Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House" Series

[kikismom]

Hey folks, would you be interested in group re-read? We could go one book a week and basically snark the heck out of it. Also swoon over Manly & Laura and salivate over the food in Farmer Boy. I can create a new topic for it and let the people at the LHOTP TV board know as well. 

 

 

Yet Laura tells us that Ma really hates sewing too.

 

In These Happy Golden Years Pa breaks down and buys her a sewing machine, admitting that with Laura marrying and moving out Ma won't be able to manage all the work by herself.  To be fair, it's a right bitch to have to sew by hand and I can't imagine having to do it for a family of six.  But these kids only have about two or three dresses a piece which are expected to last a season (the descriptions of making new dresses were among my favorite things as a kid because I also had a mother who made our clothes) and two of the remaining three daughters at home are teenagers who we've been told have been sewing for years.  Funny how the sewing machine was an unnecessary extravagance until Laura wouldn't be there anymore.

That reminds me of Laura working for Clancy the dressmaker, from dawn till dusk basting shirts, setting collars, making buttonholes, and getting paid 25 cents a day besides ( Woo-hooo!) .Then when she finally accumulates 9 dollars at this sweatshop rate, Ma announces that she can use the 9 bucks to make Mary's best dress for college--out of brown cashmere, and a velvet hat, and petticoats with machine made lace yada yada. But when Laura gets married and needs a trousseau, underwear and stockings and linens and a wedding dress...guess who pays for it? Again? You'll never guess. :-D

Yeah they didn't have the sewing machine to make Mary's college clothes, because Laura is there to sew.

But when she married Ma gave her one of her old red checked tablecloths.

Jesus wept.

 

 

Hey folks, would you be interested in group re-read? We could go one book a week and basically snark the heck out of it. Also swoon over Manly & Laura and salivate over the food in Farmer Boy. I can create a new topic for it and let the people at the LHOTP TV board know as well. 

Yes, I would like that (if people don't already feel that I've eaten their childhood)

Edited August 4, 2014 by kikismom

[nodorothyparker]

But when Laura gets married and needs a trousseau, underwear and stockings and linens and a wedding dress...guess who pays for it? Again? You'll never guess. :-D

 

Doesn't Ma tell her at some point that she should keep some of her money for herself, thus giving Laura the chance to protest that she doesn't really need it, and then tell her to give it to Pa, who's only too happy to accept it?  But you're right.  Ma did give her two pillows and a tablecloth as part of her trousseau, so I guess in their minds it all evened out.

 

I'm more than wiling to snark on these book by book.  I thought most of the food sounded positively heinous though.  I'm always amazed more of our ancestors didn't die of poor nutrition or poor food handling and storage.

[Athena]

We can start a re-read week of the 17th or next week. If we do them week by week, it'll take us two months to do all nine. We could also do two books a week to have more momentum. What do you guys think?

 

I haven't read these since I was a preteen so it should be interesting! Now, I need to get some copies for my Kindle. 

[Pickles Aplenty]

I'm in favor of a re-read.  I just started doing that myself, and I'm up to On the Banks of Plum Creek, but I can snark along with everyone else.

[Mybrainhurts]

Sounds great to me!  I'm just starting LTOTP right now but I read the earlier ones pretty recently so I can definitely snark with everyone else!

[BatmanBeatles]

I would like that!

[Athena]

Here's a poll to decide how to fast you want to move along with the books. I think we can start sometime next week given the feedback. 

[SunDevil28]

We can start a re-read week of the 17th or next week. If we do them week by week, it'll take us two months to do all nine. We could also do two books a week to have more momentum. What do you guys think?

 

I haven't read these since I was a preteen so it should be interesting! Now, I need to get some copies for my Kindle. 

I just checked and it doesn't appear that they are available on Kindle?

