This week, my journey through the Little House series continued. This post will be all about my feelings on the second half of the series, books five through nine.
By the Shores of Silver Lake picks up a few years after the ending of book four. Misfortune has visited the family in the interim. Their farm was only able to turn out a few small, poor harvests of wheat after the grasshopper devastation of the previous year, and Laura's older sister Mary has gone blind after a bout of scarlet fever. On a happier note, a new baby has joined the family, another little girl named Grace.
As the story begins, Pa is presented with a job opportunity to work as a bookkeeper for a railroad camp in the Dakota Territory. It's the best offer he's likely to get for a steady job, so the family packs up and moves once again to Silver Lake in South Dakota. Pa does his bookkeeping more or less successfully, and Ma and the girls help out cooking meals for the railroad workers. When the company breaks for winter, the family spends the long. cold season there alone until spring arrives and Pa can stake a claim on a some land nearby. Their goal is to become homesteaders, and start over with a new house and a little livestock operation. Their plans, however, are put in danger when hundreds of other settlers arrive in a great land rush, each hoping to get a piece of the vast, empty prairie for themselves. Pa must work quickly and cleverly to beat the crowds and secure his family's future.
Up until this point, I had generally felt like each book in the series had gotten slightly better as I went along. Here, however, that trend stopped. By the Shores of Silver Lake simply did not have enough plot to make an entertaining story. Very little happens aside from the family waiting to be able to claim their land, and many of the complications and conflicts that do appear feel like rehashes of moments from earlier books. I think Wilder knew about this lack of content, because she added a lot of filler here, mostly in the form of Pa singing way more songs than usual. Pa and his fiddle are a staple of the series, and each novel so far has contained a handful of sections where song lyrics and scenes of singing and dancing are featured. Here, however, there are many more songs than usual, and the scenes including grew boring quickly.
Pa continued to irk me as well, with his constant restlessness and poor decision-making. I noticed Ma being a bit more annoyed with him in this novel too, saying a few times that she didn't want to move or wishing they were back in Plum Creek. I know these stories are based on Wilder's real childhood; I'm often finding myself wondering how much of the family's struggles were softened for young audiences. I can't imagine Ma and Pa didn't fight about some of his decisions. If not, Ma's a much more patient woman than I am. On that note, I also can't imagine that Mary was so calm and accepting of losing her sight, but Mary's always been portrayed as the "good" child, so this fit right in with her character here.
As usual, there were some elements of this novel that have not aged well. Ma still hates the Native Americans, although there aren't very many of them in this story, so the topic doesn't come up much. There is also a mixed race character that everyone insists on calling a "half-breed," even though he is actually a great friend of the family. In comparison with the other books though, this is one of the less problematic ones.
I did appreciate a few aspects of this book. More of Laura's personality started coming out here. She's always been headstrong and adventurous, but here we started to see other aspects of her personality emerge. She's turning out to be restless and a true nature lover, like Pa, and is struggling with her mother's ambitions for her to be a teacher. She doesn't want to teach at all, but feels duty-bound to follow Ma's wishes. I'm interested to see how she handles this as she grows older. I also liked getting a little glimpse of Almanzo at the end of this book, as he drove by Laura's wagon at the very end of the story. I'm interested to read on and see how they end up meeting for real.
The Long Winter picks up a few months or so after the end of the previous book. The Wilder family is living in their claim shanty on their new homestead, and Pa has been working through the summer to harvest a massive crop of hay with his new mowing machine. The machine was an important investment for his land, but it was expensive. He hasn't been able to build a proper house for the family yet because all of his money and attention have been focused on turning a profit with the hay.
As the story begins, an early and brutally cold winter sets in. As their tar paper shanty house is unsuitable for extreme weather conditions, the family is forced to relocate to the nearby town of De Smet. They move into Pa's little rental property that he built at the end of By the Shores of Silver Lake to wait out the season. As the winter gets going in earnest, the town is constantly bombarded by fierce blizzards that last for days. Temperatures reach as low as minus forty degrees, making it nearly impossible to go outside. The train, which is the town's only connection to the more settled parts of the country, is unable to deliver any goods, so the town begins to run dangerously low on necessities like coal and food. With the stores empty and hunting impossible, the Ingalls are forced to survive on bread and an ever-dwindling supply of potatoes. They run out of fuel for their stove, and are forced to burn Pa's hay harvest to keep warm. As the winter stretches through May and April, almost every family in the town is on the brink of either starvation or about to freeze to death.
