Little House Series and Pioneer Girl Readalong

[Athena]

Welcome to the group readalong to the Little House series and Pioneer Girl! 

 

The Little House series portion of the readalong has finished, but feel free to join in on discussion of Pioneer Girl after November 20, 2014.

 

During each week, we will be discussing, criticizing, and snarking the heck out of a book from the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. 

 

New readers of the books are welcome, but let us know you are new so that we can make sure not to spoil future books. 

 

Schedule 

 

Week of August 10th: Little House in the Big Woods

Week of August 17th: Farmer Boy

Week of August 23rd: Little House on the Prairie

Week of August 31st: On the Banks of Plum Creek

Week of September 7th: By the Shores of Silver Lake

Week of September 14th: The Long Winter

Week of September 21st: Little Town on the Prairie

Week of September 28th: These Happy Golden Years

Week of October 5th:  The First Four Years

Week of November 20th and beyond: Pioneer Girl

Edited October 23, 2014 by Athena

[Athena]

Hey folks, we're starting the readalong this Sunday the 10th. That means on that day, you can post your thoughts about our first book Little House in the Big Woods. Start your wagons.

[kikismom]

Athena: Thanks for setting this up!

[Pickles Aplenty]

YEEEESSS.

[Sharpie66]

I'll be here for most of them, but I'll be out of town for my favorite book of the series, Little Town on the Prairie. Oh, well, here's hoping I'll be able to stop by occasionally while I'm out.

[Athena]

I'll be here for most of them, but I'll be out of town for my favorite book of the series, Little Town on the Prairie. Oh, well, here's hoping I'll be able to stop by occasionally while I'm out.

 

I think we can be pretty lenient about that and say you can post about it the week after when we do These Happy Golden Years. Thanks for joining in!

[smittykins]

I'm in--cool idea, Athena!

[ElderPrice]

Awesome!

[Winipo75]

What a great idea!

[ramble]

I can't, at least initially, because of school starting again. My oldest goes to an intense college prep school & the first few weeks they bury the kids in homework to readjust them to their normal heavy load. I end up helping a lot, although it's getting harder for me the more advanced her classes become. I also do quite a bit of pre-reading of any novels assigned for both my kids if I'm not familiar with them. (Yes I'm over protective.) My younger kiddo also gets several big projects to start the school year. I personally think it's to scare the parents into getting used to participating. I feel like I have more homework as a parent than I ever did as a student.

Dang that was rambling (hence my name). I'll probably pop in to read y'all's thoughts on the books. I'm a little jealous but also excited for everyone!

[Pickles Aplenty]

Today's the day, right?  Who here is cracking open Little House In the Big Woods?

[kikismom]

I am! The first thing about the book is the wonderful-and nourishing--food they had. I wonder how in later years those memories must not have brought them a nostalgic after-glow; they must have rued the day they ever left. At least Laura, and probably Ma. Those children would not have had such health problems if they had stayed.

I looked up the town of Pepin has a current population of 837 people or something. less than De Smet has now. and both are in the middle of nowhere. How awful to remember venison and salted freshwater fish, rabbit and even the bear meat,of course the hickory-smoked pig, pumpkins and squash and peppers and onions, beets and turnips and cabbages and so many good things.

Ma molds the butter into strawberry shapes and colors it with grated carrot...by the time Carrie and Grace come along it's lucky if she spreads salt pork grease on the bread, or just serves it to you dry.

Here's a question: why would you give one daughter a rag doll and the other a corn cob? How hard is it to make a rag doll for the new child? It isn't as if it was china and she would break it. I wouldn't want my kid playing with a dirty old corn cob. I never understood that. Did they have a soft toy, or any toy at all as babies?

[Pickles Aplenty]

 

Here's a question: why would you give one daughter a rag doll and the other a corn cob? How hard is it to make a rag doll for the new child? It isn't as if it was china and she would break it. I wouldn't want my kid playing with a dirty old corn cob. I never understood that. Did they have a soft toy, or any toy at all as babies?

Because Mary was the prettiest, and therefore deserved the best toys.  Duh.

 

Seriously, though, I always assumed it was an age thing.  Mary was older, so she got a rag doll first, and Laura had to wait until she was a bit older to have one...which doesn't really make a whole lot of sense because it's a rag doll, but I just chalk it up to, "It was a different time."

 

But, yeah, the corncob doll was pathetic.  That was the first indication that Laura was going to get screwed by this family.