 

That's why I voted for one book a week - so I have time to get each one at the library.  :)

[kikismom]

This might be of interest to some:

 

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2014/04/21/rose_wilder_lane_laura_ingalls_wilder_a_letter_from_their_editorial_collaboration.html

 

http://books.google.com/books?id=-dgv5_JxNmAC&pg=PT55&lpg=PT55&dq=pa+ingalls+kissing+party+for+laura&source=bl&ots=r9QaFC8ZMa&sig=--xs2PPtbSectPBGXyxyienAUX0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=k1jgU6KJKcSVyASL9YGYBg&ved=0CGAQ6AEwCg#v=onepage&q=pa%20ingalls%20kissing%20party%20for%20laura&f=false

[Pickles Aplenty]

So, Laura wanted to include a "darker" theme with the railroad workers in By the Shores of Silver Lake, but Rose oh-so-condescendingly told her no?  Interesting.

 

The part about the male cousin wanting a kiss is a bit weird.  All this is making me want to read Pioneer Girl, real bad.

Edited August 5, 2014 by Billina

[BatmanBeatles]

 

So, Laura wanted to include a "darker" theme with the railroad workers in By the Shores of Silver Lake, but Rose oh-so-condescendingly told her no?  Interesting.

That was weird. If I read it right, did she imply those events couldn't have happened?

[kikismom]

Charley must have been somewhat--ahem--aggressive.

Laura apparently said Pa warned her of a sexual threat/danger getting too near the railroad workers...and Rose thinks Oh of course not those guys wouldn't hurt a fly nice family men.?...Didn't they riot at one camp and "string a man up" and other drunken criminal violence?

 

 She might have said it just to blow off her mother; the tone of the passage about how you can't write about every morning you wake up and eat breakfast or whatever is pretty condescending.

I suppose the real reason is that Rose's political views were pro-independent self=sufficient farm (although that's what she ran away from) and Industrial urban=bad, very against government; but everyone living off the land is the Ideal of Mankind at it's Best. This fails to take into account the Jesse James type outlaws and the Bender family and the alcoholism out west. Men who work hard with their hands can commit crimes just as much as white-collar types but Rose wants this story to be screened through the Ayn Rand filter.

 

It also seems that in real life, children of the two families did NOT play together all summer; but this is changed because Rose says that can't happen even if it did(?)... it could never happen in fiction so even if that's what you really did it's immaterial.

Wow. Alright.

Edited August 5, 2014 by kikismom

[Athena]

I wonder how all these things will colour my views when we do the readalong. I made a new topic for it here. People voted overwhelmingly to go week by week, so now we just have to pick a start date and we're good to go. 

[nodorothyparker]

The more I learn about Rose, the more intolerable I find her

 

I want to like her.  She was a fairly independent woman for her time and where she came from.  But letters between her and Laura, some of her actions in later life, and of course her insistence on trying to view and edit everything through her extreme libertarian prism make it really difficult.

[Pickles Aplenty]

Most people who knew Rose said she was a difficult person to get along with.  There is speculation that she was bipolar, and I hear she struggled with depression, so her moods would have been up and down.  I admire her independence and her flapper-like spirit, but I hate her condescending, my-way-or-the-highway bullshit.  I'm sure "Mama Bess" probably felt the same way.

 

The part about teachers' colleges at the very end is interesting, too.  Was Rose against them?  I wouldn't be surprised if she was, but damn, that's prickly.

Edited August 5, 2014 by Billina

[BatmanBeatles]

If you read the book Becoming Laura Ingalls Wilder it does mention Rose's bout with depression. It began when she was  child and suffered bullying at school. She never looked fondly back at her poor upbringing.

[kikismom]

The Libertarian policy was that education should be taken away from government; the funding, the administration, the regulation, the curriculum etc.

It was considered one of the worst forms of Big Government Control...the thought police indoctrinating your children, and so teacher's colleges were of course the ones that set the standards of how to teach---paid for by government subsidy and taxes.

 

Funny to note that the Dorothy Thompson she mentions wanted to be a teacher, and went to college to be one, but flunked grammar and dropped out.

