Guest post by Sommer Sorenson
We open this chapter with Pa busily working to keep his family warm. His brilliant idea for hay sticks has a price… they must continually be keeping it in supply and so when Pa is not doing chores, he is twisting more hay for the fire. It is so cold in the lean-to where the hay is kept that he must pause to warm himself from time to time and he declares that, “My fingers get so numb, I can’t make a good twist.”
Laura offers to help Pa, but he doesn’t want to let her. However, he has to admit that there is just too much work for just one man to do… hauling hay and keeping the stove going. So he lets Laura help once again and shows her how to twist the hay.
It isn’t easy work and the lean-to is so very cold. But even so, Pa and Laura work at it for a time. The first stick Laura makes is “uneven and raggedy, not smooth and hard like Pa’s,” but he encourages her and says that she’ll do better the next time. And sure enough, after six sticks she finally makes one as it ought to be.
Now it is time to warm up again. Laura is numb from cold and her hands are red and irritated from the sharp blades of the hay. But this is nothing when she reflects on being able to help Pa. This is a lovely quality that Laura has that has always warmed my heart. She is willing to do the hard things, when she knows it will help her family.
The day continues on with burning hay and twisting it. Their supplies of food are dwindling and yet they are able to reflect on the goodness of hot, tasty food. Yet, they have run out of flour and Ma comments that they need to have some flour. Pa says he will get some no matter the cost as soon as the storm stops.
The little moments of opening the stove to throw on another hay stick causes the darkness to retreat for a moment and Ma wishes she had some grease so she “could fix some kind of a light.” She states, “We didn’t lack for light when I was a girl, before this newfangled kerosene was ever heard of.” Both Pa and Ma reflect on the dependence they find themselves having on these “newfangled” things. Makes me think of those things I depend on a tad too much and get frustrated about when they are unavailable.
The next morning, though the winds are still howling, there began to be a strong wind and the sun was shining, so Pa headed out to find some flour. After a time he came back with a bag of unground wheat…not exactly ready-to-use flour. The last flour was bought up at an extremely high price and Pa knew that he would not have been able to afford much at such a high cost. So, unground wheat it is! Pa and Ma begin thinking how they can best use it… boil it? Pa says it is too bad they don’t have a grist mill in town and Ma (brilliant woman), states, “We have a mill.” She reaches for the coffee mill and they try it out. Sure enough, there is a small portion of ground wheat in the little drawer. Pa asks, “Can you make bread of that?” and Ma optimistically answers, “Of course I can.” But this too will have a price… they must keep the mill grinding so that there will be enough to make a loaf for dinner. Hard work, but they will eat.
Remembering Ma’s desire for a light, Pa gives her some axle grease before heading out to do the chores. He knows she can figure something out. They will need something as the train is still stuck and they must continue to wait for it and the supplies it promises.
Chores must be done, hay must be twisted and wheat must be ground. The Ingallses continue in this way until Pa returns late from chores. He has had a tough time of it, but Ma sees (once again) the silver lining by noting that it will be better to have dinner at that time every day, so they can save on fire and light.
Surprisingly (or perhaps not, since it is Ma) the brown bread is very good. Ma does not need milk or yeast to make it tasty and Pa states quite nicely, “Where there’s a will there’s a way.” And it is for certain that this little family surely has the will to make it through.
This chapter is full of “out of the box” thinking and we have one more example as Ma comes up with a light. As Pa is doing the final chores, Ma gets out the axle grease and rag bag and has Carrie find a button from her button bag. And as the girls look on, she makes a little button lamp. As they do so often, they wait for Pa to show the big surprise. I love how they want to include the whole family in their ideas. And when Pa came in, Ma lit the little end of the button lamp and they watched as a “tiny flame flickered and grew stronger” and the “little flame was like the flame of a candle in the dark.” Just like the flame of hope that they each held onto during this long winter. Such ingenuity, such hope and such pioneer spirit to keep them going.
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I think if I was a sewer, a button bag would sound like a really nice project to start.
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.
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.
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.
I don’t think I was aware of this read-along when it was in progress but I have always wanted to ask this question – why in heck did they go out into the lean-to to twist the hay? Why not bring the hay into the front room at least, where it was somewhat warmer than in the lean-to? Because they can’t have dirty hay cluttering up the front room (which they weren’t even using that winter)? And why not bring the mattresses down to the first floor & sleep near the stove at night, why go up to the freezing 2nd floor? Were their standards interfering in their quest for survival?!
I’m not sure but I would think moving the hay from outside to the front room might have been a lot more work. It took all of Pa’s energy just to get the hay back to them. Also I believe I have read that in real life they had a boarder (0r 2) living with them that winter so that might have been why they wouldn’t sleep downstairs. All just quessing though. Since I read about the boarder I wonder how the real situation compared to the book. Anyone have more information on the boarder that stayed with them?