[ElderPrice]

The story of Pa and the bear in the woods. Pa leaves early to sell his furs in town and doesn't return until well into the middle of the night. His story (and he's sticking to it) is that he saw what he thought was a bear in the dark path blocking his way home. Pa tried to scare it away but it wouldn't move. Pa was stuck for hours waiting for the bear to go away until finally he hit it with a tree branch and found out that it was actually just a tree stump that looked a little like a bear. Here's a question for Mr. Mountain Man: if the bear just stood in one position without moving, for a long time, at what point do you realize that it's not alive??

[kikismom]

The story of Pa and the bear in the woods. Pa leaves early to sell his furs in town and doesn't return until well into the middle of the night. His story (and he's sticking to it) is that he saw what he thought was a bear in the dark path blocking his way home. Pa tried to scare it away but it wouldn't move. Pa was stuck for hours waiting for the bear to go away until finally he hit it with a tree branch and found out that it was actually just a tree stump that looked a little like a bear. Here's a question for Mr. Mountain Man: if the bear just stood in one position without moving, for a long time, at what point do you realize that it's not alive??

Leaves for town early? ? Gets paid for all his work? And doesn't make it home till the next morning, with a ridiculous story about why he was delayed that couldn't possibly be true?

Yeah. My father did that every weekend.

 

Does anyone notice now, when you count up the people at that Christmas party, that maybe the Big Woods wouldn't have become so crowded if it wasn't for the Ingalls/Quiner family?

Edited August 10, 2014 by kikismom

[nodorothyparker]

Even growing up as a kid whose grandparents did butcher hogs at home, the idea of playing with a blown-up pig bladder as a ball sounded just terrible to me.

 

I'm struck by the abundance of food in this first book too.  IIRC, they never have this kind of bounty again in any of the subsequent books.  You have to think that had to have grated at Caroline a little as she was slathering pork fat on brown bread for the 1,000th time years down the line and probably goes a long way toward explaining why she was always written as so dour.  I also think it's very telling in the chapter talking about getting ready for the sugaring off dance that we learn that before her marriage Ma had been "very fashionable" and had had clothes made by a dressmaker instead of the usual homemade, indicating at least a little wealth.  Even Laura seems to be acknowledging here that Caroline had come down in the world marrying Charles.  Still, I loved the description of the dance as a kid.

[Snow Apple]

As a kid (and even now!), there were things I only got once a year. So I can imagine the fun and excitement of Laura and Mary's feast of the pig tail (not to mention the pig bladder balloon).

[PrincessLuceval]

This book is one I reread as fall comes on. It just goes with it.

 

I'm wondering if so much of the food memory is because Laura was so young, and therefore didn't remember a lot else (think back to when you were five). The descriptions of the various foodmakings was great, but had to be fleshed out too. 

 

I never thought of the corncob doll not being fair. I picture it as Laura using her imagination until Ma could make a doll. (And the corncob would have been dried corn, not a freshly eaten corn on the cob one). Maybe Ma observed Laura playing with it and went to work making the doll, but saved it for Christmas, because...Christmas.

 

Loved the sugaring off descriptions! The syrup, the sugar, making the syrup candy. Yum. 

 

I also love how Laura depicted Charlie as a brat. He's the one who later nearly raped her in real life, no?

[kikismom]

 

I also love how Laura depicted Charlie as a brat. He's the one who later nearly raped her in real life, no?

Yeah, first we meet him as a brat, and then a budding rapist. Don't remember anymore mention of him. I wonder what ever became of little Charley Manson. Probably turned out just fine.

 

I realize that in this book Sukey the cow is mentioned, and I had not paid much attention to the part about the 2 little calves, :"They were so sweet. One was fawn-colored, and one was red." It tells how they helped Ma "feed the calves and the hens. They gathered the eggs and they helped make cheese."

 

Compare that to the passage much later in LTOTP where Mrs. Boast gives them a basket of chicks, and it says" If they could raise the chicks, some would be pullets that summer. The next year the pullets would begin laying, then there would be eggs to set. Year after next there would be cockerels to fry, and more pullets, then there would be eggs to eat."

In the Big Woods they had a thriving flock already and they could eat eggs and Ma could bake. They eat hard-boiled eggs on the shores of Lake Pepin when they go to town. Good horses--not worn out, a good dairy cow with 2 heifer calves that would grow up to give milk and provide butter and cheese, fish in the lake, sugar/syrup in the trees, honey from beehives, pigs and game meat. And they would spend the next 20 years trying to get back to the standard of living in the Big Woods. When Grace married and Carrie moved away to work, Pa and Ma would be in that house on Third street, with nothing to show for all those years.