 

Laura of course sat down at her mother's kitchen table at 15, answered questions, and was certified a teacher. Don't forget in those days, teachers really didn't teach so much...you memorized entire passages by the page and then went up to the teacher's desk and recited it like a parrot and voila! you were educated. You didn't understand what you "knew", but enquiring minds only cause trouble.

 

Laura also agreed with Rose about the poor people in the Great Depression complaining about not having jobs; Laura said they made her sick and the whole lot were getting what they deserved. Yikes.

 

They both had a lot of issues about their lack of education (Rose only made it to ninth grade), poor childhoods, and lack of food and the nicer things their schoolmates had.. But like a TV evangelist who rails about adultery from the pulpit while running around with hookers, those who are the most accountable are the first to cast stones on others?

[Pickles Aplenty]

 

Funny to note that the Dorothy Thompson she mentions wanted to be a teacher, and went to college to be one, but flunked grammar and dropped out.

Whoa, whoa, whoa...she wanted to be a teacher, but she failed grammar?  Not physics, or chemistry, or calculus, but grammar?  One of the easiest subjects in the world to pass?

 

All right, then.

[kikismom]

This is a bit on how Laura likes the ideas for OTSOSL "less and less the more I think of it".  Note that she doesn't want to bring up "Pa's failures".

http://media.nara.gov/presidential-libraries/hoover/gallery/26753-2013-001a-HCH.jpg

[Pickles Aplenty]

She didn't want to mention Jack dying, either, but I always heard it was Laura's way of transitioning little Laura to preteen Laura.  Looks like it was Rose's idea.

[BatmanBeatles]

 

She didn't want to mention Jack dying, either

Probably the same reason why she didn't want to mention the death of baby Charles. I don't blame her for not liking BTSOSL. The beginning was depressing.

Edited August 6, 2014 by BatmanBeatles

[Pickles Aplenty]

By the Shores of Silver Lake was hard for me to get through as a kid.  I thought it was more boring than anything, but re-reading it as an adult will probably be very different.  Originally, the only thing I really liked about it was the description of the surveyor's house and cousin Lena, who is made of awesome.  Seriously, if I had to be any character in the LH world, I would be her, even if she had a rough time in real life.

 

Anyway, re-reading it will be very different now that I know more about Pa and the bad decisions he made.  The book makes it sound like life shat on the Ingalls clan, but it wasn't all bad luck.  Can't wait to snark on it.

Edited August 6, 2014 by Billina

[kikismom]

It's worth noting that researchers who studied the mother-daughter correspondence and editing say that LHITBW was the least "re-worked"; with LHOTP there was more argument and revision, and by the time of BTSOSL Laura and Rose wrestled over the storylines so much it's a miracle the collection was ever finished.

Reading the books together, with what we are aware of now, the change of tone will be so much more obvious than it was to us as children.

And I think we'll be more aware of some (now apparent) barely disguised anger and resentment.

 

The Little House books are so different than any other literature for young readers; most other children's books remain the same and only the aging reader's tastes in what is entertaining has changed. With LH. so much is in the books that is not perceived by the reader without repeated reading and the passing of years...it is what the story is saying that changes more than the reader.

A psychologist's gold mine.

[Sharpie66]

I want to thank y'all for posting the link to the Readalong thread over at TV, because that's the only way I found out about this thread!! I only check out the Anachronisms thread in the TV section because I barely remember the tv series, but love and adore the books.

 

My backstory: we had the hardcover for LHitBW since I was a baby, but my godmother gave me the box set of paperbacks for Christmas of my 6th year, and the book geek that I am was ecstatic to have All Of These Books just for me!!!! Still my most memorable childhood Xmas gift, 42 years later.

