Little House Series and Pioneer Girl Readalong

[ElderPrice]

As a kid I was struck by the excitement of being the first settlers in a new land. As an adult what got me was the constant threat of danger from everywhere. The lone horseman following the wagon, the "rough" men who worked on the railroad (and we all know what the ladylike euphemism "rough" stood for), the mob of workers who threatened Pa unless he paid them up till that very day, Ma hiding the money in the flour sack with nothing but a curtain between them and the outside, the paymaster that was strung up, the boarders in the surveyor's house that made the girls barricade themselves in their rooms while they drunkenly tore the place apart. Being the first settlers in a new land means no protection. They were totally on their own. Scary.

[BatmanBeatles]

When I was a kid I got annoyed at Me for not letting Laura watch the construction workers by herself, but as an adult I understand Ma's concerns. If they were anything like the characters in Deadwood, Laura would find herself in danger.

[SunDevil28]

Behind again but here goes!

 

Plum Creek

 

- I just couldn't get over the beginning, when Pa trades everything of value for the dugout and land.  Knowing how the grasshoppers destroy the wheat crop later in the book, it just seems so foolhardy to make that trade.  Pa!  The signs were there!  When you saw how little wheat Hanson sowed despite the land being "great wheat country", why wasn't that a clue?  Hanson must have been thrilled to unload his property and get a covered wagon and two ponies and a colt.  Buyer beware, Pa...

 

-"Pa often said he did not know how he could manage without Laura."  Foreshadowing for the rest of the series!

 

-"'I declare you eat more plums than you pick up,' Mary said.  'I don't either such a thing,' Laura contradicted.  'I pick up every plum I eat.'"  Good one, Laura!

 

-While I don't love the button-string story for the repeated favoritism of Carrie, I do like how Ma is teaching Laura and Mary that part of the Christmas spirit is the joy of giving presents, not just receiving them.  That was a year for some serious unselfishness on Laura's and Mary's parts - making the button-string for Carrie and asking for horses for Pa.  I do believe that they actually felt very loving and peaceful about both decisions, which is a credit to Ma and themselves.

 

-I know that Pa really did help fundraise for the church bell in real life.  However, in the book, the story sounds very fishy.  "I had three dollars for new boots, and what do you know, that is exactly how much Rev. Alden needed for the church bell!"  My thought was that he actually drank up that three dollars!  Either way, it was another emotional (not rational) decision not to purchase the boots.

 

-I will give Pa credit for going east to work and earn money for the family, especially walking all that way in worn-out boots.  It seems like by the end of this book, he starts to become a little more practical and less dreamy, such as when he and Ma don't buy the things for themselves at the store.  They really do hit rock bottom in Plum Creek.

 

Silver Lake

 

-Wow, the beginning of this book is so sad.  They've been on that horrible grasshopper-plagued land for three (?) years, Mary has gone blind, and despite everyone's hard work and sacrifice, they aren't able to keep their debt at a reasonable level.  Again, finally the adults do something that makes sense.  I know Ma likes being in settled country, but Plum Creek isn't worth it!  Moving to Silver Lake allows them to get some money and get back on their feet a little.

 

-Ugh, the story of the thirteen-year-old getting married.  And ew to thirteen-year-old conjugal relations.

 

-And Laura's reaction to the above is so sad:  "Well, I'd like my own house, and I like babies, and I wouldn't mind the work, but I don't want to be so responsible.  I'd rather let Ma be responsible for a long time yet."  Yes, Laura, basically you are doing all the jobs of a wife and mother, but don't have the luxury ("responsibility") of making your own decisions.  You have to follow your parents and their bad decisions around the country!  I guess she can't see that all the work and sense of duty to her parents and sisters are actually quite a bit of responsibility.

 

 

 

 

[Snow Apple]

 

- I just couldn't get over the beginning, when Pa trades everything of value for the dugout and land.  Knowing how the grasshoppers destroy the wheat crop later in the book, it just seems so foolhardy to make that trade.  Pa!  The signs were there!  When you saw how little wheat Hanson sowed despite the land being "great wheat country", why wasn't that a clue?  Hanson must have been thrilled to unload his property and get a covered wagon and two ponies and a colt.  Buyer beware, Pa...