This book is a joy to a child; when you are adult and know what happened it is enough to give you goosebumps.

Edited August 10, 2014 by kikismom

[BatmanBeatles]

 

I also think it's very telling in the chapter talking about getting ready for the sugaring off dance that we learn that before her marriage Ma had been "very fashionable" and had had clothes made by a dressmaker instead of the usual homemade, indicating at least a little wealth.  Even Laura seems to be acknowledging here that Caroline had come down in the world marrying Charles.

I've wondered abut that. Charles must have been very charismatic. It also explains why Ma always tried to make things nice for them. Like how she made the camp look pretty or stressed the importance of good manners in the middle of nowhere.

 

I liked the sugaring off dance chapter. Reading about how the women got ready fascinates me.

[Snow Apple]

A small but interesting thing was how they use piping hot baked potatoes to help keep warm during long carriage rides in winter. So many interesting things that taught us how they survived in the past.

[nodorothyparker]

Isn't Uncle George in this one, who Charles shakes his head over for having turned out "wild since he came back from the war" the one who stole a cow?  I know several of his siblings were rather shady despite how much fun they're all being portrayed here. 

 

And God, young Mary was insufferable in the way that only siblings can be.  She's responsible for Laura getting a whipping because she just couldn't let up on the "golden hair is the best" thing that nearly every damn adult they encountered seemed to encourage.  You'd think that none of them had ever seen a blonde child before.

Edited August 10, 2014 by nodorothyparker

[BatmanBeatles]

A small but interesting thing was how they use piping hot baked potatoes to help keep warm during long carriage rides in winter. So many interesting things that taught us how they survived in the past.

You not only keep your hands warm, but you get a snack for later.

 

 

And God, young Mary was insufferable in the way that only siblings can be.  She's responsible for Laura getting a whipping because she just couldn't let up on the "golden hair is the best" thing that nearly every damn adult they encountered seemed to encourage.  You'd think that none of them had ever seen a blonde child before.

That's my least favorite part of the book. Why did Ma ask their aunt to choose which hair she liked best?

Edited August 10, 2014 by BatmanBeatles

[nodorothyparker]

Seriously, WTF kind of parenting is that?  Why would you put a relative in the position of telling your young children which one she thinks is prettier?

 

Oh, that's right.  Because Mary was the golden child both figuratively and literally even before she became poor blind Mary who everyone else was supposed to sacrifice for.

[kikismom]

Then Laura asks Pa if he likes golden hair better than brown,and he says "Well Laura my hair is brown."

And?

He can't just say they are both beautiful girls or her hair is pretty too or something.

Even when you're a kid, you know when somebody's avoiding giving you a real answer to the question.

[BatmanBeatles]

What's messed up is that Ma's hair is brown too.

[nodorothyparker]

I can only assume that it was the novelty of having a very fair child.  My husband and I are both dark hair dark eyes too and our oldest child is also a blue-eyed blonde, thanks to recessive genes.  He does stand out in the family compared to his darker siblings, but I just can't imagine encouraging that as a point of pride the way they seem to here.  It's not like it's something that either girl had any control over.  Look at the animosity and resentment it caused that Laura still clearly remembered years and years later when the books were being written.

 

I know Grace is described as being blonde too in the later books.  Yet funnily enough, none of the girls appear to be particularly light haired in any of the few pictures that exist of them.

Edited August 10, 2014 by nodorothyparker

[BatmanBeatles]

The part in the book that freaked me out the most is cousin Charlie getting stung by yellow jackets. The picture of him wrapped up like a mummy didn't help any.

[nodorothyparker]

The illustration was unsettling with all the kids just standing around looking at him. 

 

I also love that Charles freely trash talks cousin Charley, a child, in front of other people for being lazy and not wanting to work like a grown man.  It's ironic considering what we've come to know about Charles as a provider.

[PrincessLuceval]

 

You'd think that none of them had ever seen a blonde child before.

Right, since it was only in Wisconsin. I realize that Minnesota is the settling place for the Swedish immigrants, but they were in Wisconsin too.  I guess in the whole extended family, being a blonde was a rarity? 

