what mary couldn't do on sunday

This nine-patch quilt was a Christmas present from a friend; but look! There's a penny lying on top of it. Yes, the squares are that tiny; the entire quilt is 6 by 7 inches, perfect for a little log bed in a little log cabin dollhouse. The red and white nine-patch squares are less than an inch across, meaning that the individual red and white patches are, well, tiny. The seams are an amazing 1/8 inch.

I was told that the idea behind giving me this quilt was so I would be inspired to make (and share) some miniature quilts. I just hope my eyesight holds up.
- posted by pioneergirl at 6:30 PM

 
woodworkers' guild to have shepherdess bracket exhibition
Now that's a headline I'd like to read! Wouldn't it be great if the woodworkers' guild in the De Smet area - or perhaps a high school shop class or two near a "Little House" site - decided to distribute copies of the description of Ma's "wooden bracket" from Little House in the Big Woods, let people carve a bracket based on their own interpretation and skill level, and then have a showing of all the results during a Laura Ingalls Wilder event?

Over the years, I've asked a number of people to just sit down and sketch (even if they swear they can't draw) what they think Ma's wooden bracket looked like. I know what I picture when I read the Christmas chapter in Big Woods, and no drawing I've seen has come close.

The wooden bracket is not something that any of the sites have tackled as far as an item to sell, and as near as I can figure, the only illustrator brave enough to tackle it has been Doris Ettlinger in her very cute "lift the flap book" titled Laura's Christmas, published in 1998 by HarperCollins. The image shown here is Ettlinger's, and while she captured some of the elements of Laura Ingalls Wilder's description, she did miss the fact that Laura said there were three pieces, meaning only one support holding the curved shelf in the middle. Is Ettlinger's bracket anything like "yours"?

Driving across country a couple of years ago, I read the Christmas chapter to my husband, and we discussed at length what we each thought the bracket looked like. At the time, I only wanted to hand-carve my own bracket someday, and while I really had in mind to use an X-acto knife instead of a jack-knife, like Pa, my power tool loving husband thought I might have fun learning to use a dremel, so I've spent the past year learning my way around with the one that showed up under the Christmas tree in Ought Seven.

What picture of the bracket does Laura paint for YOU in Little House in the Big Woods when you read the following:

...Every night [Pa] was busy, working on a large piece of board and two small pieces. He whittled them with his knife, he rubbed them with sandpaper and with the palm of his hand, until when Laura touched them they felt soft and smooth as silk.

Then with his sharp jack-knife he worked at them, cutting the edges of the large one into little peaks and towers, with a large star carved on the very tallest point. He cut little holes through the wood. He cut the holes in shapes of windows, and little stars, and crescent moons, and circles. All around them he carved tiny leaves, and flowers, and birds.

One of the little boards he shaped in a lovely curve, and around its edges he carved leaves and flowers and stars, and through it he cut crescent moons and curlicues.

Around the edges of the smallest board he carved a tiny flowering vine.

He made the tiniest shavings, cutting very slowly and carefully, making whatever he thought would be pretty.

At last he had the pieces finished and one night he fitted them together. When this was done, the large piece was a beautifully carved back for a smooth little shelf across its middle. The large star was at the very top of it. The curved piece supported the shelf underneath, and it was carved beautifully, too. And the little vine ran around the edge of the shelf.

The manuscript for Little House in the Big Woods, by the way, describes the bracket a little bit differently. In the manuscript, the back piece reaches "way above and below the little smooth shelf," and the shelf is cut through with "crescent moons and stars" instead of curlicues.
- posted by pioneergirl at 9:39 PM

 
it takes brains
In the first two (Ingalls family) "Little House" books, Charles Ingalls' bullet pouch was said to be a little bag which Ma had made of beautifully of buckskin, from a buck Pa had shot (- Little House in the Big Woods, Chapter 2, "The Long Rifle"). For Ma to have ended up with buckskin to work with, somebody had to have tanned that hide, and buckskin was traditionally tanned using animal brains. Laura Ingalls Wilder seldom shows us the "messy" jobs of being a pioneer, but surely brain-tanning hides was one of them.

A buck is the male of the fallow deer, the goat, the sheep, the rabbit, and the hare. Buckskin can refer to the skin of any of these animals made into cloth, but it most often refers to deer hide. While buckskin clothing was more common in the 18th century than the 19th, it was still obviously used in Laura's day. If you've ever heard someone say that an item cost them "a couple of bucks," then you're hearing a saying that goes back to the time when buckskin was a common commodity used in exchange for other goods. "Buck" became slang for the dollar bill because of its similar purchasing power.