 

Anyway, I read them all as soon as I could, and re-read them until I finally sold the falling-apart books at a garage sale when I was 19. Then, I ended up buying the DeSmet books and Farmer Boy when I was working at Waldenbooks in my late 20s, and still re-read them today. I've also read several bios of both Laura and Rose (The Ghost in the Little House for Rose), as well as the book mentioned upthread about the whole phenomenon that is LHotP. I keep meaning to take a week and drive to DeSmet for summer vacation some year (I live in Chicagoland), just to see the Surveyors House and the cemetary, and see how geeky and tacky the LHotP experience is in one of its homeplaces.

 

The books are definitely "a psychologist's gold mine"--an excellent turn of phrase, kikismom!  So much stuff is hidden just in the pages, not even knowing the actual backstory of the real lives.

 

As a kid, Laura was my ideal of the perfectly-written child character. She was complex, not a goody-goody but a rebel, consistent in all of the books, and had true development. I loved her resentment of Mary, her tomboyish ways, and her conflicting relationship with Ma.

 

My favorite book is Little Town on the Prairie, mostly because I just love the sociological depiction of teenage life on the American frontier in the 19th century, and how much the little things really resonate with teens of every era, especially the fads that go through the school (autograph books, name cards, etc.), the fashions that are as ephemeral as ever, but harder to keep track of so far away from New York, and just the fun that is in that book, before adult life gets too difficult for Laura. Well, except for her conflicts with other people in town, especially Eliza Jane and Nellie Oleson.

 

Looking forward to the Readalong!

[moonb]

I love the read-along idea. Like a lot of others have mentioned, Ma was so much more sympathetic to me as an adult, having to take her 4 kids and trail behind this husband who couldn't really support his family. Which was his entire job - "men's work" and all. 

 

I don't remember which biography I read it in (maybe  Zochert?), but I got the impression that young Pa was considered very charming and Ma was thought to be plain and didn't have her pick of marriageable men. I wonder about that, though, since it sounds like a biographer getting close to fiction there.

 

I think of Little House on the Prairie (flu! dropping a log on Ma's ankle!), On the Banks of Plum Creek (Pa in a snowbank) and especially The Long Winter (asking the Wilders for food) to be the most harrowing reads through adult eyes. LTOTP and THGY are at least a little more about teenage Laura having fun, if you can forget the Brewsters.

[Athena]

Here is the link to the Little House readalong topic from August 10th onwards. 

[smittykins]

Doesn't Ma tell her at some point that she should keep some of her money for herself, thus giving Laura the chance to protest that she doesn't really need it, and then tell her to give it to Pa, who's only too happy to accept it?

 

A couple of times that I remember--during her first job sewing shirts at Clancy's, then one of her teaching jobs.

[kikismom]

I want to thank y'all for posting the link to the Readalong thread over at TV, because that's the only way I found out about this thread!! I only check out the Anachronisms thread in the TV section because I barely remember the tv series, but love and adore the books.

 

My backstory: we had the hardcover for LHitBW since I was a baby, but my godmother gave me the box set of paperbacks for Christmas of my 6th year, and the book geek that I am was ecstatic to have All Of These Books just for me!!!! Still my most memorable childhood Xmas gift, 42 years later.

 

Anyway, I read them all as soon as I could, and re-read them until I finally sold the falling-apart books at a garage sale when I was 19. Then, I ended up buying the DeSmet books and Farmer Boy when I was working at Waldenbooks in my late 20s, and still re-read them today. I've also read several bios of both Laura and Rose (The Ghost in the Little House for Rose), as well as the book mentioned upthread about the whole phenomenon that is LHotP. I keep meaning to take a week and drive to DeSmet for summer vacation some year (I live in Chicagoland), just to see the Surveyors House and the cemetary, and see how geeky and tacky the LHotP experience is in one of its homeplaces.

 

 

 

especially the fads that go through the school (autograph books, name cards, etc.), the fashions that are as ephemeral as ever, but harder to keep track of so far away from New York, and just the fun that is in that book, before adult life gets too difficult for Laura. Well, except for her conflicts with other people in town

 

This is so horrible, but when I was reading Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho, I thought some of it was reminiscent of Little Town On The Prairie :

• The comparison of everybody's "name cards"
• The detailed descriptions of food
• The descriptions of clothing
• The bottled up frustration bubbling over but no one else notices.