 

 

[kikismom]

I can only assume that it was the novelty of having a very fair child.  My husband and I are both dark hair dark eyes too and our oldest child is also a blue-eyed blonde, thanks to recessive genes.  He does stand out in the family compared to his darker siblings, but I just can't imagine encouraging that as a point of pride the way they seem to here.  It's not like it's something that either girl had any control over.  Look at the animosity and resentment it caused that Laura still clearly remembered years and years later when the books were being written.

 

I know Grace is described as being blonde too in the later books.  Yet funnily enough, none of the girls appear to be particularly light haired in any of the few pictures that exist of them.

"Charles Ingalls you are NOT the father!"

 

 

The illustration was unsettling with all the kids just standing around looking at him. 

 

I also love that Charles freely trash talks cousin Charley, a child, in front of other people for being lazy and not wanting to work like a grown man.  It's ironic considering what we've come to know about Charles as a provider.

Charles does the same thing when he talks about people coming out West who are not prepared (snort!), when Laura tells Pa she is going to work for Miss Bell by saying "I don't know why, but I feel I ought to be earning something"  and Pa says "That's the way it is once you begin to earn!". Like he would know.

 

I wonder how many times Pa looked around at his thin, shivering family and thought "I don't know why, but I feel I ought to be earning something..."

 

Edited August 11, 2014 by kikismom

[Mybrainhurts]

I wonder how many times Pa looked around at his thin, shivering family and thought "I don't know why, but I feel I ought to be earning something..."

 

Obviously not often enough, because Laura had to work in town sewing at the age of fourteen to help send Mary to school.

 

After reading how good life was for the Ingalls family in Wisconsin, it makes Pa look even more stupid for leaving just because "it was too crowded".  They had everything they needed there and were already "living like kings".  Why you would think of leaving when you have three children under the age of eight is completely beyond me. 

[kikismom]

Now, help me out : In LHITBW, it says Charles banked the house with piles of leaves and straw held down by stones. I think we read that they did the same thing in Farmer Boy.

So why doesn't he bank the house in the Long Winter. Or anywhere else. Yes, I know there were no trees in DeSmet and Kansas but he did cut hay/slough grass. There were no stones, and the wind was strong, but I would have made some kind of netting, or used old wheat sacks. Pile it up around the house and throw pails of water on it, right? Wasn't it so cold that water would freeze fast? Make a thick wall around the house for insulation.

 

This brings up a question--- many things in this story seem to indicate that whatever Charles problem was, it got progressively worse as the years went on. He's even going on in LHITBW about how he likes progress and inventions, but by the time of TLW he's saying things are changing to fast and people can't cope with progress.

 

I also noticed in this book that Pa says "Nobody'd starve to death when you were around, Caroline." and she says "No, Charles, not if you were there to provide for us."

Squirm.

I think she may have really said it--then. She may have really meant it---then.

He did better because of the Big Woods? Because his parents and adult siblings were nearby and he couldn't dare fail? I realize that the first book was a pretty candy-coated version (you'd never believe it was going to lead to the bitter tone of The First Four Years) but maybe at the beginning he could have been different.

 

If they had stayed in Wisconsin, and had not suffered the economic failures and devastating health problems...would all their lives have turned out so much better?

Edited August 11, 2014 by kikismom

[jammaker]

In addition to all the food and relative prosperity - WHY would they leave when they have all this built-in help/community from their family?   Oh, butchering time?   An uncle comes to help.   Harvesting.  Sugaring time?  Let's go help.   We need to kill a calf to make cheese - oh, uncle will do it so we don't have to kill ours and we'll all get a piece of what we need.  I bet that help extended to raising buildings, chidlbirth, etc.    That helps goes a long way towards being prosperous, both because you can get more done faster, and it's a safety net if you're going through a rough time.

 

I realize that many of their relatives left later too but the books present it as they left first.   It's just foolish.

 

The sugaring off dance always made me want that candy.  It sounds so fun and magical for a child - go get a dish of snow, grandma pours syrup on it, and you get candy!  As much as you can eat!

[Winipo75]

I love the Garth Williams illustration of the Grandmother and Uncle George (I think) doing the jig. It always made me want to get up and jig (not that I know how).

 

 

In addition to all the food and relative prosperity - WHY would they leave when they have all this built-in help/community from their family?

Exactly! Charles Ingalls must have been nuts! I just read some snippets of a book that talked about how the Pioneer Girl manuscript differed from Laura's novels. The name of the book escapes me at the moment. Anyway, it talked about LHITBW representing the Ingalls as more isolated than they actually were. Despite the fact that the novel does show the family getting together and helping, the reality is that the crossover and sharing of work was even greater! That makes it even more annoying that Charles decided to uproot his young family and drag them off just because he "felt too crowded." 