Buckskin is deer hide tanned into soft fabric using only the animal's own brains and woodsmoke. Unlike leather tanned using chemicals, buckskin is not waterproof, and it has always been made by hand. While the process sounds fairly simple (if not extremely yucky), it takes both time and muscle, and perhaps a strong constitution.

First, the hide is removed from the animal, then it is scraped on both sides to remove all the hair, fat, meat, and membrane until the very pores of the animal's skin are visible. This is called fleshing. After fleshing, the skin is washed thoroughly.

The brains of the deer are removed and mixed with a little water. This mash is cooked and stirred until it forms an oily liquid. The brains are applied to the hide and rubbed in by hand; if you are tanning something you want to leave furry on one side, be careful you don't get the brains on the fur-side. This may need to be repeated a second time, allowing the pelt to rest between applications (rolled in a hot towel). It is said that an animal contains just enough brains to tan its own hide. If you want to insult someone, accuse them of not having enough brains to tan their own hide!

The hide is then stretched and stretched and streched until it is soft and pliable and dry. Laura Ingalls Wilder mentions Pa stretching hides on boards to dry them in the "Little House" books, but it is most likely that this was all Pa did to them prior to selling them, and only the furs he kept for family use were stretched as part of the tanning process.

Then the skin is smoked; the smokier, the darker. The smoke doesn't make the skin waterproof; rather, it helps protect it from bugs and decay.

And there you have it: the the bare basics. Of course it's a lot more work than it sounds like (and a lot messier); there are books and articles galore to help you, but the process is actually safe enough for children to do it, unlike tanning using harsh chemicals. CLICK HERE to see the process from start to finish. Once you have your own piece of buckskin, use it to sew (most items were sewn, not laced) a little bag like Ma made for Pa.
- posted by pioneergirl at 5:57 PM

 
nipping at your nose

In the mornings the window panes were covered with frost in beautiful pictures of trees and flowers and fairies. / Ma said that Jack Frost came in the night and made the pictures, while everyone was asleep. Laura thought that Jack Frost was a little man all snowy white, wearing a glittering white pointed cap and soft white knee-boots made of deer skin. His coat was white and his mittens were white, and he did not carry a gun on his back, but in his hands he had shining sharp tools with which he carved the pictures. -Little House in the Big Woods, Chapter 2, "Winter Days and Winter Nights"

Thomas Nast, the artist who gave us our popular vision of Santa Claus, also gave us an early image of Jack Frost. In January 1864, Harper's Weekly published a two-page drawing of Nast's titled "Central Park in Winter." Jack Frost (shown above) appeared at the top center of the piece. It's possible that Nast's Jack Frost was also Laura Ingalls Wilder's.

Jack Frost is Jokul Frosti (Icicle Frost),an elf from Scandinavian Viking legend. He traveled at night and created beautiful designs on windows, leaves, and grass.

If you don't live in a frosty climate, Jack Frost can still visit, giving you a "frosty" surface on which to make pretty patterns with your thimble. All you'll need is some beer and some Epsom salts (Magnesium sulfate). Stir Epsom salts into the beer until no more will dissolve. Then either dab the solution onto the inside of a window (or mirror, or glass from a picture frame) with a sponge, or brush it on with a wide brush. As it dries, crystals will form in lacy patterns. This "frost" is long-lasting and easily removed with water and a little scrubbing.
- posted by pioneergirl at 6:30 PM

 
eat mor chikaree

Although Laura Ingalls Wilder never comes right out and says her family ate squirrel, she implies that they did in both Little House in the Big Woods and Little House on the Prairie: "In the bitter cold weather Pa could not be sure of finding any wild game to shoot for meat" (BW 1), and squirrel is listed second only to bear, followed by deer and rabbit... "'This country's cram-jammed with game,' [Pa] told [Ma]. 'I saw fifty deer if I saw one, and antelope, squirrels, rabbits...'" (LHP 4).

The red squirrel of the Big Woods of Wisconsin - Sciurus Hudsonius, now known as Tamiasciurus hudsonicus - is 11 to 14 inches in length, including their 4- to 6-inch tail, and they weigh 7 to 10 ounces. They are easily identified by their small size, prominent ears, white eyes and reddish coat (early drawing of a red squirrel shown above). It has been said that the farther south a red squirrel lives, the redder its coat. The tail is cinnamon in color and often has black-tipped hairs. During the summer, the red squirrel sports a black line along each flank, separating the upper reddish coat from their white underparts. In the winter, the coat becomes much brighter and this lateral line disappears.