Just as things are looking desperate, hope arrives in the form of Almanzo Wilder. Almanzo, who has moved to South Dakota and claimed a homestead of his own, has been living in De Smet with his brother Royal just down the road from the Ingalls. Being both rich and clever, the boys have not been hurting for food at all. Just like in Farmer Boy, their food situation is suspiciously plentiful, and they have a seemingly unlimited supply of pancakes, molasses, and bacon to eat. Almanzo has even managed to completely preserve the seed wheat he brought with him to plant in the spring, a feat that no one else has been able to accomplish in the horrible weather.
As the season drags on and on, he begins to fear for this wheat. He knows it is the only large supply of food left in the whole town. He doesn't want to end up selling it to the townspeople, but he also doesn't want to see everyone starve. To save both his wheat and the people, he sets out on a dangerous journey to purchase some other wheat from a homesteader rumored to have some laid by about twenty miles away. The journey is incredibly risky, but he sets out across the frozen prairie anyway, with the hopes of the Ingalls family, and the whole town, riding on him.
I feel a little bit split on this novel. For the most part, I really enjoyed it. It's a true survival story with extremely high stakes for the family. They very nearly starve during this winter, and the way Wilder writes about the extreme cold and dwindling supplies was disturbing and engaging. These are very wholesome, loving characters that readers have followed for five previous books by this point, and to see them brought so low is jarring. This was definitely one of the better entries in the series.
What I didn't like as much in this story was Almanzo's storyline. He takes a big risk to try and save the town, which is admirable, but at the same time, he takes this risk to preserve his own wealth. He could have easily fed the town his own seed wheat to get them through until the spring thaw, but instead, he chose to take a treacherous forty mile round trip journey to convince another homesteader to do it instead. Does this make him a hero? It probably makes him a distinctly American hero - one that's always looking out for the bottom line. Something about the whole setup felt wrong to me, although I can't really criticize Wilder's portrayal of it. The story is based on her real life, after all. This is probably exactly what happened in reality. There were a few other moments where capitalism prevailed in a strange way over people's genuine need to survive, and the more I think about it, the stranger a lot of the plot towards the end of the novel seems to me.
As with most of the other books, there were a few red flag sentences. Enjoy two examples:
"[Ma] did not like to see women working in the fields. Only foreigners did that. Ma and her girls were Americans, above doing men's work."
"'What Indian?' Ma asked [Pa]. She looked as if she were smelling the smell of an Indian whenever she said the word. Ma despised Indians. She was afraid of them too."It wasn't as bad as Little House on the Prairie though, so that's something.
On the whole, The Long Winter is a solid entry in the series and one of my favorites so far. The seriousness of the plot and the survival aspects of the story were engaging and enjoyable. I'm glad that the series is becoming more mature and complex as it goes on. I'm interested to see where Laura heads next from here.
Little Town on the Prairie picks up a few months after the previous book, with the Ingalls family happily settled on their homestead right outside of De Smet, South Dakota. The family has finally saved enough money to send Mary off to a college for the blind, and much of the beginning section of the novel concerns the preparations for that and seeing her off. Her education will take seven years to complete, and the family does not expect to see her very much throughout that time, so it's an emotional farewell.
After Mary leaves, the story shifts to Laura's studies. She knows that in order to keep paying Mary's college tuition, she will need to finish her education and get a teaching certificate next year, when she turns sixteen. Her additional income will be essential to securing Mary's place at school. Laura still doesn't want to be a teacher, but she loves her sister deeply and is willing to make the sacrifice so that Mary can get the education she has always dreamed of.