When Pa heard the locals call that time grasshopper weather, Laura asked what that means, and Pa said he didn't know. Why didn't he ask, darn it? Would have saved a lot of hard work and grief.

[smittykins]

My thought was that he actually drank up that three dollars!

 

Ever since we started this thread, when there's a mention of Pa "going across the street to hear the news," I mentally substitute "Pa went to the saloon."

[Mybrainhurts]

The two things I liked best about BTSOSL were the train ride (Laura was such a badass not to be scared and to actually be able to walk through the train car!) and Lena.  I always hoped Lena would come back--she was one of the better characters in the series, even though she was only in the one book for a short time.  

[camom]

Can someone remind me -- how were Hiram and Docia related to the Ingalls?

[juneday]

I like Lena, as well.

That dinner they have with all the stuff from the Surveyor's house seemed to me like the best dinner they'd had in forever, at least that I can remember from the books.

[Sharpie66]

Docia is Caroline's sister. Hiram was her second husband;the kids are from her first marriage, which ended when her husband killed someone and ended up in prison. We saw Docia at the party in LHitBW, but LIW skipped over the fact that she was a divorcee with two kids there.

[sgittinger]

Aunt Docia was Pa's sister (her given name was Laura Ladocia).

[ElderPrice]

Ma got off a couple of zingers to Pa in OTSOSL. I wonder if her frustration was getting to the point where it was getting hard to not say anything about Pa's inability to stay put. When they see the surveyors pantry full of food she says "We haven't always been so well provided for." It sounds like she's complimenting Pa but the unsaid portion is ". . . by someone else!" And at the Christmas dinner with the Boasts Pa is going on about how awesome Christmas is, thanks to him, and Ma says "Well we haven't always had a pantry full of food at our disposal." Booyah! Of course these comments went over Pa's head since they weren't about how awesome he is, but I wonder if Laura remembered because they were uncharacteristic of Ma's nature.  

[PrincessLuceval]

Well, today starts The Long Winter. I was just looking at the Wikipedia article about it, and it claims that this book is the closest to historical accuracy of the series - that is, that winter was truly a bad one, trains were stranded/frozen in, and the railroad company pretty much abandoned efforts to get the trains moving until spring. Cap and Almanzo did go for the wheat, and the family did twist hay for fuel. There was no Indian warning though.

 

This book contains another Mary-slapworthy passage: when Laura goes to help Pa drive off the cattle that had drifted in after the first blizzard. Their breath had frozen their heads to the ground. Laura was trying to describe it to the family when she went back in the house, and Ma and Mary basically called her a liar. Then Pa came in and told the same story, and they're all like Oh, really, how horrible! 

[Ceindreadh]

I think The Long Winter is one of my least favourite books of the series.  In part because it was the last one I read - IIRC, I only got read it for the first time a few years ago, whereas most of the other books I would have read and re-read many times growing up.  But what I really don't like is that there's so much of the story that's told from a viewpoint other than Laura's.  It's not the same with Farmer Boy, because even though that's all from Almanzo's POV, there's no jumping back and forth between viewpoints. 

[Stargazer3]

I agree about Mary's remark to Laura when she tells the story of the cattle..."It must be one of Laura's queer notions," Mary said, busily knitting in her chair by the stove. "How could cattle's heads freeze to the ground, Laura? It's really worrying, the way you talk sometimes."  Mary should have been slapped for that remark, blind or not. And I like how Pa's store building was one of the best in town, yet his family was living in that little shack on the claim. Gee, Pa, maybe it would have been nice to build your family a good house. And how did Pa get the money to buy a town lot? Or did he squat on that one too? I would think you would have to pay for a town lot, or could you just build on one? Ma did make the remark that the place was so well-built that it hardly took any fire to heat it, and Laura made the remark that she wished they had a place like that on their claim.  And what happened to the men who were renting the place. They left a desk and chair for part of the rent - did Pa just throw them out?

The Long Winter always makes me hungry and when I am reading it I eat everything in the house.