[kikismom]

In addition to all the food and relative prosperity - WHY would they leave when they have all this built-in help/community from their family?   Oh, butchering time?   An uncle comes to help.   Harvesting.  Sugaring time?  Let's go help.   We need to kill a calf to make cheese - oh, uncle will do it so we don't have to kill ours and we'll all get a piece of what we need.  I bet that help extended to raising buildings, chidlbirth, etc.  

That was one of the major (unforeseen) problems of the Homesteading Act. People got so excited about 160 acres of "free" land. They seemed to forget that much smaller farms back east could only be managed because of help nearby. Out west most people didn't have family to help, and hired men were not available like they were in the east. If you were a man, you could have your own claim for a filing fee; why would you work as hired help? Even James Wilder depended not only on his boys and girls, but on 2 Canadian men and their sons.

 

This of course made the homesteaders a ripe market for machinery to do the work of extra men, threshers and mowers and binders. But the prices were high, and the credit easy--at first. But they counted on paying with the profits from a successful crop, and when the crop failed, the mortgages got extended by rules that have been outlawed since. Interest was 3%...but compounded monthly! What started as three percent would be 36 percent by the end of the year.And then a second year, and by the third the bank took the farm. Often the horses, livestock, even the furniture was taken by bank collectors. It is estimated that half a million homestead claims failed.

 

None of this was helped by everyone planting the same freakin crops. Articles in newspapers of the time begged farmers to grow something else: flax, potatoes, beans, something besides grain. But they were like Charles Ingalls, thinking that flat land with no trees was an easy path to fortune with a crop that didn't have to be grubbed out of the ground or watered, just left to grow and mowed quickly with the wonderful machines. At one point the price of corn was reported by Laura to be 3 cents a bushel and farmers were burning their fields in Iowa rather than harvest it.

 

It is so true that they underestimated the crucial difference, that having more people nearby was a benefit not an annoyance. Laura would also note later that she and Almanzo, economically destitute as they traveled to Missouri, always saw very prosperous farms of immigrants while others were failed. Because the immigrants weren't uppity about living together, and it is a social structure in many central European villages that all the crop fields are owned by the village, people share the work and share the profit, and expenses for one machine or seeds are divided. Not 5 separate lone men on claims all struggling to pay for 5 separate $400 wheat binders.

[nodorothyparker]

Wonderful post about the problems with the Homestead Act, kikismom.  Of course, acknowledging any of this would cancel out all of Rose's libertarian ranting disguised Pa just being plucky in the later books.

[Pickles Aplenty]

 

Then Laura asks Pa if he likes golden hair better than brown,and he says "Well Laura my hair is brown."

And?

He can't just say they are both beautiful girls or her hair is pretty too or something.

Even when you're a kid, you know when somebody's avoiding giving you a real answer to the question.

I always thought that was Pa's way of saying having brown hair isn't a bad thing.  He knew he was Laura's favorite, and pointing out that they both had brown hair was his way of making her feel pretty/special.  Doesn't Laura decide right after that that brown hair is beautiful?

 

 

The part in the book that freaked me out the most is cousin Charlie getting stung by yellow jackets. The picture of him wrapped up like a mummy didn't help any.

There must have been something wrong with me, because I thought that picture was like, the funniest thing ever.  Knowing Charlie tried to put the moves on Laura later in life just makes it funnier.

 

 

I know Grace is described as being blonde too in the later books.  Yet funnily enough, none of the girls appear to be particularly light haired in any of the few pictures that exist of them.

I thought that was strange when I first saw pictures of them, especially when it came to Mary.  To be frank, Mary wasn't much of a looker.  The fact that she's described as OMG, SO PRETTY in the books baffles me.

Speaking of Grace, I think she was second prettiest to Laura- they looked a lot alike.  I think Mary and Carrie got the short end of the stick, looks-wise.  They both looked too much like Pa, whereas Laura and Grace resembled Ma.

[Brn2bwild]

 

I always thought that was Pa's way of saying having brown hair isn't a bad thing.  He knew he was Laura's favorite, and pointing out that they both had brown hair was his way of making her feel pretty/special.  Doesn't Laura decide right after that that brown hair is beautiful?

 

The irony of Ma prizing Mary's looks was that grown-up Laura (IMO) would be the spitting image of her mother. 