As winter approaches, the family chooses to move back to the town for a few months, just to be on the safe side in case of another bad season. They return to Pa's little rental property, where they spent the long winter of the last book. As first, Laura is dreading living in De Smet again. She gets anxious in crowds and much prefers life on the wide open prairie. However, after she settles in, she begins to enjoy it. She makes some new friends, excels in her lessons, and starts taking an interest in the social scene. A few conflicts arise with an insufferable classmate and an inept teacher, but many good things happen as well, like the new "Literaries" that she gets to attend with her friends and family and the big school exhibition, where she gets a chance to demonstrate her learning in front of the whole town. Even more exciting, she starts to receive some attention from Almanzo Wilder, who is starting to show a curiously friendly interest in her.
Much like The Long Winter, I enjoyed this novel. There wasn't as much suspense in this plot, but Laura's increased social interactions helped to make it an interesting read. I enjoyed seeing what school was like in this time period, and I liked seeing Nellie Oleson, previously introduced in On the Banks of Plum Creek come back on the scene. She's a terribly snotty bully, and an interesting foil for Laura. Seeing the very beginnings of Almanzo and Laura's relationship was cute as well, even if the age difference is a little bit awkward. In this novel, Laura is fifteen and Almanzo is around twenty. I suppose this kind of age difference wasn't such a big deal back in the 1800s, but it's definitely uncomfortable for a modern reader to experience.
Also uncomfortable is the actual minstrel show that the town puts on for their last Literary gathering. Throughout my reviews of this series, I've been sure to mention the bits and pieces that haven't aged well. Usually these amount to a few offhand comments that are quickly forgotten. This, however, was the worst thing so far. Pa and a few other townsfolk put on blackface makeup, dance around, and sing a song about "darkies" while the rest of the residents look on and laugh hysterically. There's even a truly embarrassing illustration of it included in the text, which I don't feel comfortable including here, but is easily found on Google, if you are curious. It's a definite low point in an otherwise sweet children's story.
Aside from that, this was one of the better books in the series. The end of the novel deals with Laura working towards her teaching certificate, and as a teacher myself, I'm interested to see how this plays into the next story in the series.
These Happy Golden Years picks up directly after Little Town on the Prairie, with Laura getting her teaching certificate and heading off to her first teaching job. Her assignment is in a town twelve miles away, meaning that she will have to live in there for the duration of her term, which is two months long. She ends up disliking the school, but she is saved from abject misery by Almanzo Wilder, who arrives with his horses to ferry Laura home each weekend. It is here that their relationship, which had it roots in the previous book, really begins to flourish.
After that teaching assignment ends, Laura returns home. Her rides with Almanzo, however, continue and they come to know each other quite well. As the year moves forward, she goes through a few different teaching posts and other work opportunities, which allow her to put away enough money to keep her sister Mary in college, and even pay for her to come visit some summers. As is usual in a Little House book, various meals, customs, holidays, and social events take place and are lovingly described. By the end of the novel, Laura and Almanzo's friendship has deepened into love and they get ready to build a life together.
This was an extremely sweet novel, and I did enjoy it even though not much happens in it. The main focus of the story was the romance between Laura and Almanzo, and Laura's transition to the working world. Laura's courtship is incredibly G-rated, and mostly consists of going on long buggy rides during which no one says very much. Even so, it was adorable and I was glad to see them settle down together. Laura's growing independence was interesting to see as well. As a teacher, she earns quite a bit of money in this book--more than her Pa is ever able to scrape together at one time. She never ends up loving teaching, but she does a competent job with it and sticks with it long enough to help support her family. She really comes into her own in this story, and having stuck with her throughout the books since she was five, it was pretty satisfying to see.
Even better, there were no minstrel shows or overtly racist sentiments in this novel, so there wasn't much to uncomfortably overlook while reading. At one point, Laura says she does not support women's rights and would never want the right to vote, but hey, that's not an unusual opinion for the time period. At least she insisted that the word "obey" be taken out of her marriage vows.
So, I did like this novel. At this point however, I have Little House fatigue. I am ready for this series to be over. Luckily, I'm onto the last book now, and it's a short one.
*This review will contain spoilers*
The First Four Years is a little bit different from the rest of the Little House books. As the introduction in the front of my edition explained, this novel was written by Wilder in the late 1940s, but she did not complete or revise it before her death. As such, it is shorter and different in tone than previous books in the series. Also, some details don't match up between this book and the earlier ones and some story threads are forgotten. This is a draft of a story and it reads like a draft.
