I is for isinglass

...except that isinglass is a substance taken from the swimbladders of fish, particularly the sturgeon, and used in desserts such as blancmange.

Eisenglass is what a geologist call mica - more specifically muscovite - a mineral found in igneous or metamorphic rocks. The best way to identify mica is by its thin sheets that can be cleaved off. It's transparent, flexible, and has the general appearance of clear to cloudy plastic, but it's much harder and won't melt, hence its use in high-temerature applications such as stoves and lamps. Mica is still available and in use as insulators in electrical equipment, stove windows and lighting fixtures. It cuts fairly easily with a utility knife.

Henry Quiner and family lived near the Etta Mine, located in 1883 as a mica mine just south of present-day Keystone, South Dakota.
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:12 PM

 
H is for homestead

This is currently on my desktop. It makes me very, very happy to look at this photo, taken at the Ingalls Homestead.
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:59 AM

 
G is for gather
"Gather ye rosebuds while ye may," Mary began, and she quoted the poem for Laura. - These Happy Golden Years, Chapter 16, "Summer Days"

The poem Mary quoted was "To the Virgins, To Make Much of Time," by Robert Herrick (1591-1674). It was first published in a volume of verse titled Hesperides, and is perhaps the most famous poem to extol the notion of Carpe diem, or "seize the day." To live in the moment, here, is to recognize the ephemeral quality of life by celebrating life and its pleasures.... after marriage.

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he's a getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he 's to setting.

That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may, go marry:
For having lost but once yor prime,
You may for ever tarry.
- posted by pioneergirl at 10:00 PM

 
F is for fascinator

Can't you just see this in something light blue to go with Mary's blonde hair? Or on one or more of Laura's crowd as they rode on the hand-bobsled pulled by Ben and Cap, "heels kicking helplessly, skirts blowing, fascinators and mufflers and hair whipping in the wind"?

I hate to say it, but it sort of reminds me of the knitted or crocheted thing that Melissa Gilbert used to wear on Outhouse.
- posted by pioneergirl at 8:33 AM

 
E is for elevator

Main Street was growing longer. Now a new livery stable was on Pa's side of it, across from the bank. A new grain elevator stood tall beyond the far end of the street, across from the railroad tracks. -Little Town on the Prairie, Chapter 11

A grain elevator is a mechanical contrivance for lifting grain to an upper floor; also, a building containing one or more elevators. Prior to the invention of the elevator in 1842, grain was handled in bags rather than in bulk. The Ingallses and Wilders would have been familiar with the elevator (tallest wooden building) shown at left in the photo of De Smet above. The elevator is no longer standing.
- posted by pioneergirl at 5:17 PM

 
D is for dumpling

Laura Ingalls Wilder's dumpling recipe:
Add to one well-beaten egg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 saltspoon sugar
One small cup sweet milk
One spoon butter
Two teaspoons baking powder in a pint of flour.
Add enough flour to make a stiff dough.

Drop in small spoonfuls into the boiling liguid, eight minutes before serving. Do not allow steam to escape. They will absorb much liquid and require plenty of room to rise. Serves 6-8 persons.

These dumplings are good cooked in boiling fruit juice instead of meat liquor. Leftovers are nice sliced thin, fried in butter and served with a sweet.
- posted by pioneergirl at 11:07 AM

 
C is for clinched
In The Long Winter, Laura lies in bed and looks at the frost on every clinched nail overhead. I can't believe I had to look this one up, a real a-ha moment.

A clinched nail is one that has been hammered entirely through the wood so that some of the pointed end sticks out of the other side. The sticky-out nail ends are hammered at right angles into the wood so they lie flat. Clinched.

In Laura's case, it's the nails through the rafters and/or shingles that she sees, as the upstairs has not been ceiled overhead, so ceil is another "C is for" word! Btw, Laura properly uses the verb to ceil for both walls and ceilings.
- posted by pioneergirl at 8:36 AM

 
B is for bison
Bison: A quadruped (Bison or Bos Americanus) inhabiting the interior of North America, especially about the Rocky Mountains. It is popularly called the buffalo; but the true buffalo belongs to the eastern continent, and to a different subdivision of the genus Bos. The bison is a large, wild animal, with thick body and stout legs, short black horns rapidly tapering, and with hair much more thick and shaggy in winter than in summer. It is most nearly related to the aurochs of Central Europe, and the two species have been referred to a common genus.

Buffalo: A species of the genus Bos, originally from India, but now found in most of the warmer countries of the eastern continent. It is larger and less docile than the common ox, and is fond of marshy places and rivers. The name is also applied to wild oxen in general, and particularly, but erroneously, to the bison of North America.

So. The buffalo wallow of the "Little House" books should be the bison wallow. Back in 1882, it was widely reported that homestead sites were often rejected because of the presence of buffalo wallows on the land. Although Wilder never told us where the buffalo wallow / fairy ring was on the Ingalls homestead, in By the Shores of Silver Lake, she has Pa say that the place had been created by buffalo wallowing in the dust, which blew away, creating a depression.

