Guest post by Naomi
Laura has been home for all of about 6 weeks, still reveling in the joy of being home, when she is given the opportunity to leave again.
When Laura arrives home from school one day, Ma tells her Mrs. McKee, for whom she’s been sewing for the past month, had stopped by and is ‘in distress.’ The McKee’s are getting ready to move out to their claim, or rather, the women-folk of the McKee family are getting ready to move out to their claim. Mr. McKee must stay in town to work, (he can’t afford to give up his job) while his wife and daughter go live on the claim to ‘hold it’ through the summer. But Mrs. McKee is nervous about living far from town, alone, and thought that maybe Laura would come with her. The McKee’s will pay Laura a dollar a week, just to live there. And Laura, eager for the chance to go on earning money, even a dollar a week, jumps at the chance. At least she knows that Mrs. McKee won’t attack her with a knife. (Though … by the end of summer, maybe she will …)
So, the next day, satchel in hand, she climbs onto the train for the 7 mile journey to Manchester. Remembering her trip from Walnut Grove to Tracy a few years before, she thinks herself quite the experienced traveler. From there, it’s two miles by teamster wagon, through sloughs and over non-existent roads, clinging to the McKee Family Furniture and the McKee Family Daughter, to the McKee Family Claim, where a very-little house has been built.
There, once the furniture is set-up, Laura and the McKee’s settle in to hold the claim. They sit. They eat. They talk. They are silent. They sit. They wash the dishes. They sit. They twist hay for the stove. They sit. On Saturday, Mr. McKee arrives by train, and they get to spend Sunday sitting some more, not smiling, talking about religion. On Sunday he gets back on the train and they go back to … sitting. Kinda like the Long Winter, but without the blizzards.
This scintillating existence continues for a couple of months, when at last a letter comes from Ma. Mary is coming home. Laura must come home too. As much as she hates to do it, she has to tell the McKee’s that she’s leaving; she can’t even give them 2 weeks notice. And thankfully the McKee’s agree that she can go. Packing her satchel again, she returns with Mr. McKee on the Sunday train, leaving Mrs. McKee and Mattie to sit for another 5 months while she returns to the bosom of her family.
Now – if you’ve been reading my comments for a while, you’ve noticed that I’m something of a nitpicker. I want things to make sense. And this chapter has always been one of the most baffling to me.
I get that the McKee’s have to live on the claim to hold it. But what I don’t get is the ‘doing nothing’ part. They can’t afford to buy the full range of stock and tools and seed wheat to start the farm going – fair enough. But they can’t afford a few packets of seed and a hoe to start a garden? A cow? A few chickens? Do they own no books? Even Laura didn’t bring her own school books with her. Why not? Why not tutor Mattie? (The book is vague on her age, but in real life she was 11. Surely Laura could have given her lessons.) Are there no other claims in the area with people to visit? Even a stroll into Manchester would have broken the monotony. Maybe Mrs. McKee could find someone who needs some dress-making done. Other historical sources I’ve seen suggest that in most families, the reverse was true – Pa stayed in town to work while Ma and the kids worked very hard indeed on the claim, plowing, planting, caring for the stock – all the usual farm chores. (Maybe this goes back to Ma’s belief , stated back in “The Long Winter,” that American girls didn’t do farm work? Though obviously that belief didn’t extend to gardening and caring for stock.)
The financial end of things also seems shaky. They didn’t earn enough to move to the claim. (Presumably they made just enough to build the house and dig a well.) But it doesn’t seem likely that they’ll be any better off, financially, come October. What with paying Laura to live with them, buying food (I’d guess that they’re living on the standard flour/beans/potatoes/salt-pork/coffee rations of all self-respecting homestead families), paying Mr. McKee’s rail fare back and forth every weekend, (rail fares were not cheap – in 1881 a fare on the Union Pacific from Council Bluffs to Omaha [about 5 miles], was 50 cents, from Omaha to San Francisco was $100, so it was probably costing Mr. McKee 75 cents to a $1 round trip to come home every weekend) –paying his board in town (they took the stove with them, so even if Mr. McKee is living in their town house, he’s probably eating at the hotel) – if Mr. McKee is making the standard dollar a day – they’re barely breaking even. When they return to town in the fall, I fear that Mrs. McKee will find that Miss Bell has grabbed all her dressmaking clients, leaving them even worse off than before.
One final historical note: Manchester, the new little town near the McKee’s claim stayed a ‘very little town’ through its history. When Grace grew up and married, she moved to Manchester. Mary lived with her there for a while as well. And in June 2003, a huge tornado swept through the town, destroying it completely. All that remains are foundations and a commemorative monument.