 

I can imagine this in my head---"I'm wearing calico day dress by Caroline Ingalls, shoes by Loftus General Store, and Ida Brown is wearing gingham by Church Barrel Collection, Nellie Oleson in lavender lawn polonaise by Relatives B.ackeast and shoes by Montgomery Ward catalogue. We meet at Club SingingSchool, but it's full of Mankato types so we go to the privy and crush Carter's Little Liver Pills and snort them off my slate. Nellie says no one has autograph books anymore and name cards are all the rage and I tell her I want to rip off her head and pack it in my valise and leave it at the Brewster's shanty and take her body behind the livery stable and cover it with Ma's good sweet tomato preserves and drag it over a fire ant mound and she says she will show us her cards Monday and Minnie wants to know how much they cost. I can't stand it and I run hysterical down Main Street stuffing prairie dogs in my mouth and then I see two bums. They are coming out of the saloon singing Pull For the Shore Sailor and I stab them both with a picket-pin I hid in my brown velvet hat. I feel better and I go home and do 300 lifts with a water bucket and 200 lunges with a pan of chicken mash. Pa comes home with Mr. Edwards and that anorexic ditz Mrs.Boast and we hold out a twenty-dollar-bill in front of Mary and snatch it away over and over while she's sobs I'm blind and we tell her to get a job and we all laugh. I drink a Lydia Pinkham's tonic, double, on the rocks. Tomorrow I will buy teeth for a hay mower blade at Fuller's Hardware store to kill Miss Wilder with. Today's editorial in the Chicago Inter-Ocean was Susan B. Anthony--Suffragette Heroine Or Just A Great Big Lez?

[Brn2bwild]

Could someone clarify something for me from Farmer Boy?  I remember Eliza Jane being scornful of drinking tea from the saucer, saying that civilized people should drink from the cup.  Her mother got huffy and said that her family had always sipped from the saucer and there was nothing wrong with it.  Doesn't that mean they were basically drinking from the plate that held the cup?  Why would that be considered acceptable?  That just seems weird to me.

[fishcakes]

Doesn't that mean they were basically drinking from the plate that held the cup?  Why would that be considered acceptable?  That just seems weird to me.

 

In the west and south, people would often pour their hot coffee into the saucer to cool it before drinking. It used to be common practice but eventually came to be considered bad manners. In old TV shows or books, you'll sometimes have a scene of a poor country hick doing it while a more cultured lady (i.e., one who bathes every Saturday) looks on as if she's going to pass out in disgust.

[kikismom]

I'm linking this article because the old paintings shown in it are very surprising.

 

http://en.ilovecoffee.jp/posts/view/83

[Snow Apple]

Wow. I’ve learned so much from this thread. Reading the books, I always had a sense of…..disappointment…..in Ma and Pa. I guess I picked up the subtext without being aware of it.

 

One of the many things in the books that bugged me about Pa was from The Long Winter. He was all raring to go off willy nilly on what may be a fool’s errand tracking down wheat and all from a mere rumor. Yeah, Chuck. Leave the females to fend for themselves and possibly get lost in a blizzard (again!) and it may all be for nothing.

 

I also hated how Laura worked just for Mary and kept nothing for herself. Heaven forbid Mary attends a blind school without the prettiest underwear in all of Iowa.

[BatmanBeatles]

Seriously, who in the blind school is going to notice Mary's nice underwear?

 

 

One of the many things in the books that bugged me about Pa was from The Long Winter. He was all raring to go off willy nilly on what may be a fool’s errand tracking down wheat and all from a mere rumor. Yeah, Chuck. Leave the females to fend for themselves and possibly get lost in a blizzard (again!) and it may all be for nothing.

Then he comes home after having some pancakes and salt pork.