[jammaker]

When Laura describes Cap and Ben, I have to wonder how Almanzo felt reading it years later.  There was such an obvious attraction conveyed in those words, even those many years later.

 

I used to enjoy this book more than I do now.   I know that those days must have been long and montonous for them - Laura keeps saying she feels slow and stuipd - but as a reader I don't also want to feel my mind going numb.

[stopeslite]

After reading this thread, and then re-reading Long Winter, it struck me hard that at Christmas, Laura was the ONLY one who didn't get a gift. She gave things to everyone else in the family, and was left out with nothing. Bah. 

 

This is one of my favorites. I like to read it in the worst of summer, to mentally cool down. I can't imagine being so stuck, for so long. 

 

I still can't believe Pa didn't butcher the calf sooner. I know, it's the animal version of eating the seed wheat, but they were starving. Like, honestly starving. They could have kept the cow and killed the calf, and not been that far behind. 

[Snow Apple]

In addition to the cow comment, Mary also corrected Laura when Laura said the air feels savage. "Air is Air. You mean it feels cold." I guess the brutal winter finally made Laura fed up enough to snap back that she did mean savage. Hee.

[Athena]

This book was very boring. The Christmas chapter just saved it for me. Again, too much singing and I did find the switching of narratives between Laura and Almanzo clunky. I did find it funny how everytime the Wilders were mentioned, pancakes were too!

 

I actually listened to half of this on audiobook from HarperCollins. It was Ok. I got use to the narrator after awhile and it made the singing aspects go by faster. That's about it. 

 

Mary is such a sanctimonious wet blanket. 

[BatmanBeatles]

You know things got bad when they ran out of tea and only drank hot water.

[moonb]

The Long Winter is the book in which the libertarian business bothers me the most - from Pa and Laura's first conversation about that muskrat house to that heavyhanded bit in Loftus' general store when the town confronts him about overcharging for the wheat. Ugh. Also "ugh" to the portrayal of the old Native American man who comes to warn them about the long winter..."heap big snow come." 1930s stereotypes, anyone?

 

On the other hand, I love the description of the green pumpkin pie. I have always wanted to try making one. And Cap Garland - LIW compares him to the sun, for crying out loud.  And Pa's "we thank thee for all thy bounty" at the big Christmas meal in May after just surviving does make me teary. Reading it as a kid, I didn't pick up that feeling numb and half-asleep=starving. 

Edited September 14, 2014 by moonb

[PrincessLuceval]

I didn't realize that, Batman Beatles. I thought they always had the tea, because WonderPa brought home a couple pounds of it when the stores were running out of things. Ma even praised him for it.

[cathy7304]

Hello Everyone, I stumbled onto this site and I'm so glad I did! You're witty and sarcastic posts keep me in stitches. One question though, what does "IIRC" mean? Is there a glossary of terms I can refer to?

[sgittinger]

Hi, Cathy:

 

IIRC is short for "If I recall correctly" as in "IIRC Mary was a prisspot".

[Sir RaiderDuck OMS]

The Long Winter is the book in which the libertarian business bothers me the most - from Pa and Laura's first conversation about that muskrat house to that heavyhanded bit in Loftus' general store when the town confronts him about overcharging for the wheat. Ugh. Also "ugh" to the portrayal of the old Native American man who comes to warn them about the long winter..."heap big snow come." 1930s stereotypes, anyone?

Like I mentioned in another thread, Almanzo first talks the hermit into selling his wheat, then Charles talks the merchant into only charging a fair price. I suspect the truth was a lot darker and probably involved threats of violence from people who were literally going to watch their families die without that wheat.

[BatmanBeatles]

I found out that the book was originally called, "The Hard Winter", but publishers thought the title was too harsh for children to handle. This upset Rose and she said children were coddled. If she only saw the helicopter parenting today, her head would spin.

[PrincessLuceval]

There's an original "The Hard Winter" at the Mansfield Museum exhibit. 

[cathy7304]

Thanks so much. That makes perfect sense now.

[Pickles Aplenty]

 

The Long Winter is the book in which the libertarian business bothers me the most - from Pa and Laura's first conversation about that muskrat house to that heavyhanded bit in Loftus' general store when the town confronts him about overcharging for the wheat. Ugh.

