes so much by her first weekend home from the Brewster school. Maybe this is why Ma wants the girls going to school, she’s hoping the girls will enjoy the students and not inherit Pa’s wanderlust.
    Can’t wait to hear more about Cap. If Rebecca had a crush on Almanzo, I had a crush on Cap. So I wish the play had made Cap a well-built blonde who was Laura’s age rather than what they did.

    Cindy Buffington 13 years ago

    Reading this, it does make you wonder when did Laura actually meet Almanzo? The TV show took so many different turns on how things really happened.

    Erin Blakemore 13 years ago

    I’ll do “No Trains” and “Four Days’ Blizzard” if they’re not taken 🙂

    Sandra Hume 13 years ago

    Sure thing, Erin!

    Sommer 13 years ago

    I can do “Where There’s A Will” if it is still open.
    ~Sommer

    Erin Blakemore 13 years ago

    Awesome! Just let me know how…
    E.

    Dr Laura 13 years ago

    Hey Sandra
    Put me anywhere.
    Laura

    Sandra Hume 13 years ago

    Email your post (and any corresponding photos if you have them) to beyondlittlehouse at gmail dot com. Whenever you have it done, just send it in, even if it’s out of order. We’ll take care of posting them.

    suzanne ebersold 13 years ago

    I am the manager of the the site in Pepin, We have a web site now,
    LauraingallsPepin.com

    Wendy McClure 13 years ago

    Could I do Chapter 22?

    Laura Welser 13 years ago

    I’ll do another one too. I couldn’t decide which one, so just put me where you want me.

    Susan Barton Malphurs 13 years ago

    I suddenly feel compelled to fire up the griddle! 🙂

    Barb Mayes Boustead 13 years ago

    You can put me down for Ch 21 (The Hard Winter) and Ch 31 (Waiting for the Train).

    Karen Witham 13 years ago

    I wonder if Laura felt any hostility looking back at how well-fed her future husband and his brother were while she and her family were near-starving? I guess Almanzo’s and Cap’s fetching of the wheat later in the story probably made up for it; also, it amazes me how selfless people could be back then. There was also very much that “every man for himself” attitude, as evidenced by that man with the lifesaving wheat and others, too.
    Royal has always seemed like a bit of a pain to me; I wonder if Laura didn’t think much of him? This makes me want to re-read “Farmer Boy.” And it also makes me feel sad for Pa, especially that he never had a son grow up that could help him with the “chores.” Backbreaking labor every day during a blizzard, surviving on wheat bread and water. I can’t imagine an American man today who could do it. . .

    Karen Witham 13 years ago

    Hello —
    If they’re not taken, I’ll do 16 (Fair Weather), 24 (Not Really Hungry) and 27 (For Daily Bread).
    Love that this got me reading these books again — and I recently found my original paperbacks in a box at my parents’ house, so I’m reading the same books I read as a girl! (Harper Trophy paperbacks, $2.50).
    Karen

    Sue 13 years ago

    Regarding Karen’s comments about Pa not having a son to help with the work. I read that Ma often said that things would have been much different for them had Freddie lived. Farming is terribly hard work, and having a son would have relieved Pa of that burden. All of that hard work may have resulted in Pa’s relatively early death.

    LaurieA-B 13 years ago

    The discussion about long underwear hear always reminds me of Ellen Tebbits, and vice versa. In what other books is wearing long underwear discussed? It’s certainly a detail that would make Ellen Tebbits seem more historical today, even though, unlike The Long Winter, it was contemporary when first published.

    Jennye Woolf 13 years ago

    I’ll pick up Cold and Dark (Chapter 22) if it isn’t aslready taken. (I should’ve said something about The Hard Winter, because I wrote that one before I signed up for it and now I’m too late LOL!)

    Sharon May Hanson Schaller 13 years ago

    Will we get confirmation on our lodging @ the dorm?? Thank you!

    Amy Lauters 13 years ago

    Yes, but I ask for your patience. It’s mostly just me in my office, and I got flooded when registration opened. Expect confirmation letters by snail mail. (Sharon, you’re confirmed.)

    Amy Lauters 13 years ago

    Ever since listening to “We’ll Roll The Old Chariot Along” on the CD produced by Dale Cockrell, I hum it to myself not only while reading this chapter, but while doing ANYTHING remotely difficult.
    BTW–Dale will be present this summer, and may have a new CD to share with us!

    Eliza 13 years ago

    Does anyone know if Mr Foster was based on a real person? He certainly does a lot of good hearted bumbling around DeSmet.

    Maria Aparecida Gomes Cunha 13 years ago

    I1m happy to know about Pepin, I wish one day I can visit Laura’museum and the city she had lived before Pa decided leave. I have all books and I’ve read them when I was 10 years old. Today I’m 56 years. So many time…Thank you!
    M.,aparecida Cunha – Atibaia – São Paulo-Brasil

    Lauri 13 years ago

    Does anyone else find it interesting that Mr. Edwards rampages against the government in the same chapter that Mary gets the $20 bill? I thought I read that the $20 was given as to help explain the Ingalls having the money for college without mentioning the scholarship from the Dakota government?

    Betty 13 years ago

    Am I the only one who used to count on my fingers (when I was a kid) multiples of 7 and 21 to figure out when the next “big” winter would be?

    Hallie 13 years ago

    My mom hates (well, hates as in it makes her feel cold) the description of the frost on the nails are frequently brings it up whenever its cold out. I also find myself thinking about Laura’s blizzards when I want to complain about the cold…especially this winter with the Snowpocalypse!

    Dr Laura 13 years ago

    I wonder why they didn’t sleep downstairs where it was warmer? I know they wouldn’t have fuel to keep the fire up at night but at least they wouldn’t have been in the drafty attic. And I know that there was another couple living with them but they could be upstairs ;-0

    Susan Barton Malphurs 13 years ago

    When I first read this chapter I worried over the whereabouts of Minnie Johnson and Mary Power. Laura expected them at any moment just before the storm shook the house and snuffed out the daylight. Had they started out for the Ingalls’ and been stranded in the sudden blast of the storm?! We learn that wasn’t the case, but I wondered about them as the girls went to sleep, a bit surprised that the Laura hadn’t made mention of them either.

    Joan Cresimore 13 years ago

    Dr. Laura you stated there was another couple living with them. Can you tell us more about that or give us where to find out about that? I don’t know about that bit of history.
    Thanks Joan

    Anonymous 9 years ago

    http://www.dahoudek.com/liw/laura/?p=589
    At the end of the page, there is a a mention of the other couple: George and Maggie Masters.(note the name Masters)

    MamaHen 13 years ago

    I too have wondered why they all didn’t sleep downstairs together. It seem like they would sleep close and pile all the blankets on top to spread the body heat. Doesn’t sound like fun, but beats freezing to death!

    jen 13 years ago

    I always thought how stubborn of Almanzo to risk his life riding across the prairie to buy another homesteader’s seed wheat rather than selling his own with no risk. Brave, but also foolhardy.

    Linda 13 years ago

    Yes, imagine letting those rabbits go, then buying salt pork. I think Pa thought the money would help, but in this case it didn’t after the trains stopped running.
    That was amazing about the school issue.

    Lauri 13 years ago

    I wondered why Pa didn’t take Laura with him to help with the hay, then they would make it back to town that much quicker.
    I’ve always had a hard time comprehending exactly how cold that house must have been. With all the insulation our home have, it’s hard to grasp that they must have had one board between them and the outside world. The frost comes through!
    I have a feeling they didn’t all sleep in the main room because of a Victorian sense of how it would look.

    Holly 8 years ago

    He wouldn’t have put his daughter in that much danger. There was a very real chance he could be caught out there in a blizzard and he wouldn’t have put her at risk.

    Linda 13 years ago

    I think about why is it different with the farmer they found compared to himself.
    Almanzo did give Pa some wheat which they ground to make their bread. Was it Royal who noticed how hungry or starved he looked or Almanzo?

    Linda 13 years ago

    In the books about Caroline’s life by Maria D Wilkes & Celia Wilkins, as a girl Caroline had a hard year herself, the year her father died. She was about 7 and had older siblings and younger. An Indian who was friends of her father brought them some meat. They also had an early frost that killed the vegetables. Her older brothers did the heavy work of bringing in wood etc.
    Perhaps Caroline was thinking of the time in Indian territory where they felt perhaps that they were lucky to get out, or she was worried how it would turn out.
    I don’t think the Ingalls had a cash flow problem during the Long Winter, just no where to buy anything. That was my impression.

    Linda 13 years ago

    It is such a shame that only the work train got through. I was wondering why they couldn’t bring something with them, but I’m sure they thought it would come the next day.
    I think Ma didn’t like the sound of the wind being played, as it was a reminder of the blizzard, probably not in the mood for whimsy, I suppose that is a form of cheerfulness.
    I live in an isolated place, and it is awful knowing that past the town, and ours isn’t much bigger, maybe 10 times bigger and not very wide, there is just miles and miles of trees to get to a larger place. I know there are people along the way in farms, but really there is us, then nothing it feels like.
    They were probably quite warm upstairs after the initial shock of the cold. When I was little there were cold beds, though not like how cold their would have been. I am not sure why our beds are not as cold these days. I think mainly the loungerooms were heated in the 60s, but more the whole house these days where I live.
    I think Minnie and Mary would have only taken a short time to cross the street, like on the day they got home from school in the blizzard. I think people crossed like Pa to visit the shops. Unlikely the storm would have hit just in that short time perhaps?
    I think Pa would not have liked the possibility that Laura could get caught in the storm hauling hay. Only the Wilder boys and Pa went out of town during that winter to haul things.

    Linda 13 years ago

    I think Pa said that building was ceiled, I imagine that means the walls were lined?

    Holly 8 years ago

    It means they had a ceiling, not just a roof.

    Linda 13 years ago

    I like how Ma always comes up with things to keep the girls minds happy. There were the thimble marks on the windows perhaps in Little House on the Prairie and another game again in perhaps Little Town on the Prairie, or was it when Pa thought of the social evenings for Laura?
    The older people were always washing faces after a sleep as they didn’t have morning showers like we do today.

    Linda 13 years ago

    I must read the last chapter again, this one seems startling, definitely a reprieve.
    I used to be fascinated about ground cherries, I hope that is what the chapter says, wild ground cherries. In Australia my Mum grew cape gooseberries in the 60s and 70s, that is what we call them here. They came up by themselves. I love them.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physalis

    Dennis D. Picard 13 years ago

    Just a quick note, not on the chapter but the image: The iron tool pictured is not a last – but many antique and flea market dealers call them that – it is a shoe anvil or “cobbler’s foot.” It is used only for repair; and this type was designed for repair using nails. A shoe maker’s last is a full foot shaped form used to mold the leather pieces to the proper size and style. They are usually hard wood, mostly maple in this country. The anvil as one can see is not a complete foot shape and could not be used as a “last.” I guess if I was the shoe maker’s wife I might like only slightly more having a wooden last tossed at me over a cast iron anvil.

    Laura 13 years ago

    I thought I’d add that Laura used foreshadowing in Plum Creek — remember how the Ingalls family laughed at the term “grasshopper weather?” And Pa was too sure that the wheat crop would come through. You definitely had some pretty strong hints of what was to come…

    Rebecca Brammer 13 years ago

    Thanks for that information, Dennis! Do you have a picture of a last that we could replace the image with?

    Kathleen McDade 13 years ago

    Sounds even bleaker in summary!

    MamaHen 13 years ago

    I ditto what Kathleen says!

    Dennis D. Picard 13 years ago

    I do, but I need a lesson on how to post it. I tried to do so with a 1870s period inmage of a “section car” or hand car for an earlier chapter and I couldn’t “cut and paste” it in the message area. I’m so lame!

    Cindy 13 years ago

    I had to walk through our snowy backyard a few weeks ago, and the snow was hardened enough I could kind of skate over the top for a bit – and then my foot would go through and I would get irritated – LOL! I actually found myself thinking of Pa and Sam and David! I was only falling through about eight inches and it was a pain to walk very far. It’s amazing how tough they were.

    Dr Laura 13 years ago

    It is a blessing that the Ingalls didn’t know what was in store for them. I think it would be impossible to survive if you didn’t think it would all end soon.
    I do remember reading somewhere that the Ingalls and many others were near starvation by the end of the winter. It had to have contributed to the health issues that Carrie, Pa and Grace all had later in life. Several years ago when I taught the Long Winter I made boiled potatos and tea for “lunch” for my students. They were not impressed and several would not even try it. Spoiled rotten 🙂

    Linda 13 years ago

    I’m thinking Pa is planning ahead, I wonder if he has thought ahead to twisting of hay yet? I think he is thinking of Gilbert like he would about himself if he was in the same position. I bet he wished him a safe or good journey before he left.

    Kate F. 13 years ago

    I had the same thought re. bags vs. loose wheat last time I reread the book. My conclusion was that he must have build the false wall out just 6 or 8 inches from the real one, to be less obvious, and the bags wouldn’t have fit?

    Linda 13 years ago

    I suppose it conserved space, maybe the wall was not a bag width. I find it sad that the crop was so good and he bought so many things, then later on he had money troubles.

    Lauri 13 years ago

    I was noticing that later we don’t hear about Royal and Almanzo grinding wheat into flour. They just continue to eat pancakes and syrup…
    I’m thinking that the loose wheat might have been for drama. If it was still in the bags, it wouldn’t have poured out when Pa came and removed the peg. I’ll leave more comments for that chapter.
    I’m amazed that the Ingalls didn’t start arguing with each other. If I was locked in a house with the same few people for months, it would get old quickly! No wonder Pa went to the store whenever the day cleared!

    Linda 13 years ago

    I haven’t finished the chapter yet, but what I noticed is how Pa took time off his work to go to the store to get the mail while Ma stayed home with the kids. If I did that, my Mum would say, why didn’t you go and get it. Still usually I am like Ma.

    Linda 13 years ago

    I think if I was a sewer, a button bag would sound like a really nice project to start.

    Barb Mayes Boustead 13 years ago

    Both the burning of sticks of hay and the grinding of wheat grains in home coffee mills were actually pretty commonplace “last resorts” among settlers in the region during the winter of 1880-81. Maybe Pa and the other men in town talked about it in one of their gatherings at the store, sharing ideas on how to cope? I’d be very interested in tasting a bread made from mill-ground wheat kernels.

    Lauri 13 years ago

    I’m curious as to why none of the women ever go to the store. After 6 weeks in the house, I’d want help get something at the store or at least see how Mrs. Loftus is doing. Mary is a very good person. I know I’m nothing like her. It strikes me as odd that Laura doesn’t get any gifts here, and then later, the yarns she did get she uses on Mary’s clothes rather than her own. Not to mention her wages from teaching school. Laura might have been as good a person as Mary after all.

    Linda 13 years ago

    I don’t think he would worry too much, he had the opportunity and they didn’t. The man that said a nice comment to the man who fired the shot, must have been mindful not to upset him under those circumstances, looking out for his state of mind.

    MamaHen 13 years ago

    It was at this point that I lost all respect for Pa. There would be no way in the world I would have eaten a warm delicious meal while my family was at home hungry. I would have packed up everything I could and took it home to my family.
    And I also don’t understand why they did not kill their cow and eat it.

    Rebecca Brammer 13 years ago

    Pa couldn’t pack up the meal and take it home to his family. He wasn’t offered food to take home, he was offered to sit up and eat with Royal and Almanzo. It was a social gesture of “hey, we’re eating, you’re here, eat with us”, not a gesture of charity. For Pa to pack it up and take it home would have been very improper, as it would have turned a social nicety into a begging for charity.
    I think Pa was right to eat up while he had the chance. By him eating that good meal, he not only preserved his strength a little bit for all the work he was doing to keep his family alive, but he also filled up which meant that night at dinner, he could get by on a lot less food and leave more of it for his family.
    Notice that Almanzo recognized from his thinness and his obvious need for wheat, and counting the members of his family to see how far it would go, that the family was in dire straits, and despite having plenty to eat themselves, he and Royal didn’t hike on over with food for them. Why not? They probably didn’t really have enough — sure, they had plenty to feed the two of them for the next few months, but to take on feeding another six?
    I just think inviting a visitor to join you in your supper is quite a different thing altogether from giving someone something to eat because you know they don’t have anything, and Pa understood that and reaped what small benefit he could from it. It causes me to lose no respect at all for him.

    Laura Welser 13 years ago

    Do I make it sound as if Pa is being selfish? No, I didn’t lose respect for Pa at all here. I just wondered if he felt guilty. He was doing chores and hauling hay. Such hard work to do and only be eating bread and potatoes. I also think that Ma and the girls would have wanted him to have that meal.

    Rebecca Brammer 13 years ago

    Laura, no, you didn’t — I was responding to Mama Hen’s comment above.

    Sandra Hume 13 years ago

    Dennis, anytime you would like to add any images, feel free to send them to beyondlittlehouse@gmail.com and we’d be happy to post them. I’m glad to see you’re reading the blog!

    jen 13 years ago

    Kill the cow! And sell some of the meat for profit!

    Lauri 13 years ago

    So much adult responsibility was placed on Laura after Mary lost her sight! Now she must do her best to keep the girls cheerful when the news managed to scare the always calm Ma.
    I’m not sure what the railroad could have done except to wait until Spring. As well, I guess we don’t know that the news wasn’t “until we have 7 clear days the tracks won’t be clear.” rather than “we are suspending everything until March 21st or later”

    Eliza 13 years ago

    One thing that has struck me really forcefully, reading through this book slowly a chapter at a time – what a frightening and deadly situation they were in. Even though I sort of knew this reading the book as a child, having it drawn out for such a long time in this way makes each chapter more and more ominous. The fact that they did actually survive the winter seems more miraculous with each chapter that is presented.

    Joan Cresimore 13 years ago

    I agree that by going through the book slowly like this gives perspective on how long that winter must have seemed. Living here in the south I can not imagine what they went through. My Mom (84) and Dad (93) talk about waking up in bedrooms with ice in a glass of water in the bedroom here in North Carolina. And being able to see through cracks in the walls. But in todays heated homes we can hardly comprehend what the cold and hunger must have been like. I plan to stage a weekend of no electricity and modern items this summer for my daughter (age 11) including cooking over a open fire but wouldn’t dare to try it this time of year. This site has been wonderful. I plan to have a Little House summer of study for my daughter. I hope you will continue these book chapter reviews on other volumes of “Little House”. Joan

    Dr. Laura 13 years ago

    Remember the theme of Self-Reliance/Self-Preservation. It’s ok to sit and eat as a guest. It is not ok to take food home as if begging.
    They didn’t eat the cow because they needed her for milk, for future calves and they didn’t know when the winter would end. Besides, children would be traumatized!

    Linda 13 years ago

    I recognised an perhaps old-fashioned attitude in Ma in the previous chapters that I have noticed I my Mum. I think Ma thought that the government or whoever would fix it up until then. A sort of a crossness. You come across it with my Mum if you are worried about something that may happen.
    I was trying to work out if a week is really a long time to have beef for, perhaps it may have been used for longer?
    After the superintendent gave up there was a full day of sunshine, he gave up in the morning. Problem solving men may have stuck around for that day trying to figure something out. Not sure there was anything though.

    MamaHen 13 years ago

    I still say kill the cow and eat it. These were prairie children and they knew where their meat came from. I am almost postive the cow was not giving any milk at this time as she was probably starving herself.
    And for the begging. If my children were at home starving I would be going to every door I could get to and beg for whatever I could get.
    I love Little House. I just don’t understand Pa here. It was way past the time of worrying about when winter was going to end. It was time to do whatever you could to feed your family.

    naomi 11 years ago

    Ma actually does mention that they might have to kill the cow and calf if things get bad enough. (And when Laura is dismayed, Ma tells her that sometimes they have to do things they don’t want to do.)
    Fortunately, things never get that bad. They are hungry, but they aren’t starving. They have bread and potatoes and, for a while, even some beans and pickles. (And the salt cod-fish.) A good milk cow is expensive, hard to come by on the frontier, and slaughtering it for meat is NOT something they would want to do until/unless they have no alternative. (And the cow was eating the hay Pa hauled in between storms. Like the humans in the family, she was certainly thin and hungry, but not yet starving. )
    As for begging … who were they going to beg from? NOBODY had much food. EVERYONE was expecting to be able to buy groceries through the winter. Begging only works if there are others who are better off and have something to spare. And while Almanzo and Roy seem to have enough to eat, the variety isn’t much more than the rest of the town — flour and brown sugar.
    Pa WAS doing what he could to feed the family. He was hauling hay to keep the fire going both so they wouldn’t freeze and so they could bake he daily loaf so they wouldn’t starve. He did eventually go and buy some wheat from the Wilder boys, and would have bought more if he had to.

    Dr Laura 13 years ago

    Was the Superintendent wrong to quit so early? Look at the picture attached to this post. I’ve also seen pictures of trains that had snow piled in drifts taller than the smokestack on the engine. Also, think about shoveling your own drive way with only a few inches of snow and how heavy that snow is. Can you imagine having to toss that snow up over your head as you cleared a track by hand? The technology that existed was a large fan that acted as a snow blower. Once the snow was higher than the engine, where would that snow blow? I don’t fault the superintendent. In that environment, not knowing when the blizzards would hit again, why risk it? Yes, it seems cruel that people were starving and without supplies but there wasn’t much that the train company could do. I don’t think Ma thought the government would do something. That wasn’t her mindset. Entitlement wasn’t as big of a deal then as it is now.

    Dr Laura 13 years ago

    I meant the reader kids, not the character kids. Sorry for the confusion. Also, Laura and Rose were both very anti reliance on others. They wanted to support the theme of Self-Reliance in the face of all the social welfare programs that were being established during the depression.

    T Lynn 13 years ago

    A little off-topic, but how do you all have access to the unpublished Pioneer Girl? (And more to the point, how can I?)
    Back on topic, this is the only time in the books that Pa can’t play the fiddle and it has always been the most depressing moment for me – even more than Mary’s blindness. It was the point that, when I read this book the first time (oh so many years ago) that it fully hit me how cold, dark and awful that winter must have been.

    Wendy McClure 13 years ago

    You can get a photcopied manuscript of “Pioneer Girl” from the Hoover Library, though the copy fees are pretty expensive! Most of the biographies quote material from “Pioneer Girl” and the Donald Zochert bio, Laura uses it pretty extensively, so much that by the time I finally read the manuscript I was already familiar with most of the important parts.

    Lauri 13 years ago

    I remember commenting about the snow tunnel to my Dad when I was younger. He pointed out how cold the house must have been that the snow at 32 degrees helped to warm it up!
    I agree that Pa not being able to play the fiddle is the low point of the series. Without the music, what is to keep them going?
    On an upnote, anyone else notice that Laura remembers recognizing that Wilder boy’s horses’ feet? Those must have been a really impressive pair of horses!

    Rebecca Brammer 13 years ago

    I actually have quite a few “Mary dislike” moments, but the time I get the most irritated with her is in Chapter 15, No Trains.
    —————————–
    “I do believe I have nearly enough done,” she said. “I’ll be ready for you to sew the rug tomorrow, Laura.”
    “I wanted to finish this lace first,” Laura objected. “And these storms keep making it so dark I can hardly see to count the stitches.”
    “The dark doesn’t bother me,” Mary answered cheerfully. “I can see with my fingers.”
    —————————-
    I just want to say to her, if the dark doesn’t bother you and you can see with your fingers, then why don’t you sew your own daggone rug??

    Sandra Hume 13 years ago

    Heh. Isn’t this one of those character-building moments for Laura? I think it was in this reading that for the first time I *didn’t* get all hot and bothered by this … it served as a bit of a turning point for Laura, where she learns to curb her impatience. But yeah, mostly I agree with you.

    Eliza 13 years ago

    It wasn’t that the snow warmed up the house at 32 degrees, but that it insulated it so that the heat generated by the stove actually stayed in the house.
    What I wondered was why they didn’t die from carbon monoxide.