[kikismom]

The book also mentions that Laura used all her best colored embroidery floss that she had got for Christmas to stitch a pattern on Mary's petticoats. That's why I'd love to see the Ingalls family on a Dr. Phil special about enablers and co-dependents (or is masochist the word I'm searching for?)
 
 The following is delivered in a bombastic bellow at full volume:
 
"Welcome everybody, this is Mary! She's 16 and doesn't do a damn thing but expects the rest of the family to provide her with the nicest fashions and accessories! Even though her family is so in debt up to their eyeballs that they eat crows--yes crows!--just to survive!"
"Now this is Charles, who sneaks off to eat hickory cured ham and stacks of buckwheat pancakes dripping with syrup! That's when he isn't sneaking into the barn to smoke rabbit tobacco or sneaking into town to drink or sneaking into houses when his neighbors aren't home and reading their mail! And if you think his brother-in-law loaded three wagons with railroad scrapers and barrels of flour all by himself then you don't know Charles!"
"And this is Caroline, who let's both of them get away with this dysfunctional behaviour while treating another daughter like a third-world slave! Caroline admits she treats the girls differently and Mary's golden curls are better than Laura's plain brown hair!"
"Caroline? Charles?....What-the-hell-were-you-thinking?!"

[nodorothyparker]

Oh God, the brown hair vs. prettier than pretty blonde hair all the way back in the Big Woods just killed me.  As a brown-haired brown-eyed child, you guess which side I came down on.

As an adult, I could maybe chalk the seemingly blatant favoritism in the story to being told from Laura's POV, and coming from a family of sisters, I know how those POVs can vary wildly even of seemingly innocent things.  But I've now read several histories of the family that make it pretty clear that Mary was always the golden child, both literally and figuratively, and that her blindness was both a terrible blow and the thing that elevated her further.  Here, Laura, make sure you describe every damn thing and be her eyes for her and read your homework for her.  Here, Laura, take on multiple jobs you hate to pay for pretty clothes and train fare and even a freaking organ for Mary because your feckless father won't.   

[Winipo75]

The way Laura (the author) set her Pa up in the books, I found it hard to imagine that he would be the kind of man to stuff his face with pancakes and ham, then go home to his starving family and STILL take the largest potato! It didn't seem to fit with the image of "hero" Pa. But now that I've learned more about the real man, it makes much more sense. Hell, I'm surprised he didn't guilt them into giving him an extra potato! There might just be one, tiny corner of his stomach not stuffed full of syrup and pancakes!

[nodorothyparker]

Actually, there is a scene in that book where Ma basically guilts the kids into agreeing that they're not really all that hungry so they can give Pa the extra potato she somehow accidentally cooked because he "needs" it.  He's working so hard doing the outside chores and hauling hay to burn that he needs more.  I'm sure on some level that was very probably true because it does burn a lot of calories to do hard labor in cold weather, but we know he was regularly sneaking across the street and getting extra. 

[kikismom]

I always wondered if they could smell breakfast-at-the-Wilder's when Pa walked in the door. ("Ma reaches down in the dark and feels the grain in the pail; rocking back and forth she cries out "Oh I knew you'd provide for us---HAMBREATH!"

 

I like when Laura sees the empty sack, and Ma says their is no more flour in town, and Laura asks "Will we starve, Ma?"

And what does Ma answer?

That Pa will kill the cow and the calf "if he must".

At this point in the story it is the middle of February. The children have been living on weak tea and 1 potato twice a day. They are so hungry that Laura cannot think straight enough to recite nursery rhymes, they are "tired and listless and dull".

But there's a few hundred pounds of meat about 20 yards from the house.

 

At the very least that heifer calf would have been butchered back in November to feed the kids if it was my family.

[Pickles Aplenty]

I was surprised to learn from The Wilder Life that the books were originally known by readers as "the Laura and Mary books".  This was after Farmer Boy came out, and they needed something to differentiate, I guess.  When I read that, I thought to myself, "But...Mary doesn't do anything.  Hell, she hardly speaks!  How were they ever the 'Laura and Mary' books?!"  Readers in the 1930's probably had a very different opinion of St. Mary.