Yes.  This.  The muskrat conversation and the line about the Ingalls girls being above working in the fields like foreigners made me hate the book and put it down in frustration.  Such an asshole point of view, in so many ways.

[BatmanBeatles]

Gee, what did Ma think of the Wilder women who did indeed work in the fields?

[nodorothyparker]

I reread this book about once a winter, usually right at the point that I can't take being shut up in the house anymore and need a reminder of how much worse it could be sitting in the freezing dark twisting hay and subsisting on tea and a slice of brown bread before I snap and kill one of the kids.

 

Still, lots of things about the book grate.  All of Pa's libertarian speeches when he wasn't sneaking off to the Wilders' to fill up on pancakes before coming home to take the biggest share of potatoes and biscuits, Laura again sacrificing more than any of her sisters, and Mary's general prissyness and wanting to save all the church stories so they could learn "self denial."  Really, Mary?  You're about two steps above starving and you think now is the time to be practicing self denial of anything that might distract from just how desperate life is getting?

 

This book is as interesting for what it doesn't tell us as it for what it does.  How far were Almanzo and Cap prepared to go if the settler didn't agree to sell his wheat?  How likely was Royal Wilder to keep the wheat in the wall a secret if Almanzo hadn't come back or if he decided things were desperate enough?  And what are the chances Charles wouldn't have been over there trying to take it?  Especially as it got down to the choice of that or killing the cow.

 

Also interesting is that in reality the Ingalls had a couple living with them during this winter.  The husband refused to help out with any of the work because he was paying board and always took the biggest potatoes and best portions for himself.  That makes the whole claustrophobic nature of the story even worse to think about it and makes me wonder if some of that character didn't bleed through into the portrayal of Charles.

[Pickles Aplenty]

 

Also interesting is that in reality the Ingalls had a couple living with them during this winter.  The husband refused to help out with any of the work because he was paying board and always took the biggest potatoes and best portions for himself.  That makes the whole claustrophobic nature of the story even worse to think about it and makes me wonder if some of that character didn't bleed through into the portrayal of Charles.

That's according to the Ingalls, though, and the more I learn about them- especially Pa- the less trustworthy I think they are.  It's making me give these books the side-eye and questioning everything that happens, no matter how minor.

[nodorothyparker]

Fair point.  The more you learn about Charles Ingalls the harder it is to take much of anything they say at face value.  Lots of incidents in the books look a lot less benign  when you really consider his track record.

[Sir RaiderDuck OMS]

This book is as interesting for what it doesn't tell us as it for what it does.  How far were Almanzo and Cap prepared to go if the settler didn't agree to sell his wheat?

I think they either directly threatened him, or at least said something like "If you don't want to sell, no problem! We can't make you do anything. We'll just go back to our town where everyone's starving to death, tell them the exact location of this farm, and let them know you had plenty of wheat but didn't want to sell. What happens after that is your problem. Have a nice day!" Edited September 19, 2014 by Sir RaiderDuck OMS

[Mybrainhurts]

I always thought this was the most boring of the Little House books, even though it was pretty realistic in describing how awful all those blizzards were.  That might actually be why it was so boring--reading about people starving and the daily grind of trying to stay alive gets really depressing so after the first few pages you stop wanting to read and finishing the book seems more like a chore.  The only reason I was glad to read it this time around was that it made me even happier that I live here in sunny California and don't ever have to worry about blizzards or shoveling snow again.

 

How likely was Royal Wilder to keep the wheat in the wall a secret if Almanzo hadn't come back or if he decided things were desperate enough?

 

Oh, you knew that Royal probably complained all that following spring about how much money he could have made selling the seed wheat--even in Farmer Boy, Royal seemed to love the idea of making money more than anything.

[Queena]

I thought it was Almazon that owned the seed wheat?

I love this topic!

[sgittinger]

The seed wheat belonged to Almanzo, but Royal was all prepared to sell it, even though Almnazo pretty much said "hell no".