The red squirrel has many nicknames, including boomer, chatterbox, pine squirrel, and chickaree (apologies to Chick-fil-A for adapting a line from their television commercials for this blog title). The red squirrel feeds primarily on pine seeds, but will eat fruit, nuts, and berries as well as mushrooms and fungi. They are highly territorial; there is no mistaking their scolding chatter if you enter its territory. In one of his stories told to Laura and Mary, Charles Ingalls recalls the red squirrels of his youth, perhaps those of Jefferson County, Wisconsin.

Gray squirrels and fox squirrels were also found in Pepin, Wisconsin. The gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) is 18 to 21 inches long, including its tail, and weighs 16 to 28 ounces. Gray squirrels can vary in color from black to white, with tails usually banded with brown and black hairs featuring white tips. They frequently have a tuft of white hair behind their ears and the chin, throat, and belly are also white. Gray squirrels prefer mature hardwood forests where they feed on acorns, hickory nuts, and walnuts.

The fox squirrel (Sciurus niger) is the largest tree squirrel in Wisconsin at 20 to 22 inches long and weighing 24 to 32 ounces. It gets its name from its rusty brown coat, similar to the hair color of foxes. Fox squirrels prefer oak and hickory, but can be found in swamp hardwoods and mixed hardwoods.

Gray squirrel appears on adventurous restaurant menus, and there certainly are enough of the little buggers in my area to supply many a table. (I've eaten squirrel in Brunswick stew, and I really can't say that I could identify the taste, since there the stew also contained chicken and pork.) Check your local hunting regulations to see if squirrel hunting is allowed in your area. You might also want to read up on squirrel diseases, since there seems to be a nasty one linked to the consumption of squirrel brains, considered by some to be a delicacy. If you've never seen a squirrel prepared for cooking and you aren't particularly squeemish, take a look at this.

Ma might have cooked the following stewed squirrel recipe: Skin two pairs of fat squirrels, wash them quickly in cold water, or carefully wipe them with a wet cloth to remove the hairs, and cut them in quarters, rejecting the intestines. Put a layer of slices of fat salt pork in a saucepan, then place the squirrels in the saucepan, with a palatable seasoning of salt and pepper, and either a little more salt pork or lard or drippings. Add enough water to prevent burning, cover the saucepan, and cook the squirrels gently until nearly done, uncover the saucepan so that the water in which they were cooked can stew away. Then put in enough cream or good milk to moisten them, let them heat again, see that they are palatably seasoned, and then serve them hot. - Juliet Corson, Practical American Cookery and Household Management, 1886
- posted by pioneergirl at 6:30 PM

 
merry christmas

The days were clear and bright. Laura and Mary stood on chairs by the window and looked out across the glittering snow at the glittering trees. Snow was piled all along their bare, dark branches, and it sparkled in the sunshine... -Little House in the Big Woods, Chapter 4, "Christmas"

- posted by pioneergirl at 6:30 PM

 
bleth-ed cwith-muth

Gennie says it happens every Christmas eve; Jesse, George, and Gussie always tease that they want to hang up one of her stockings, since hers are the biggest!
- posted by pioneergirl at 6:30 PM

 
"keep-um warm."

The Indian [said] that every seventh winter was a hard winter and that at the end of three times seven years came the hardest winter of all. He had come to tell the white men that this coming winter was a twenty-first winter, that there would be seven months of blizzards. - The Long Winter, Chapter 7, "Indian Warning"

If I did my math correctly, the winter of 2006-2007 was the most recent twenty-first winter after the Hard Winter of 1880-1881. According to the Indian rule, this winter shouldn't be a seventh winter, much less a twenty-first; it just feels like it.

Wrap yourself a little tighter in that Indian blanket, throw another hay twist on the fire, and do try to stay warm this holiday season!
- posted by pioneergirl at 6:30 PM

 
merry christmas

Ida and Elmer McConnell and family wish you a very, Merry Christmas!
- posted by pioneergirl at 6:30 PM

 
cottonwood
In By the Shores of Silver Lake (see Chapter 29, "The Shanty on the Claim"), Pa says that one day, the prairie is going to be covered with trees. Trees were to be planted because - according to literature available to instruct settlers how to plant trees successfully - they would one day "promote the increase of insectivorous birds; modify electrical conditions; lessen the evaporation of moisture from the soil; retard the velocity of surface winds; cool the earth and atmosphere in the summer; raise the winter temperature; increase the volume of atmospheric moisture; lessen blizzards in the north; lessen the liability to drifting soil and snow and mitigate the destructive effects of tornadoes and cyclones; make the soil more uniformly productive, and thus make the prairie the grazing ground of countless flocks and herds, and become the granary of the continent." - Hayden Thompson, Lake Preston, Dakota Territory, 1882.