[nodorothyparker]

I could buy them holding off until around Christmas (I think it was) when they got official word that the trains wouldn't be running until spring.  They were waiting on the trains to bring more supplies for whole chapters. 

 

It's one of those Catch-22 things when you're talking about slaughtering livestock in a situation like this though.  You need to eat now, but if you do then you're basically without any resources and no way to easily rebuild your stock.  Still, I think at this point in the story the potatoes have already run out and they're sitting around in the dark, living off of tea and homeground bread made from a sack of wheat that's now also run out.  Pa's gone to the Wilders' where we know he's helping himself to their secret stash of wheat.  Just how long was he planning on waiting to kill a cow if the Wilders weren't willing to be so generous?

[kikismom]

Also, I do wonder about the heroics of going to get the wheat. I know Almanzo thought his wheat seed was some top quality...but when people (including children!) are starving, is that a matter of priorities? Almanzo and Cap go looking for wheat, on the basis of a rumor, no idea if it's true or where it would be.

 

Fortunately, they manage to find it and bring it back. But what if they hadn't?

What would the townsfolk think if they found out all the time they were waiting and hungry that Almanzo had bushels of wheat hidden but hadn't wanted to share, even sell it?

He and Cap might not have found it; they could even have died on that search. And I think it was like 3 days after they made the decision to do it before they could leave (because of another blizzard.) Three more days of hunger for starving people.

And they are telling the man with the wheat that he could buy more seed in the spring when the trains were running again. Well, so could Almanzo. And since the trains couldn't run till the snow stopped nobody could plant till then anyway.

Almanzo is arguing with the guy about why he should sell because it's guaranteed money whereas if he saves it to plant, birds could eat it or a drought something else could go wrong.

That would apply to Almanzo too; but he sure didn't consider it important enough to sell his own wheat.

It always bothered me a little.

[nodorothyparker]

I've always pondered the same thing.  I've also always thought he knew that if it got right down to it his brother would sell the wheat out from under him.  Almanzo pretty much says as much at one point and Royal is always described as a storekeeper first and foremost, not a farmer who would care about it.  That of course then makes me wonder about the version of how they got the guy to "sell" the wheat to them.  It's presented as a pretty soft sell for how dire the situation was and how much we know he didn't want to part with his own wheat.  In turn, you then have to wonder if he had considered the possibility that if they hadn't gone or gone and come back empty handed that Charles Ingalls wouldn't have been telling everybody about his stash and they would have been facing an angry mob of desperate hungry townspeople who likely wouldn't have been in the mood to hear about his spring planting plans.  All in all, it's not quite the picture of the selfless hero I think we're supposed to think Almanzo is for making for trip.

 

Actually, the book does tell us that Almanzo sowed his wheat before the trains ever started running again.  Hence, we get Ma talking about trying to find weeds to feed them and the scene where Pa and the other townspeople break into the immigrant car (whatever that is) and steal all the food stuffs there.  The town's out of food at that point as Almanzo's putting his wheat in the ground.  So he's not terribly concerned about it by then.

[smittykins]

Oh God, the brown hair vs. prettier than pretty blonde hair all the way back in the Big Woods just killed me.  As a brown-haired brown-eyed child, you guess which side I came down on.

 

Speaking as another brunette(but without a golden-haired older sister), that part always bothered me, too.  I realize discipline was harsher in those days, and I'm not saying that Laura should have gotten off scot-free for slapping Mary, but I always thought Mary should've gotten a stern talking-to about baiting her younger sister.

Also, the part(I believe it was in OTSOSL)when Pa basically tells her "you will be a schoolteacher, end of discussion."  Again, I know it was a different time, and good girls like Laura didn't disappoint their parents, but I hated that she had no choice in the matter.

[kikismom]

Yeah lol that's right the wheat they brought back ran out but Almanzo's out in full view sowing his wheat in the ground. Nice.

