Little House in the Big Woods Laura Ingalls Wilder
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There were knobby little bumps all over their heads,whichever way they turned on their pillows. They were very much excited, and next day they tried to play going totown. They could not do it very well, because they were not quite surewhat a town was like. They knew there was a store in town, but they hadnever seen a store. "It stood there and looked at me with its large, soft eyes, wonderingwhat I was. It was not afraid at all."
DANCE AT GRANDPA'S.
Everybody was laughing, over by the kitchen door. Grandma's dress was beautiful, too; a darkblue calico with autumn-colored leaves scattered over it. Her cheekswere pink from laughing, and she was shaking her head. At supper time Pa and Grandpa came from the woods. Each had on hisshoulders a wooden yoke that Grandpa had made.
THE SUGAR SNOW.
Eight horses werehitched to it and made it go, so this was an eight-horsepower machine. There was so much work to do, so many good thingsto eat, so many new things to see. Laura was scampering and chatteringlike the squirrels, from morning to night. That night Pa brought in some ears of corn with large plump kernels. Henubbed the ears—shelling off the small, chaffy kernels at their tips.Then he shelled the rest into a large pan, until the pan was full.
GOING TO TOWN.
Ma looked pretty, with her bare arms plump and white, her cheeks so redand her dark hair smooth and shining, while she scrubbed and rubbed thecorn in the clear water. She never splashed one drop of water on herpretty dress. After a long time Laura began to see glimpses of blue water between thetrees.
TWO BIG BEARS.
While Pa traps animals and takes in wood, Ma makes bread and butter, cleans and cooks, and oversees the household. The children have their roles to play as well, as they learn the duties they will have to take on when they are older. There are detailed descriptions of the chores, from molding bullets to making cream. The family also has playtimes and stories, many of which impart lessons to the young girls.
Right on the edge of the lake, there was one great big building. It was made ofwide, gray boards, running up and down. The sun was almost overhead in the large,empty sky, and the cool woods stood back from the edge of the lake. Eventhe Big Woods seemed smaller under so much sky. They were so excited that they did not go to sleep at once. Ma was notsitting with her mending basket as usual.
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Then all at once the road came out of the woods and Laura saw the lake.It was as blue as the sky, and it went to the edge of the world. As faras she could see, there was nothing but flat, blue water. Very far away,the sky and the water met, and there was a darker blue line. Ma hurried Laura and Mary with their breakfast and she washed the dishesquickly. They put on their stockings and shoes while she made the beds.Then she helped them put on their best dresses—Mary's china-blue calicoand Laura's dark red calico.
All day Pa was busy, banking the little house and the barn with deadleaves and straw, held down by stones, to keep out the cold. The weathergrew colder all day, and that night there was once more a fire on thehearth and the windows were shut tight and chinked for the winter. Sometimes they had hulled corn for breakfast, with maple syrup, andsometimes Ma fried the soft kernels in pork drippings. For dinner they ate the stewed pumpkin with their bread. They made itinto pretty shapes on their plates. It was a beautiful color, andsmoothed and molded so prettily with their knives.
The Story of Pa and the Voice in the Woods.
They gathered the eggs, andthey helped make cheese. Pa's hair was brown, and his whiskers werebrown, and she thought brown was a lovely color. But she was glad thatMary had had to gather all the chips. "I like both kinds best," Aunt Lotty said, smiling. She took Laura andMary by the hand, one on either side, and they danced along to the doorwhere Ma stood. The heavy pebbles tore her pocket right out of her dress.
They took it and offered a three-book contract. But the Depression was taking its toll on the publishing industry; Knopf closed its children’s shop before publication. “The real magic was in the telling,” Kirkus wrote. The sunshine came streaming through the windows into the house, andeverything was so neat and pretty. The table was covered with a redcloth, and the cookstove was polished shining black. Through the bedroomdoor Laura could see the trundle bed in its place under the big bed.
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"Grand right and left!" Pa called out, and all the skirts began to swirland all the boots began to stamp. The circles went round and round, allthe skirts going one way and all the boots going the other way, andhands clasping and parting high up in the air. She said, "Caroline says Charles could span her waist with his hands,when they were married." He wore his blue army coat with thebrass buttons, and he had bold, merry blue eyes. He was big and broadand he walked with a swagger. She looked very happy, and she laid down her mending for aminute.
Icicles hung from the eaves of the house tothe snowbanks, great icicles as large at the top as Laura's arm. The days were shorter, and frost crawled up thewindow panes at night. Then the log housewould be almost buried in snowdrifts, and the lake and the streams wouldfreeze. In the bitter cold weather Pa could not be sure of finding anywild game to shoot for meat. Wilder remembered her father as “always jolly, inclined to be reckless, and loved his violin.” Life is very low when Pa is unable to fiddle.
Little House in the Big Woods begins like a fairy tale. Within a fewlines, the narrator reveals a strong sense of her audience as youngsters in adifferent world from that of the little house. The storyteller is the olderLaura—the grandmother speaking to grandchildren. But once little Laura appears,everything is viewed through her eyes and understood through her consciousness.The point of view is consistent and believable. “It was an interesting exercise to publish the books without the illustrations. When you read them as an adult and you are divorced from that apparatus, you tend to see them more as text and less a children’s book,” says Caroline Fraser, editor of the LOA volumes.
They were not allowed to sew on doll clothes, not even with pins. "Good-by! Good-by!" they called, and off they went, the horses trottinggaily and the sleigh bells ringing. Then all the presents must be laid away for a little while. Peter wentout with Pa and Uncle Peter to do the chores, and Alice and Ella helpedAunt Eliza make the beds, and Laura and Mary set the table, while Ma gotbreakfast. Pa and Uncle Peter had each a pair of new, warm mittens, knit in littlesquares of red and white. Then they all looked at each other's mittens, and tried on their own,and Peter bit a large piece out of his stick of candy, but Alice andElla and Mary and Laura licked theirs, to make it last longer.
So Pa went again to Uncle Henry's, and came back with a piece of thelittle calf's stomach. It was like a piece of soft, grayish-whiteleather, all ridged and rough on one side. Somebody must kill a calf, for cheese could not be made without rennet,and rennet is the lining of a young calf's stomach.
That happened to some children, but itcouldn't happen to them. It was so hard to be good all the time, everyday, for a whole year. Laura sat down on the edge of the bed and held her doll. She loved herred mittens and she loved the candy, but she loved her doll best of all.She named her Charlotte. The other girls were not jealous because Laura had mittens, and candy,and a doll, because Laura was the littlest girl, except Baby Carrie andAunt Eliza's little baby, Dolly Varden.
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