    Laura Welser 13 years ago

    Garth Williams’ depiction of Pa in this chapter was always haunting to me. The sunken cheeks and the way he was leaning against the wall. I was glad that he got another good meal. How could he keep on with his regular chores without it?

    Linda 13 years ago

    Fuller must have felt bad about the antelope, because he killed his cows, then perhaps did some thinking about the wheat? I don’t know.
    I think Laura may have been worried the roof would actually get scoured through to a hole. But I am assuming her Pa knew there was plenty of roof left.
    I think Pa wanted Ma to get the bucket for him?

    Dennis D. Picard 13 years ago

    I am not surprised about Pa not knowing where the milk pail was, as dairy work was traditionally “the woman’s” responsibility on the farm in the 18th and 19th centuries ~ especially in New England and New York. “The men” took care of the feeding of the livestock, wood and crops.

    Lauren 13 years ago

    Mary hated getting dirty or pretty much doing anything that involved work. Laura was like Pa becuase she enjoyed the outdoors and didn’t mind doing hard work (even if it was someone else’s work). Mary needed to be taught to do something useful besides sewing. Laura and her whole family worked very hard for her to go to college and she didn’t even do much after she graduated. Mary didn’t mind the dark because she couldn’t help if she saw it or not. So, Mary was very ungrateful and had Laura and her sisters baby-sit her until she died.

    Claire 13 years ago

    Mary was blind and in a world where even seeing women were rarely allowed to flourish, I think she did beautifully. I think Laura would say so herself. “Babysit” Mary? I think not. I think in her world it was impossible to expect her to live alone and make a career- that would be difficult enough today for a blind person. Mary was courageous when she lost her sight- something the T.V. show did not accurately portray- and I admire her as I feel Laura admired her. Babysit Mary? I think this is unfair.

    Tracy Sapp 11 years ago

    After College, Mary tatted nets that were put over horses faces & eyes to keep the flies out of the horses eyes. She sold these nets to supplement the family income. She helped with the housework & babysat Rose while Laura & Almanzo were working. Yes, I find myself irritated by Mary occsionally. She seems to have been the favored child. Sometimes, though, I get the impression that Laura was jealous of Mary & these jealousies or resentments were still present when Laura wrote her books. When I read certain passages in the books I feel Laura’s hard feelings toward Mary, Ma & even her Pa. I sympathize with Laura but also wonder how things really were in the family. Laura worked outside of the home when she was a little girl to help support her family. She worked for neighbors when they lived in Minnesota & worked in the hotel in Burr Oak. A very different childhood than the one portrayed in the Little House books.

    LauriOH 11 years ago

    I just read all the comments in this post. What were Mary’s experience during those two years? Did she work in the kitchen rather than the dining room in Burr Oak because she was older? What about back in Minnesota before she became ill? Did Mrs. Starr ask Ma to adopt Laura or Mary?
    I read something in John Miller’s latest book that sparked an idea for me, but I haven’t thought it out far enough, but I know conventional thought is Ma/Mary & Pa/Laura. I wonder if it’s more Ma/Mary/Laura and Pa/Laura/Rose as Laura seems happy to have settled down to a traditional life in Manfield while Rose always moved around. There’s more to it than that, but like I said I don’t have it developed into a formal thing. But the point being that the authors drew the differences between Mary and Laura as greater than they were really, and I wonder if we see the personalities & arguments of Laura and Rose coming out in these fights.

    jaime 13 years ago

    Hi, I just discovered this wonderful blog. I too am a huge fan of Laura Ingalls Wilder. I have not had the chance to visit any of the sites yet. In this chapter I am not suprised at how strongly Ma reacts. Pa was lost in a blizzard once before, and there is no protection on the open prairie. If he were to get lost he could not find a river bank to take shelter. I am going to get my copy of the book out,and follow along with the rest of the chapters!!

    Linda 13 years ago

    Thank you for the photos, they are things I was wondering about.
    I haven’t been in a blizzard, so the whirling was interesting. Is that what it does, in a circle motion sometimes?

    jodi 13 years ago

    Wow. Just found this site. I was googling for anything that could confirm or deny that Rose went to telegraphy school in Kansas City as per “Bachelor Girl.” At any rate, here I am, and can see myself wasting a lot of time on this site. I am a LIW junkie… I just finally finished replacing all my old yellow-covered books with the new collectors editions. Little Town on the Prairie was in 3 pieces!!!!
    Anyway. I have to say I feel you’re all judging Mary a little harshly here. It does seem a little puzzling that after all the money and hard work it took her to go to college, that she stayed at home and “did nothing” with herself. But my feeling was that, after her blindness destroyed many of the hopes the Ingalls had for her, it was enough for her to have gained the confidence and skills that she gained by going to college. At that place and time, disabilities just weren’t as accepted as they are now – I don’t think she would have had anywhere near the options that a blind woman today would have. There was only so much a woman in that era could do, let alone a blind one! It was just a different world.
    Granted, Mary always did have something of a princess mentality as a child, which probably made her much more likely to sit back and take on something of a helpless attitude, wrt her blindness. But the world in which they were living had a huge role in things and I don’t think we can really judge them through modern eyes.
    Even today a lot of women – myself include – go to college and then don’t make use of their education. I stay at home and raise my kids, something I could have done without a degree. Mary may not have even had much chance to marry and have children – blindness did not make a good prospect for marriage, and meeting a blind man would have been hard since the blind school didn’t encourage the sexes to mingle much. She didn’t go to college to earn a degree the way we think of college today, but rather just to not be completely helpless and in the dark. To that end, she was successful.

    Rebecca Brammer 13 years ago

    Oh, I don’t think we’re all judging her too harshly; only one felt she did nothing with her life. I would disagree with that statement too — she did quite a bit under the circumstances, her blindness and the time period and the place in which she lived.
    Mary was able to make things which she sold to help out a bit with income, especially after Pa died. She was active in the church, and even played the organ for them. And I think perhaps best of all, she was a companion for Ma for all those years after the other three girls grew up and left home, and Pa died. Poor Ma would likely have spent those years all alone had Mary not gone blind.
    And I don’t believe the family ever expected Mary to actually *do* anything with her education, other than exactly what she did. Had she not learned to play the organ, there would have been all that musical enjoyment, both for the family and the church, lost all those years. Mary wrote letters to her sisters over the years, something she’d not have been able to do without the skills she learned in college. And as I said, she learned craft skills that brought in some income. She was able to read in New York Point which meant that she very well may have read to Ma as she worked, rather than having to just sit in a chair and wait for Ma to be done so she could read to Mary. Think of Ma’s reaction to Mary’s wanting to visit Blanche over her vacation, her reminder that this was an opportunity Mary would likely never have again. They didn’t expect her to to do anything but remain home — but the skills she learned in college gave her a much more useful and fulfilling life than had she never gone.

    Lauri 13 years ago

    Is anyone else wondering where she got the cod, and why haven’t they eaten it before? If the whole town is eating ground wheat, I’m sure there wasn’t cod at the store.
    I can’t imagine how depressing the whole winter must have been for everyone. Why wake up in the morning? There’s going to be no change from the day before.

    Wendy McClure 13 years ago

    And as along as we’re discussing what Mary did or didn’t do with her education in real life, let’s also remember that in real life, Mary’s college tuition was covered by Dakota Territory! The money that Laura and her family earned went to Mary’s books and board and expenses.
    Laura and Rose omitted that detail from the books because they didn’t want to portray the fictional Ingalls family as dependent on government assistance. I have a feeling they emphasized the “college” aspect for the sake of 20th-century readers, too, especially since the series ends before Mary finishes school and comes home, allowing us to imagine simply that she is destined for great things per the modern dream.
    It all sort of changes the discussion, doesn’t it? The fact that there was an aid program to cover Mary’s tuition might indicate that the Vinton School was more about giving blind people useful living skills than it was about “college” in the sense that we know it today. And I wonder… would the family have even considered sending Mary to Vinton if the expenses were completely beyond them?

    SandyH 13 years ago

    I just had to chime in and say that I agree about Mary being “Negative Nancy-( ha ha, love it) when Laura was only trying to be lighthearted and have a little fun. I don’t dislike Mary at all, but let’s face it, she was a major buzz-kill! Think of the other times she admonished Laura- one of the ones that made me maddest was on the trip to Silver Lake, when Laura was attempting to see out loud the scenery and the road. When she couldn’t find the proper words to describe it adequately, Mary told her she shouldn’t say things like that!! Ooh, this bugged me, and I wish Laura had said, well then, You just try to describe things to a blind girl”- but we all know that she wouldn’t have said that- or WOULD she?? Come on, these girls were SISTERS, no matter what century they lived in. I am a sister and I also have three daughters, and let me tell you, they never held back on voicing their opinions to each other!

    SandyH 13 years ago

    And let’s not forget this: without Pa, what would become of Ma and the girls? I feel Ma, as a wife, was mostly worried about HIS welfare; but you have to also be honest and realize that the family would have had a hard time existing without Pa in easier times; but during this winter, it would have been impossible. Where would they go? Travel to relatives was not an option, and the other families in town were barely able to provide for themselves, much less an additional five people. Perhaps the Boasts would have taken them in, but again, how would they get in touch with them?

    Molly Murphy 13 years ago

    Hello. This is the first comment I have left on this site, even though I have enjoyed reading all of the posts thus far.
    I agree that Mary was sometimes a pain and she and Laura did not see “eye to eye” so to speak. However, what two sisters do get along? I have two daughters and as they were growing up, they had the same issues: my older daughter enjoyed reading and being inside; whereas my younger daughter loved to be outside.
    As for Mary wasting her life: I think it was an honor for her to go the the School for the Blind, and even though she did not get married or “work” outside of the home, she did do many things besides sitting in a corner. As mentioned before, she wrote letters, she visited her sisters, she made crafts and sold them, she was a companion to both of her parents. I think Ma would have moved in with one of her other daughters after Pa died, if Mary had not been blind. Back then, women usually did not work outside of the home, so the things that Mary did were within the realm of what she was expected to do. Her other sisters were very different in the fact that they all held jobs.

    JimP 13 years ago

    I suppose the nondescript chapter titles deepen the Long Winter monotony, same as potato… potato……. potato…………..
    At least they weren’t “And Then The Roof Collapsed” or “How To Cook A Fiddle”!

    Laura Maxwell 13 years ago

    Wendy– thanks so much for your link to beyondlittlehouse! I am a big “Little House” fan, and I am enjoying this reading of “The Long Winter” so much! I actually re-read “The Long Winter” when I was on bed rest for my twin pregnancy– I gave birth to twin girls, Maia and Sarah, on 12/7/09– but I am loving the thoughtful re-caps and everyone’s comments. You even inspired me to order “The Little House Cookbook!”
    I can’t wait to share all things “Little House” with my girls. And I can’t wait to read your upcoming book! Thanks again.
    Love, Laura

    Jen 13 years ago

    I agree that they did not say that Mary’s education was covered by the state because readers would interpret governement assistance…however, Mary had as much right to a public education as any other child, and Dakota did not have a blind school that I can find. The state would have paid because they could not offer the services. Imagine a child being turned away from public education today because of a disability!
    I never much liked the goody two-shoes, but always liked how college matured her relationship with Laura.

    Dr Laura 13 years ago

    Yes, I have heard not on your tintype many times. I have also heard a derivation of it–not on your tinny tin tin. I’ve heard it in movies and both of my great grandmothers said it from time to time.

    Lauri 13 years ago

    I’ve always heard it as “Not on your chinny chin chin”
    Does anyone else wonder how Cap became involved? I’m sure he was dependent on quite a bit since his mother was a widow.
    I do enjoy the comments between Almanzo and Royal. Royal doesn’t seem as perfect an older sibling as Mary.

    Linda 13 years ago

    I will have to take more notice of the endings of the chapters.
    I took it as like going to war on behalf of the others less able.

    Linda 13 years ago

    I have started doing a similar thing with my kids. Even though I know I don’t need something, if I am doing an order for food, I will sometimes put in an extra thing for emergencies. Usually it comes in very handy. And yes, I hide food.

    jodi 13 years ago

    I don’t find the ending that odd… but this talk of “tintype” makes me think how Laura never wrote of the experience of having their photograph made. There’s a picture with her and Mary and Carrie dated sometime shortly after the long winter – the one where the older girls are in the checked dresses – I wonder why this never made it in to her stories, since getting pictures made back then was supposed to be such a big deal?
    BUT then again maybe it wasn’t that exciting. I guess if I were to write my memoir (not that I would) I wouldn’t bother to talk about “And then in Spring of ’95, since the price of pictures by the school photographer was too high, we went to Sears to get my picture taken.” LOL It wouldn’t cross my mind… but with her knack for describing amazing inventions and all back then, it’s kind of curious.
    Ever read Cheaper By The Dozen, the stories about the dad taking the kids’ pictures with the huge lash devices? Funny, funny stuff – and interesting!

    Lauri 13 years ago

    I wonder if that was one of the reasons Laura and Almanzo bought the plate that said, “Give us this day our daily bread” They both had lived through a time when that was literally quite true.

    Sylvia Replogle 13 years ago

    In the book The Long Winter, I have always been so impressed with Almanzo for as tired as he was, coming back from getting the wheat, he takes care of his horses first. He was a true horseman, and a very brave soul. I wonder why he told his daughter, late in his life, that “His life had been a series of disapointments.” That statement makes me sad, for he and Laura made their MO farm successful, and at the end of his life, they had enough money to vacation. I have long wondered if the illness in The First Four Years caused him to be unable to have more children?? Greatly admire this fine man…hope he is happy now.

    Jeanine 13 years ago

    Am I the only one who has always been bothered by the fact that Almanzo talks this man into doing exactly what he, Almanzo, wouldn’t do? The man wants to save his seed to plant a crop, and Almanzo tells him that the only thing he can count on is cash – his crop might fail, bugs might come and so on. ALMANZO, THIS COULD HAPPEN TO YOU TOO!!! Why wouldn’t you share YOUR wheat with the town?
    As I typed that, though, a little part of me is asking if I remember correctly that Almanzo wouldn’t have had enough wheat to go around anyway, and they would have needed more.
    Still!

    Erin Blakemore 13 years ago

    Anyone else wonder if it occurred to them that they could beat him unconscious and steal his wheat if needed?
    I KNOW!!! I always wondered that when I was a little kid…now that I’m grown I am kind of reverse-horrified at how vulnerable anyone on a homestead was. No real door locks, nothing in the world to keep you from letting a stranger into your home (what, are you going to leave him outside to freeze to death?).

    Rebecca Brammer 13 years ago

    Yes, Jeanine, it is ironic that Almanzo asks Anderson to do what he himself won’t — but yes, Almanzo did say that by his calculations, all his wheat would be eaten and winter still not through. I think too that Almanzo recognized it WAS a good idea, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush after all, but still couldn’t bring himself to do it. Too much farmer in his veins, not enough businessman.
    As for knocking Anderson out and stealing his wheat, the thought never ever occurred to me at all, I think because it would be so out of character for these good ethical men to do such a thing. Besides, that would be a little too much like socialism (robbing/forcing those who have to supply for those who have not against their will…) which of course is the antithesis of the spirit Laura wishes to convey. I love Anderson’s comment. “That’s not my lookout… nobody’s responsible for other folks that haven’t got enough forethought to take care of themselves.” And then the bargaining that follows to give Anderson enough incentive to WANT to “take care of” the others by selling them his wheat. What a beautiful illustration — Anderson’s happy, the townspeople are happy, and Cap and Almanzo shine as the heroes that they are.

    Duncan 7 years ago

    You Americans have such a jaundiced idea of ‘socialism’. We are all dependent on each other for so much, no one is an island and even the Ingalls relied on externals such as the railway and nature itself for survival. As a European I find the casual acceptance of the ‘evils of socialism’ quite disturbing.

    Solveig 6 years ago

    I agree with you, Duncan. (By the way,I´m also a European, but lived my early childhood years in California.)

    M. Murphy 13 years ago

    I wondered the same thing: why wouldn’t Almanzo sell his wheat? I guess I always assumed he did not have enough wheat to sustain the entire town.
    Another question: I thought Almanzo was 10 years older than Laura, which would make him 23/24 years old during the Long Winter. Did it mention that he was 19 in the chapter and I missed it?

    Rebecca Brammer 13 years ago

    I wondered if anyone would bring up the age issue. 🙂
    In the book, the characters Almanzo and Cap are both about the same age, and Laura says in this chapter, “They were both nineteen.”
    However, in real life, Cap was born Dec 27, 1864, and Almanzo’s date of birth is stated as Feb 13, 1857. If the wheat run takes place after Almanzo’s birthday, then by those dates, Cap would be 16 and Almanzo 24.

    jodi 13 years ago

    I’ve read she fudged on Almanzo’s age in the series to take away some of the child bride horror some modern readers would have felt about their relationship.
    I’m not sure why she would make Cap older than he was, though. Ideas? Maybe just to make them seem more like equals?

    jodi 13 years ago

    I never had the impression they picked the plate for its saying. They wanted a set of glassware, the set was a good price, and that was the plate that came with it. It’s a pretty generic bread plate saying. My mom and grandma both have one, different types, same saying.

    T Lynn 13 years ago

    Who would let their 16 year old make a run like that?
    Yes, “in those days people assumed the duties of adulthood much earlier,” but SIXTEEN!!!???
    Is there any chance that someone else actually went with Almonzo but Laura wrote Cap into the role (letting her “crush” be a hero)? Or was Cap a stepchild? Or was he rebellious and went despite parental prohibitions? I mean, come on, do we really believe that a mother let her 16 year old go off on a journey with those risks? (Ma wouldn’t even let Pa, and as a mother, it’d be easier to let my grown husband than my child!)

    Linda 13 years ago

    I suppose it is like letting your son go off to war still.
    Don’t forget, didn’t Cap have nice eyes too? Smile.
    Thank goodness for the men going in and out of the door wondering if they had made it back, I assume it is the same door that the light came out of.

    Rebecca Brammer 13 years ago

    Cap’s mother was a widow, so he was the man of the house.
    Is there any chance it was someone else who went with Almanzo? Absolutely.
    There are various renditions of the story, one of which simply states “two young men,” which could mean it wasn’t even Almanzo either… Cap may have been selected because he was already a character in the book and it was a journey fitting for his character. In Pioneer Girl, it is Cap and Almanzo who make the trip, however.
    There are lots of unanswered questions surrounding this whole story. How much of it is fictional? None of it? All of it? Some of it, and if so, which parts? We may never know.
    As for why make Cap older than he was — perhaps to make the story more believable because obviously as we’ve seen from this discussion readers question him going at 16!? 🙂 Perhaps Laura wasn’t really sure of his age anyway and only knew he was older than she was, so she guessed. Who knows?

    Cindy 13 years ago

    I thought about this too, why would Almanzo go after someone ELSE’S wheat and not sell his own?
    The answer I came up with is that if Almanzo died out on the prarie, his wheat could then be sold (by Royal) to the town folk. If he survived and returned with the wheat, then he could justify sitting on his “good seed” and still be able to look people in the eye when planting time came around in the spring. Either way people got to eat.

    Eliza 13 years ago

    maybe Almanzo felt guilty about not selling his own wheat and that was what spurred him to make the dangerous trip.

    Wendy 13 years ago

    To add to what you said, Rebecca, about whether Cap went to get the wheat in the first place… wasn’t there something in the Homesteader about that? Like a descendant of the Garlands said that if Cap had gone on the wheat trip it would have been family lore, but they’d never heard of it outside of the books.
    Also, when I saw the De Smet pageant perform “The Long Winter” this summer, I noticed that there was no Cap Garland character… even though he’s mentioned in the script as Almanzo’s partner on the wheat trip, he’s not in the cast. So mysterious!

    jodi 13 years ago

    I have also read that the entire trip may have been fictional… but I didn’t want to be like “Yeah, here’s two things I have read may not be true…” LOL
    An interview with his neice:
    http://capgarland.freewebspace.com/interview.html – says the trip was never in the family lore which is kind of strange… but then again maybe no one thought to mention it. I learned recently (as in, I dug it up, through ancestry.com fleshed out with church records) of 2 kids in my grandpap’s family no one knew of. You’d think someone would talk of a 5 year old who died of smallpox if nothing else – but no. So who knows?
    I also seem to think that in “I remember Laura” there is an interview with Neva Whaley (Whaling?) and she mentions how people lived, how some had supplies – I don’t think she mentions the trip?? The book is mysteriously missing from my bookcase right now so I can’t check.
    Ugh, I also hate to say “Here’s two things I think i read, but one is backed up on line and the other I can’t quite remember.” But yeah, I have also read the whole trip may not have been real?
    Rebecca, how did you get to read Pioneer Girl??? Do you have inside connections or is it finally available to be read???

    Lauri 13 years ago

    Honestly, I can believe that the story didn’t survive since Cap didn’t have descendents or they weren’t interested. My Mom or any of her cousins have no idea how their grandmother died. I think that’s just how some familes are.
    I can see where if Almanzo didn’t survive, there wasn’t anyone depending on him at home. However, Cap as the man in the family I wonder why it’s different for him than Pa. I can think though that he was much younger and was going stir crazy in the house, so he went. Was he hauling hay into town to burn? I remember the Wilder boys and Pa are mentioned as the only ones brave enough to do so. However, I’ve read enough to know that most were burning hay.
    I’m going to digress to compare this with the musical. I remember the one song where Almanzo sings that he’s old enough to fight in the war, but not to own land. I found that quite poignant.

    jodi 13 years ago

    OK so I typed up a response to this but it asked me if I was a spam bot… and I don’t know if I passed or failed but my post didn’t show up. Hmmm.
    I have also wondered if the events in Long Winter really happened. A neiece of Cap’s mentioned in an interview that it was never talked about. Granted, all families have secrets. Not really JUICY secrets, but things people don’t talk about just… because they don’t think to. I recently discovered there were 2 kids in my grandpap’s family no one knew about – one died at 5, the other at 2. Common enough back then … but one died of SMALLPOX… in 1912… which is a little weird. But no one talked about them. So… who knows. May or may not mean something, that the neice knows nothing. You’d think something as big as a trip like this would be discussed, but who knows.
    I posted a link to the interview, I think that’s why it thought I was a spambot. Honest. Not a spam bot!!!
    Also – if you read “I Remember Laura” – which I own but can’t find right now so can’t quote exactly – Neva Whaley (Whaling?) is interviewed and she talks about getting through the long winter, she says people had some supplies, every one got through… she mentions getting wheat from the Boasts i think??? But pretty sure she does not mention Almanzo and Cap going.
    Rebecca – how did you get to read Pioneer Girl??? Do you have inside connections or is it actually available to read now??

    M. Murphy 13 years ago

    I always wondered why Laura or one of the other children didn’t learn to play the fiddle like Pa. I am from a musical family – I play the flute semi professionally – my son plays the trumpet in the Marine band – my daughters both sing – and I learned recently that I inherited this trait from my great grandfather, who played the violin (I was adopted so never knew this before – but my birth mom recently gave me his violin).
    Mary learned to play the organ and the Ingalls’ were obviously a very musical family. I understand that they probably didn’t have the extra money to buy other instruments, but it’s strange to me that Pa never taught any of his children to play.

    Rebecca Brammer 13 years ago

    The comment by the Garland descendant who believed the wheat trip never happened because it had not been passed down as lore in her family is one thing that makes me believe it’s possible it was not Cap, but someone else who went for that wheat. Her conclusion was, no story, no trip; but it seems just as likely to me that no story simply means no trip for CAP, not necessarily no trip at all. However, it’s also quite possible that it was a story that simply didn’t get told.
    Another possibility is that the trip happened but on a lesser scale or of less critical importance than the way Laura tells it. The Ingalls family were likely among the hardest hit by The Hard Winter because they had come out earlier. Most families had come in that spring and summer and had brought provisions with them knowing they wouldn’t get a crop or wouldn’t be able to get much of one, whereas the Ingalls family was making do almost entirely on their first harvest on never-before-farmed soil. So what was a life-saving trip for the Ingalls may not have been as crucial for everyone else. Also, if it was indeed Almanzo who made the trip, it may have been more quickly forgotten by others who didn’t end up marrying the guy. 😉
    As for Pioneer Girl, it is (and has been a long time) available for research purposes along with the rest of the Rose Wilder Lane Papers at the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library. (They will send you copies upon request if you are not able to go to the library yourself, but it gets pretty pricey.)

