why ida did the housework
In the Missouri Rualist article from yesterday, Laura Ingalls Wilder told us that "Mrs. Brown was queer" because she sat writing at her desk all day, leaving the housework undone until adopted daughter Ida came home from school to do it.

Of course, Ida was happy to do the work, because it turned out that Mrs. Brown was writing to make money to buy a new winter outfit for Ida.

Below are three stanzas of a twelve-stanza poem written by Mrs. Reverend Brown, titled "Farewell to the Pioneers!"

To call the wandering exile back across the gulf of years,
To welcome him, from near and far, with gladsome song and cheers,
Back to the home he loved so well, when he and home were young;
That home of memory's rainbow tints, the home his heart has sung--
Another claimed the graceful muse, fit for so grateful task,
And but the graver, sadder one is left for me to ask.

Sun gilded, treasure-laden streams are lost in sea at last;
These golden, richly freighted days are merging in the past.
The hours are speeding on, and ye must to the mandate bow;
The hands that grasped in greeting then, must grasp in parting now.
I know ye're brave, old friends, as when ye clave those trees apart;
Aye, well y'eve beaten back the waves that welled up from each heart.

Each has left, soul-filled, every feast, not one glad moment lost;
But now, ye'll know, if we do not, the conflict it has cost,
For ye must part; and while these scenes are swiftly flying past,
An under current whispers, too, that this must be the last...

- posted by pioneergirl at 9:08 PM