This is one of my favorite chapters because it just feels as if things are going to be good from now on. I know. But this was back before I had read The First Four Years, or even knew it existed.
During these read-alongs, I enjoy reading each chapter summary because so many who cover a chapter often have a different take than I might have. And then the comments sometimes cover a whole different viewpoint on the same subject. I love it. It helps me to see things that I might never have picked up in my multiple re-reads of the Little House books.
When I started my own review, I felt like I was just writing all sunshine and flowers. To me, it was that good and happy and contented. But I’m pretty sure that some of you may see things a bit differently, so I’m going to ask…what do you think?
I’ve picked out a few of my favorite passages from Chapter 28 and I’d love to hear YOUR opinion! Follow along as I skitter about through the chapter:
She boarded at the Wilkins’, and they were all friendly to Laura and pleasant to each other. Florence still went to school and at night told Laura all the day’s happenings. Laura shared Florence’s room, and they spent the evenings cosily there with their books.
Laura’s last stint as schoolteacher and boarder certainly differed from her first.
On Laura’s weekend at home, she and Ma go shopping:
For Laura’s summer dress they bought ten yards of delicate pink lawn with small flowers and pale green leaves scattered over it. Then they went to Miss Bell’s to find a hat to go with the dress.
The dress. The hat. I love Laura’s description of that cream-colored hat with those ostrich feathers and then, later on in the chapter, of the dress when it’s all done. Laura had the money to buy all of the things that she needed to start her life as a married woman and some left over to offer to her Ma.
What about that bulky object under a horse blanket in the back of the wagon?
“Now whatever can that be?” Ma said to Laura. They waited. As soon as possible, Pa came hurrying back. He lifted the blanket away, and there stood a shining new sewing machine.
The moment, the very moment, that I read this passage I knew that I had to have a treadle sewing machine. It took about 30 years, give or take, but I finally did get mine; a surprise from my daughter.
And then, when Laura has money to spare, I chose to look at it as a daughter who is happy to help her parents out when she is able to and after they have done so much for her. I’m not sure everyone would share my view:
Ma yielded. “If it will please you to do so, give the money to your Pa. Since he spent the cow money for the sewing machine, he will be glad to have it, I know.”
Laura rides away with Almanzo on Sunday, her heart was brimming with contentment. That’s the way this whole chapter makes me feel.
The following Friday, Prince and Lady couldn’t take Laura home quickly enough because:
Mary was even more beautiful than ever. Laura would never grow tired of looking at her. And now there was so much to tell each other that they talked every moment. Sunday afternoon they walked once more to the top of the low hill beyond the stable, and Laura picked wild roses to fill Mary’s arms.
And they talk about “that Wilder boy” and moving away and growing up.
When Almanzo picks Laura up from the Wilkins after the school term is finished and points out that it is the last time ever (that she will be a schoolteacher), she wonders:
“Are you sure?” Laura replied demurely.
“Aren’t we?” he asked. “You will be frying my breakfast pancakes sometime along the last of September.”
Almanzo had already begun to build a little house on the tree claim. Their little house.
Laura and Almanzo decide to take Barnum and Skip out for a drive on the Fourth of July. The horses are due for a workout.
So on the Fourth, soon after dinner, Laura put on her new lawn dress for the first time, and for the first time she wore the cream-colored hat with the shaded ostrich tips. She was ready when Almanzo came.
You knew a hat worthy of having a whole chapter named for it had to make another appearance, didn’t you? And so the prairie wind almost claims those ostrich feathers, but Laura is able to save them at the last second. They are safely in Almanzo’s pocket for safekeeping. I don’t know why this small act caused me to feel more familiarity between Almanzo and Laura. Like they were more comfortable together, transitioning to their roles as husband and wife.
And the chapter ends with:
The feathers were still in his pocket, and as he handed them to her at home he said, “I will be by for you Sunday. These horses do need exercise.”
Of course those horses need exercise!
Comments12
I just got through reading this book myself and this is one of my favorite chapters in the whole series.