    Åsa Hermansson 13 years ago

    Hmm, interesting thought. I have never questioned why the girls did not play the fiddle, maybe because I live in “The Old World”? Here in Sweden, the violin had sort of a daring, almost sexual touch to it some hundred years ago, at least in the countryside. We even have stories of a mythical being called the Näck, a man who were said to play the fiddle sitting naked in streams or brooks, playing so bewitchingly it made people go into the water and drown. I have always believed all fiddlers were male back then.
    This was perhaps before Laura’s days, but not so long before. More things were considered either male or female than we think of today. Somebody mentioned tending to cows as a women’s thing and tending to horses as a men’s thing in another thread on this site. Maybe little brother Freddie would have been the one Pa taught to play?

    Lunza 6 years ago

    Re. “More things were considered either male or female than we think of today”: I inherited a saxophone from my mother, so in the late 1970s when a fellow elementary schoolgirl said she wanted to learn the sax but that her mom said it was a “boy’s instrument,” I was shocked. So was the (male) band teacher, for what it’s worth.

    Cindy 13 years ago

    This is probably a dumb question – but were Prince and Lady real or fictional?
    I have always wondered why there was no mention of them in The First Four Years and have searched around for the answer.

    jodi 13 years ago

    I also expected it was just not ladylike. Laura playing the fiddle? Over Ma’s dead body, LOL

    jodi 13 years ago

    Interesting. Maybe he sold them to be able to buy the work horses or other things he needed to farm?

    Cindy 13 years ago

    That could be. It bothered me as a kid when I read TFFY, being a horse lover. Having fancy Morgans was such a big part of Almanzo’s character in the earlier books, and Prince and Lady seemed characters in their own right. It just was odd they were never mentioned after Golden Years. Perhaps they were Laura’s “fantasy” horses.

    Wendy McClure 13 years ago

    Don’t forget that Laura didn’t really intend TFFY to be a continuation of the Little House series, so while a lot of things in that book are borrowed from her life (and thus have details in common with the earlier books), she still meant it to be a separate work of fiction.
    So if Morgan horses aren’t mentioned in TFFY, all it means is that LIW didn’t think that they were important to the story, which isn’t quite the same story that she was telling in the other eight books.

    Sarah 13 years ago

    Yes, Almanzo saved the seed wheat. But I wonder if it also occurred to him that if he didn’t return from the trip, he wouldn’t be around to care about the seed wheat being eaten and that there would be two fewer mouths to feed. Bleak, I know, but things were pretty bleak by that point.

    Linda 13 years ago

    I love the cover of the novel “Across The Rolling River” by Celia Wilkins with Pa as a boy playing his violin. I love the story as it talks about Pa playing it when he was young.

    Sandra Hume 13 years ago

    Interesting. I never thought about this scene as political, even in the context of RWL’s influence. It just seems a good lesson in doing business successfully.
    I do love the drama here. It is, if I may make such a bold statement, the most dramatic Laura ever gets in the series. It’s the only nail-biting situation I can really think of, and she (or Rose — I am wondering about her dramatic influence here) does it to great success. And nowhere is the peril more up front to me than with this line: “Almanzo hated to do it, but he stepped onto the sled and taking the stiff lines from his shoulders he beat Prince with the knotted ends.”
    I’ve always loved the image of the cloud blocking out the stars (though I guess that starts in the previous chapter). Also, this quote: “And let my horse stand in this storm?”
    “Almanzo tells Prince he saved the seed wheat. Clearly, Almanzo had no intention of letting people starve while he had wheat that could have saved their lives. This wasn’t about saving lives; those he would save regardless. It was about saving his wheat.”
    Wow. I never realized this, or never took the time to think about it, I guess. But you’re right. There’s his motive in his own words.

    Rebecca Brammer 13 years ago

    Lady makes an appearance in Pioneer Girl, but is Royal’s horse, not Almanzo’s. Prince isn’t mentioned. I think though that it’s likely they were real — Almanzo must surely have had a team or at least one horse to drive around and if Royal had Lady, perhaps Almanzo had Prince and they drove them together. Why invent a horse that never existed in a world where everyone had horses?
    It may be that after their marriage, they only had Prince and he was a work horse and she didn’t think to mention him, as Wendy said since it was not a sequel and most likely was written in the early 30s, before the other De Smet books were written. Or it may be that Prince and Lady were older horses and had since been sent back to the Wilder farm in Minnesota to retire.

    Sandra Hume 13 years ago

    I agree with Rebecca’s assessment of the wheat situation. I saw Mary Dawley, a descendant of Florence Garland’s, speak back in 2001 and she was also interviewed for the Homesteader. The trip may well have taken place, but perhaps it wasn’t a big deal to anyone but who it directly affected. And it’s likely, by all accounts, that Cap wasn’t involved — but I’ve always had this romantic notion that Laura included him as a sort of homage to this boy that she (and Almanzo?) had liked so much. He died early, in 1891 in a threshing accident, and Laura and Almanzo wouldn’t have left for Missouri yet (though it’s possible they were in Spring Valley at this time, or on the way to Florida).

    Sandra Hume 13 years ago

    Wendy, to me, the whole timing of the writing of TFFY is one of the most fascinating aspects of Little House lore.

    Sandra Hume 13 years ago

    Linda, what is “Across the Rolling River”?

    Tracy Sapp 7 years ago

    Across the Rolling River is a book in the Caroline series.

    Eliza 13 years ago

    I had the same thought as Sarah – if they hadn’t made it back, Pa would have had plenty of wheat to tide them over until the trains ran again :).

    Barb Mayes Boustead 13 years ago

    The part about the townsmen in the store sharing out the wheat doesn’t surprise me at all, and not because of any political motivations. It’s pretty well documented that a number of towns affected by the train stoppage “shared out” their provisions in much the same way. Settlers (and storekeepers, I presume) pooled their resources and redistributed their supplies to help everyone make it through the winter. What a great example of a community getting together to help everybody survive!
    I can’t imagine whole towns being cut off like these were, with modern snow-clearing equipment and rescue operations. But just for a moment, imagine if they were. Would people today open their cupboards to their neighbors who hadn’t stocked up as much at the grocery store before the storms hit? Would grocery stores fairly divide their goods based on who needed it most? Makes me think about giving just a little bit more the next time I’m asked about donating for a food drive…

    Cindy 13 years ago

    Thanks for the responses – very interesting discussion!

    jodi 13 years ago

    Wow, I had never heard that TFFY was written BEFORE the other DeSmet books. I know it was discovered after her death and never polished up to be public, but I always thought she meant it to be a final chapter in the series, and just lost interest in following through.

    jodi 13 years ago

    I think that when a town is that small, it just tends to breed politeness and consideration more than when you are in a big place and everyone is kind of anonymous. Even though the shop keepers were in business to make money, when there’s only 80 people in the town there’s just bound to be a tighter connection. It’s a lot easier to pass up someone on the street asking for money than it is to deny your neighbor something he is in need of.
    What amazes me is these 4 day blizzards… I just can’t imagine blinding snow for 4 days solid… does that really happen in the midwest? Did it ever happen? Has the climate changed that much?? I am in Pennsylvania and I have certainly never seen anything like that. Even this past winter which was the worst in a LONG time, there was never a day where you COULDN’T go out. You might not WANT to, but if you had to, you could.

    Sandra Hume 13 years ago

    Jodi, I can’t be sure but I think it’s very possible your questions will be answered in a presentation by Barb Mayes Boustead at LauraPalooza this summer! She works for the National Weather Service and is a Little House fan. How cool is that combo?

    Rebecca Brammer 13 years ago

    Jodi, when we’re finished with The Long Winter, I’ll write up a post on the writing of The First Four Years. I’ve been meaning to do that for awhile anyway. 🙂

    Linda 13 years ago

    In a previous chapter Almanzo said his wheat wouldn’t keep everyone from starving, he had to get more.
    I live in a 1,000 isolated town, I have been here for 6 years, in some ways I am starting to think it operates a little like an extended family.

    Linda 13 years ago

    I think they were relying on the train, didn’t think it would stop running. The Wilders though were able to think of everything thing that may go wrong, one even mentioned something like that, anyway, they wanted to have their own homegrown bacon rather than buy it.

    Barb Mayes Boustead 13 years ago

    Thanks for the shout-out, Sandra! Jodi, having lived in both Pennsylvania and Nebraska, I can tell you that the the winter storms definitely have a different character in the different places. Eastern storms have much less wind and much wetter snow. Plains storms tend to have a bit less moisture, but colder temperatures… so the amount of snow might be the same, but it’s fluffier and easier to get blown around in the wind. And there’s a lot more wind. It’s much easier to kick up even brief zero-visibility conditions out here because of that combination. Between land-use changes (more trees and buildings to break the wind) and some effect of climate change (though this is tougher to see, the coldest of temperatures might have been just a bit colder in the 1800s than they are now), it might have been easier to kick up those conditions in the late 1800s than it is now, also. Even then, it was tough to get 4 days in a row of blizzard conditions, though!

    JimP 13 years ago

    Today’s blizzards can also knock out the power, so I’ve been in the same boat for at least a day, and the roads may remain unplowed for a few; I’ve seen people leaving the local store pulling their haul on their kid’s sleds, and the owner was advising to spare the milk for families with small children. But there’s no risk of real shortage today.
    As for dispassion: I think they were a lot less publicly demonstrative in those days out of a sense of propriety. Laura’s writing style paints a scene and you are supposed to assume the emotions on your own without the narrator spelling-it-out “ma was horrified while Pa laughed and I giggled and Mary sewed”.
    If they met today’s Emos they’d slap a diaper on them or beat them over the head like martians.

    jodi 13 years ago

    I was the unsuccessful poster and yes that is the link. Thanks!!! 🙂

    JimP 13 years ago

    Random untested ideas:
    Add a small-font Tag Index at the page top, so browsing the whole lore selection is at fingertips?
    (wasn’t this going to be the A-Z Almanac At Last site ; )
    Pair it more prominently, same color, with the Search box and Recent Comments box?
    Browsing, reading, and posting would be less off-putting and repetitive, while more on-going and expansive.
    It would be easier to fact-check first, or locate and include links to other relevant threads.
    It would focus the posting and archive a little more, instead of a Search returning never-ending new threads about the Little Shepherdess, mostly repeating the same questions and answers.
    cheers

    jodi 13 years ago

    LOL about the Emos…

    Lauri 13 years ago

    Was I the only one who wondered if there was a town further down the railroad line that was expecting that food and needed it more than De Smet? Though I understand why they took the food.

    jodi 13 years ago

    At the point where they break into the emmigrant car (later, near when the real train finally shows) and Ma is so upset – I wondered who that car was really meant for – and what the heck IS an “emmigrant car” anyway???

    Holly 8 years ago

    Would have been a car where people traveled, much as Ma and the girls came out to Silver Lake on the train to meet Pa when he took the job with the railroad. Depending, the people either brought food with them or there was a dining car. They got off the train at the beginning of a blizzard and headed back to the town they came from, ending up spending the winter there. And the train was encased in a block of ice all winter. So when they finally got it going again (and it couldn’t turn around and go back, because no roundhouse there) it had to go on to the next town, DeSmet. And the town used the food that had been frozen on the train all winter.

    jodi 13 years ago

    Whoops!!! It was this chapter LOL. Serves me right for reading the comments before the chapter… I never really understood who that train was for. I think I once imagined “emmigrant car” (that is what they call it in the book) to be people moving west… and if they weren’t eating the food, was the train then full of frozen bodies??? That’s a lovely image for you.

    Lauri 13 years ago

    http://www.hsp.org/files/studentreadinglifeontherails_revised.pdf
    I googled it, and it sounds like it was the third class car. It was for the poorer people and also those making short trip. I might guess that Laura was saying they left the first and second class of any food for the train passengers, but took the third class food for the town.

    Cindy 13 years ago

    That’s a Biblical reference I never got! I just figured “No, Nebuchadnezzar!” was a common part of speech, as we used to say “No Way, Jose” when I was that age. Glad to learn something today!

    Linda 13 years ago

    Me too Cindy.
    If De Smet was a new town, I imagine Huron was the only other town at that point until they built more track and towns?
    Pa’s moral code comes up in other places, wasn’t there a situation where the men took something into their own hands, like being their own police or law enforcement?

    Linda 13 years ago

    I wondered, but didn’t think of the need to thaw the turkey, thanks!
    I love any stories with barrels like that. There was one in one of the first novels in the Caroline series, maybe it wasn’t actually a barrel though.
    Also in the Pollyanna novel, for anyone who has seen the TV show when they were little, it is a nice novel as well.

    jodi 13 years ago

    There was that part where Pa and Mr. Boast pretended to be law enforcement to get money out of someone… I think in BTSOSL? I think taking the law into your own hands was just what you had to do in that place and time, though.

    M. Murphy 13 years ago

    I have always liked this chapter because it was a happy ending to such a trying time.
    Most of us imagine a frozen turkey like we see during the holidays. This turkey probably looked (and tasted) much different than what we know. There are many wild turkeys where I live and believe me, dining on one of those is much different.
    Back to my thoughts: it seemed that Laura tied up loose ends with the Christmas barrel. Baking powder to bake the biscuits (no more sourdough!); nice embroidery items for Laura, who used hers to make the Christmas presents; a silk shawl for Ma, who always gave but did not receive; and….being with friends after being alone with the family for so long.

    Sommer 13 years ago

    This is a beautiful chapter!

    Dr Laura 13 years ago

    Sandra, this is a very nice summary. Thank you. I’ve always enjoyed this chapter as well. The finale is Pa playing his fiddle. I think how hard that would be with his calloused, chapped fingers. But, it made the Christmas complete.

    Sandra Hume 13 years ago

    Thanks, Dr. Laura — Laura Welser actually wrote it. I forgot to include her name at the top! It’s fixed now.

    Jacqueline 13 years ago

    I am so happy to have found this site! I remember from this chapter how Laura made sure to include the detail about making the mashed potatoes without milk (the potatoes were thinner because they were not whipped with milk, but Ma gave her specific instructions about how to make the potatoes almost as fluffy with just water). In this scene of plenty, the little detail about the milk seems to be a subtle reminder that things are still not back to normal in their minds. I don’t have the book handy, but Laura says something to the effect that the potatoes were good, but not as good as they would have been whipped with milk.

    Linda 13 years ago

    I enjoyed the summary as well, and thought of the milk while reading too.
    I just found another verse to the song and found it helped.
    “Do you ever hear tell of the spider
    That tried up the wall hard to climb?
    If not, just take that as a guider
    You’ll find it will serve you in time
    Nine times it tried hard to be mounting
    And every time it stuck fast
    But it tried hard again without counting
    And of course it succeeded at last”
    http://www.laurasprairiehouse.com/music/longwinter/wheretheresawill.html

    Jen Johnson. 13 years ago

    It’s not milk missing in the potatoes…but butter. I’ve always loved this chapter…but I found it odd that Laura would both make a point of Mrs Boast bringing butter…and then mentioning how the potatoes would have been better with butter. We’ll never know if Laura (and Rose?) were making a point of self-sacrifice and leaving some treasure for later. I’ve also thought that perhaps Laura wanted butter and her and Ma did not agree about it. Who knows, but there is a slight vibe about the potatoes and the butter that caught more than my eye!

    Rebecca Brammer 13 years ago

    The milk was missing.

    While Ma made the gravy Laura mashed the potatoes. There was no milk, but Ma said, “Leave a very little of the boiling water in, and after you mash them beat them extra hard with the big spoon.”

    That’s an interesting point, though, that she says the potatoes weren’t as good as they’d have been with milk AND butter. It says that Laura carries the butter to the table, so she definitely didn’t put the butter in the potatoes while cooking or mashing; however, if she wanted butter in her potatoes she certainly could have added it at the table when time to eat. This isn’t really addressed; perhaps with so many people there wasn’t much to go around and she’d rather have her share of butter on her bread, but you’re right that she ought to clarify, if this is the case.

    jodi 13 years ago

    I was never confused. 🙂 She says PLENTY of hot milk and butter… If I had to make mashed potatoes and had to pick between no butter and no milk and I think I would rather skip the butter. Without milk they’re just … not the same. And maybe there was only a little butter, so not enough to add as much as you’d really like at the table.
    Can you imagine a meal like that after a winter like that???
    So what’s next on this site?? I am kind of sad the book is over. Will we be doing Little Town on the Prairie? It’s hard to say which book is my favorite in the series but looking at how many pieces LT fell into before I replaced it, I think that’s the one. The others lost their covers but Little Town was actually in 3 or 4 parts…
    Love this site!!!! 🙂

    Eliza 13 years ago

    I’m with you Jodi, LT is my favorite as well! It’s the one book where everything just seems to be happy and good all the time. Things are going so well for the Ingalls family, Laura is having a great teenage life, pretty much carefree except for her trials with Eliza Jane, no great emotional angst. Nothing but fun and life is full of promise.

    jodi 13 years ago

    Well since the book is over now and I found this site half way through, nothing to do now but go back to the beginning! I made the ginger water in the little house cookbook and I thought it was horrible! I am going to have to try again to see if maybe I like it better as an adult. I was 10 or so when I did it before…

    Em 13 years ago

    LT is my favorite too! However, you can’t fully appreciate it without having read On the Banks of Plum Creek so, these two books together, are my favorites.

    jodi 13 years ago

    Why do you say that, because of Nellie?

    Jen Johnson 13 years ago

    So I wonder what other’s favorites and least favorites are:
    My favorites would be SSL and 1rst 4 Years. Least favorite is LW.
    SSL I love because Laura transitions so much from child to teen. 1rst four years I love because I think it’s writing is more authentic to Laura. I could be wrong but it’s my two cents. LW does such a good job of presenting that winter that it’s no fun for me to read…at least not the bazillion times i’ve read the others.

    jodi 13 years ago

    Wow, I feel like choosing my least favorite LH book is like picking my least favorite child, LOL… how could I??? I definitely like SSL and beyond better than the first 4. The first 4 just seem so baby-ish to me… of those first 4 though Farmer Boy is my fave. I guess if I HAD to pick a least favorite… it might be Plum Creek? Which is so funny as I remember when I was a kid and trying to get them out of the library, that was the one that was hardest to get and the one I wanted the most because it had PLUM in the title and I love plums!!! I don’t know, though – even Plum Creek has it’s good parts. I used to imagine the house Pa built as such a palace…

    Susan 13 years ago

    Interesting conversation! My favorite is These Happy Golden Years. The more I read it, the romance between Laura and Almanzo is so subtle. My favorite is how Laura could not convince Almanzo to led her ride behind the horses before they were tired out. Out of the series this is the happiest book. It’s hard to pick a least favorite, but if I had to pick one it would have to be Little House on the Prairie. No particular reason, but as I think about it, it is a slower pace than the rest of the books. Then again, a good portion of it takes place traveling in a covered wagon, so the slow pace would be appropriate.

    snowie 13 years ago

    Hi there, my first time commenting here! Just wanted to say a big thank you to everyone that has contributed to the read-along. I’ve really enjoyed it (though not quite “reading” along, as it’s the one book in the series I have lost!) and it’s been a great break from work every day.
    Please will this continue with another book?
    (I’m all for the proper order of things, so how about starting with Little House in the Big Woods??! 🙂 )
    Love from Malaysia,
    Snowie

    Jacqueline 13 years ago

    Interesting comments and thanks for the direct quote from the book about the potatoes. Maybe Laura is making some kind of sly reference to the fact that she really was sick of the taste of potatoes after eating them all winter — without milk and butter. Compared to the other riches found on that table, I’m sure quite a few diners passed on the potatoes!

    Carla 10 years ago

    or, 😉 , maybe it was a tongue-in-cheek reference to George Masters, the potato hog!

    Linda 13 years ago

    I hope you find your book snowie.
    If anyone is buying it again, I have my libraries copy, the full-color collectors edition, it is beautiful. The train pulling into De Smet at the end is the same picture but probably larger and seems to give more feeling.

    Karen 13 years ago

    It did always irk me that Laura got squat for Christmas. Mary and Carrie couldn’t at least get their act together and knit her a scarf from the tattered remains of Pa’s socks?

    Carrie 13 years ago

    My favorite is the Long Winter because of their perseverence and hope in the face of adversity, followed, of course, by the happy ending! I re-read that one very winter. My least favorite is The First Four Years. Too many unhappy things happen and there’s not enough Ma, Pa and Mary.

    Carla 10 years ago

    Carrie, TLW is mine, too, and I also read mine every winter, esp when I start feeling sorry for myself with a few inches of snow! Has anyone listened to the audio book? It was the first time I’d ever heard anyone pronounce “saleratus.”

    Melanie Beasley 13 years ago

    What a beautifully (and entertainingly) written commentary on this chapter. I can’t help but remember the understated terror of the class nearly missing their last chance at salvation, feeling as though an angel made Laura take that step just a little more to one side. I’d wonder what would have become of Pa if he had left the house to search for them. Pa always seemed so invulnerable, but we all know he was just wise, humble, and possessing of good judgement.
    “… the polished desks and their longevity as a heat source.” — Brilliantly worded, and worth an approving chuckle (when the teacher’s not looking).

    snowie 13 years ago

    Thanks, Linda. I’ve been looking at local bookstores for a replacement copy, but sadly they don’t seem to sell them anymore here. Think I’ll need to hit a certain amazonian seller soon… and maybe get me the Caroline series whilst I’m at it! ;P
    As an aside, I LOVE how most comments (unless you have your own picture) show up with a little icon beside the name, that looks like a little patchwork quilt! 🙂

    Melanie Beasley 13 years ago

    This chapter always makes me think of all the comforts I take for granted every winter– layers of warm, soft fleece and sweatpants, hand lotion, chapstick, even toilet paper. How I wish I could go back in time and give the Ingalls family these things! Along with a giant stack of books! I remind myself all these women were still getting their periods every month, without Tylenol or Advil, without tampons, having to go to the freezing cold toilet and wash out the cloth rags I’m sure they used. These were incredible people by any standard.

    Anonny 7 years ago

    They were indeed incredible people. Maybe some of the women lost their periods during that winter due to malnutrition. That does happen and would’ve made the situation marginally easier.

    Melanie Beasley 13 years ago

    You have to admire Almanzo’s generosity at letting Mr. Foster borrow his horse. It’s like lending someone your Porche to drive around on icy roads. Didn’t horses cost $75-$100 back then? That’s a ton of money, and there was no “horse insurance.” And a beautiful, well-trained horse like Lady would probably be worth even more– not to mention that Almanzo raised her from a colt and I’m sure she was dear to him as well.

    Melanie Beasley 13 years ago

    I can’t stop thinking about the lack of vitamin C… how many months have to go by before you get scurvy? Does wheat have any vitamin C? I’m drinking a big glass of orange juice right now, feeling guilty.

    Kathryn Sanderson 7 years ago

    Potatoes contain significant amounts of Vitamin C.

    Melanie Beasley 13 years ago

    This chapter has always stuck in my head as the perfect picture of small-town mentality. If the storekeeper rips everyone off with high prices in their time of desparation, all the townspeople will remember this and not buy from him when they have a choice. How different from today’s establishments! A few years ago we were on vacation in Williamsburg, Virginia, and decided to end the day with a hibachi dinner at a Japanese restaurant. It was a terrible, low-quality meal with hard, undercooked rice and frozen peas and carrots instead of freshly-sliced vegetables. We couldn’t believe that such a place could stay in operation, till we realized that all they needed was a steady stream of first-time tourists, who didn’t know about their poor food. No such thing in a town like Laura’s, where you knew every shopkeeper and their family. These days, employers may not even know all their employees’s names or faces, much less anything about their families. It’s so much easier to treat someone poorly when you know nothing about them. This makes me wonder if living in small communities is the best thing for people.