Didn't they finally get the guy to sell by paying him about 40 cents above normal price? which then becomes the price the townspeople had to pay; even though Almanzo must have known if he had sold his own, they could have bought it for a lot less?

Yes, I'll bet he realized he had to bring it back or Charles would tell everybody.

But if he and Cap had gone and got caught in the storm and didn't come back, Charles would not have told...he would have knocked out Royal and taken it and sold it himself.? Maybe that's really why Almanzo took Cap and made sure Royal stayed home

[nodorothyparker]

Oh, can you imagine?  Pa coming home with sacks and sacks of wheat and some tale about how he "found" it after fighting off a bear or a goat or Bigfoot for it?  It would have been another one of those lucky lucky Pa stories.

[kikismom]

That's so funny  :-) ; I can just imagine Charles thinking "Hmmm, no bears in DeSmet, no panthers,... maybe they'd believe a chupacabra?"

And yes it would be another heart-warming lucky lucky Pa story, and all the Ingalls girls would hug him.

 

But how many of us are wondering why Pa would be studying the thickness of a wall and how many missing square feet ----and where the most likely hiding places are in someone else's home?

I think it wasn't Pa's first time if you know what I mean.

[ElderPrice]

I just reread The Long Winter, and to Almanzo's credit he did the math. He figured out that based on how many people were in town, and when they could expect spring and the trains, and how much wheat he had, that his wheat wouldn't be much help. He figured that even if he donated his wheat it wouldn't be enough to keep the town from starving before the trains came, and he would be out his crop and people would still be dead.

 

At least, that's how it's explained in the book.

 

And Pa was a dick to keep going over to the Wilders feed store and stuffing himself, then coming home and eating his full portion.

[Snow Apple]

Didn't Pa simply walk into the Wilder's home and took the wheat even after the boys said they weren't selling? I know starving people do desperate things, but I always thought that was very rude and entitled. He could have explained the situation, but no, he just took.

[PrincessLuceval]

Oh, goodie, more of my people here! I always thought that Laura tried to show Pa in his best light, because she was his favorite. But Pa was a blowhard jerk quite often. Oh, look! Pa is the funniest minstrel! Oh, look, Pa wins the spelling bee! Oh, look, Pa was the best at charades! Oh, listen, Pa knows that it's going to be a hard winter, because things just feel off. And the muskrats' house is extra thick. And the irony is so heavy sometimes. Pa talking about (in BTSOSL) how he thinks that winters are going to be milder there, because they moved west, which supposedly is as good as moving south (insert the anvil trombone sound).

 

And then passively making Ma out to be a bitch, and Mary, too. One of my favorite examples is when Laura helps Pa shoo the cattle that had wandered in after the first snowstorm in TLW. Their heads had frozen to the ground, and it had to be a really grotesque image to Laura, who tried to tell the story back at the house (because she was Mary's eyes and ears!). What do Ma and Mary do? Call her a liar, pretty much. Ma: "That can't be!" Mary (knitting busily, because my God she has to be shown doing something productive): "It must be one of Laura's queer notions. How can cattle's heads be frozen to the ground, Laura?" GOD, I wanted to just slap her silly right then. And THEN, Pa comes in, and corroborates the story. No apologies to Laura for not believing her. 

 

I'm glad we have this thread here, because the snark potential for the books is huge. 

[kikismom]

That same passage (about Laura's queer notions) always makes my blood boil. Mary is quite snotty and gets away with it.

I also think it's funny how Pa talks about Easterners and tenderfeet, and he was from NY. He carries on like he was Davy Crockett.

 

Pa always says every place will be better weather and all the hunting a man could want. He seems to forget he's not the only guy out there hunting, and considering all the animals he killed in traps there won't be many animals at all soon.

I think he just wanted a free living, food and lumber and everything just for the taking. He is a blowhard jerk, a pretender at Wild West badassery he didn't carry off, and really immature: remember when the Boast's arrive and he's like "Our place will be headquarters!" FFS grow up Charles.