I am always a little uncomfortable when Pa takes the money from Laura (and also when Laura gives all her money for Mary’s organ). Something just seems funny about it to me. But then on the other hand I can see how this just emphasizes what a family unit they were. They truly were on the same team and they wanted to family to succeed. There didn’t seem to be such a ME attitude, but an US attitude that is nice to see in a family.
It’s good to know I’m not the online in the world that feels the same way. Laura giving the money to her parents in this chapter didn’t bother me as much as the organ. I’ve always felt she was bullied into the organ.
My parents still have my maternal grandmother’s treadle sewing machine, and they use it as a TV stand! LOL I should buy them a nice television cabinet or something, and get them to free up the treadle machine so we can replace the belt and get it back into working condition. Otherwise, it’s an entertainment center for the foreseeable future! 🙂
Speaking of The First Four Years….now that THGY is almost finished will the next chapter summary read along be The First Four Years? I hope so!!
My parents use a sewing machine as a tv stand also. Theirs is a singer, I believe – very old tho. My great gma’s.
Maggie
My treadle machine is a stand for my modern machine.
I loved the description of Ma “fearlessly” cutting the lawn! That dainty pink fabric was no match for Ma’s mad skills! 🙂
I do wonder if Laura ever regretted giving Ma and Pa so much of her earnings before her marriage. She is so generous in THGY, but she is such a tightwad in TFFY, obsessing over every penny. The change in tone is so remarkable that it’s hard to believe at times that it’s the same author!
Was it just me who always wanted Laura to tell Almanzo he could make his own pancakes? Of course I was reading it in the 1980s not 1880s.
Yeah, didn’t Royal say in The Long Winter that Almanzo made great pancakes? So why wasn’t he offering to make them for her?
Given that Manly and Royal had been ‘baching’ together for quite a few years by now, they must both be reasonable cooks.
Actually, this chapter always bugs me a bit. Laura had told Pa previously that she didn’t want to teach at the Perry School again ($25/mo for three months); she’d rather teach at a larger school, for more pay, she says. The Perry school is close to home, and Laura could have had it, and lived with her family, and earned at least $75.00. Instead she takes Florence Garland’s school, for what turns out to be $22/mo, once her $2/week board is taken out. What’s the deal? She didn’t have to pay board at the horrid Brewsters’ house, even though that might have slightly alleviated Mrs. Brewster’s resentment. Laura has shown herself to be willing to work for 50 cents a day; seemingly the difference between earning $66.00 and $75.00 would have made it absurd to take the job with the Garland’s school. Weird.
Kathleen, I have always wondered about the Wilkins vs. Perry school pay subject myself.
I never understood why she preferred a larger school (more work for her), away from home, where she would have to pay room and board vs. being within walking distance from home for 3 children (perhaps even 4 or 5 by that time) only to earn less money?
I also never understood when Pa told her she would get the Perry school for $25 a month, Laura complained about not earning her salary for only 3 students when Pa says “They are glad to have you at that price. Larger schools are paying $30.” It didn’t make sense to me.
Giving Pa some of her salary to pay for taking care of the family didn’t bother me at all. As for the organ money, that really bugged me. After all, wasn’t Laura only teaching school so that Mary could attend college? Why wasn’t that money used to pay for tuition, clothing, and train fare instead of a wasteful luxury item like an expensive organ?
Truth be told IMO is Mary was a spoiled snot-nosed girl. They coddled her because she was blind and if she had not have gone to college (which Ma just basically INSISTED her getting an education-for what? To sit around the house and make bead doll chairs?) that she would have been waited on hand and foot most likely the rest of her life. That’s just me…I was never really fond of Mary because of her always trying to show-up Laura by being good, ladylike, and just as bossy as Eliza Jane!
@Kathleen: I’m not sure but I’ve read on this website that the Perry school was closed in 1885 due to “light enrollment.” Maybe that’s why Laura needed to take the job at the Wilkins school, but she left this detail out because it would be such a downer to read that the beautiful school that she (and we) loved so much was no longer!
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