    Melanie Beasley 13 years ago

    I wonder if Pa and Ma had to take turns getting up at night to put more hay sticks into the fire, or did they just let it burn out. Even a stove filled with logs will not burn all night, the best you can hope for is hot embers that will light new kindling in the morning. I wonder if they even had matches, though they probably had flint to make fire with.

    Melanie Beasley 13 years ago

    I think that all those Bible lessons had to have helped the family endure such trying times. A big part of the Bible’s message seems to be “God loves you but life will often be awful anyway.” The story of Job is an obvious example, but life wasn’t a bowl of cherries for any of God’s followers. Maybe this helped the Ingalls family to hold on to their faith, that God would be looking out for them despite how grim things appeared.

    Melanie Beasley 13 years ago

    Oh for goodness sakes Ma, let them have pie tonight! How about right out of the oven? “Pies do hold the heat!” I will think of this next time I feel like I just have to have a piece of chocolate.
    It reminds me of the scene from “Curse of the Black Pearl” where Elizabeth Swann eats with ladylike decorum until Captain Barbossa tells her to forget the royal manners, they’re on a pirate ship and he knows she’s ravenous with hunger. After that freezing, monotonous winter, I don’t know why they would still wait. Even Martha Stewart would forgive you at that point.
    Sorry to be so off-topic!

    Laura Whitaker 13 years ago

    The prices on the website for AmericInn are higher then listed here, do we need to say we’re with LauraPalooza to get the better prices?

    Rebecca Brammer 13 years ago

    Yes, Laura, tell them you’re with our group to get the special conference rate.

    laura whitaker 13 years ago

    How long does the play last? One hour – two hours?

    Rebecca Brammer 13 years ago

    The pageant in Walnut Grove lasts from 9 until about 11.

    Laura 13 years ago

    Looking for hotel to stay at after play in Walnut Grove Sat. night. Looking for some place along Highway 14. Not sure I want to drive back to Mankato that night. Any suggestions?

    debikay 9 years ago

    I remember when I was 12 LIW’s description of blackbird pie had me so hungry that I fixed myself a Swanson’s chicken pot pie. I don’t know how it compared against blackbird pie but it fit the bill at the time!

    Amy 13 years ago

    The Wilder Inn in Tracy is a good spot. Tracy is just seven miles down the road from Walnut Grove.

    Lynn Urban 13 years ago

    I am a Presenter and would like to be listed as such. The title of my presentations is “From Pepin to Mansfield andIn Between”. I have been doing presentations for over 20 years. My presentations include story telling, information about life in a log cabin and travel by covered wagon and seventy feet of display which includes printed material, pictures and artifacts.

    Heidi Barnes 13 years ago

    We’re confirmed for the dorms and wondering about bedding?

    Rebecca Brammer 13 years ago

    Linens are provided.

    mike 13 years ago

    Check out Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds in Mansfield. They have a festival in the spring that would be of interest to Laura Ingall Wilder Fans.

    http://rareseeds.com/bakersville/festivals/

    Heidi 13 years ago

    I think I remember reading that Almanzo’s obituary mentions the trip to get the wheat. So maybe he really was one of the participants. If there is a Cap Garland obituary out there somewhere, perhaps it would mention it, too?
    I 2nd all the comments about the amazing courage of the two men (whoever they were). To take such risks to save the town is incredible, esp. at their young ages.

    Brenda 13 years ago

    I loved reading all these comments about TLW. (It’s so true about Cap Garland’s name–what a perfect word to describe it—dashing.) That has always been my very favorite of Laura’s books, for some reason. Now that I’ve found this website, I will be anxiously awaiting Rebecca’s notes & thoughts on TFFY. Thank you for sharing your views on our darling Laura, Almanzo, and Cap. Brenda

    Janet Cunningham 13 years ago

    I am a retired teacher who read the eight book “Little House” series to my third graders for many years. I planned many activities in various areas of study to go with the chapters I was currently reading. My classes were so enthusiastic about their history lessons. I feel we can’t truly appreciate where we are if we don’t “know where we’ve been.”

    I have almost every book written by Laura or about Laura. Also have the Ashton Drake set of dolls.

    Since my husband and I are preparing to move to a retirement home (two bedroom apartment instead of a four bedroom house) I must let go of many things that I have loved over the years. Is there a way I can perhaps sell for a very resonable price my books and other memorabilia, by letting Laura fans know what I have available?

    Brittany 13 years ago

    In Response to other commenters…. Prince and Lady showed up in These Happy Golden Years, i remember lady had a colt and lady and the colt were at Royal’s place at one point and Prince was given to Laura for a while since Almanzo was going to visit family up in Minnesota sometime after they started courting, he left the sled and prince for her to go play with while he was gone, and they may have been sold since Almanzo started training other pairs of horses along the way in the book. But they pulled the wagon to their first home together since “they started this, they want to finish it” or something along those lines that Almanzo said.
    Also i admired Cap’s name too, but his real first name was Edward or something or other. Cap is so much better. and its funny how Laura had a crush on Cap, yet married Almanzo

    Selden 13 years ago

    Have any of you ever made butter? I make it all the time (I have a family cow). To make a half pound of butter — two sticks worth — takes a half gallon of cream. To get a half gallon of cream you need to skim 4-6 gallons of fresh milk. At their Thanksgiving dinner, no one had fresh milk, no one had cream… that butter would have been like GOLD! (I have plenty of milk and cream and I still don’t cook with my own butter in most recipes, but with cheap store-bought. Homemade butter, even churned in a 1940s Gem Dandy electric churn, NOT by hand, takes time to make. I use it only to savor on toast and on baked potatoes, etc. IE in places where it will be tasted.) To throw some of that precious butter into a big vat of potatoes, in which it would have disappeared, would have felt like throwing it out the window. IMHO

    Michelle Martin 13 years ago

    Little House on the Prairie Museum in Independence, KS has a new website in the works. You can find us at http://www.littlehouseontheprairiemuseum.com

    Also, to get the latest news and updates, become a fan on Facebook. Look for Little House on the Prairie Museum.

    We are closed for the season and will re-open on April 1, 2011 for the new season with a new website, gift shop and management.

    If you need info between now and our opening in the Spring please feel free to contact me directly at lhopmuseumks@gmail.com

    Thanks,
    Michelle Martin, LHOP Museum
    Historical Advisor/Living Historian

    Melanie Stringer 12 years ago

    …Janet’s query intrigues me! I’d like to see what she has…

    Also, I was just thinking how nice it would be to have LIWLRA bumper stickers or some sort of window decal available for members. I wear the conference tee often when I travel, and since I drive to most of my gigs…a little extra advertising of LIWLRA certainly couldn’t hurt, could it??

    Linda Lewanski 12 years ago

    where will Laurapalooza 2012 be held?

    Sandra Hume 12 years ago

    It will be at the same place — University of Minnesota at Mankato.

    marcie kegley 12 years ago

    My daughter loves reading the Little House on the Prairie books and I am planning to take her to Mansfield Missouri and Independence Kansas to visit. Are both places open to visit March 21st thru 26th. Also are there any additional places to visit on pioneer history. She also loves reading history books especially on pioneers. We also may go to Hutchinson Kansas and visit the Space museum and salt mines. Do you know anything about those places. I would be greatly for any information that you could provide. Thank-you very much and I look forward to hearing from you.

    Donna 12 years ago

    I am ordering Summer 2007;Winter 2007-2008;Summer 2008 and Winter 2008-2009.

    You don't need to know! 12 years ago

    I just so happen to live in Pepin, and I love it here! It is a lovely town and has a pretty country side!

    Dr Laura 12 years ago

    So sad 🙁 I had the brillant idea of downloading LTOP onto my Nook. Guess what? It doesn’t exist in that format yet. Guess I will have to rely on my hard copy after all.

    Jaime Brooks 12 years ago

    I was going to do the same thing on my IPad 🙁
    My copy is lost and I know it was staring to fall apart, So oh darn 🙂 I will have to go buy a new one!

    Sandra Hume 12 years ago

    I tried to do the same thing a few weeks ago! Can you imagine?

    MamaHen 12 years ago

    I love this chapter also. It would have been very very hard for me to leave the homestead each day.

    Laura Welser 12 years ago

    That’s the first thing I looked to do when I got my Kindle. 🙁
    And, yes, I could relate to Laura in that way. I wouldn’t have wanted to leave the homestead each day. The pull of making money though…

    Melanie Fishbane 12 years ago

    You are right, Laura. Laura does paint a beautiful picture of them being at the table. I think it also shows how much she changes from a shy girl to a confident young woman. It is also about her evolution to be ready to leave home…which is more of the series arc of the last two books.

    Dr Laura 12 years ago

    Ma’s exclamation about Laura working in a hotel jumped out at me as I read this chapter today. Although we don’t know from the series that the Ingalls managed a hotel at one time, we know from history that they did. I thought it was interesting that Laura threw this little tidbit into this chapter. It creates an image of hotels being rowdy places full of unsavory characters. I don’t remember what I thought about this as a child but I do think today’s well-traveled child might wonder why Pa and Ma objected so much.

    Laura Welser 12 years ago

    I’m glad that you shared your thoughts, Dr. Laura.
    When I was writing this, I considered whether or not to include my thoughts about their “working in a hotel” statements. I decided to leave it out and wait to see if anyone else had anything to say. 🙂

    LauriOH 12 years ago

    I agree with Dr. Laura – they ran a hotel in Burr Oak, and basically, one out of the Surveyor’s House. I think it really pits the beautiful, warm, peaceful farm against the crowded, noisy town. Who would want to leave? (Rose probably would be jumping up and down here shouting “me, me”) The last two books to me have such a sense of optimism. We aren’t worrying about whether the Ingalls will get to eat, but whether Laura will get namecards or the feathers will stay on her hat. It’s such a relief to wonder about things that we know really aren’t that important.

    Eddie 12 years ago

    Things I love about this chapter:
    1. what you picked out, Laura, about the way the family’s surprise is portrayed. I feel I can really SEE Carrie’s face bitten into the piece of bread. And I love the way Ma just manages to prevent a tea-spillage disaster – NO shock can make this woman waste tea.
    2. Rare example of a LIW cliffhanger (can only think of the way the seed trip story is told for another example – are there any others?) – if it’s not a hotel, and it’s not school, what on earth can it be? My personal fork stays suspended while I wonder.
    3. The way you get so absorbed in the homestead stuff that you have totally forgotten the cliffhanger by the time she tells you (ok, technically, that’s a comment on later chapters). It’s just brilliant.
    On the hotel thing: ever since I found out about Burr Oak (a discovery which probably came later to me than most, the “truth” has been a more recent thing for me) – I’ve wondered exactly what motivated Laura to put this objection in Ma’s mouth (clearly, she can’t actually have said this). Was she wishing her parents had really felt like this? Was it a denial of Burr Oak? Did she not want to admit she had worked in a hotel? Or maybe Rose didn’t (is there any analysis of discussions between them over this chapter’s content?) Would be really interested to hear others’ thoughts on this.

    Amanda Morris 12 years ago

    The hotel thing is interesting. As a child, I remember being taken aback by Ma’s reaction. It calls to mind the scene at the hotel in Silver Lake, which was definitely a tense scene despite the fact that the men did behave while they were at dinner. She never portrays hotels in a positive light in the Little House books. It would make sense that this bears some relation to her time in Burr Oak.

    Maria 12 years ago

    I always found this to be my favorite LH book. I never thought about ‘why?’ It must be that feeling of optimism that is mentioned in the comments. The feeling of security in the routine of the homestead. The relief that the Hard Winter is over.
    My other favorite, or at least memorable chapter, is the one about the 4th of July. “BOOM” is the opening word! (I think I remember that!) The feeling of patriotism, the reading and explanation of the Declaration of Independence, the glimpses of Almanzo racing his horses. A whole different set of feelings: patriotism, romance and excitement!!

    TLynn 12 years ago

    I’ll take any of the remaining chapters – just let me know which one.

    Laura Welser 12 years ago

    TLynn,
    I have given you Chapter 10, Mary Goes to College. 🙂

    Tonia 12 years ago

    I love the optimism in this book too. I often wonder about the hotel. When I picture it, I think hotels may have been a little {or a lot} like a saloon back then possibly.

    Janie De Lara 11 years ago

    I think Ma didn’t want her working in a hotel, especially in the “west”, because she would be alone among many men….and ample bedrooms; Laura would have to enter them to clean them and thus could potentially be caught in a situation. Also there are appearances to keep up…a young girl working at a hotel might make it look like she is a “loose woman” even if she is not. Doubtless there was a woman or two like that in town…with all those men “batching” it. Ma didn’t want anyone even for a millisecond confusing her girl with one of them. When the Ingalls managed the hotel as a FAMILY, Pa was there, so there was no confusion and likely the girls were kept sheltered as much as possible. This is a very different thing than a 14 year old girl working in a hotel alone among strangers.

    MamaHen 12 years ago

    I love how in her later books she seems to show more about the relationships between the characters. Or maybe it just seems that way to me. Laura and Mary seem like more normal sisters here in this chapter.

    Kim Carroll 12 years ago

    I think they weaned the calf early so the family could have the milk and the cream for butter and cottage cheese. I’m not sure, though. I honestly never thought about it until you asked. Lol. Good question!

    Laura Welser 12 years ago

    I worked at a dairy farm for a little while in another lifetime, so I’m pretty sure that I know the answer. Sarah has the experience and can explain it though.
    This is one of my favorite chapters in the books and it contains what would probably be my favorite Garth Williams illustration. 🙂

    Sandra Hume 12 years ago

    Kim has it right, and I bet Laura would too. I was finally able to ask my husband. Greedy calves!

    Eddie 12 years ago

    Lots to love in this chapter 🙂
    1. “She felt she never could get enough sunshine soaked into her bones”. We’ve just had a particularly cold and gloomy winter by our standards (nothing like as bad as the US gets) and we’re now basking in an unusually pleasant spring (over 70 degrees is definitely unexpected in April) and this is exactly how I feel.
    2. The bug joke. It’s really interesting to see Mary develop as a character.
    3. The beans popping! I would be squealing along with Grace.
    4. Extending the shanty – I love all house-building scenes.
    It’s just such a lovely, warm, contented chapter, and so absorbing that I never once think “oh-oh, but that job’s going to wreck things” while I’m reading it.

    Melanie Fishbane 12 years ago

    I must agree, that these chapters always made me feel like they were breathing deeply for the first time. As you said Sandra, like they were recovering from the long winter. It feels to me like after that winter, things just get better for them. Pa even has a new plow!

    Kim Carroll 12 years ago

    I have to admit to being jealous about the whole bean-popping thing. I have never in my life been able to see the beans popping out of the ground. One day there was nothing, and the next….there they were! How rude! I even made it a point to watching for this after reading LTOTP when I was 10. We had a huge garden (several acres worth, anyway) and it seemed like most of it was beans. Oh-my-aching-back. I used to wonder why Laura would rather be in the garden instead of inside.

    Russ Dunn-Foster 12 years ago

    Growing up on a dairy farm I vividly remember the same experience as Laura. Calves are weaned from their mothers almost immediately after birth so that the milk can be used by the family. The cream is skimmed off and the calf is feed the more skim remaining milk. Since calves are naturally wired to nurse from a mother cow, they have to be taught to drink from a pail. Laura describes the process wonderfully.

    Ann Lesch, Ingalls Homestead 12 years ago

    What a timely post for today. One of our mama kitty just had kittens last night – first litter of the season.

    Amanda Morris 12 years ago

    I was slightly traumatized by this incident as a child. The image of waking up to a mouse chewing my hair and a bald spot really stuck with me!
    I also remember thinking it was sad that they could not take Black Susan with them from the Big Woods.

    Sharon Campbell 12 years ago

    This is probably my favorite book. So many exciting things seem to happen to the Ingalls family. I think it was that those early teen years make such an impression on all of us. They probably COULD have taken Black Susan with them, it just would have been inconvenient.

    Sarah Uthoff 12 years ago

    Well, I got around to this late and it’s already basically answered, but I will add that this is a difference between milk cows and beef cows. Beef cows (like we raise) the cows primary responsibility is to raise the calf. Dairy cows or milk cows are supposed to raise the calf and provide milk for the humans. If the calves are pulled off, they will eat other things besides milk and the humans can have the milk. This was especially true with pioneers because their cows (dedicated purebred breeds were just beginning to come in) were more like mutts and didn’t produce as much milk as modern dairy cows. I think perhaps I will start working on the differences with how people experienced milk in the 19th century.
    Our latest bottle calf http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5t-w40z8a8

    MamaHen 12 years ago

    The rat incident has always given me the heebie-jeebies! I would have been looking for SEVERAL cats to have!

    Melanie Fishbane 12 years ago

    I admit, that I had completely forgotten this bit when I re-read the book a couple of months ago. It seems such a strange thing to happen…and icky. Lately, we’ve had some mice issues in the house. Our last cat, Simon, died about a year ago. We’ve decided to get ourselves a new kitten. Every time I see a mouse, I think of this chapter.

    Kim Carroll 12 years ago

    This chapter made an impact on me when I was growing up, too. We lived in a rural area and had an occasional mouse problem. I had a bag of candy corn on the bedside table in my room and I heard something moving around in it while I was trying to fall asleep. I turned on the light and saw a mouse in the bag of candy. My first thought, besides, “Hey, that mouse is eating my candy!” was, “Thank goodness the mouse is eating the candy instead of chewing on my hair!” Every time I read this chapter, I have to laugh at Pa when he tells Ma he’s going to let people think that’s how she cuts hair. I love his sense of humor.

    Kim Carroll 12 years ago

    What I love most about this chapter, and all throughout the series, is that it takes so little to make the Ingalls family happy. They are content to be together and to have bread, potatoes, and lettuce to eat. In fact, they’re feeling blessed to have such riches. It really shows just how bad things must have been during the winter.

    TLynn 12 years ago

    This always struck me too; yet when you think about it, they had bread, potatoes – and even some butter – for most of the long winter. Only the lettuce and cottage cheese is additional. I guess it’s just the knowing that there’s plenty there, and even more to come, that makes the greatest difference in the attitude toward it.

    MamaHen 12 years ago

    I agree. It seems like these first few chapters are in such stark contrast to the winter before. Laura must have felt such freedom to be able to be outside and to have a variety of things to eat. Or anything to eat at all!

    Janet 12 years ago

    I love that unguarded look into Ma and Pa’s relationship as Laura overhears that conversation in the night. And how horrified Ma is when Pa teases him about it being how she cuts his hair.

    JimP 12 years ago

    “I have always wondered why Ma disliked puns so much. ”
    It’s cheeky! Practically imitating drunken flippant ribaldness with a surprise pinch to your caboose! Vapors!
    Remember how literal-minded Ma and Mary were? Mary disproved of Laura’s poetic flights of imagination as if it were deranged. Mr. Edwards must have seemed a carnival to them, no wonder Pa brought him around like a big Christmas present. Can you imagine Ma even letting him in the house with that fresh scar on his face??
    I suppose the mindset was “You should be thankful for God’s creation as it is and not get smarty-pants or one-upping about it”.
    Next thing you know, you’ll be kicking-in screen doors.
    Come to think of it, that atmosphere of puritanical literalness might be why Pa thought it was so hilarious when Laura countered that she DID NOT SLIDE down that haystack!
    She was literal AND cheeky, and she had him cornered!

    Kim Carroll 12 years ago

    I was always fascinated at the idea of Laura working in town, sewing shirts. It seemed so much more interesting than babysitting my next-door neighbor’s kids. I’m sure it was much harder work, and my back and neck ache at the thought of all the hours she must have sat in an uncomfortable chair, sewing as quickly as she could….not to mention maintaining the proper posture the whole time. Yeah, it was much easier to babysit, come to think of it.
    When I was little, I remember thinking, “I wonder what Laura would think if she could see people today, flying in airplanes! She would have loved it.” Now I realize, of course, that people were already flying in airplanes during Laura’s lifetime. She saw so much change during her life!

    Kim Carroll 12 years ago

    I couldn’t really “get” the whole Tay Pay Pryor thing until I listened to Cherry Jones reading this for the audio book. She does such an awesome job with it! I, too, was surprised when I learned who T.P. Pryor really was. If Laura were writing these books today, she wouldn’t have felt like she had to change the names to protect anyone. Not many would blink an eye at such a story these days.
    I’ve always loved that Laura and Pa were so close. I felt bad for him that he didn’t have a son (that survived) to hang out with and to help with the chores. It worked out well that Laura helped to fill that void.

    MamaHen 12 years ago

    Such good points Amanda. I didn’t know that was Mary Power’s father. I learned something new today! 🙂

    Firstmute 12 years ago

    I didn’t understand the “drunk” part of this incident either when I was little, but I did understand that it was supposed to show Laura and Pa’s connection. Reading the books as an adult I’m a little amused to see how often Laura sneaks in what seem like jabs at how humorless and dull Mary and Ma are!

    Little Wee 12 years ago

    Hi Rebecca,
    I just wanted to thank you for your life’s work dedicated to ‘Little House’. I consider myself to be one of the worlds best fans of this show. Secretely I dress as Laura sometimes for my sister. She really likes it when I do that and she chases me around the house calling me half pint haha. I call her Nellie and then we all laugh. I have the entire series on dvd. Can you tell me where I can buy the dvd set for Little House? Are you able to get me a signed autograph by half pint (hehe) I mean Laura. She is my hero in life.
    I even have a wig that I wear that makes me look just like her.
    My sister has a wig to look like Nellie as well. Rebecca if you like I can send you pictures of my sister and I dressed like Laura and Nellie for you to post on your site. I think your readers would really enjoy. I can also relate some very interesting stories of when we act out the scenes from past episodes. We are truly Little House nuts (hehe).
    Any how Becster, let me know if we can hang out> I think we would be best friends, just like Laura and her sister.
    Thanks

    Eddie 12 years ago

    When I first read this, I thought the Tay Pay Pryor thing was a song, as well! I’m so pleased to find out I’m not the only one who didn’t get the point of this till several re-reads later. You also picked out a favourite line of mine, Amanda – I’ve been known to copy that ‘disgace to snakes’ phrase myself occasionally – it’s such a wonderful expression of righteous disapproval, I love it! I also particularly like the bit where they go through the Wilder feed store door and it says Royal “yanked it open and said what he thought”. It was probably on the same read-through the drunken stuff really clicked, that I realised this was a masterly bit of understatement 😉

    Eddie 12 years ago

    And forgot to say: it’s fascinating that it was really Mary Power’s father (I think I read that somewhere sometime but didn’t know whether it was actually true). Whilst I love the idea of Laura changing it out of respect for the Powers, I wonder whether actually in practical terms, it just fits into the story better for it to have been a stranger. The reactions to the incident would have to have been dealt with differently if it had been her friend’s father. Thank you for a really interesting post!

    Cay gibson 12 years ago

    Definitely wouldn’t find many 15 yr olds who would sit and do such a mundane job any more. Makes my neck hurt too.

    Wayne Johnson 12 years ago

    This is one of the very best written columns I’ve read in quite a while. The
    chickens provide a welcome addition to the kitchen table, and we tend to
    sometimes forget that Ma couldn’t just run to the corner grocery for a
    chicken to cook for dinner! No KFC, either, not to mention the task of
    having to slaughter and prepare the chicken (not a pleasant task).
    Cay Gibson makes some insightful comments about then and now and
    how it all ties together.

    Cay gibson 12 years ago

    I completely forgot about the rat incident too. I’m w/ Amanda and mamahen. It traumatized me as well!