[kikismom]

Wonderful post about the problems with the Homestead Act, kikismom.  Of course, acknowledging any of this would cancel out all of Rose's libertarian ranting disguised Pa just being plucky in the later books.

Thanks, but it gets worse! If you ever want a fascinating book, read The Good Old Days--They Were Terrible! by Otto Bettman (you know, the Bettman Archives guy?) Every topic hilarious/horrifying.

But one chapter tells how the government was in cahoots with the railroad companies. The Feds wanted the western land settled, to keep out attempts by France and Spain. The gov ran off the Native American tribes, gave homesteads, and the railroads made it workable...with a hefty profit. People were basically captives by distance and lack of nearby facilities. You wanted lumber, in the treeless prairie? You paid whatever they wanted to charge. You want coal where there are no mines? Bricks, glass, etc etc.

Now when you shipped your crop, it was freight by weight. One bushel of corn is 62 lbs. And it got you from as much as 40cents a bushel to as low as 3 cents a bushel.

But if you took that corn when it was green (not hard) and turned it into corn whiskey, you could get 3 dollars a gallon. A gallon is 8.5 pounds (including the glass jug). Minus the jug, just by the amount of corn, you can produce 7-8 gallons of corn whiskey for the same bushel out of the field. That's 20-25 dollars a bushel. Figure it out.

Because of the better profit, or to put it more clearly, the punishing cost of shipping hard crop corn for livestock feed grain, it made more sense to make booze than food

. Bettman reports that soon many farmers turned entirely to this, just quit bothering to raise anything else that would take away acreage that could be used to grow more corn to distill. There were many reports of how they drank too much of their own product, and the midwest had scandalous numbers of child alcoholics.

Of course no matter what you grew, when the claim failed, the government got back the land, kept the taxes you'd paid if the claim was proved up, and even if it wasn't proved up before the 5 years you were required to have a house, a well, and at least 10 acres plowed...so the government got back their land with hundreds of dollars worth of improvements paid for--and lost--by the hapless homesteader. Nice racket.

[Winipo75]

I always found it kind of sad that Laura had to make do with a corncob for a doll. Mind you, I used to play house with screwdrivers and worms, but that wasn't because I didn't have dolls; I just had a weird imagination. 

 

 

Seriously, though, I always assumed it was an age thing.  Mary was older, so she got a rag doll first, and Laura had to wait until she was a bit older to have one.

That's what I always figured. Besides, it makes it that much more special when Laura finally receives Charlotte for Christmas. I still remember how enamoured she was with her. In all of the Christmas stories, their gratitude was a beautiful thing. I appreciate it even more when I think about my own nephews, who would open at least a dozen presents on Christmas day, and then say, "Is that it?"

[kikismom]

 I used to play house with screwdrivers and worms

 

I almost wet my pants. (Laughing, that is.)

[PrincessLuceval]

Yeah, I picture the screwdriver winding up the worms, much like a fork winds up spaghetti noodles. :) Thanks for the laugh.

[sgittinger]

"Laura, aren't you going to let the other girls hold your doll"? Not 30 seconds after I got her, I'm not.

[ElderPrice]

The best part was the sugaring-off dance. Dancing, fancy dresses, all the maple sugar you want, and a jig-off between Grandma and George! It sounds like a blast.

[Pickles Aplenty]

I liked the fact that Ma got to wear her fancy dress for once.  That's one of my favorite moments in the book.

[PrincessLuceval]

I remember looking up delaine later, to find out exactly what it was:a lightweight dress fabric of wool or wool and cotton made in prints or solid colors.

[kikismom]

Notice in LHITBW, when they go to the store, for Pa they purchase:

• enough fabric of 2 different patterns to make shirts for him
• enough denim to make him a jumper (coverall type garment)
• a new pair of suspenders
• tobacco for his pipe.

Ma gets

• enough calico to make herself ...an apron! Yippee!

 

Laura wrote in Pioneer Girl about the red plaid fabric that Pa had brought home for Ma (which she wrote about in one of the books);  Laura said Ma hated that fabric and hated plaid and had to wear that dress for years because Pa had bought the material. What fun it must have been being married to Charles.

[Pickles Aplenty]

 

Ma gets

• enough calico to make herself ...an apron! Yippee!

Get the little woman a vacuum cleaner for Christmas.  ;)

[BatmanBeatles]

I liked the fact that Ma got to wear her fancy dress for once.  That's one of my favorite moments in the book.

I also liked the dress with the blackberry buttons.