"all i know is, it suits tom sawyer"


While re-reading recently in Farmer Boy about Almanzo and Royal whitewashing the cellar (see Chapter 10, "The Turn of the Year"), I couldn't help but recall the chapter in Tom Sawyer where Tom tricks his friends into thinking that whitewashing is actually fun, not work. Laura Ingalls Wilder certainly tells us that Almanzo and Royal's work was fun, and what boy doesn't like getting messy? "Mercy on us!" Mother said when they came upstairs. "Did you get as much whitewash on the cellar as you got on yourselves?"

Perhaps Laura thought about Mark Twain's whitewashing story when writing Almanzo's own, and surely she experienced some of the same frustrations over her book being treated as a "boy's book" that Twain did. It's interesting, so google it for yourself; I'll stop my comparisons here.

While most people probably don't hear about whitewashing all that much today, it was a commonplace act in late nineteenth century, when both Farmer Boy and Tom Sawyer take place. The Wilders' cellar had whitewashed walls, and both the interior of the Plum Creek dugout and Mr. Nelson's house were said to be whitewashed. While I've heard of whitewash, I've only seen its use in historical buildings.

Whitewash is a mixture of lime and water used to "whiten" plaster walls. It is not paint, but thin plaster that soaks into the existing plaster, and allows both air and moisture to pass through. Laura wrote that Royal poured water into the pails of lime, which is important. Always add water to lime, not the other way around!

Lime is an oxide of calcium, obtained from limestone or shells that have been burned (expelling carbonic acid) and then are mixed with water, resulting in quicklime. Quicklime is so named because it reacts "quickly" and often violently when combined with water. The pails Royal added water to boil and give off heat while Almanzo stirs them, and the mixture continues to boil until the lime and water has turned into whitewash.

The video above shows limestone being slaked, or combined with water to produce lime. Interestingly enough, you have to add water to produce the powdered lime itself, then then add water again, to make the whitewash.
- posted by pioneergirl at 8:33 AM