    Helen Russo 12 years ago

    Love this Cay, and reminds me of how much I love All of Laura’s books. She shared so much and I (as I am sure others have) absorbed and internalized much of her outlook and reaction to life. There have been many times in my life that I have fallen back on memories of how her family and she faced the challenges during their lifetime. 🙂

    Cay Gibson 12 years ago

    Thank you, Wayne. I appreciate that. Helen, thank you for taking the time to read my little piece too. 🙂

    Beth 12 years ago

    My first comment here:
    I LOVE these books, and they were what I asked for (and received) in hardcover 12 years ago just before my daughter was born. I wanted to be able to read them to the baby, and eventually pass them down to her. We have read through the series over and over, and also have some of the books about Laura (but not the new series titles about other family members…I’m a purist…. well, I AM!)
    ANYWAY: My great grandmother used to cook potato peelings with lots of black pepper and some water, into a thick sludge and feed it to her chickens during the winter, If she didn’t have potato peelings, she mixed cornmeal, black pepper, and water into a thick paste, baked it, and crumbled it–much like Ma’s bran mash. Either way, she fed them something heavily peppered all winter long–and they laid eggs all winter long. Without the pepper, they would not have. She said it kept their insides warmer during the cold.
    I told my mother-in-law this, and helped her try it, and now she STILL does it, every winter!

    Lara 12 years ago

    NPR does an annual reading of the Declaration every Independence Day. I can remember many times getting a choked up in the car going somewhere and listening to it.

    Tonia 12 years ago

    Hi. I’m getting ready to send over my report on chapter 10 soon. Also, am I doing chapter 13 also?

    Can you send me the link on where to send my report? I’ve lost it somehow.

    thanks!
    Tonia

    TLynn 12 years ago

    Tonia, If you have your report ready on CH 10, if you want you can send it in. Also if you want in return I can do CH13 – or not, doesn’t matter to me. I haven’t done CH 10 yet, so if you have done one it seems like that work shouldn’t be wasted. 🙂 Just reply back, let me know. TLynn

    Laura Welser 12 years ago

    Tonia, I went back through the comments on the original post about the read-along and my response to yours asking for a chapter was that I was giving you chapter 13 (this was on April 8, I believe). I had already given chapter 10 to TLynn as you can see above. Sorry for the confusion.
    You can send you post to beyondlittlehouse at gmail dot com.

    LauriOH 12 years ago

    When Pa’s looking at the oats and they are doing well, I’m waiting for the grasshoppers to start dropping out of the sky.
    I cringed as a child reading about the shared lemonade dipper. My mother would freak if I drank from it. I wonder if they told Ma and what she said.
    I find it interesting to compare the Almanzo who won’t bother a buggy to the Almanzo who ends up so in debt during The First Four Years.
    Notice that everyone thinks Laura is such a good girl, but here she’s wondering if she become teacher’s pet, she’ll get to ride behind the horses. Not all that different from Nellie now is it?

    Naomi 12 years ago

    They didn’t really know about germs yet in 1881, so sharing a lemonade dipper wouldnt’ have given anyone a second thought.
    Your comment about Almanzo and the buggy is interesting. I’ve wondered recently (having just re-read “Farmer Boy” for the first time in a while) if the extreme miserlyness of Father Wilder might have been responsible for Almanzo’s inability to manage money well later on. (Rebellion and all that… Father squeezed every penny, so I’ll throw MY money away.) Father Wilder who was RICH, but when his son asked for a nickle for lemonade at the fair, gave him a lecture instead. Father Wilder who made more money selling surplus potatoes than Pa Ingalls made in 9 months of bookkeeping for the railroad, but rarely hired help and when he did, paid them in pork. (And insisted that his wife (in her spare moments between child-rearing and cooking and baking and mending) spin and weave the cloth for the family clothing from wool sheared from the family sheep.

    Daria 12 years ago

    I like to consider that Father Wilder wasn’t independently wealthy, but that his frugality led to that condition. The Wilders lived in a time where homespun fabric was the norm, and much cheaper than new-fangled machine-made fabric. And what else did Mother Wilder have to do – it’s not like she could watch TV or turn on the radio. Work was a good way to pass the time, and weaving a good winter chore. I also imagine that the Wilders made some business decisions that were not risky in the East with its more frequent rains, but in the West became dangerous propositions. Hence the future loss of their fortune in Louisiana, with Eliza Jane’s spurious recommendation in land investment.

    naomi 10 years ago

    “Farmer Boy” would have been set just after the Civil War.
    Machine woven cloth was widely available (though cotton cloth would been higher and scarcer during the war) and while it was certainly more expensive than homespun (which cost nothing but Mother’s time and the pork paid to the two French-men who helped shear the sheep), it was far less costly than it would have been, say, 100 years earlier. (Machine spinning and weaving had begun in the late 18th/early 19th centuries, and had brought the prices of textiles down dramatically. Particularly in Northeastern New York state, they weren’t far from the mills at Lowell Massachuetts, so fabric would have been affordable.
    What else did Mother Wilder have to do? Cook large meals for her family 3 times a day. Make butter. Sew and mend and preserve and work in the garden and keep the stove going and polish the lamps. Maybe she could have even taken over some of the tasks her children did, so they could have gone to school more than 3 weeks out of the year. Or relaxed for half an hour with a book or some fancy needlework.

    Holly 8 years ago

    It wasn’t about just being miserly, it was about being independent Yankee farmers. You had sheep, you sheared them for their wool and made your clothes, and when they were past lambing, you had mutton. That’s just the way farmers lived back then. You did as much as you could on your own. And with three daughters, there were plenty of hands to card, spin and weave.

    Dr Laura 12 years ago

    Michigan is the only place I’ve been where, on the 4th of July, I’ve had to wear mittens and drink hot chocolate to stay warm!
    I can just hear Laura singing “faster, faster” from the musical.

    LauriOH 12 years ago

    Where were you? I have spent so many 4th of Julys in Michigan probably more than I have in Ohio.

    Jaime Brooks 12 years ago

    When I was younger, My grandpa had a small farm in Michigan, On the the side of the house by the outdoor faucet, hung an old metal sauce pan. If you were outside and wanted a drink of water, that is what everyone used. You would fill the dipper up with water from the faucet and drink. Now I cringe when I think of sharing a dipper, but no one thought of germs even 20 years ago as we do today. I always laugh becuase my mom would not let us drink out of the garden hose, but we could all share the dipper.

    Laura Welser 12 years ago

    Tonia, TLynn has offered to do a different chapter since she hadn’t started chapter 10 yet. So you will be up soon. You can email your chapter to beyondlittlehouse at gmail dot com.
    Thanks to TLynn and Tonia! I have updated the chapter list shown on the right.

    Cay Gibson 12 years ago

    “She said it kept their insides warmer during the cold.”
    Oh,, how funny, Beth. Thanks for the information. I raise chickens and you’re the first to give me feedback on the peppered mash. It was probably an old-way of thinking but I think those tidbits of information are fun to ‘re-hash’. :-/
    Excuse the pun.
    Lol.
    Thanks for reading and commenting.

    Eddie 12 years ago

    Thank you for posting the picture of the needlegrass! I’m intrigued you’ve experience it yourself – it’s ont of those things which sounds so odd that I’ve always vaguely wondered if it was an exaggeration. I’ve seen wild grasses which look like the one pictured, but they can’t be the same because they didn’t bite 😉
    I’ve never tried tomatoes with sugar and cream but I’m a fan of pretty much anything with cream so I’d be willing to give it a go. Not sure about the sugar – I’ve read somewhere (Barbara Walker, maybe?) tomatoes were more bitter in those days so maybe the sugar wouldn’t be needed. On the other hand I’m a big fan of lettcue with vinegar and sugar – my Grandpa wouldn’t allow any other dressing on lettuce!
    I love Ma’s “no great loss without some small gain” expression, but not sure I’d want to eat blackbird pie…

    twinkles 12 years ago

    I think that the “pre-hybrid” tomatoes were much more sour than our tomatoes today. Also, tomatoes are properly categorized as a fruit rather than a vegetable – and this makes this method make more sense (like sugared strawberries with cream).
    I think I always assumed that the wool was much more expensive than the other fabric, so Ma was much more careful because the fabric would be so costly to replace than cotton fabrics. Can you imagine sitting under heaps of wool in July or August?
    When I was a child and read this (all of the work to make sure Mary’s clothes were just so) I genuinely did not understand. Wasn’t she going to college of the blind? Who would see and judge her clothing there?

    Monica 12 years ago

    We can do a really cold 4th here in Seattle too! Sometimes I say that summer doesn’t start here until July 5th.
    I’ve always loved this chapter, Thanks for the roundup!

    Monica 12 years ago

    Just wated all the chapter girls to know how much I’m loving reading these posts! Thanks to you all.

    LauriOH 12 years ago

    I alway thought Ma was fretting over the dress because it was a sign that her daughter was growing up and leaving home.
    Wouldn’t you hate to be Mary in July or August standing in a wool dress in the heat, then they say your corset strings aren’t tight enough? Ugh, so glad that styles have changed.

    LadyJessop 12 years ago

    Gosh I’m so enjoying these read-alongs!
    This is my favorite chapter in the book. The descriptions of Mary’s beautiful new dress and the mouth watering blackbird pie makes you forget about the financial implications of the lost crops.
    -Karen

    Lise 12 years ago

    Probably the reason Ma had so much more difficulty with the wool dress is that the wool was thicker and did not drape the same way as the lighter fabrics – she probably used the same size seam allowances as she had on the summer ones, and that would have been too tight.

    Melanie B. 12 years ago

    Even though Mary looked beautiful in her new winter dress, I always winced in pain for her. That dress must have been so horribly tight, her ribs must have been sore and she would have been unable to take a deep breath. How could you sit down in it? You must have had to keep ram-rod straight. Even though women still wear uncomfortable clothes (and high heels, not in my closet, thank you!) at least corsets are not expected any longer. Didn’t Ma say that Pa could span her waist with his hands when they were married? This boggles my mind more than sitting on the braids!

    Kim Carroll 12 years ago

    Melanie, the whole “spanning the waist with his hands” thing always got to me, too. I remember thinking, “Wow! Pa must have big hands!” 😛

    Melanie Stringer 12 years ago

    Having grown up in a “Frenchie” town, and grandchild to a passel of French-Canadian immigrants, my take on this chapter ran a bit sidelong from this. I always had the impression that the chant was one drunken man’s ribbing of another drunken man who spoke with a French accent…wherein, “T. P.” would sound a bit like “tay-pay” to the untrained ear, and be repeated just that way!
    On the other train of thought, knowing what I know today about Almanzo’s propensity toward colorful metaphors when displeasure was his mood, I must smile widely at the veiled reference to Royal’s reaction. I wonder, though, why it is that when the family were at Silver Lake Camp and the railroad men were on the verge of a riot, their speech is described as “rough language” and Laura clearly did not like it, yet when the older Mr. Wilder is likely (?) swearing at the inebriated fools who ruined his door, her reaction is mirth?
    The situations differ greatly in regard to the level of danger present, or lack thereof, to be certain, so perhaps that is the simplest explanation. No one’s health and safety is too much at risk with T.P. But, it must also be recognized that both scenes were written by a woman of advanced age who most decidedly disapproved of base language. Indeed, a few decades earlier, Laura had made her distaste for rough language known in one of her Ruralist articles, wherein she scolds over youngsters who run through Rocky Ridge and spout obscenities. To further complicate things, in the same piece she makes a reference to the difficulty of reigning in a long-established habit, perhaps in deference to Almanzo…or, perhaps, to underscore this point with him in a not-so-subtle manner? Either way, I love that Laura has a sense of humor about the subject in this chapter, and wonder too if this scene has a touch of Rose’s hand to demonstrate the lighter side of the “wild west” in which the Ingalls family lived?

    Melanie Stringer 12 years ago

    Since several people seem to be really uncomfortable with the shared dippers, it seems appropriate to share some thoughts on 19th Century hygiene…
    As disturbing as it is to us, we have to understand that Laura is no stranger to the shared dipper. As the story is told, she and Mary shared a tin cup until Christmas in Kansas. On the train from Walnut Grove, she uses the single, railroad-provided tin cup to draw water from a spigot and drink, then refills it to bring to Ma and the girls. Nothing unusual to her in the least! In a time of no -cillin drugs nor Neosporin, the human body simply had to build a much stronger immune system. Everyone was used to a great deal of germs and parasites; their bodies were immune to a lot of things which modern humans in first-world societies could not safely tolerate.
    In Laura’s day, germs certainly could kill a person, but people were often almost as likely to die from invasive treatments (calomel and laudanum were popular medicines; the former contained mercury, the latter was an opiate) or unstoppable bleeding. Germ theory existed in Laura’s childhood, but old habits die hard, and new practices take decades to become general practice. Standards for cleanliness in all things have changed vastly in the last 200 years. For example:
    When Laura’s grandparents were growing up in the early 19th century, very few people bathed their whole person often, and fewer did so even on a weekly basis…it was thought that dousing oneself entirely, especially during the cold months, was gravely detrimental to one’s health. Most people owned only a few clothes, and bedlinens were rarely changed or washed. Dishes were scraped and washed in water, rarely with soap, to the appearance of clean, perhaps, but not scoured and scrubbed in scalding water between each use. Babies’ diapers…well, let’s just say if it was only wet, it may not have been rinsed before it was hung to dry. Truly.
    The next generation, when Pa and Ma are growing up in the 1830s-40s, will see the introduction of the concept of more regular bathing practices. A pitcher and basin on a dry sink become more commonly found in estate inventories, and soaps are being commercially manufactured, meaning more families were bathing–at least their hands and faces–on a regular basis. This is also when women begin wearing drawers. Prior to that, such a garment was not generally found to be worn by women. These things are commented upon in “Medical” or “Household” companions (books for married women which often combined cookery, medicine, childrearing, housekeeping, and marital relations advice to new brides), as well as pictured in various political satires and cartoons of the era. Business records, too, will show the items which groceries and mercantiles stocked, and those which midwives and doctors purchased for their practices.
    By Laura’s youth and early marriage, a great number of changes have occurred in the standards of cleanliness, but like anything else, some changes are embraced more readily than others. Laura famously made a note to Rose when writing about Plum Creek, regarding her suspicion that the family drank creek water without boiling it; she did not want readers to think they were “dirty–which we were NOT,” so a little of the detail was altered to give a cleaner impression of the family’s living habits. I see this as yet another sign of the changes taking place over her life’s experience. Some bits of evidence which point to the hygienic standards of the late Victorian Era can be found in rather mundane items–by the 1890s, the Montgomery Ward and Sears and Roebuck catalogues are selling all manner of “medical devices” for household/hygienic purposes, and one new-fangled item among them: toilet paper!
    As for the universal dipper, two final bits:
    When ice cream became a popular sidewalk vendor item in big cities in the late 19th century, it was originally sold by small portions dished in glass containers. The patron would eat the ice cream immediately and return the glass…which was not necessarily washed between customers. Eventually, the spread of certain diseases was linked to practices like this, and some municipalities banned the ice cream vendors from reusing unwashed dishes. This spurred the invention of the ice cream cone: disposable paper cones first (too much litter attracted rodents, which, with their disease-carrying parasites, made them just as bad) and finally the edible cone…problem solved!
    Furthermore, the polio epidemic of the early- to mid-20th century has been linked to the rapid implementation of indoor plumbing, which served to keep streets and yards far cleaner than they had ever been, since wastewater of all kinds was now kept much farther from the ground’s surface. Because of this cleaner environment, it is suspected by many researchers that children lost the opportunity to be exposed to many common diseases in small, regular doses as the previous generations had been, and the lack of exposure over the next few generations weakened the immunity of an entire generation of the populace.
    That is to say, a child playing outside as a toddler would not be exposed to the amount and variety of germs which his parents or grandparents had been, and consequently did not have the opportunity to develop the same level of natural immunity to many infections. Add to this the increasing number of children being breast fed for comparatively short duration (no longer the one-to-two year span of earlier generations), and yet another previous source of immunity-building in the child disappears. By the third generation of indoor-plumbing households, the stress on the weakened immune systems was too great, and the theory goes that this vulnerability manifested itself in a mass outbreak of polio.

    Barb Mayes Boustead 12 years ago

    Melanie, thank you so much for the insight into hygiene in Laura’s time! It is an interesting conundrum that the cleaner our society becomes, the more vulnerable it becomes.

    Holly 6 years ago

    When I read above, I was thinking that there’d already been examples of communal dippers in LHOTP. The tin cup on the train and the water bucket at school, with a dipper in it that all the children drank from.

    Kim Carroll 12 years ago

    This is one of my favorite chapters in the book. I cry every time I read it. My eyes get a little watery, but I manage to hold it in until Grace cries. Then I’m lost. While reading this chapter, I can picture it vividly in my mind, almost as if I’ve lived through it with them. I was a little put out when I read somewhere (Pioneer Girl Manuscript, maybe?) that Laura, Carrie, and Grace actually had a neighbor staying with them during the time Pa and Ma were gone. I very much prefer the version that Laura writes in her book. I guess, in my mind, it helps me to realize that Laura is growing up if she can be responsible for her sisters, the chickens, the fall housecleaning, etc. Maybe that’s why Laura wrote it this way.

    Lady Jessop 12 years ago

    I never found this chapter sad. I am always excited for Mary when I read it and also triumphant for the family who worked together to make it all happen.
    Laura and Carrie’s adventures in fall housecleaning are horrifying! It makes you realize how good we have it now. It is also a good coming of age event for Laura I think.
    -Karen

    Beth 12 years ago

    I remember reading this chapter for the first time when I was young and I was so excited for Mary to get to finally go to college but at the same time I was so sad for Laura.
    Here is an interesting link about Mary’s time at college
    http://www.aph.org/museum/MaryIowa.html

    Beth 12 years ago

    http://www.aph.org/museum/MaryIngalls.html
    This link is the main link to the online exhibit about Mary.

    Eddie 12 years ago

    A lovely post for a lovely chapter – thank you, Laura 🙂
    I’m not a parent, so I’d never thought of it from that perspective till I read what you had to say. That must have been terrible. I do always feel for Mary though, especially when she trembles all over. Despite her claim not to be scared, this must have been terrifying, despite the fact that she wanted the opportunity to learn so much. There are so many evocative moments in the chapter – the way they try to keep busy, but once everthing is packed there’s nothing to do but think, and Pa clears his throat, and Ma takes her darning but just looks out of the window; the final story; the final walk; and yes, I’m with you on the yummy sounding final supper.
    This chapter always reminds me of when my eldest sister went to university – I was 9 at the time, and I remember being really proud and talking about my sister, who’s at university, all the time at school. Somehow my memories of Jane leaving, and Mary leaving, have become confused, so in my head, Jane went off with a big trunk wrapped in rope, which I’m sure she didn’t 😉 Then not long afterwards, one of my other sisters (yes, there are four of us: I’m Grace in the pecking order) and I received matching autograph albums. Mine was red, and hers was blue. Sadly, they weren’t from Vinton, Iowa.
    And I *always* think of this chapter when I’m cleaning. My flat is bigger than a claim shanty, of course, but really is quite tiny, and yet cleaning it seems to take me ages, AND it always seems the harder I work, the dirtier everything becomes…

    LauriOH 12 years ago

    I think there’s an interesting comparison between this chapter and the chapter in Farmer Boy where Mother and Father leave. Both times, blacking the stove gets the youngest in trouble. Except, the Wilders spend most of the week eating sugar every way they can instead of cleaning the house from top to bottom.
    I’ve always thought it was interesting that Grace was so young and told not to cry. I practically cried when my parents left me at college, and I was only 45 minutes from home.

    Eddie 12 years ago

    What a chapter – Ida, Miss Wilder and the return of Nellie… hurrah!
    Re the adoption point: I don’t know whether it was the same in the US, but in the UK, the word ‘adoption’ had a sightly different meaning in Victorian times than it does today. Nowadays it means a formal legal process, which creates a legal relationship between the parents and the children (including changing the name), but in the UK there was no legal mechanism for this till 1926. So when people talk about adoption in (British) Victorian literature, they simply mean an arrangement by which someone assumed care of a child, with no actual legal rights and responsibilities attached to it, no court papers etc. It would be correct therefore for the child to maintain their own name, though common for it to be changed, depending on the circumstances, as the arrangements were informal. I wonder if it was similar in the US?

    Amy 12 years ago

    I believe adoption was rather informal until this century, when protections were introduced to keep children from a kind of indentured servitude. But regarding the name–my husband and I are in the process of adopting twin teens, and after many discussions, the teens have decided to keep their current last names rather than changing to ours. I imagine that decision to be a personal one of identity–especially at the age of adoption.

    TLynn 12 years ago

    Makes me think of Anne Shirley (who never became Anne Cuthbert). Marilla and Mathew just “sent word” by a third party for someone to bring them a child, and that’s all there was to it! I know that is a fictional story, but LMM said it was inspired by a newspaper article about that actually happening.
    I also always “sided” with Laura about criticizing the teacher, but at the same time appreciated how Ma said, “Nor should you…,” acknowledging that Laura is right.

    Amanda Morris 12 years ago

    TLynn, that’s a great point about the “Nor should you…” I didn’t think of it quite in that light!

    Wayne Johnson 12 years ago

    I am sure Pa and Ma did not leave the girls alone for a whole week, a mile from town with no protection against a thief or even worse. I’d never leave my children alone at that age for a day, much less 7. As protective as Ma was, she’d have sent Pa and Mary there alone rather than leave the children to fend for theirselves that long.
    Really enjoy the responses to the story summaries, too!

    TLynn 12 years ago

    Wayne, You’re right, Pa and Ma did not leave them alone. Laura originally wrote in “Pioneer Girl” that another couple came and stayed with the girls, and that she did not like them at all. They were mean and lazy and told dirty jokes.

    michelle george 12 years ago

    I was amazed that Pa and Ma would leave the girls alone for 7 days. Whether they did or not, I could relate to the house cleaning. It seems the more you do the dirtier things get, the more exhausted you get, but, when it is done things are just beautiful. These books make me realize just how hard people had to work just to exist. They had no air conditioning, there were bugs, cows to milk twice a day, but, they really appreciated the small things in life. You know Laura had to accept the larger part of the work load that the children normally would, with Carrie being frail and Mary being blind. I thought her parents did a wonderful job of creating such a close family despite all the hardships and the fact that they had no sons. You know those girls worked and worked had. My mother in law came from a farm family that had no sons.

    naomi 11 years ago

    I don’t thnk it’s shocking that the girls might have been left alone. Laura was 14, and at that time, 14 year olds were expected to have more maturity and responsibility than they do now. (Remember in “Silver Lake” when Laura and Lena go for the washing, they learn that the woman’s daughter had just gotten married — at 13.) And there WERE neighbors on nearby claims if a problem were to arise. And particularly since Mary’s blindness, Laura had taken on the role of ‘eldest daughter’ as far as household responsibilities and chores went. Laura and Carrie were quite capable of minding the house, milking the cow (Laura did it every mornng anyway), and looking after Grace.

    Sharon Campbell 12 years ago

    It just goes to show you that everything old is new again: tomatillos are pretty big right now to foodies and gardeners, at least in my area. This is probably my fav LIW book.

    Melanie Stringer 12 years ago

    Eddie and Amy, I believe you are both correct about adoptions, particularly in the 19th Century. Children had nearly zero protections by law in earlier generations, and formal adoption is something that arose with much greater frequency when the societal trends shifted to recognize that children were much better off living in family units rather than orphanages.
    It was much more common then to have children in one’s home who were not biologically those of the head of household…think of Caroline and her many Quiner siblings, with stepfather Frederick Holbrook. With mortality rates high, and life expectancy considerably shorter than modern society, a great many children were left with one, or no, parents before they reached maturity. A family who could take in a child may reap many benefits from doing so, whether monetary or not. In my own family, multiple instances of cousins being raised as siblings occurred just a few generations back…but they nearly always kept their own names, and there is no evidence to suggest that formal legal proceedings occurred to “adopt” these particular children.
    Also, up until the last century and a half or so, many families “traded” an older child or two, temporarily, with other households, in the form of apprenticeships or domestic service, so of course in those situations the child would maintain his or her own name, but act as a member of, or servant to, the new family. This practice served multiple functions:
    ~Learning new domestic skills, or a formal trade, with a family whose work and skill set varies from that of the child’s.
    ~Different, perhaps enhanced, educational opportunities.
    ~Development of Self-Discipline, in the form of a “stranger” as authority figure. Thus, encouraging a sense of responsible autonomy–it would not do to represent one’s parents negatively through improper or impertinent behavior!
    ~Moody, hormonal, head-butting children were no longer “underfoot” and causing discordant relationships, whether amongst siblings or between parent and child. Ever notice how much better-behaved even obedient children tend to be when “Auntie” or “Neighbor” is in charge? Family life offers plenty of stress in itself, particularly in larger families, so why not do something to ease it a bit?
    ~Exposure to different society. There are more opportunities to socialize under respected supervision with other youths in the new neighborhood, and fewer of these acquaintances are likely to be close relatives, therefore easing the eventual search for a suitable spouse.
    Of course, I do hate how Ida is so marginalized, being “only adopted” and therefore expected to be eternally grateful and completely, almost unnaturally, selfless!! She deserves a little fun, too!