Comments12
Many of the people who homesteaded in South Dakota & other areas actually were not looking to be farmers. They were looking at selling that land at a profit a few years down the road. I read somewhere that the McKee’s didn’t have to improve their property like most homesteaders did in order to get their patent from the government. I wish I could recall why the McKee’s didn’t have to “prove up” but I cannot remember the circumstances. I will try to find the info & pass it on. Many of the people around DeSmet proved up & sold their land at a profit & they moved on. The land was bought cheaply & once improvements were made or other circumstances arouse that made property values go up, the value of the land went up & people could make a quick profit. Maybe this is what Charles Ingalls did when he sold his homestead & moved into town. I always wondered why Charles did this. In THGY he talks of raising cattle on his homestead instead of farming. Being a cattle farmer would be easier than being a farmer of crops since he had no one to help him. Especially after Laura married & left home.
I have always thought that the “nothing to do” was relative. Compared to what had to be done on the Ingalls homestead – milking the cows, taking care of the chickens, helping Pa in the fields, helping Ma in the house and garden, doing the laundry and ironing – the only thing Laura had to do at the McKees was help tidy the house, do a small amount of laundry, and maybe some cooking. I would think they would have had at least a small garden, though.
Books were expensive and scarce, so I was not surprised they didn’t have any, although I was surprised that Laura didn’t take her schoolbooks. Cows, chickens, and pigs were also expensive, and apparently the McKees were not financially ready for animals, Also, I have a feeling the McKees were city people and didn’t know which end of the cow to feed and which to milk.
I get what you mean Naomi, I don’t understand it either why they had “nothing to do.” The Canadian Prairies has the same sort of homesteading history (although the real wave of settlers didn’t start coming until nearer the end of the century) and I have done a fair bit of reading on the topic, and the women & children seemed to be so busy that they barely had time to sit down. I wonder why they didn’t plant a vegetable garden, as you point out? I too wonder,Tracy, if they were just trying to “make a quick buck” – hang on to the land & “flip it” as we would say these days. Well, pardon me (I’m arguing with Rose here) but if you are going to take advantage of a government scheme that is meant to build up the nation, expand its agricultural base, but all you are doing is sitting on the land waiting until you can flip it, surely you can put up with a bit of boredom/tediousness (as Laura said at the end of the chapter, “It was a hard way to earn a homestead…”) I also think that Rose is speaking through Mrs. McKee when she says “Whoever makes these laws ought to know that a man that’s got enough money to farm, has enough money to buy a farm.” I’m afraid I don’t understand that at all – I can easily picture (from all my reading about the settling of the Canadian West) that a person would have enough money, or could scrape up enough money, to buy a team of horses or oxen, a cow, some chickens, maybe a pig, plus the accoutrements you need (such as tools & seed), and not have enough to buy the land as well. And of course you don’t need to spend money on lumber for a house, soddies were the way to go – also for your barn/stable (and by cutting the sod for your soddy, you have not only built yourself a firebreak, you have ploughed your first acres). The free land was the whole point – you got the land for free & used your few dollars to buy the other necessities, and then you got down to business of farming (I gather from pg 114 of the Harper Trophy “yellow” edition that the McKees didn’t have enough money for seed, stock, & tools – maybe they weren’t the best type of people to be farming in the first place? so maybe they really were going to just flip the claim?)
I too wonder why Laura didn’t bring her schoolbooks, her knitting/crocheting, embroidery, a quilt to piece? When I think of what I would do if I had that amount of time on my hands, I get positively envious! Even if I didn’t have the “mod cons” of today – the sewing & cross stitching I would do, the mending, the writing in my diary, and for once I wouldn’t be able to use the excuse of “no time” as to why I don’t get any exercise! Why, you could go for a run every day! Plus do lots of yoga! 😉
I have just reviewed the chapter & I don’t see anything about water – I assume they had a well? They were lucky they didn’t have to haul water, what wearying work that must be.
Anyone else notice Mrs. McKee’s reference to Almanzo? Even she seems to recognize their budding romance when Laura won’t admit it to herself (all she does is recall that Nellie Oleson’s family’s claim is near to Almanzo’s).
I agree that it seems the McKees plan was to “flip” the claim for cash profit, and that they were not farming folks. The government’s plan to settle the west certainly had flaws in it, but since when do government ideas not have flaws? The Washington lawmakers were not pioneers afterall.
I also agree that it seems the McKees were not too money savvy as to not swee that with all the extra costs that it would have been far better for Mr McKee to be on the claim and get the farm going. Unless as I said they did not care about making it a successsful farm and in only flipping the property.
Good post, Naomi and good comments by all.
I have a feeling that details are left out of this chapter. The McKees did have some kind of vegetable garden and there was some sewing to do, but that those were minor daily chores rather than the farming others were doing. I do remember in Let the Hurricane Roar or Free Land, Rose talks about how the woman starts to knit something then eventually takes it apart to make again because she needs something to do, but they can’t afford more yarn. That may have been an issue here – if Laura bought more yarn; it was money Mary didn’t get. Though maybe she could have been making scarves and socks for Mary. 😉
I do think we are supposed to see this, if not a happy time, than a time that “it was what it was” and they dealt with it rather than acting like the Brewsters.
