acute, obtuse, and isoceles
A Dream, or Vision. by Samuel Ingalls, of Dunham, in the Providence of Lower Canada, on the night of September 2, 1809 (original spelling preserved):

I thought I was standing on the west bank of White River, in the state of Vermont. About the distance of a mile from the junction of that River with the Connecticut River. In the company with my brother James Ingalls. I heard a rushing noise, there appeared to my view three carriages of polished gold, (in the form of the top of a chaise without wheels) passing through the air in a direct line abreast, and steering towards the South. The workmanship of the carriages was exceedingly curios, similar to banister or wickerworks. The distance between each carriage appeared to be about six or eight feet.

In the carriage next to me there were three women elegantly attired; the woman who sat in the centre was considerably larger than either of the other two.

In the middle carriage were three men richly attired; the largest was in the centre.

In the third carriage were three Angles, and supposed by their having wings suspended from their shoulders; the largest Angle was in the center; their apparel was so shining glistening as to surpass my power of description. Each Angle wore, on his head, a crown or diadem of gold; and on the front of each crown was an erect frontispiece, with large letters of characters written thereon, which I could not understand.

As they passed through the air, I could disticly hear the Angles sing a Hymn, but I can recollect only a part of the verse, and only these words of the hymn, "Prepare to give me room, ye nations, I am coming."

I stedfastly kept my eyes upon them, until I saw their descend in the carriages on the west bank of Connecticut River, in the town of Hartford, in Vermont. I could painly discern that the Angles were about breast high above the buildings; but the other two carriages, at this time, were lost to my view. --- The Angles stretched out their wants or scepters over the Connecticut River, and conversed together a considerable time, but I could hear nothing distinctly, except a tremendous sound. I saw the houses on the east or opposite shore of Connecticut River, in New Hampshire, totter and shake as if there had been an earthquake, and appeared to me to threateh immediate destruction; but none of the buildings fell to the ground.

They all then arose in their carriages, and I very distinctly heard them pronouncing these words --- "This wicked club, who are laying plots to decieve the Nations, shall immediately be cut off, and utterly destroyed." --- While pronouncing these words their carriages stood still; but when the sentence was finished, they arose in their carriages about the height of a tree, and proclaimed these words --- "Thus with God, I will spare the rest of this wicked generation one hundred and forty years, saith the Lord" -- and immediately they all went up out of sight.

This is really a Dream or Vision which I Samuel Ingalls had, while sleeping, in the night of the 2nd of September, 1809.
- posted by pioneergirl at 9:52 AM

 
blame it on the lean-to
It wasn't until recently that I really started paying close attention to the text of the "Little House" books, including the words themselves. What I keep noticing is that Wilder changes the format of compound words from book to book, and even uses multiple formats in the same book.

Take cornbread, for example. Sometimes it's cornbread, sometimes it's corn-bread, sometimes it's corn bread. There are dozens of cases, from apple-sauce to what-nots, or from apple sauce to whatnots; take your pick.

You would think that editors would pick up on these sort of things over the decades, and either usage would be standardized throughout the books or there would have been some mention of the fact over the years. It's no secret that the books contain spelling and punctuation mistakes that have in every edition since the first "uniform" edition in the fifties, although I have to give someone credit for correcting some of the mistakes for the colorized edition.

Of course, Rose and Laura may not have welcomed any corrections. At one point, the word plow was "corrected" to be plough, and Rose was not amused.

Then there's the handwritten note from Laura to Rose in the manuscript for On the Banks of Plum Creek that says: "Lean-to is spelled with a hyphen, but I just found it out and I may miss some that I have written without." Lean-to appears with a hyphen in all "Little House" books.

It's enough to make me wonder if editor(s) at Harper Brothers hadn't gotten an earful over the plow incident and decided to just leave everything as written and not try to "correct" any more of Wilder's words, lest somebody make a fuss over it.
- posted by pioneergirl at 10:42 AM

 
twenty-five cents a pound
In Little Town on the Prairie, Pa sells the heifer to make some money to help send Mary to college. He says he ought to get "all of fifteen dollars" for the calf.

In The Long Winter, Pa doesn't butcher his cow or the heifer calf, even when the family is down to eating only brown bread and precious little of that. Mr. Foster butchered his oxen, though, and sold everything down to the gristle for twenty-five cents a pound.

Seems to me that if Pa had butchered and sold even just the heifer calf during the Hard Winter, he could have made a lot more than the $15 he was excited to be making just a few months later. Sixty pounds of meat/gristle at 25 cents per pound is $15. A year old heifer is going to weigh, oh, at least 500 pounds, depending on its breed and what it's been fed (precious little other than hay, in the case of Charles Ingalls' heifer).

But think of the good gravy to go on the brown bread and how Carrie's mouth watered at even the thought of beef!
- posted by pioneergirl at 8:44 PM

 
why, pa?
Now that the hoop-la over the abandonment of pioneergirl seems to have died down a bit, I will state plainly why it went away.

The whole web thing stopped being fun and started feeling like homework.

It's such a joy to wake up in the morning and not turn on the computer. It's a delight to spend the day doing nothing but research. The difference I made in the lives of others by being online was miniscule in comparison to the difference it makes in my life NOT to be.
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:57 AM