    Eddie 12 years ago

    Thanks for this, Barb. I’d never seen a ground cherry (they tend to be called physalis in the UK – or just ‘those funny orange papery things’) when I first read this. But the first time I did see one (they became fashionable a few years back as decoration on desserts in restaurants), Laura’s description is so perfect I recognised it straight away (with a little shriek). I don’t know about them being used as preserves, though, they’re a bit of a luxury item here for that. Stll haven’t ever seen a husk tomato – armed with your picture, I’ll be on the lookout!

    Eddie 12 years ago

    Thanks for this, Melanie, that’s really interesting. I agree with you about Ida – clearly, the Browns have given her opportunities and a lifestyle she wouldn’t otherwise have had, unless someone else had adopted her, and that is good – but presumably they wanted to do so, and it seems she’s been raised to feel obligated about it. It’s uncomfortable to modern ears to hear her describing herself as “only” adopted.

    LauriOH 12 years ago

    I’ve thought it was interesting that in Laura’s columns she explains how they thought the one neighbor was so lazy requiring her adopted daughter to do all the housework until they found out she was writing to earn money for a new winter coat for the daughter. In the books, we never see all Ida’s work pay off in the form of new clothes. We see Laura not like sewing, but it pays off in material to make fashionable clothing It’s interesting to me that the story is completed in the books.

    Amanda Morris 12 years ago

    This was one of my favorite chapters in the series, growing up. I have two younger sisters and I remember thinking that I would have done exactly what Laura did! I still feel the righteous indignation just reading the summary. 🙂

    Sarah Manley 12 years ago

    Oh the setup for the conflict between EJ and Laura; I always wondered how accurate this story is and if Laura “learned her lesson” by avoiding confrontation with EJ if at all possible.
    I always think of EJ’s influence in THGY & FFY when they quickly get married to avoid confrontation (and a church wedding) with the Wilder family. It is interesting to note the longer explanation in the First Four Years–Laura was doing a little less self-censoring at that time, I think. And she never writes of the fall-out that happened when they told the Wilder side they were married, or maybe there wasn’t any fallout?
    I think that Carrie might be a Rose stand-in here, too. Was Rose enamored with the way EJ lived her life and (lack of mother-hen instincts) thought of her as a “better” person, more progressive and less old-fashioned than Laura? Most of us would choose to tell a “cool” aunt our heart’s desires, but realize that mom is the one who will offer the best advice. Maybe this is a way for Laura to remind her daughter that she had stood up to her aunt EJ and she wasn’t as wonderful (and certainly not respectful to Laura or Pa) as Rose thought she was.

    LauriOH 12 years ago

    I’ve never thought of the Carrie/Rose metaphor before, but I can see it as you describe. I do wonder how Rose and EJ could be so close and yet Rose doesn’t try to soften the portrayal of her favorite aunt.
    I’ve found it interesting that Charley threatens to make trouble, and Laura asks him not to do so. I think there’s a current to the story that any order that is being kept in the school is because the younger boys like Laura and will do as they say. In fact the students are following Laura rather than Teacher.
    Lastly, am I the only one who wonders who Eliza Jane told this story to Royal and Almanzo? You would think if told from her point of view her brothers would want to stay away from the hellion not take her buggy riding…

    TLynn 12 years ago

    I am more inclined to believe that the story happened in at least a similar manner to what is related than that it is made up, because Laura told the same story in her first manuscript of Pioneer Girl.
    I also have often wondered what EJ ever told Almanzo – later we’ll see that he tells Laura “My sister often spoke of you,” and I’ve always wondered if he wasn’t first attracted to Laura because she stood up to EJ.
    (Aside: That, and the fact that she wasn’t taller than he…seems that was more an affront to manhood back in the day than it is now. Then again, that could just be entirely coincidence and he might not have cared if she was 6 feet tall.)
    Incidentally, reading some of Laura’s early works – and Pioneer Girl – helps with the believability of this chapter. She wrote a poem ending with “if you say one word against it, I will hit you in the mouth;” she said d*mn; and she skipped school to go ice skating! Laura in the books as published would never have done any of those things.

    Kat Erickson 12 years ago

    I’ve often wondered if this incident really happened. I do love that part of the book, and when I read it to my son it was a big hit. And I too wonder, if it was real, what effect did it have on her relationship with EJ. Never liked that EJ.

    Melanie Fishbane 12 years ago

    That was just fascinating. I never thought of the Rose/Carrie comparison, but, I have wondered what it was like for Laura to marry Almanzo after his sister had behaved so poorly. What does this say about the real Laura’s family dynamics?
    As a young reader, as we supposed to connect that Miss Wilder is the same Eliza Jane of Farmer Boy who infuriated Almanzo, but, then saved him when she fixed up the wallpaper. Does Eliza Jane realize how wrong she was and wants to fix it later with a fancy wedding? Laura and Manly won’t have it so they elope?
    Fascinating indeed!

    Eddie 12 years ago

    This is fascinating stuff, Melanie, thanks! I’ve never really known quite what to make of this chapter. Of course, like us all, my blood boils at the infairness to Carrie, and I’m all yay, shake those bolts, to Laura; my reactions there aren’t in any doubt. It’s Miss Wilder I don’t get. I can’t reconcile this Miss Wilder with Eliza Jane from Farmer Boy, who was bossy-strong-minded, outspoken but capable of nice feelings, with Miss Wilder here who is presented as weak, incompetent and sly – which doesn’t seem to match up. I think the other thing which seems weird to me is that the sort of teacher she’s presented as, who would unfairly victimise a particular student, would surely pick on a weak student. That’s what bullies do, right? Ok, so Carrie is superficially weak here, but she has lion Laura on her side, and more importantly, her Pa is on the school board which hired Miss Wilder. Picking on your employer’s child doesn’t seem much of a career move – let alone Laura hoping to impress Miss Wilder so as to get a ride behind those horses, seems to me Miss Wilder, given she’s presented as the kind of character who would play favourites, would favour Laura and Carrie so as to protect her job.

    Sandra Hume 12 years ago

    Lovely write-up, Melanie. I had never thought about a Rose/Carrie connection, but it does make sense, doesn’t it? For those who are wondering about the Laura/EJ relationship, here’s some more discussion in case you missed it a couple years ago: http://beyondlittlehouse.com/2009/04/22/lazy-lousy-really/

    Melanie B. 12 years ago

    I enjoyed your comments! I suppose that back in the day, they didn’t know that laughing actually burns calories!

    Wayne Johnson 12 years ago

    I say, folks, does anyone have any sympathy for Miss Wilder? Remember, she was being told what were undoubtably lies by Nellie, whom she made the very unwise choice of trusting. Hopefully, Miss Wilder learned a lesson from this as well. Eliza Jane was never portrayed as a very likeable person, and in later life made a disasterous financial move with her parents’ money, bankrupting them basically.
    Also, in the published book, this poem is reproduced in cursive writing…is this an actual copy of Ma’s handwriting, does anyone know?
    Every chapter covered so far has been enjoyable reading; thanks to all of you who contribute so much! 🙂

    Eddie 12 years ago

    Wayne, I always have wondered that too. For some reason, I always imagined Laura had written it herself, but tried to make it look like Ma’s handwriting (possibly because I used to love playing at trying to write like my mother’s handwriting when I was young). For years, I thought this verse was the most profound thing I’d ever heard. Come to think of it, maybe I still do!

    Eddie 12 years ago

    Oh, realised that wasn’t very clear: I was still talking about the wisdom’s ways etc verse. The lazy, lousy verse, I didn’t think was that profound 😉

    Wayne Johnson 12 years ago

    Eddie,
    Thanks for replying…I have been reading the Little House books now for years, but have not yet had the pleasure of going to either Mansfield or
    DeSmet, and therefore have not had a chance to see the collectables. Is Laura’s autograph book displayed anywhere? If you have been to both places, which would you recommend as being the best to see first?

    Tina 12 years ago

    I’ve been to both, and it’s kind of a toss-up–I think Mansfield has more collectables than DeSmet. I don’t remember seeing the autograph album. It’s possible that the autograph album was one of the things that perished in the fire at Laura and Almanzo’s house.

    Eddie 12 years ago

    Hi Wayne, I was in the same position as you, having been a reader but never a visitor for years (I live in the wrong country), but I finally made it to De Smet last summer (plus Pepin, Burr Oak, Spring Valley and Walnut Grove, and onto Keystone for the Carrie connection). I was actually a little bit worried about whether it could all live up to the expectations of 30-odd years, but it did. I haven’t been to Mansfield (fingers crossed, that will be 2012, along with Kansas) so can’t compare the two. I understand Mansfield has much, much more in terms of actual possessions, but I don’t know about the autograph album. There will be lots of people on here who do 🙂 Oh, plus, have you listened in to Sarah Uthoff’s Trundlebed Tales programme? (http://www.trundlebedtales.com/radio-show.html) There’s an episode of that which looks at what’s where.
    It’s a really interesting question about the order, especially if you’ve waited a long time to do any of them, when it seems to assume more importance. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to do them all in ‘proper’ order (I’m a ‘read every exhibit caption’ person, I wanted to allow plenty of time to soak up a few sites then try and do them all in more of a rush, so that ruled out trying to get down to Kansas) but I also knew I wanted Pepin to be first, and save De Smet for last, of the ones I did do. Which luckily completely corresponds to the geography. Wonder how everyone else has tackled this question….

    Amanda Morris 12 years ago

    I went to Mansfield in 2007 and just made it to De Smet a few weeks ago! 🙂 To be frank, I preferred De Smet. Mansfield has more of the “relics” but I did not feel the connection to the books there that I felt in De Smet and at the homestead site, for obvious reasons.
    I think the two most powerful sites are Plum Creek and the homestead site, but that’s just my take. I haven’t been to Burr Oak or Malone, NY yet.

    Dr Laura 12 years ago

    @Wayne…I have been to all of the homesites except Spring Valley and Almanzo’s home. I live in Kansas so the closest sight to me is Independence and Mansfield. I love going to Mansfield just because it is so beautiful and I feel connected to Laura when I visit the farmhouse. However, if you have to choose one over the other, I’d start with DeSmet. There are so many more places and things to see. While in DeSmet, you could easily go east to Walnut Grove and Plum Creek. You could also go west to Keystone and Mt. Rushmore. The place with the least interest to me is Pepin and the Little House Wayside (unless you go for Laura days in Sept.) as there isn’t much there. You should consider one of Barb Hawkin’s tours and see it all!

    Sarah Uthoff 12 years ago

    Proviso: I didn’t actually go pull any of my files on this or pull samples and compare the writing. If anyone knows more about this, please chime in. However, I believe it is Ma’s writing. It’s the same in all editions and I can’t believe HarperCollins would go to that much effort unless it is Ma’s.I’m not sure about the original, but the Laura Ingalls Wilder Branch of the Wright County Museum in Mansfield, Missouri has a photocopied version of Laura’s autograph album on display. I know Laura sent items for HarperCollins to use (including the original of Ma and Pa’s wedding tintype) in designing the books and I assumed she sent the autograph album in a similar fashion.
    The actual verse wasn’t original with Ma and was one of the many autograph album verses that circulated around.

    Sarah Uthoff 12 years ago

    There is a 30 minute episode of Trundlebed Tales radio full of my advice on taking a Laura Ingalls Wilder Vacation. If you are in the planning stages, I recommend that. Find a link at http://trundlebedtales.wordpress.com/blog-talk-radio

    Amanda Morris 12 years ago

    I always loved this chapter for two reasons:
    1) The first “spark” between Laura and Almanzo.
    2) It is the chapter that signals the start of all sorts of fun stuff — name cards, the sociable, the literaries, the New England Supper, the birthday party… You can just tell what a fun and memorable time it was in Laura’s life.

    Naomi 12 years ago

    I never understood Laura’s logic that the fact that Mr. Hopper had Nellie’s cards ‘proved’ that she had bought them there. I’m sure that Mr. Hopper bought blank cards from a wholesaler — the same wholesaler that supplied stores all around the country.

    TLynn 12 years ago

    I have always thought the same thing! But maybe they didn’t have wholesalers then the way they do now?

    LauriOH 12 years ago

    Or even if they did have wholesalers, they were so used to non-standardized products that, especially 14-year-old Laura wouldn’t have thought of it? I agree I don’t add it up with neccessarily the same result she does.

    Wayne Johnson 12 years ago

    Hi Eddie, Amanda, Tina, Dr. Laura and Sarah! Thanks so much to all of you for taking the time to respond. I’m sorta like Eddie, would like to start at Lake Pepin and go through to DeSmet (there’s something about the kitchen in LONG WINTER where the Ingalls spent most of the winter that has always held some kind of fascination for me.) Then finish up at Mansfield, so it would be almost like the trip the Ingalls took originally.
    Burr Oak doesn’t hold that much interest since it wasn’t written about in the books.
    Am listening to trundlebedtales right now, it’s wonderful! This site is so enjoyable, and reading everyone’s thoughts and insights adds a lot to the LITTLE HOUSE experience.
    Reading Laura’s stories makes me realize how much families have changed over the last century in America. But I’m getting off subject.
    Thanks again friends!

    Wayne Johnson 12 years ago

    Hi everyone,
    My guess is that the cards were probably pre-printed with pictures of flowers, bird’s nests, etc. and all the printer had to do was print the name of the purchaser below the design on the card. But I could very well be wrong. The line by Almanzo, “…my sister often spoke of you…” is priceless!

    LauriOH 12 years ago

    I wonder if Laura doesn’t start receiving these little luxuries because she has worked over the summer, once she earned the money herself it seems like it would be hard to deny her. I know the money was used to help send Mary to college, but still Laura is a contributing member of the family.
    Also, maybe Rev. Brown wasn’t that bad, he was just “different” than Rev. Alden. I’ve seen at my church that when someone “loves” one minister, the next is never quite as good especially if they have different styles.

    Amanda Morris 12 years ago

    Lauri, that probably was a big part of it. The same thing happened with my church in NY. I know that a lot of people don’t like Rev. Brown for whatever he and his wife did to make Ida feel like “only an adopted child,” but I always appreciated the vows thing.

    Eddie 12 years ago

    Loved this summary 🙂 Somehow I had forgotten the candy episode was in this chapter as well as the namecards. I never understood Laura’s logic about the name card design either. (But I bet Nellie did get them from there!)

    Eddie 12 years ago

    I like the vows thing too, plus I like the way Mrs Brown keeps back pies and cake for the women doing all the work at the New England supper. I think the idea of an adopted child ‘owing’ more to their adoptive parents must have been typical of the time.

    LauriOH 12 years ago

    So Mrs. Brown is the opposite of the teacher at the Sunday School picnic (not in the books) that kept Ma’s pie just for the teachers? Interesting that the stories are told with a different tone.
    I wonder if that was more Ida than the Browns. She seems to me to be a sweet, gentle person. One, if adopted as an older child, may have felt that she owed them something more than they held it over her.

    Julie 12 years ago

    Wonderful recap! Bravoe!

    Kim 12 years ago

    I enjoyed reading this. Great job! With working two jobs (speaking of jobs) I forgot about checking in. This post actually had me laughing out loud. Thanks!

    Kim 12 years ago

    This is one of my favorite chapters in the series. I remember reading it for the 10th (or 100th) time when I was in 5th grade. I literally squealed out loud the first time I read it, and it never failed to make me smile each time I’ve read it since then. I especially love listening to Cherry Jones as she reads this chapter. She does a great job with the whole series. 🙂

    Eddie 12 years ago

    LOL! Fab recap, Sandra and Erin 🙂
    Here’s a xanthophyll story: There’s a TV show in the UK called ‘Mastermind’ – it’s a serious sort of quiz with people being questioned on a subject of their own choice, followed by general knowledge questions. They sometimes do a celebrity version (with a very generous definition of the word ‘celebrity’) and a TV newsreader on that picked LIW as her specialist subject. She did pretty well (and won her show, in fact) BUT, and I’m not kidding here, she had to ‘pass’ on the question “With what word did Pa win the spelling match?” Can you believe it? How can anyone forget that word? (As you can tell, I’ve been bursting to share my horror with people who understand…)

    Melanie Fishbane 12 years ago

    That was awesome.

    Barb Mayes Boustead 12 years ago

    Wait a sec… I thought I came in third, Sandra! 😉 Darn that “vexatious” word! Love the clever dialogue format, guys! What’s great is the way that the kids in town entertained themselves. A spelling bee was JUST the ticket for a dork like me! Imagine suggesting that to the majority of today’s teens, though. I can just picture the rolling eyes of my nieces. But here, the whole town joins in the fun, kids mixing with adults for some classic family entertainment. Makes me wish it was still that simple to entertain a whole town!

    Dennis D. Picard 12 years ago

    Sandra and Erin: absolutely the best thing I’ve read all day, no matter if it is a chapter summery or not, just downright wonderful – coming in second is the story from 1847 I read this morning about the Irishman who barely escaped being duped into a marriage to a one legged milkmaid – but this is not the place to recount that tale.

    LauriOH 12 years ago

    Am I the only one laughing at the thought of Pa going to the general store to complain to the guys about the angsty teenager in his house?

    Annika 12 years ago

    I imagine that if modern letters were sealed with wax, a hairpin would have a better chance.

    TLynn 12 years ago

    I sure hope someone can shed some light on the whole New England supper / sociable thing with Ma. The only answer I have ever gotten was, “Ma was probably just tired. ” I don’t buy that. She was tired, of course, and even admits it, but this certainly wouldn’t have been the first time Ma got tired. And it’s AFTER she remarks that she’s tired that she makes the comment about the event, so she wasn’t really snapping an answer right off. Laura makes such a point of pointing this out, that I have to think Eddie is right and there is some sub-text that we in modern times are missing.
    And thanks for the link to Hymn 18, and the great summary.
    I’ve really enjoyed all the write-ups.

    LauriOH 12 years ago

    Could it have anything to do with Laura getting older and more able to read context? In Walnut Grove, Ma may have “corrected” Pa that it was a New England supper. By DeSmet, Laura is several years older and able to see a difference between “corrected” and “snapped” or at least seen her parents as less than perfect, fitting perfectly in the teenage girl angst we’ve been seeing.

    Emily 12 years ago

    I think I’ve always assumed that Ma was irritated that Pa didn’t trouble himself to remember what it was she’d been working so hard over. After all, the sociable we see is a pretty small affair – there’s, what, 10 people? Maybe 15? But the New England Supper fed the entire town a feast and so is on a different scale entirely.
    Like LaurieOH said, Laura’s growing up, and she’s starting to see Pa’s imperfections as well as when her Ma isn’t 100% pleased with him.

    Amanda Morris 12 years ago

    Emily, I completely agree. I always thought she must have felt frustrated that Pa couldn’t remember what she had been working so hard on. It is hard to tell from Laura’s writing which one she is “siding” with in this instance.

    Naomi 12 years ago

    Wheneve I’ve gotten a foreign language edition of this book, I’ve always gone first to this chapter. Spell-downs tend to be far less exciting in languages which are more or less phonetic. (Which includes most non-English languages.)
    In the German edition, Pa spells them down with good old Xanthophyll, spelled in the good old way.
    In Hebrew it’s (transliterated) Tatoo’im. I can’t find my Hebrew dictionary, so I’ve no idea what it means. (But it would be fairly tricky to spell.)
    Back in English, I always chuckle at Laura’s shock that Miss Garland misses the word. How odd that the primary qualifications for a teacher back in the day would have been to have memorized the spelling book.

    Naomi 12 years ago

    Regarding the tomato preserves — two thoughts come to mind:
    1. Tomatoes at that time would have been quite tart (remember that when the Ingalls ate them fresh, they were also served with sugar and cream), so sugar would have made the canned ones more palatable too.
    2. Sugar does help preserve foods (which is why jelly goes moldy much more slowly than fresh fruit). Without modern pressure canning techniques, most canned/jarred foods would have required either sugar or salt to help them keep.
    BTW, a seller at our local farmer’s market last summer had ground cherries. She let me taste one. It was a little weird.

    Holly 8 years ago

    Modern pressure canning? My great grandmother was using a canner and regular canning jars back in the 1890s, just from the boiling bath. Mason and Ball have been around a LONG time. People used wax under the seals (I remember picking wax off the tops of canned foods), bail closures and even the screw on lid was patented in 1858. I still have my great grandmother’s bail jars although we don’t use them anymore. We can every summer and we don’t even have a pressure cookers. We do it on the stove with a canner.

    SarcastiCarrie 12 years ago

    All I can think when I read this is that those teenagers thought that cod fish balls were a special treat. My how times have changed.

    Jenny 12 years ago

    Loved this chapter as a kid & still do. The critical assessment of her clothing and her face and eyes and figure — who among us can’t remember doing that at age 15? But the bit about how she reproaches herself for being vain about her hair is so foreign to modern eyes. It really surprised me when I read it as a little girl — what was the big deal about thinking that you had nice hair? (And it does sound like Laura had really nice hair.) When I got older I realized it’s just more of that Victorian upbringing, and I felt sorry for Laura that she couldn’t even enjoy having pretty hair as a teenager due to these attitudes. In fact, this bothers me as much as how in “The Long Winter” Mary got the hot idea to put aside the magazines they got so they could start reading them on Christmas because it “would teach us self-denial.” Laura doesn’t seem to think it’s such a hot idea, and I love how we’re told that, but by this chapter, she seems to have fully internalized the idea that she should not take pleasure in having pretty hair. Although I suppose it’s significant that she doesn’t seem to scold herself for wishing she was thinner or taller. Or, as always, that she had blonde hair.
    I love that she got the orange. Since oranges were so scarce, it isn’t surprising that her first instinct was to share it with her family, but I love that she got the whole doggone thing to herself for once. Not like those cookies she and Mary always had to share with Carrie in one of the earlier books.
    I also love her awkwardness at the party, being not quite sure what to do. Something I could completely relate to as a kid.
    Finally, I love the electricity bit. As a kid it really brought home that she was living in a changing world, in a way that was exciting and mysterious. There are many times in the books that we are told about the Industrial Revolution — the railroads, the new farm equipment, the greater availability of luxury goods like name cards and organs and whatnot — but her first experience with electricity is different because of that mystery. And of course, she was writing it all many years later, when electricity was a part of daily life. (Did her home in Missouri have electricity?)

    Sandra Ryan 7 years ago

    I do remember reading(I believe it was in “Laura In galls Wilder Country”)that the house on Rocky Ridge was eventually wired for electricity, and it’s mentioned that Laura was glad to put away the oil lamps.
    (BTW, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the readalongs, and hope you do more in the future.)

    Emily 12 years ago

    I’ve always loved this chapter so very much. When I was a kid, I wanted to have a birthday party *just like* this party of Ben Woodworth’s. Fortunately (probably) my mom talked me out of it, but ONE DAY.
    As I get older, I’m also really fond of the way this chapter highlights the class differences between the residents of DeSmet. I can’t imagine the Ingalls being about to feed hungry teenagers seconds and thirds of incredibly fancy food, let alone have a house as large as the one described for the Woodworths. Ben, also, of course, is the boy who spent the blizzard that closed the school in the hotel because his father could afford to pay for it.
    As Laura mentions, she’s only been to two parties in her life (gone to two, she and Mary hosted the third in Plum Creek), and I think the comparison between the two is interesting. Both are hosted by the richer families in town, both include food that Laura’s never seen or is incredibly rare, but only Ben’s is a good experience. The Woodworths – though wealthy – seem to have the same expectations of hospitality and good manners that the Ingalls do – Ben and Jim are excellent hosts, Mrs. Woodworth puts the girls at ease even to the point of refusing help cleaning up what must be a quite large mess, the Woodworths’ wealth is apparent but not shoved upon the guests a la Nellie’s “you may hold my doll.”
    There’s an interesting analysis to be made here, I think.