[CherryAmes]

I can understand why everyone seems to find Mary hard to take but I didn't mind her that much.  I also liked how in one of the later books, when she and Laura and talking about their childhoods, Mary comes right out and says she deserved to be slapped.  On topic: I loved The Long Winter and like a few others posting I try to re-read it every year, usually on the hottest days of summer. 

 

With regard to how Ma felt about Almanzo I always figured she wasn't sure about Almanzo given the age difference between him and Laura.  In the books they make it only about 6 years IIRC but in reality it was 10 years.  I can understand a parent not being happy about their teenage daughter being romanced by a man well into his 20s!

[sgittinger]

The "I hate Ma" part of me always believed Ma didn't want to lose their only reliable source of income, which they pretty much did when Laura and Almanzo married.

[smittykins]

I do wonder how they managed(or didn't)after Laura left.  Apparently Mary had to come home from college for a year, but it's not known exactly why(and she did eventually finish).

[sgittinger]

Mary came home, amused Grace on her lap (not like that), and made fly nets. Whatever those are.

[Queena]

I love this thread! I need to reread the books, because I never noticed that Pa was such a loser. I couldn't stand Ma, or Mary. I was most definitely Laura. Our birthday's are even a day apart. Give or take 110 years. The fact that the whole family, other than 3rd or 4th cousins are gone. I wonder if there are Wilders still around? I know Eliza Jane had a few kids.

[CherryAmes]

I dunno, much as I loved and identified with Laura I guess I always knew, even when reading the books at a fairly young age that she who writes the book gets to call the tune :).

[juneday]

I always liked Laura because she was spunky and opinionated and didn't seem to take anyone's crap.

She didn't like to do "women's chores" in a time where that would be considered bad, or lazy, or maybe even scandalous and instead helped her father.

I also think it was interesting how she only had one child in a time period where it was common to have many, or at least more than one. I have always wondered if there was a reason (health related-Almonzo's stroke? Dipthertia?) or maybe they just thought they couldn't afford it.

Anyway, yeah, why didn't they butcher a cow when they were *starving*? Geez Pa, that's an all-time low.

[smittykins]

Well, there was the baby boy who only lived a couple of weeks(and who was conceived after the diphtheria).  There's been a lot of speculation why she never had more children; apparently Rose asked her once in a letter, and Laura replied that she and Almanzo had prayed for another baby, but it never happened. 

[Snow Apple]

Little Town On the Prairie. This was the first book of the series I read and still one of my favorites. Laura had to work but she still had some fun. The "Literaries" sound like fun and involved the whole town (of course Pa was the bestest of all the activities. Bah!). I was nice to see Laura interacting with friends outside her family. She went to a birthday party and got name cards and Almanzo started courting her.

 

One thing that bugged me was at the New England Supper where the women had to work while going hungry and seeing all those good food right in front of them and can't have any until the end.

[BatmanBeatles]

If only paper plates were invented at the time. Then they wouldn't have been stuck doing dishes all night.

[smittykins]

And remember Ma's snippy attitude when Pa called it a "sociable"?  "It wasn't a sociable, it was a New England Supper."  Well, ex-cuuuuuse me, Ma!

[BatmanBeatles]

What in the world was that about? Maybe Ma was exhausted.

[Snow Apple]

What in the world was that about? Maybe Ma was exhausted.

Yeah. She cooked, served, cleaned, and then was rewarded with leftovers. And Pa finally get to live like a king by sitting back, relaxed, and ate that feast without a thought of Ma or Laura. Not even stopping by and asking how they were holding up.

[jammaker]

 

And remember Ma's snippy attitude when Pa called it a "sociable"?  "It wasn't a sociable, it was a New England Supper."  Well, ex-cuuuuuse me, Ma!

 

I always thought it was because the dime sociable that Laura went to was such a bore, Ma didn't want it to be associated.

 

Or maybe after cooking, serving, and cleaning, she was pointing out that there was no real socializing going on except with the men - who got to do that all winter long in the stores anyways while women maybe got to get together to knit together on Saturdays, at most.

 

Little Town is where the abundance of food comes back, and the family finally seems to be on its feet again and able to not pinch every penny.   This book and the next seem to be the best times for the Ingalls since the Big Woods and the last of the good times really.