During my most recent trip to De Smet, I heard a new story. Whether it is true or not, I haven't a clue. When the current owners purchased the Ingalls homestead, it came with a buffalo, named Barney. Barney had been part of the former "attraction" at the Homestead, but the Sullivans didn't want to keep him penned up all alone and on display, so he had been "put out to pasture," so to speak. But at some point when Barney had the run of the Homestead (during one of his escapes, which is another story), he had been found wallowing in the dust behind the historical garage building which had been moved to the property. Therefore, it was "supposed" that THAT was the site of the original buffalo wallow on the property.

Is that the location of the original buffalo wallow on the property? I don't know. I always had heard that the wallow was to the west of the little slough on the property, and over the years, the wallow had been taken over by the slough. In old topo maps (which show changes in elevation of two feet), you can see a circular depression beside this slough. It should also be noted that in Pioneer Girl, Wilder wrote that the two acre (not the size) buffalo wallow was "south of the house, about halfway across the farm," which happens to be just where the topo-depression and little slough are located.

I think, though, that the fact that the land has was farmed with modern machinery and irrigated for decades probably changed some of the physical characteristics of the land itself. Places that are mellowed today are done so by tourists, not bison. But wouldn't it be fun if the Sullivans could locate the original wallow and plant it again in violets?
- posted by pioneergirl at 9:25 AM

 
A is for alden
A correspondent of the Pioneer Press launches his thunderbolts at Rev. E.H. Alden, 1878. Alden "...has been in office about eighteen months, and his summary removal within the next ten days is one of the certainties of the future. He sent in his resignation last winter; it was accepted... Alden... a bright Englishman who is now on his way to England, 'is about the most absurd and incompetent man that could have been selected for the place.' He can't keep his word with the Indians. Every Indian on the reservation HATES HIM, and last winter they threatened to kill him... He tells the Indians so many lies that they can't stand him. It is admitted that there has been no big stealing under Alden, but it is thought that he only lacked the courage. He did this, however: He carried his wife on the pay roll when she was in Minnesota for two months, and swore before G.P. Flannery, of Bismarck, that she was present at the agency and actually performing the work. He made his wife clerk, and raised the salary to $1000 from $8000 per annum. The department cut it down to $800 after two months. Alden admits his wife was in Minnesota, but excuses the irregularity with the statement that he had a girl acting in her place, and that girl testifies that she received $25 per month only. Mrs. Alden therefore pocketed $116 belonging to the government...

"Another thing that Alden did ought to remove him and demonstrate his unfitness for any office. He kept the agency prices up to the trader's figures. To induce the Indians to work they are paid in their own rations at the trader's prices, so as not to conflict with the trader or injure his business. An Indian works a day and gets a check calling for $1.50. He goes to the agent and gets bacon, for example, for this day's work. That bacon should be sold him at the cost price laid down at Berthold. The price is twelve cents per pound and the Indian should receive twelve and a half pounds for his day's work. The trader's price, however, is twenty-five cents, and the agent is ruled by that. The Indian, therefore, gets six pounds and a half. The cost of coffee to the agency is twenty cents per pound, and the trader's price is fifty cents per pound. The Indian for his day's work, should get seven pounds and a half, but he really gets only three. Dry buffalo meat costs ten cents per pound and the trader's price is twenty-five cents. The Indain, instead of getting fifteen pounds for his work, only gets six. The agent buys his sugar; three barrels at a time, from the trader. It costs him thirteen cents per pound, but he turns it in to the Indians at twenty-five cents. All this is simply swindling, and the reverend agent who does it ought to be drummed off the agency and kicked out of the church he professes to walk upright in. The trader is guilty of a trick like this: An Indian comes in with a five, ten or twenty dollar bill and puts it down for a dollar's worth of goods; the trader hands out to him in checks and not money. The Indian has to come back there and trade out his checks, and one half of it is profit to the trader. The other day some Indians fired into the steamer Josephine and killed a soldier. If white men were the victims of such petty thieving, what would they do? Shoot one soldier? In Pittsburg they would redden the sky with the flame of their torch and sprinkle the pavement with the blood of innocent men, women, and children."
- posted by pioneergirl at 2:01 AM

 
more ambition
While in Mansfield, I transcribed what I could see of Laura's essay on ambition. The paper was folded (why? Isn't that a bad thing?), and the following had been crossed out, so I couldn't tell you (and I didn't ask to see more) if the essay from These Happy Golden Years is something that exists in Laura's handwriting. If there are errors, they are as I saw them:

Ambition denotes a desire of preferrment, or of honor. It is also used to denote an inordinate desire of power, or eminence, of an accompanied with the rise of alleal means to obtain the object. The word ambition is had its origin in the practice of Roman candidates for office, who merit about the city to solicit votes...
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:32 PM

 
how i spent my summer vacation
1. I went to De Smet.
2. I went to Walnut Grove.
3. I went to Spring Valley.
4. I went to Mansfield.
5. I went to South Troy.
6. I went to Burr Oak.
7. I planted a garden.
8. I worked on a research project.
9. I knitted a few things.
10. I bought some books.
11. I walked a lot.
12. I worked some more on a research project.
- posted by pioneergirl at 12:05 AM