    Wayne Johnson 12 years ago

    Emily and Amanda’s observations seem more in tune with how Ma was possibly feeling at this point…the work of preparing the baked beans (a tradition at New England Suppers) & pumpkin pie, helping serve all the hungry folks, and finally late in the evening being allowed to finally rest and eat a bit..a very long day and late getting home and to bed. It was quite an event, as compared to a ‘sociable’ wherein interaction is limited to a smaller number of people. And another small thought–the women in those days were wearing those tight corsets 16 hours a day almost…that’s enough to put anyone out of sorts sometimes, I would think!
    This is one of my favorite chapters for so many reasons, and Eddie has touched on all of them and done an excellent summary. Also got to remember that little Eddieism, “indulge my inner Laura”…I declare, that’s catchy!
    And one more note, back then the Ingalls really had the right idea about Christmas–it’s not the presents but being with your loved ones/family that is most important and soul satisfying.

    SarcastiCarrie 12 years ago

    I’m a parent, and I kind of glossed over the minstrel show. I’ve also never read the line “The only good Indian is a dead Indian.” So, for the minstrel show, I never said “Darky” and the kids kind of just looked at the picture. I skipped over the bones and said they played music, moving on kids, let’s go have ice cream.
    My kids were young when I read this to them a few months ago (5 and 2) so they didn’t ask for much explanation (however, my older son asks me almost every day when Mary is going to get her sight back).

    SarcastiCarrie 12 years ago

    If you’d like to see how some other mothers handle the difficult topic of racism in the series (edit versus contextualize), you can read the comments on this post: http://www.alittlepregnant.com/alittlepregnant/2011/01/pioneer-day.html#tp (warning some rough language and swearing in the post and comments, but general thoughfulness of literary criticism).

    TLynn 12 years ago

    Hmm, my parents never glossed over any of it with me, and I’ve never glossed over any of it with my girl.
    The saying goes that those who forget – or “re-write,” as the case may be – history are bound to repeat it. If we don’t want to repeat these things, we better remember them and explain the whys and wherefores to our children. We also do well, I think, to teach ourselves and our children that even grownups, and society as a whole, can learn and grow and do better.
    This is a wake-up chapter, further evidenced by what Wendy points out about the jokes…we tend to think it’s all clean, Victorian fun, but ’twas probably pretty bawdy.
    This is also the only chapter that ever elicits any sympathy from me for Nellie…not her behavior in the sled, but wondering how she always felt getting left behind, and worse, that the boys would not leave any one else behind, but had no problem leaving her!

    Jenn 12 years ago

    I don’t have a problem explaining this, or the Native American portions of Little House on the Prairie, to my kids because I’m very open with them about American history–the good, the bad, and the ugly. Their school also does a pretty good job explaining civil rights issues, so that adds to their background knowledge. We know that we can’t judge people who lived 150 years ago in the context of today’s societal norms (and of course even today many well-intentioned people do cringe-worthy things out of ignorance rather than malice). And we can examine why our societal thinking changed, and why that’s a good thing.

    Melanie 12 years ago

    Wendy, your sentence about Almanzo seeing Laura’s knees had me in stitches. You are hilarious.

    Dr Laura 12 years ago

    I tend to agree with Jenn and Tlynn, I use it as an opportunity to talk about historical fiction as a genre and why we don’t use those terms anymore. The only time I gloss over, change or skip something at school is if it is a swear word.
    In essence it really isn’t any different than reading a book like The Watson’s Go To Birmingham (one of my favs btw) and using the word colored. Is it?
    Laura

    Melanie B. 12 years ago

    Ah Wendy, ever since your brilliant commentaries on “The Long Winter,” I’ve been a fan of yours and have been looking forward to your new chapter commentary. You did not disappoint, supplying more laughs than a Dave Barry one-a-day calendar. Shins indeed! Can things get any more madcap?
    +100 Green Pumpkin Faux Apple Pies for you.

    admilkmaid 12 years ago

    I’ve been a teacher of American history and I never bowdlerize these sorts of things for children. How can anyone understand the history and the immense progress made if they don’t understand how things once were?
    I always showed my 8th graders this cover from HARPERS WEEKLY in 1876. The scales are seen as balanced between a southern black man and a northern Irish Catholic, both of whom are portrayed as apes, ignorant, hardly human.
    http://elections.harpweek.com/1876/cartoon-1876-medium.asp?UniqueID=26&Year=1876
    I also always taught my students the saying of Harry Truman: “There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know.”
    Wendy McClure’s writing is fabulous! I grinned reading it. Thank you, Wendy!

    TLynn 12 years ago

    Re Willie, does anyone know whether he was really mentally challenged? Laura doesn’t seem to think so in the books as she says he started doing this to annoy Miss Wilder, indicating action on purpose. But maybe it just looked that way to her. Wasn’t it Willie and his wife that stayed with the Ingalls in the hard winter? Maybe she disliked him so much after that that she just “wrote him stupid” so to speak?
    Re the revival, remember, “people who don’t go to revivals are atheists!”. And back in day (never mind some places even now), atheist equalled follower of Satan.
    Re Laura arriving home the first night with Almanzo, if my mom had said that when my date could overhear, I’d have been mortified! Doesn’t seem to have bothered Laura. And altho it would have been the proper thing, I don’t think Almanzo asked Pa, because Laura said later in life that Cap dared him to ask the girl behind her, but he pretended to misunderstand which girl and asked Laura by “mistake.” (At least that was his story.) Guess he wasn’t so mature after all. I find this funny because in the next book Laura writes that Almanzo says he “wouldn’t bet about a lady.”

    LauriOH 12 years ago

    I’ve always thought that while the Ingalls weren’t comfortable with revival meetings; they were founding members of the church and felt that it was their duty to go and support the event.
    Does anyone find it funny that Almanzo and Cap were checking out girls, and Laura says that she was checking out Cap and the Wilder’s hired man? What do you think Rev. Brown would have said if he’d known the young people were coming to get closer to each other than to God? (Note: as a youth worker, I’ve seen this work out in a variety of ways so I’m laughing not judging)

    Eliza Jane 12 years ago

    How funny, I just decided to pull out Little Town a couple of days ago and that led me to look up what was happening here, haven’t checked in for a while.
    What struck me about this book and Golden Years (which I’m on now), is that things *were* going really well for Ma and Pa at this time. Yet it seemed like things fell apart drastically at some point, because we know that Ma and Mary ended up living off the town’s charity by the end of their lives. I’ve often wondered what happened, and also why they didn’t go to live with Laura or Carrie.

    Melanie Fishbane 12 years ago

    @TLynn I wondered if Willie may have been special needs, but, it never made clear. I would have also felt weird hearing my parents talk about my date. It is interesting that Laura isn’t phased by it. Maybe she didn’t know how to respond to something like that…
    @TLynn and LauriOH You both raise an interesting point. I may have been reading with my 21st century girl mind as opposed to putting Laura in her social cultural setting. They felt it was their responsibility to go for otherwise they would be considered atheists.
    @TLynn where did you read that story about Cap Garland.
    @Eliza Jane, I’ve wondered those things too. Was it just that Pa got tired of farming? Seems hard to imagine.
    Thanks for your comments everyone!

    LauriOH 12 years ago

    I wouldn’t really say feared to be atheist, just that they felt they needed to be supportive. My church did a church wide Bible Study that was “going to bring in so many new people and multiply the number of volunteers.” A friend and I rolled our eyes, but we signed up for the study. If you don’t go, how can you later have an opinion?
    I don’t know if Willie was special needs. I think it’s key that Mr. Owens didn’t whipped him on the first day. It’s like he had a chance to observe and find out that Willie was fine the rest of time. My mother had a bad first grade teacher, and my grandmother’s solution to fixing it pretty much taught my mother not to focus when reading. I could see Willie fitting into that mold.

    Becky Harris 12 years ago

    The Willie Oleson character appears to have been based on Willie Owens, the younger brother of Nellie Owens. In real life he was blinded by a fire cracker explosion, attended a school for the blind, married and had three children. I find it doubtful that he was special needs because at that time people with special needs were institutionalized or kept at home, but certainly not educated in the public schools and not likely to marry.

    Naomi 12 years ago

    (Responding to Eliza Jane’s post)
    “Going well” was pretty relative. By “Little House” standards they seemed to be doing fairly well. They could afford to give Laura a quarter for name cards and pay 50 cents a piece to attend the New England Supper. But there wasn’t much spare money beyond that. The girls had very few clothes, (and Laura had to pay for her own), they mostly ate beans and potatoes and salt pork, their cows and horses ate hay while the corn and oats were sold to pay the taxes; they lived in a 4 room claim shanty or a two-room plus attic store building in town.
    In real life, I’m sure you know, Pa eventually sold the farm (he’d proved up by then) and moved the family into a nicer house in town; built, presumably with the money he’d made from the sale. Farming in South Dakota was ROUGH, he wasn’t so young any more, his health likely was already fairly poor — and don’t forget the drought that sent Laura and Manly to Missouri. Life in town would have been easier and less uncertain.
    From then on he worked at a variety of odd jobs, but they also seemed to depend heavily on the money Carrie brought in working at the local newspaper. (And Mary chipped in with her small handiwork as well.) Again, money sufficient to keep them going from week to week, but not enough to have saved much for a rainy day. When Pa died, without any sort of social or government,safety net, things must have been pretty tight.
    Mary did go to live with Carrie after Ma died. Why didn’t they before? Too proud? Too settled? (Pa HAD promised that they’d never have to move again.) They did rent out rooms in the house, so they had SOME money coming in, and wouldn’t have been living entirely on charity.
    One of the non-fiction books … maybe “Little House, Long Shadow?” hints that maybe Laura’s relationship with her mother wasn’t quite as good as the books suggested. (Noting that even when the Wilders were finally fairly comfortable themselves, she never went back for a visit EXCEPT when Pa died .. and then much later after Ma had died. By the 19-teens and 20’s, a trip from Missouri to South Dakota would not have been a big deal. Going up for a week wouldn’t have been difficult.) Which may be why Laura never offered to bring her mother and sister down to live with her.

    Wendy McClure 12 years ago

    I love this so much.

    TLynn 12 years ago

    Wonderful job, Eddie!

    Erin Blakemore - The Heroine's Bookshelf 12 years ago

    Love this, love you, Eddie. Cracking up over the score of merely 99. What a slacker.

    Rachel 12 years ago

    Excellent job Eddie! You, my dear, are a perfect newspaper reporter.

    LauriOH 12 years ago

    Great job! Am I the only one who’s curious about Minnie, Mary, and Ida’s marks? We know that Laura got a 99, but what did the other girls receive? Also, I love Mrs. C Ingalls remark to the reporter.

    Jaime Brooks 12 years ago

    This was fantastick!! Thanks Eddie!!

    Eddie 12 years ago

    Thank you, everyone 🙂 LauriOH, I had never thought about the other girls’ grades here, but I have always wondered what on earth everyone else got for their Ambition compositions! (I know I’m jumping to the wrong book there.)
    Re-reading this chapter to do the summary made me realise I’d always taken Laura’s history summary at complete face-value (I should explain, I’m British, I absolutely did NOT study any American history AT ALL at school. We didn’t even study BRITISH political history of the 18th century because that would mean talking about That War We Lost, so my knowledge of the early Presidents is pretty much just based on this chapter, plus a smattering of knowledge of the constitution, from contrasting it to ours). So I got wondering about two questions: how far is what Laura says here in keeping with modern perceptions of the period? And why do you think she went into such detail on the content of her recital?

    Eddie 12 years ago

    Brilliant post, Wendy! Reading this, I realise what’s weird about my response to this chapter is that as a child reading this I DIDN’T find the minstrels weird. I can just about remember a UK TV programme called The Black and White Minstrel show, which was – unbelievably – really popular – and you’ll be able to guess what it featured (although I think it was more show numbers. Not BAWDY. It was on the BBC!) So this doesn’t feel like ‘oh, goodness, those Victorians, what were they like’ but more ‘yikes, this was still going on in my very own living memory’. Which IS weird. I just said weird too many times.

    Eddie 12 years ago

    Annika, lol, I never thought of that! TLynn, LauriOH, Emily, Amanda, Wayne, thank you for your thoughts on Suppergate. I’d never thought of the issue of numbers before – that’s a really good point. Amanda, I think you’ve totally hit the nail on the head as to why I’ve always found this puzzling: usually Laura’s ‘editorial’ stance is clear as to where she stands on an issue, but here it isn’t even though you feel she’s trying to make a point. Wayne, thank you, but I don’t think I can claim ownership of indulging my innter Laura, I’m sure I’ve picked that up somewhere! (Probably Laurapalooza.) The Ingalls family certainly did have the right idea about Christmas.

    admilkmaid 12 years ago

    I’m sorry but I don’t see any similarity between Carrie and Rose. Rose was a pistol, Carrie was a pale, sweet-scented handkerchief, easily folded.
    Having been a young teacher and having watched scores over the last thirty years, this confrontation between Eliza and Laura is not in any way mysterious to me. Young teachers are often overwhelmed; they often CANNOT look away or let things go, allowing the skirmish to pass to win the war; and in consequence they often choose the wrong battles.
    I too tend to think this was a reasonably accurate depiction of events.
    I want to add that I do not believe at the age 55 (at the time of publication), Rose needed any help from Laura’s text to know the feelings of BOTH her parents about her very smart, enterprising, difficult Aunt Eliza.
    I hope I am not being offensive by disagreeing. It is lovely to read other people being opinionated about these fascinating people! 🙂

    Annika 12 years ago

    Delightful!

    Rebecca Brammer 12 years ago

    Gee, Eddie, can you do the rest of the book too? This was fabulous!

    SarcastiCarrie 12 years ago

    Eddie – Laura’s US history seems to be a good and accurate overview, though really not very detailed. Almost like a recitation of name, rank, and serial number of important historical figures.
    As to why she went into such detail of the content of her recital: I think it has to do with how much preparation she put into it. Even after 50 years, she still remembered because she practiced, practiced, practiced so that should would not be embarassed in front of the entire room. It’s probably similar to the way I remember the phone number I had when I was 5 because we had to recite our full names, addresses, and phone numbers in kindergarten. Some things you never forget.

    Naomi 12 years ago

    Though, Eliza Jane was hardly a ‘young’ teacher. She would have been in her early 30’s by this time, far older than most teachers in that era. She had considerable experience too (having taught school in Malone and Spring Valley before moving to DeSmet.)
    It does sound (from the description of events in the book) that she HAD let things get way out of hand, and then turned to the Ingalls girls as convenient scapegoats for her own poor decisionmaking.

    Eddie 12 years ago

    Thanks, SarcasiCarrie, that’s interesting to know. I wondered if it might be because she’d spent such time learning it too, but it still struck me it’s a bit odd: I learned all the dates of the Kings and Queens for the Silver Jubilee in 1977 and at a pinch I could still probably recite them. But in the unlikely event I was writing a book about what I did for the jubilee, I would just say ‘learnt the dates’, I wouldn’t INCLUDE the dates to prove it 😉 But perhaps the only way she could think of to get across how much she learned was to spend several pages describing it.

    LauriOH 12 years ago

    You probably didn’t spend time starring at a wall pondering the dates either. A few chapters back Laura was starring at a wall thinking about the War of 1812. I think for her it was more like starring in a play than just reciting some lessons from school.

    Eddie 12 years ago

    Lol, LauriOH, I did in a way, because they were ON the wall of the classroom. But I’ve certainly never stared at a wall thinking about the war of 1812! But Laura staring at the wall makes me wonder if she was a visual learner, and was actually picturing her knowledge in her head.

    Naomi 12 years ago

    I think it (Laura ‘staring at the wall’) had more to do with simply the way schools worked at that time. Learning was 99% rote memorization of facts from the textbook. So the students would have spent a lot of time reading sections from the textbook, (sections that were mostly dry lists of names and dates and battles) then thinking about/memorizing them while looking away. So later, when the teacher called them up to recite, they could spout back the necessary facts that had been burnt into their neurons.
    That would also be why Laura was able to relatively easily spout back the entire history for the exhibition. She’d probably recited the same stuff, albeit in smaller bits, for her teachers many times over the years. (Remember her telling Ida that she prefers the earlier part because she had ‘reviewed it more.’)

    Sarah Manley 12 years ago

    Great Job–What a fun read!

    Patty Collins 12 years ago

    What a hoot! Thanks for sharing:)

    LadyJessop 12 years ago

    Gosh darn I loved this!
    (Ooops! Don’t tell Ma I swore.)

    Melanie B. 12 years ago

    Beautiful commentary!
    I wonder sometimes what kinds of sacrifices the Ingalls family made to send Mary to college. I wonder if their clothes were patched and re-patched, if all of Carrie’s dresses were too short, if they all had tight shoes and ratty underwear. I guess they could not have been too badly off, since there was pocket money for name cards and ice-cream socials, but maybe they just didn’t want Laura to feel deprived.
    My sister-in-law and her family (husband and two little girls) all say “She don’t got none.” I feel just like Ma every time… I want to correct them but don’t want to give advice where it is not wanted. Still, they are not doing their children any favors by teaching them to talk like that.

    Naomi 12 years ago

    Melanie,
    The only expenses the family incurred to send Mary to college were rail fares and clothes — the territory paid her tuition. So, while it wasn’t free, they seemed to manage ok now that Laura was bringing in some money and Pa had interrmittent wage-work doing carpentry work around town.
    I’ve always found the whole ‘They wouldn’t try again to have Christmas without Mary’ a bit strange. It sounds like Mary is dead … not off at college having a wonderful time. Really, if Mary HADN’t been at college, (and hadn’t lost her sight), at nearly 18 there’s a good chance that she’d be off teaching school many miles away, or married, or otherwise out of the house. And, of course, within a few years Laura herself will be married and out of the house, and soon after THAT off in Florida and Minnesota and Missouri. Children grow up and leave home. Life’s like that. So, did the Ingalls stop celebrating Christmas when Laura left home?

    LauriOH 12 years ago

    I can never remember where I read thinigs, but…. I thought I read that the Brewster school was actually December to January with the Cold Ride being around Christmas. (Who’s with me thinkin a Happy Golden Years Read along next? 😉 ) I’ve always thought Laura didn’t want it to appear that she was not going to be home for Christmas at such a young age, so the school term was moved, but that left it hard to describe Christmas since it would have been about being home when it the story she hadn’t left home.
    Same thing with Mr. Boast and Mr. Brewster – either Mr. Boast was said to know him so it would help explain why fifteen year old Laura was allowed to stay with his family or Mrs. Brewster was a different person when living in a town with friends and family.

    SarcastiCarrie 12 years ago

    Certainly I think Mr. Brewster was an OK guy. He held the baby, did his chores, started the fire in the school house in the morning. He was poor, for sure, since he says the only things he has in the world are his claim and he can’t leave it because then what? His wife was probably a decent stand up woman when not isolated from her family and friends and stuck in an icy-cold claim shanty the size of a modern walk-in closet with her husband, new baby, and a stranger invading her “privacy”. Even with a large home, when I was a new mother, one more little thing could have set me off. And I had a car and could drive to Target. I would’ve thought, though, that Mrs. Brewster would have enjoyed having Laura in the house for a change of pace and some much-needed conversation. Laura could even bring back the news from town every week.

    Eddie 12 years ago

    A big yes to a THGY readalong next 🙂 Thanks for organising this one, Laura, it’s been fab!
    Wasn’t Mr Brewster really some relative of Mr Boast’s? I can never remember where I’ve read these things either. The older I’ve got, the more I’ve sympathised with Mrs Brewster. I obviously appreciate this was a terrible situation from Laura’s point of view, and I’m not saying knife-waving is a good way to act (!), but I would not have coped at all if I’d been in Mrs Brewster’s position.
    Reading this chapter got me thinking about endings in the series generally, and I wondered which book’s ending (not which book as a whole) is everyone’s favourite?

    twinkles 12 years ago

    I read somewhere that Mr. Boast and Mr. Brewster were cousins.
    Really – when I read about Mrs. Brewster’s behavior, it sounds like paranoid schizophrenia to me. No kidding.

    Naomi 12 years ago

    My favorite ending is probably “Plum Creek” … which is interesting because it’s about my least favorite book in the series otherwise.
    Yes, there was definitely SOMETHING wrong with Mrs. Brewster (real name Mrs. Bouchie.) Something beyond ‘being lonely in a claim shanty in the dead of winter.’ If it was just ‘lonely’ she surely could have visited with the other women in the settlement, and would welcomed Laura as someone else to talk to. I’d lean more towards clinical depression rather than schizophrenia, though.

    LauriOH 12 years ago

    When you consider some of the things about Mrs. Bouchie, like http://www.pioneergirl.com/blog/archives/436 and the family like this http://www.pioneergirl.com/blog/archives/1889
    I have to think there was more going on in the family than the more common ailment of women on the prairie being depressed.

    SarcastiCarrie 12 years ago

    I’ll play arm chair psychiatrist and go with post-partum depression coupled with seasonal affective disorder!
    As for book endings, I don’t know. Each has its merits, but it’s not the books until DeSmet that leave me feeling any kind of happy at the end. I always wonder what/where/how their lives will be uprooted again…until the books where they are settled in SD.

    Naomi 12 years ago

    It would be a bit late for PPD. Johnny wasn’t a newborn; he was about 3 at the time.

    Melanie 12 years ago

    PPD can affect some women up to 5 years after a child is born. Coupled with living in difficult, cold, cramped conditions (and being that far north, only 7-8 hours of sunshine a day), it doesn’t surprise me she went a little nutty.

    Nancy 12 years ago

    Wow! So many great books to read! Thank you, Sarah:)

    Judy Green 12 years ago

    Laura Ingalls Wilder, the story behind the stories,
    is the title of my presentation. I perform all over Northern Ohio, and occasionally in North Carolina.
    Program includes storytelling from the books, atifacts representing items in the stories, and photographs of the real people behind the book characters, and all the home sites.
    My goal is to bring the stories to life for people who have read the books, loved them and wondererd , “what happened next?”

    mary kay smallcombe 11 years ago

    My daughter was supposed to see you on May 18th at your Bluffton Ohio performance, but we will be out of town that day and she will miss it. Are you performing anywhere in Ohio in the near future? Best wishes, MK

    Tracy Sapp 12 years ago

    What chapter of The Long Winter are you referring to that has a sentence that makes no sense to you?

    Rebecca Brammer 12 years ago

    The new comment just drew my attention to this — Sandra, are you referring to, “Farther away, but not very far, someone was whistling a tune and there were many little sounds besides that, all together, made the sound of a town.”
    If so, read it like this and see if it makes sense now… “there were many little sounds BESIDES, that all together made the sound of a town.”

    Rowan 12 years ago

    I know that I’m incredibly late to the conversation…just found this website and I love it!
    The thing I’ve always loved most about this chapter is Laura’s wisdom in finding the girls something to do to take their minds off of their loneliness. I remember thinking, when I was a kid, “Hey that was REALLY smart of her!”
    I’ve struggled with depression throughout my life, and one of the things that I’ve learned is that I am far, far happier when I have a project…something to keep my mind busy instead of letting it go in circles, faster and faster, torturing itself.

    Rebecca Brammer 12 years ago

    She learned from the best… think about Ma’s response when Pa was lost in the blizzard in Plum Creek and both girls were trying their best not to cry. “I don’t believe we want lessons!” and then they played games all day. Ma was one smart woman, and Laura learned well from her how to cope with life’s challenges.

    Rowan 12 years ago

    You’re absolutely right!