I like that Mrs. McKee teases Laura about Almanzo. It makes me think that it was common knowledge around DeSmet, or Laura talked about him more than she realized on Saturdays while she worked.
Hello, I’m new here, just discovered the site this past Saturday. I’ve enjoyed reading your posts and comments.
I agree that Mrs. McKee probably planted a garden and, of course, there were the usual chores of cooking, cleaning, washing, ironing, and mending. Personally, I think that the focus on “nothing to do” is mostly from Laura’s perspective because being on a claim outside of Manchester had her 100% removed from everything she held dear.
Remember all the instances of Laura’s “moving restlessly” about a room, aching for something to do but not even knowing what she wanted to do. I don’t have the book in front of me at the moment, but I believe there at already been some buggy rides with Almanzo … if not, there had certainly been all the cutter rides. Here on the McKee’s claim, there were no rides of any kind. No literaries, no spelling bees, no church services, no girls her own age coming over to knit. Nothing at all to look forward to. Also, the Ingalls had Pa’s fiddle music and they also sang together everyday (I presume). They also enjoyed quoting Scriptures and passages from the McGuffey’s Readers. Maybe Mrs. McKee wasn’t as well-read as Laura or the rest of the Ingalls and her conversation was … well, boring.
(I’ve said too much for a first quote. Thank you for the opportunity to chime in!)
Yes, of course there were some chores. Meals to cook, cleaning and laundry. But she said in the chapter ‘the little work was soon done.’ Meaning … how long does it take to clean a tiny 2 room house with virtually no furniture. How much time does it take to peel potatoes and cook salt pork or beans twice a day and bake bread once a week? Even without 21st century labor saving devices, an adult woman and two adolescent girls should be able to finish that pretty quickly.
As for the garden, she does say in the next chapter that she was glad to get to eat lettuce leaves and radishes at home … because she couldn’t get them while holding down a claim. So if they DID plant a garden, it didn’t include any early spring vegetables.
And Laura does seem to like Mrs. McKee .. she enjoyed sewing for her and was happy to help out here for a mere $1 a week.
Now there’s a thought … think of all the money the McKee’s could have saved if Almanzo had offered to Mr. McKee home on Saturday and taken Laura home for the weekend. (Though I believe he doesn’t own a buggy at that point.)
I found the information on the McKee’s & their claim north of Manchester. It is on the Pioneergirl site. Move your mouse over the picture of the book that is in the bottom row of photographs, it is the second pic from the left. It is under the picture of the organ keyboard. It will display “A-Z Index and Search”. Click on that, then the alphabet will appear. Click on M then scroll down to McKee Family & click on McKee family. Great information about the McKee’s & the claim north of Manchester & why they didn’t farm that claim. Also information about the McKee’s FIRST claim north of DeSmet. The claim at Manchester was James McKee’s second homestead. There is also a modern day photograph taken from the actual McKee property looking north at the prairie.
Naomi, I really enjoyed this post, and the comments that followed. Thank you, and bravo!
I cant even imagine Laura not bringing her school books. Maybe she packed in a hurry but it doesn’t make sense. And not to even sew, can’t imagine that either. Something must have been left out.
I have been wondering the same thing about this chapter for decades. LIW makes a point of saying that “there was nothing more to do, no books to study, no one to see,” and that all that week they did “nothing but eat and sleep, and sit and talk or be silent.” There was no garden, as naomi points out; so there was no garden work. Laura paints a picture of empty days with nothing at all to do; but there is no conceivable reason why the three ladies could not have had a lovely time chatting while making quilts, embroidering pillow cases or other items, or studying, or singing in the evenings. If the first week was poorly planned, there was Mr. McKee conveniently showing up every weekend; and he could have brought books, yarn, sewing supplies, paper, a pencil… all that’s missing is some imagination. With a little forethought and planning, Mrs. McKee could have worked on some sewables to sell in town at one of the general stores. For God’s sake, she could have knitted up socks and mittens for her own family’s use, and for half the town’s as well. The chapter is a total puzzler; and I don’t know how the editor let it slip.
Years late to the conversation, but…it’s quite possible the McKee’s couldn’t have a garden on new claim with no tools. Prairie sod was tough and needed to be plowed before it could be worked. Recall that in “Silver Lake,” Pa plows a few rows and plant some turnips. You couldn’t break that sod with a shovel and hoe. The McKees didn’t have a plow or a horse,so they couldn’t plant anything at all. But like many of you, I’m puzzled about why Mrs. McKee doesn’t bring anything to sew or whatever. I was going to say that embroidery thread could be hard to come by…but Mrs. McKee was a dressmaker and had direct access to fabric, etc, through wholesalers. OTOH, she may not have had $$ to spare for goods she wasn’t going to sell.
Comments are closed.