There is quite a bit of information out there about the family the Ingalls Family took in during the Hard Winter. In short, they were relatives of the Masters family and it was a newly married couple with their fresh baby who was conceived out of wedlock. No one else would take them in because of the scandal.
Michelle’s questions interested me enough to draw a little diagram of the interior of Pa’s store, the Ingallses’ home during the winter of 1880-81, from Laura’s descriptions. I find Laura is quite literal in her details. If she tells you she is looking out the window, she will almost always tell you it was the WEST window, or that she is looking NORTHEAST, etc.
Here is that sketch:
[IMG]http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y76/aguynamedjoe/passtore_zpse5343637.jpg[/IMG]
My proportions are off (the home was actually long and narrow running down their long and narrow lot), but I think the general placement of details and comparative size of the rooms are reasonably accurate.
I have always loved THE LONG WINTER as a story of endurance and family solidarity. I have also loved it because in 1984, 104 years after the Ingalls family in South Dakota, I spent a winter deep in the Adirondack woods with my new husband in a log cabin without electricity or running water. In January we ran out of coal with no way to get more in to our unplowed location, and after that we cut a tree down every other day and burned green wood (little heat). We too moved into our tiny kitchen and huddled over the stove. Our night temperatures did not hit 40 below zero, but they did scrape 30 below. Though we never experienced the danger or hardship the Ingalls family did — we could snowshoe or ski to civilization — we knew a few of the discomforts.
A. Why not bring the hay into the front room?
1. First, the unheated front room would not have been significantly warmer than the lean-to, just less drafty.
2. The slough hay was full of snow. Indeed, I have wondered how Pa managed to haul hay on an open sled without it blowing away, or to stack it behind the store, ditto, in the blizzard winds. The answer must be that it was so coated with snow that it froze and clumped together. (I am a homestead farmer who pitchforks hay every day, and I’ve forked plenty of wet or frozen material. A sweaty, exhausting job. I always remember this and shudder over Pa’s physical labor that winter, fueled only by a small potato or piece of wheat meal bread.) Meanwhile, the lean-to had no ceiling or battens, so more snow blew in. In the book Pa warns Laura that she must shake off every bit before twisting hay or the snow would melt on being carried inside and the sticks would be wet and useless.
It is true that all this snow and the inevitable hay chaff would have made a huge mess of the front room. However I believe the real issue would have been the extra work required to get it there.
2. Pa was always racing blizzards. On his return from the claim, he would have driven his loaded sled down Calumet Avenue (Main Street in the books), turned onto the smaller side street, Second Street, then turned into their property, unhitched the sled, and put the horses away safely in the stable. In this scenario, the sled could be left right at the door of the lean-to for unloading. To put hay in the front room, however, Pa would have had to unhitch his sled in Main Street, put his horses away (he would never have let wet horses stand in the cold), pitchfork all the hay, then re-harness the tired horses, hitch them to the sled again, and drag the sled around the house to drop it again in the back for the night. TOO MUCH WORK.
2. Why not bring the mattresses down to be warm around the kitchen stove?
1. Like my husband and me, the Ingallses moved into their kitchen because it was a small space and more easily heated. There was only one window to worry about heat loss, and a trapdoor at the top of the stairs kept heat from vanishing into the second floor. Laura emphasizes how small the room was, especially after they moved in the front room’s table and chairs. “The table left hardly room to move about.” “The room was so crowded that Laura could hardly wash the dishes without bumping into some sharp edge.” Then they added Mary’s rocker. It was an impossibly cramped space. It seems unlikely they could have squeezed in even one bed tick.
In the book, six people, one a toddler, were cooped up in that narrow room for FIVE MONTHS. In reality, as mentioned above, there were nine. As Sarah explains, George and Maggie Masters and their baby conceived out of wedlock were also there. Their stay was meant to be a temporary kindness, but then the blizzards moved in and the Masters family was on top of the Ingallses the entire winter. Picture those dark, grey, numb days, with the howling winds, the endless grinding of wheat and twisting of hay… plus a crying baby!
What is worst is that George Masters was apparently sulky, spoiled, and lazy, and took no responsibility for helping the group survive. He could have been helping Pa haul hay or at least doing the livestock chores. Evidently he did nothing. He did not even help twist hay sticks. (Which makes the fact that Laura was doing it at barely fourteen, that Mary was doing it, though BLIND, even more pointed.) Laura left the Masters family out of THE LONG WINTER because she felt they would cast a pall over the story as they did over the Ingallses’ life.