    Sandra Hume 12 years ago

    You know, Rebecca, by now I forget — but that very likely could be it. And the way you’ve arranged the punctuation really helps a lot.

    Jason Black 11 years ago

    @Lauri: that question is explained in the book. Ma had the cod hidden out in the entryway, where Pa and Laura performed their endless hay-twisting duties. She was saving it for a surprise.
    I’ve thought on that passage some. In one sense, you have to wonder why they didn’t eat it sooner. Why not eat it straight off, when everything else ran out? But on the other hand, Ma knew it would get eaten at some point, so did it really matter if it was eaten first or later? Probably not. But it did matter, in that the cod creates a welcome break in the routine, and a much-welcome variation in their meals. It’s a brief bright spot in the long, dark winter. Ma surely had that in mind when she hid it away to begin with, and to me, shows that Ma was as aware of the need for psychological nourishment as she was for physical nourishment, and did what she could with the little she had in order to create that moment.
    It’s true, one cannot help but read those books and come away with an enormous respect for Caroline Ingalls.

    Kate the Great 11 years ago

    Hello! I would like to do Chapters 15, “Mary Comes Home” and 31, “Wedding Plans”.

    Melanie 11 years ago

    I would love to do Chapter 24: Almanzo Goes Away

    Tracy Sapp 11 years ago

    If anyone would like to see letters written by Caroline (Ma) Ingalls & her sister Martha Carpenter & other family members, there is a website that shows actual correspondence between Ma & her family. Maybe one of these letters can be compared to the autograph album verse in Little Town on the Prairie to determine if it is Ma’s handwriting. I am not sure of the name of the website but I found it while researching Martha Quiner Carpenter. The website has something to do with the state of Wisconsin. Maybe a historical society. If I can locate it or my notes I will post it.

    Tracy Sapp 11 years ago

    To view the letter from Ma to her sister, Martha Quiner Carpenter, type in “Letters to Charles and Martha Carpenter”. A website for Wisconsin History/Turning Points will come up. Go there to view this letter & other letters. I just compared Ma’s letter to her entry in Laura’s autograph album in the Little Town on the Prairie chapter, The School Board’s Visit. There are many similarities between the two. Especially the signature at the end of the letter to the signature at the end of the autograph album verse. Also the letters ” I, w & y” are very distinct. I would say that the writing in the autograph album verse in “Little Town” is Ma’s handwriting:-)

    Naomi 11 years ago

    I’d like chapter 14 if it’s not assigned. And/or any other ones.
    When does all this start?

    Sue Poremba 11 years ago

    I’ll do Chapters 16 and 32

    Wendy Corsi Staub 11 years ago

    I’ll do Chapter 3, ONE WEEK, and Chapter 27, School Days’ End. I haven’t been here in awhile…not sure about the timing on this. I’ve missed you all, by the way. Can someone please link me to when we do this and where/how we post?

    Laura Welser 11 years ago

    Wendy, I’ll put you down for Chapters 3 and 27. If you just email your summary to beyondlittlehouse at gmail dot com about the time the chapter before yours is posted that will work out fine. Thanks so much!

    Wendy Corsi Staub 11 years ago

    Thanks…wait, looking at the dates…some of this was from last May. Has it started yet? Did I miss it? When do we begin with Chapter 1? :::::::::scratching head, feeling very clueless:::::::::

    Laura Welser 11 years ago

    I’m sorry! This page was originally from the last read-along so it contains comments from then too. I didn’t realize that would happen when I updated the page for this time around. Ignore anything from last spring!

    Leslie Sakaguchi 11 years ago

    Hi, if it’s still available, I’d be happy to do Chapter 17, “Breaking the Colts.” Also, if you have an approximate due date, that would be very helpful. Thanks!

    Laura Welser 11 years ago

    Leslie, Chapter 17 was taken already earlier. Chapter 13: Springtime is still open though. I’ll put you down tentatively, but let me know if it’s okay with you! 🙂

    Leslie Sakaguchi 11 years ago

    Sure, be happy to! 🙂

    Wendy Corsi Staub 11 years ago

    Thanks, Laura! What about the timing? When does this kick off?

    Laura Welser 11 years ago

    Wendy, Chapter 1 is in the works and will hopefully be up within a day or two. After that, we will post a chapter every few days as they come in.

    Daniel Rabe 11 years ago

    I see there are a couple of chapters left. I would very much like to take one, just let me know. I could do any of them gladly. I am a long, long timer fan of Laura and Almanzo, have visted the sites, etc. – Daniel

    Laura Welser 11 years ago

    Daniel, I just got on the computer and requests had already come in for those two chapters. I have myself down for a couple of chapters and can give one to you. Would you like to do Chapter 30: Sunset on the Hill?

    Daniel Rabe 11 years ago

    Laura Welser: I wrtote up my chapter (30). How should I submit this?

    Laura Welser 11 years ago

    Just email it to us at beyondlittlehouse at gmail dot com. Looking forward to it!

    Daniel Rabe 11 years ago

    Yes, by all means!
    Let me know what to do.
    Daniel

    Laura Welser 11 years ago

    Great, Daniel. Just read over the last two post about the read-along and they should answer all your questions. We just ask that you submit your summary by the time the chapter before yours has been posted. Have fun!

    Naomi 11 years ago

    Did my chapter get to you?

    Laura Welser 11 years ago

    I don’t see it, Naomi. I just double-checked. Could you try again please?

    Naomi 11 years ago

    beyondlitlehouse (no punctuation) AT gmail DOT com?

    Naomi 11 years ago

    with little spelled correctly….

    Laura Welser 11 years ago

    Yes, that’s right, obviously replacing AT and DOT with the correct symbols for email. 🙂 I’m sure you know that, but for anyone reading who does not…

    Naomi 11 years ago

    I sent it again.

    MissPinkKate 11 years ago

    That always blew my mind- “12 miles is too far to travel home on weekends”. I drove 20 miles to and from my high school every day! And poor Laura had to suffer like she did. How lucky we are to be living in this modern age.

    Becky Harris 11 years ago

    I guess schools haven’t changed too much in the last 100+ years. Every year, before the first day of school, I hope to heaven that I will be able to make my class behave.

    Patty C 11 years ago

    I always thought Mrs Brewster was just manipulative, figuring if she made Mr B miserable enough he would relent and move back east. But once we get to the Knife in the Night, I know she’s well and truly a crazy witch with a b. lol

    Kate the Great 11 years ago

    I’ve been re-reading the book, partly in preparation for my chapters and partly just because I love it, and I think Mrs. B was very depressed. And who wouldn’t be? Pioneer life was rough, being far away from your family & friends, isolated inside a teeny cold house for months on end with only a crabby toddler to talk to. I think I’d lose my mind, too!

    LauriOH 11 years ago

    It’s to far to drive – well it is for Pa, but Almanzo seems to have no problem with the length. I do wonder how that played out between the two men as I assume Almanzo talked with Pa before he drove out there.
    At this point in the story, I remember thinking that she was just mean originally.
    This really isn’t the first time that Laura’s away from home, but this really seems to stand out as the worst.

    Wendy Corsi Staub 11 years ago

    Patty and Kate, I just wrote about my chapter (Chapter 3) and was actually examining Mrs. Brewster’s state of mind along those very lines. It’ll post this week. Nice post, Naomi!
    I was jarred to read that this opens in late December? Since the holidays always play such a big role in Laura’s books, I somehow never pictured it that way. I have to go find the book and reread. I think I always assumed it must have been January because of the school term starting (not that I expect things back then to have been the same as they are now, in terms of school terms–but still–December! Poor Laura! That had to make her even more homesick because Christmas was always so special in her family.

    naomi 11 years ago

    The last chapter of “Little Town” is set right around Christmas, (they’d had a very quiet celebration because it was too depressing to have Christmas without Mary) and it’s indicated there that school will start the following week. So it was probably the week between Christmas and New Years. (Though IRL I believe it was earlier in December.)
    As for the practicalities of the trip — I too had always figured that winter driving should have been, if anything a bit easier. Sled-runners over hard packed snow would be easier and faster for the horses than rutted grass tracks. But Sam and David aren’t young horses. They were probably past their prime (the best he could afford) when Pa bought them on Plum Creek, so maybe it would have been hard on them. And there are weather worries too venturing many miles from town when a blizzard could blow up at any minute.

    Wendy Corsi Staub 11 years ago

    I also went back to Little Town and saw that it was December–Christmas Eve, when she got her teaching certificate, and they said she had to be there the following weekend. It was interesting because I then went back to a December 1882 calendar and saw that Christmas Eve, the 24th, was a Sunday–it seems unlikely to me that during that era any kind of business would have taken place on a Sunday, particularly Christmas Eve. I assume Laura/Rose took artistic license with the timing for whatever reason. Or does the teaching certificate with the 12/24/82 date actually exist? I’m always fascinated by trying to piece together the history vs. the fictionalized story.

    Michelle 11 years ago

    I am seeing this post only now; only today did I come across the “read-alongs” and wondered if I’d ever be up to the task (no I’m not!). This post had me laughing so hard I could not stop until the tears ran down my cheeks! I am bookmarking it for the days when everything goes wrong at work & I need a good laugh! Thanks again (and Eddie I would chalk your witticisms up to your British education, so superior to anything one gets in North America! Canada anyway, where I am from…)

    Daniel0107 11 years ago

    My, a 1 to 5 teacher/student ration! But don’t forget she was teaching several different levels and subjects at once. The challenges of the one room schoolhouse are very interesting to note as the book goes on. But it seems the highest challenge is boarding with the Brewsters! Can Laura handle it? For the answers to these and other questions, stay tuned!

    naomi 11 years ago

    One of the interesting things about one room schoolhouses at that time (and outside of urban areas, 99% of schools WERE one room) was that, no matter what the size of the school, there was always only one teacher. So Laura was lucky to have 5 students. (And later, at the Perry School, she has only 3.) She obviously had plenty of time to study her own books. The teachers in the town school (like Miss Wilder) probably had 20 or 30, and classes of 40 or 50 weren’t unheard of. 40 students, all at radically different levels. Must’ve been interesting.
    (One thing that always made me nuts about the tv version was that the writers had NO clue how 19th century one room schools actually functioned. Written spelling tests, students ‘reciting’ for the whole room…)
    Salt pork — people at that time must’ve had a much higher tolerance for salt than we do. I occasionally use salt pork in a pot of bean soup. If I use too much or don’t blanch it 3-4 times before using it, it makes the whole pot of soup inedibly salty. I can’t imagine eating it by the slice. (And I don’t remember if it’s this chapter or later, where Laura ‘salts and peppers’ the fried potatoes … potatoes that were probably already fried in salt-pork fat.)

    Tracy Sapp 11 years ago

    Sometimes in the Little House Books it is mentioned that the salt pork was parboiled before Ma rolled the slices in flour & fried them. See “On the Shores of Silver Lake”, the chapter titled “The Night Before Christmas”. Laura put slices of salt pork in the frying pan to parboil. Then Ma drained the pork, dipped the slices in flour and set them to fry. Later in the same book in the chapter “On the Pilgrim Way”, Ma tells Rev. Stuart how to cook salt pork. She says to cut the slices thin, and set them to parboil in cold water. When the water boils, pour it off. Maybe this parboiling reduced the saltiness of the salt pork. People worked physically harder than we do so the calories from such a fatty meal were quickly used up & there was no insulation in buildings in those days. Their bodies needed the fat for fuel to stay warm. Personally, I am glad to not have to eat salt pork. I agree with Naomi about the TV show not being realistic.
    Laura was a gutsy gal to teach at that school & live in that house with that crazy woman. That is just one of the reasons I admire Laura so:-)

    Tracy Sapp 11 years ago

    LOL! This was wonderful! I just discovered this too, Michelle. I’m looking foward to more Eddie posts:-)

    Daniel0107 11 years ago

    For those interested in the historical part of the Brewsters, there are some pretty interesting postings on the liwfrontiergirl.com site. The postings are older, but interesting. It seems Mrs. Brewster (real name was Bouchie) was the 2nd wife of Lew Brewster (Louis Bouchie) and Johnny was from 1st marriage. Also there were more children, but Laura kept it simplified.
    We wonder why Mr. Boast would recommend this situation, he said he knew Lew Brewster out east, but maybe that was before he married this lady, who clearly had problems.

    LauriOH 11 years ago

    I’ve always wondered if the Brewster/Bouchies thought that the problem was being without the company she was used to having back East. A solution might be to introduce her to a new person to entertain/distract her. Laura was considered a responsible person and was called upon. It just didn’t work out like they had hoped since they didn’t understand some of the causes of depression that we have now.

    Wendy Corsi Staub 11 years ago

    Thanks, Daniel for that info. Additional information I came across: Clarence was, in real life, Mr. Brewster (Bouchie)’s younger brother. His name was Isaac, and his younger half-brother–Laura named him Tommy Brewster in THGY–was really named Clarence. Not long after Laura taught there, “Tommy” (Clarence) threw a bone at his brother “Clarence” (Isaac), causing an injury that tragically led to his death and a trial.

    Naomi 11 years ago

    That must’ve been SOME bone. I don’t think there were any mammoths or dinosaurs on the prairie. (I wonder if it wasn’t a ‘stone’ that got mis-read or mis-transcribed somehwere along the way.)

    Tracy Sapp 11 years ago

    It was indeed a bone that felled “Clarence” (Isaac). It cut his face & he contracted tetanus. It was called Lockjaw in those days. Two doctors tended to the wound & a piece of the bone was extracted from the cut, but poor “Clarence” (Isaac), died 12 days after the bone throwing incident. Before the bone was thrown, Elizabeth Bouchie threatened Isaac with a oxen yoke & a pitchfork. When that didn’t work she told “Tommy”, the real Clarence, to pick up something & knock Isaac’s head off. “Tommy” (Clarence) & his mother (Elizabeth Bouchie) went to trial & were convicted of second degree manslaughter. Elizabeth Bouchie was pregnant & the judge didn’t want to send her to prison so he fined her $400.00. “Tommy” (Clarence) was sentenced to 6 months in jail but the sentence was suspended for good behavior. Elizabeth Bouchie was Isaac’s step-mother but she was Clarence’s mother. She is not to be confused with Olive (Lib) Bouchie, who is the mentally ill woman that Laura boarded with when she taught the Bouchie school.

    Dr. Laura 11 years ago

    I was going to save this comment for the Knife in the Dark chapter but here goes. I think the prairie wind and heat in the summer and the prairie wind and cold in the winter would drive anyone to depression. The wind can be ceaseless and ferocious on the plains. The noise alone could drive one batty. I call windy days here in Kansas “Mrs. Bouchie days” and am tempted to hide the knives.

    MissPinkKate 11 years ago

    I always suspected Laura had a thing for Clarence! Exactly because of the similarities to Cap. Laura likes mischief.

    Deanne 11 years ago

    I agree about Clarence!! And as for Mrs. Brewster – I have wondered if she may have been a paranoid schizophrenic. Having known adult children whose mothers were paranoid schizophrenic, their stories are similar to Laura’s. I wouldn’t think a Dakota winter with a toddler would bring out a mentally ill person’s best “face”.

    Sandra Hume 11 years ago

    This was wonderful! Thank you so much, Wendy. Love the author insight.
    I don’t think Lib Brewster was mentally ill at all. I’ve lived in that wind. It’s enough to drive a sane person crazy.

    Tracy Sapp 11 years ago

    Check out Pioneergirl.com for more information on the Bouchie family, pronounced boo-SHAY. There is info on this site that reveals more of the complexities of Louis & Lib Bouchie & their family. It gives us a better understanding of the people in THGY & the other people that lived in the Brewster Settlement but are not mentioned in the book.

    naomi 11 years ago

    Wow! Quite a detailed discussion! A couple of thoughts:
    The cold. Yeah, that must’ve been tough to live with that for months on end. Our house is a bit drafty right now … but still much tighter than a couple of thin layers of pine and paper, and the temperature is well above 40 below. But I’ve always wondered a bit why more effort wasn’t made to keep the cold out. Especially the schoolhouse. The Brewster’s house WAS ‘tightly battened, but the wind blows snow through the cracks of the school house. Wouldn’t it have been more sensible (and cost effective … saving on coal) to at least put another layer of tar-paper over it? And no home mentioned in any of the books has ever had heat in the bedrooms or let the stove burn during the night to bring the temperature up.
    I’ve always chuckled at the scene where Laura has to mark the kids tardy. Like …. this matters … because? Will this follow their permanent record? Will they be kept out of college because they were tardy one day? It isn’t like Laura actually punishes them.

    Wendy Corsi Staub 11 years ago

    This is all so interesting, I love having everyone else’s insight to mull over! My tendency is always to give Laura the benefit of the doubt when it comes to her characterizations. That said, having published truth-based-fiction myself, I’m only too well aware that what happens in real life is often either too uninteresting to convert to good fiction, or, conversely, much too far-fetched to be believed. So was Lib Brewster/Bouchie, say, a normal woman with PMS or a psychotic, dangerous lunatic? Or something in between? Since these are autobiographical novels, not autobiographies, we have to remember that characterizations and events don’t often work effectively in fiction if written exactly as they occurred without taking any liberties at all. I just wonder which way Laura leaned when creating Lib Brewster. In fact, reading through the Little House books, I always wish I could ask Laura about the truth behind the characters and story lines.

    Daniel Rabe 11 years ago

    Wendy, this was an outstanding posting! Thank you for all of your personal, and literary insights!
    As to Mrs Brewster/Bouchie, here is a link to a series of Posts on the Frontier Girl site that discusses this:
    http://frontiergirl.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=prairie&action=display&thread=695
    Of course this being a novel of Laura’s creatioin, she can put down what she chooses to about Mrs. B and the situation.
    I had not looked at this chapter with the view of literary devices before, which is all the more reason to appreciate your words, Wendy. How very interesting it all is when we look back to a time and place nearly 130 years ago!

    Wendy McClure 11 years ago

    As much as I love the story of Pa’s encounter with the Bloody Benders, it most likely didn’t happen! That Prairie Ghosts page states the Benders arrived in Kansas in 1872, which would have been after the Ingalls family went back to Wisconsin in 1871. I’ve read some accounts of the Benders that have them there in 1871, so it’s possible there could have been some overlap, but for Pa to have passed the Bender Inn on trips to Independence, the family would have had to have lived north of Independence, not south, and there’s no way Pa could have taken part in a posse to search for them, which would have been in 1873.
    All the same, it’s so fascinating that the Bloody Benders were so close in place and time to the “Little House on the Prairie” and it seems like Laura (and perhaps Rose) thought so, too, enough to put it in a draft of Pioneer Girl. The exact years and location of the Ingalls family’s time in Kansas weren’t widely known until the 1960s, and it seems like Laura saw no harm in incorporating the story of the Benders with a couple of personal embellishments. Plus if she had been in Kansas in real life at the same as the Laura in the book, the family could have been there at the same time as the Benders. Since it was such a notorious crime story perhaps she felt she had to refer to it in order to support the fiction.
    Clearly she changed her mind when she wrote LHOtP. The only other time she ever mentioned it was in a book fair speech in Detroit, and probably never imagined that anyone would ever figure out that the timeline and geography didn’t match up.
    That’s my theory, at least. I suppose it’s also possible that Pa had told the story to Laura, who didn’t know enough about where they really lived to figure out that it wasn’t true.
    That said, I still buy the whole Mrs. Bouchie/Brewster account. Somehow it just feels true to me! And I guess I think as Laura wrote about her older years she was more inclined to stick to the events as they happened, using fiction techniques more to smooth the storytelling than to embellish.
    (I still have some doubts about things in The First Four Years, though)

    Wendy Corsi Staub 11 years ago

    VERY interesting info, everyone! And Wendy, I also read that somewhere about the Benders and Pa never having been in the posse. I always thought that if he had, she’d have put it into the books…but maybe I’m wrong.
    I know we’re not there yet, but…what things in TFFY give you doubts? I used to skim that one as a kid, and have reread it many times as an adult, looking for insight that might come from being a married woman. Since that book lacks the “Little House” magic–never having been polished for publication–I find it rough going most of the time, and I always wonder whether that’s because the magic was missing or because those years were so grim for Laura that she couldn’t warm up to writing about them and making them come alive for us the way she had all the others. In any case, I know it’s off topic, but purely from a curiosity standpoint, which elements do you think she embellished (or did not)?

    Wendy McClure 11 years ago

    I know a lot of things in TFFY definitely came from real life (all the weather/crop disasters, the fire, and the illness) but there are just a couple things that I’ve never seen corroborated in the biographies. One is the Indian encounter (the way they call Laura “squaw” doesn’t ring true for me), and the other is the part where the Boasts offer to trade a horse for Rose.
    Part of me still doesn’t want to dismiss the Boast incident as fiction, because there’s something sad and deeply felt about the whole thing, and her use of real names (even in a draft) is curious.

    Wendy Corsi Staub 11 years ago

    Yes! The trade for Rose has always resonated with me, too. It just seems so out of character for the Boasts we’ve met in the other books. But then you realize…in real life, the Boasts and the Bouchies (Brewsters) were cousins…maybe “crazy” ran in that family. (I’m kidding. Mostly!) The “squaw” scene isn’t as fresh in my mind. I’ll have to go reread.

    Sandra Hume 11 years ago

    If you’ll forgive the continuing thread drift, I love talking about TFFY. I know TFFY didn’t have Rose’s editorial guidance, but besides that, I wonder if the writing is so stiff and free of magic because Laura was trying too hard to write for an adult audience. Maybe she thought she couldn’t be the descriptive storyteller she was in the other books because this was a book not written “for children”–thus she suffocated her natural tendencies. Then again, evidence exists (don’t ask me where, my mind is a sieve) that TFFY could possibly have been written before the entire series was complete. Perhaps even before BSSL when she introduces the Boasts? Or before LTW or LTOP where she talks so fondly of Mary Power–didn’t her mom help deliver Rose? So many Little House references exist in TFFY that are slightly off kilter that I have a hard time assuming it wasn’t written years before the series was finished.

    naomi 11 years ago

    I definitely recall reading that it was written before THGY. Which easily explains why so many of the scenes overlap … and why they don’t quite gel.
    I’ve never given a lot of thought to either the Indian scene (which I guess COULD have happened … this was still before Wounded Knee) or the Boast/Rose scene (casual adoption wasn’t uncommon at that time, and sadness/desperation … as we’ve already been talking about in these threads … can sometimes make decent people do some pretty desperate things. It wasn’t like he tried to kidnap her.) But I DO remember being a bit puzzled over Mrs. Power’s lines at Rose’s birth … SURELY she and Laura were well acquainted. And, for that matter, at the presence of the doctor at the scene. A healthy young woman like Laura, especially given how tight money was for them, would not even have considered calling a doctor for a normal childbirth. The local midwife (who seemed to be Mrs. Power) would have sufficed.
    Finally — the stiffness is surely largely due to the fact that it WAS a first draft. Especially back when first drafts were written with a pencil on paper (not on a computer where it’s easy to edit as you go) first drafts ARE pretty rough and stiff. You want to get the story down … then you go back and smooth the rough edges and your editor catches all the things that don’t gel or seem out of character from what you wrote before.

    LauriOH 11 years ago

    One of the things I’ve noticed is that at the end of THGY (forgive the spoiler) Almanzo mentions that his mother is coming to visit and plan the wedding, but then she never shows up in TFFY. I would think she still would have wanted to come meet the new daughter-in-law. It makes me think that the story was written before Golden Years was finished and Laura knew the scene would be needed.

    Tracy Sapp 7 years ago

    Laura was a diabetic & in reality Rose was a 9 or 10 lb baby. Babies born to diabetic women tend to be large. Laura was small, under five feet tall. I read this info somewhere but I do not remember where I read it. This was most likely a very difficult delivery. In TFFY, Ma says that Rose weighs 8 lbs. That is still a large baby for such a small woman to deliver. And I did read that Rose was 9 to 10 lbs. Also, I read a childhood friend of Laura’s, Imogene Fuge, confirms the Knife in the Dark story as true.