The plot concerns Laura and Almanzo's first four years of marriage together. The beginning of the story is a recap of how they decide to marry, their small ceremony, and Laura's first day in their new little house. This was all previously detailed in These Happy Golden Years, but it is described differently here. Its tone is less much less sweet, and Laura expresses the opinion before agreeing to marriage that she does not want to marry a farmer because they are always dependent on uncontrollable factors like weather and are constantly being taken advantage of by businessmen. She also wants to push back their wedding date to be able to collect her last paycheck from teaching and spend it on clothes. These are both jarringly different details that don't match up with her behavior and actions in the previous book. In any case, Almanzo asks her to let him spend three years trying to make the farm work. If he can't make it successful in that amount of time, then he will move onto something else. Laura agrees.
Unfortunately for them, the next three years are not successful. Bad weather decimates their wheat crop every year, their tree claim fails to thrive, and natural disasters like tornadoes and wildfires destroy their land and farm buildings. Laura contracts diptheria and becomes very ill. She has a baby that dies as an infant. She has a bizarre interaction with a Native American that tries to break into her house, steal her things, and take her as his "squaw" (she gets him to leave by slapping him in the face). Each year, Almanzo has an excuse for their misfortunes and a plan to turn everything around for the next year. Usually, these plans involve going into debt to purchase tools and farming equipment that they can't afford. He manages to beg another year of trying to farm from Laura, which she grants. That year also doesn't go well. Laura worries about money a lot and is constantly trying to calculate their expenses and potential profits in her head. When the fourth year is up, Laura essentially gives up on her ultimatum and just lets Almanzo do what he wants with the farm, deciding that she doesn't mind the farm life so much after all, even though all of her experiences with it have been terrible so far.
There are a few nice bits in the story too. Laura and Almanzo have a baby that lives, Rose Wilder, and she brings a lot of joy to the family. There are also some cute animals that join the household, which lighten the mood. Overall, however, the signature sweetness of the series is absent here, completely swallowed in one misery after another. Gone is Almanzo's capability as a saavy businessman and farmer, and gone is Laura's enthusiasm for the pioneer lifestyle. She doesn't enjoy keeping house, which is a big turnaround from previous novels which lovingly describe all sorts of recipes, handicrafts, cleaning routines, and farm tasks. This is a Little House book with all the life sucked right out of it. It's probably a much more realistic view of Wilder's experiences, and the fact that it is so gloomy makes you wonder how happy she truly was all along in her real life.
Due to its unfinished nature, I would barely even count The First Four Years as the true conclusion to the series. Readers would do well to end their experience with These Happy Golden Years, but I'm pretty sure that anyone patient enough to read through those eight novels isn't going to stop without reading this last one. It's a sad ending though.
So now that I have officially read all the books in the Little House series, I can honestly say that I did not enjoy it as much as I thought I would. I went into my reading with a little bit of nostalgia stored up for the first few books in the series, but that was not enough to make me fall in love with them as a modern reader. That's not to say that I disliked the books. On the contrary, I thought they were very sweet and quite an interesting look at what life what like for the pioneers that struck out on the prairie in the 1800s. Not enough happened in them for me to become totally lost in the story, but as a historical curiosity, they were interesting.
Overall, I would rate the series a 3 out of 5 stars. I would also warn modern readers that there are several passages in these that haven't aged well. Parents that choose to introduce these to their children should be prepared to talk about the past atrocities committed against Native Americans and the history of blackface, just to keep their kids from developing any outdated ideas about history. Contrary to what the back of these books tell you, they are not timeless stories, especially if you are a person of color.
Here's my final ranking of how much I enjoyed each book, from favorite to least favorite:
1. The Long Winter
2. On the Banks of Plum Creek
3. Little Town on the Prairie
4. These Happy Golden Years
5. Little House on the Prairie
6. Farmer Boy
7. Little House in the Big Woods
8. By the Shores of Silver Lake
9. The First Four Years
Challenge Tally
Classics Club (#25 on my list): 70/100
Total Books Read in 2020: 30
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