2. Aside from the complete lack of room in the kitchen, another reason Ma, Pa, and the girls would have slept upstairs is that it’s quite manageable to sleep in reasonable comfort, even in very cold temperatures, if you have enough blankets. Especially if you are sharing a bed with another person. In our case, my husband’s side of the blankets froze solidly to the cabin wall for the entire winter, yet we were snug under heaped covers. In the days before central heating, most people also wore hats to bed to help keep them warm in the cold (Remember “Mama in her kerchief and I in my cap” in A Visit from St. Nicholas?) Finally, the well-to-do had bed pans to pre-heat the covers. Ma heated her sad irons on the stove for the same purpose for the girls’ beds.
My guess would be that the Masters family slept on a tick in the front room.
oops, the imbedded image link to the sketch did not work on this website. Here is the direct link:
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y76/aguynamedjoe/passtore_zpse5343637.jpg
Adkmilkmaid, thank you for doing that! I’ve tried to map out their living spaces too. (Once tried both house & shanty for TFFY.)
Thank you for the clarification re the plan of the home. I had always pictured the kitchen on the east, then the front room (with the stair going up) and then the lean-to at the west. I pictured Pa & Laura going from the kitchen through the front room to the leanto; that’s why I couldn’t understand why they would stay in the lean-to instead of going into the front room. And thanks for the info re cold & blankets & the comment about headwear (Laura wore a nightcap I recall) – reminds me of my Girl Guide camp days, the supplies list always included a toque (woolly hat), for bedtime; if we forgot one the leaders made us wear a clean pair of undies on our heads!
My daughter and I laughed out loud at the thought of Girl Guides wearing their underpants on their heads for warmth! Thanks for that image! 🙂
I really had a fun time drawing the store plan from Laura’s descriptions. I would make certain assumptions and then read further and realize I was wrong, erase, and re-draw. The kitchen WAS on the east, but so was the lean-to.
(By the way, I’m sorry for the eccentric numbering in my post. I decided after the fact that my thoughts might be clearer and easier to grasp if I numbered them, but as I edited and added, I forgot to change many of the numbers!)
As someone who has also lived through tough winters, though not as tough as that one, I have always also wondered what they did for water and for bathroom facilities during the Long Winter.
1) They must have had a well, and Pa must have carried the water, until it became very cold. After that I’m guessing they melted snow and icicles on the stove. (We did this, too… easier than carrying buckets from our spring.) I don’t remember Laura mentioning this at all, however.
2) And of course she would never have mentioned the need for a bathroom. But you will remember that it is a big deal when the girls go outside that winter, especially Mary, who has to be guided through the lean-to full of hay. Clearly they were not running outdoors to an outhouse in blinding storms where death could snatch them. My guess is the family set up a chamber pot or something similar, perhaps behind a curtain, perhaps in the front room. But it would still need to be emptied quickly before it too would freeze.
Somewhere, though unfortunately I now have no idea where, I read a reply of LIW’s to a school boy who asked about that very thing. She wrote along the lines of “we didn’t talk about that kind of thing but if I remember rightly we went along the side of the house outside…”
I had assumed they would use a chamber pot too.
Oh! Adkmilkmaid, I love your diagram – thank you! I will be printing it out and tucking it inside my copy of the Long Winter, and I’ll be one happy map-nerd bunny the next time I read it.
I love this book it is so interesting I can’t wait to read more!
http://www.richkurz.com/history/DeSmet/6a10042-crop.jpg Here is an actual picture of Pa’s store building.
Adkmilkmaid, thanks for your long informative posts. I’ve been reading the posts and comments here for a long time, and finally I’m adding my own.
I really enjoy this site.
I always wondered that same thing too, how, in The Long Winter, the Ingalls family used the bathroom. Laura was always proper in her writings and did not mention this. Wonder if they actually had an outhouse? Since they were all confined indoors, I guess they had to use a makeshift porta-potty.
Hi Georgie,
Every family would always have a means of relieving themselves, of course, but would adapt the routine out of necessity. Most homes had a privy (another name for “outhouse”) either adjacent to the building, or within a lean-to, or in the barn/stable area. Chamber pots were used at night and during severe weather, then emptied into the privy. You would never want to empty a chamber pot into the open, as the waste would attract flies and other vermin. Privies were maintained and sometimes filled in with dirt, covered, and re-dug elsewhere as necessary.
To me, a bigger question is how on earth did Maggie Masters deal with the constant diapering of her infant? Using cloth diapers when there is no running water for washing is an enormous chore on its own. Add to that the fact that they were snowed in for months, and the temperatures unbearably cold, I don’t want to imagine the oppressive nature of such a task all winter long.
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