The cottonwood was easy to propagate, hardy and rapid growing - but of poor texture and the timber of no commercial value - and yet, for the poor man planting a tree claim or shelter around his shanty, it was the most valuable tree on the list of acceptable choices. It appeared at the top of almost every list for no other reason that it was the only tree admitted on a tree claim that could safely be propagated both from cuttings and from seed. Although Laura Ingalls Wilder tells us in By the Shores of Silver Lake that Pa planted "little trees" on his homestead, little trees that "all grew from seeds of the Lone Tree" that grew between Lakes Henry and Thompson (Lake Thompson was named for Hayden Thompson, a horticulturist from Wisconsin who homesteaded in Kingsbury County, quoted above), she wrote in her Pioneer Girl manuscript that "Pa broke a strip of ground around the shanty... and we planted seeds of cottonwood trees all the way around."

I was recently asked about my cottonwood tree, the branch rooted for me from one of Pa's homestead trees about five years ago, so I'm including a photo taken a few weeks ago when we were having our fence replaced. I was really trying to photograph progress on the fence, not the tree, so it's not the best of photos. For reference, I took the photo standing on a second story deck, I could pretty much look straight at the top of the tree, and the fence is 6 feet tall. Anyway, my cottonwood is thriving! The poor thing had to live in a pot until last fall, and it really took off once it got its feet in the ground.

I've collected seeds from Pa's cottonwoods in the past, but I've never had any luck with them. I did add a clear glass Christmas ornament full of cottonwood seeds to my "Little House" tree this year; I also have clear balls with dirt from various homesteads, tiny rocks from the shore of Lake Pepin, and the paper flakes that made a huge mess when I copied Ruralist articles at The University of Missouri at Columbia a couple of years ago.

It was interesting to read in the Dakota tree-planting manual that cottonwood seed was considered "difficult to handle with success although nature annually grows millions of seedlings that can be dug up or usually purchased very cheaply."

To have success with cottonwood seed, it was suggested that you not plant them in cultivated ground (like Pa did in Pioneer Girl), but scatter them carelessly over lightly harrowed land while it's raining and then hope for a few days of moist, humid weather so the seeds don't dry out before germination.

Seed should be gathered just as the pods begin to open, the pods placed in a dry place out of the wind. They should be sown as soon as the pods are fully open, which makes sense; that's when Mother Nature sows them. Cottonwood seed kept over the winter are usually worthless.

In selecting cuttings, choose clean, two-year old wood, or strong, well-ripened one-year. Cut a piece from eight to ten inches long. The cuttings don't need to be dealt with right away, just pack them in damp straw for transport. Plant at least eight inches deep, leaving one to two inches above the surface of the ground. (That must have been why none of my cuttings rooted; they weren't planted deep enough...) Plant in early spring, making sure you pack the soil firmly around the cutting. It's easy to see why Laura wrote that Pa dug larger seedlings to plant. Somehow, it wouldn't have been the same to read about the girls shoving sticks in the ground.

I thought about decorating my backyard cottonwood with popcorn, cranberries, and bird seed ornaments this Christmas, but I never got around to it. It's nice to imagine the branches someday being big enough to hang a bird feeder from - or for grandchildren to climb!
- posted by pioneergirl at 12:01 AM

 
rev. royal gould wilder
Reverend Royal Gould Wilder (1816-1887) was a younger brother of Alamanzo Wilder's father, James Mason Wilder. Almanzo's older brother, Royal, was named after his uncle. The following tribute by Rev. A. T. Pierson, D.D., originally appeared in the Princeton (New Jersey) Press shortly after the death of Rev. Wilder in 1888:

Royal Wilder was a man that might have commanded an important position in this country. He might have made money and amassed wealth - he might have made reputation and secured for himself the homage of mankind. But he set his life in a nobler direction.

It may be known to some of you that one of his schoolmates became Vice-President Wheeler, and that in the last year of his seminary course, Richard S. Storrs, Junior, now of Brooklyn, was a fellow-student with him, and in the same class. And Foote, who became a brilliant lawyer - and who, by the way, was born the same day with Mr. Wilder - stood side by side with him, they two leading the class with equality as to their own standing in Middlebury COllege. And when Foote learned that he was going to India, he said, "Wilder, why do you bury yourself among the heathen?" THe young man gave his class-mate a quiet answer, indicating the purpose of his life, and the way in which he looked upon his life, and they parted. They corresponded for a number of years, and by-and-by the letters from Mr. Foote ceased to come to Mr. Wilder, and on his return to this country he made some inquiries about his beloved friend. He found that Foote had entered the profession of the law, as he knew, had amassed wealth, married a beautiful wife, but he learned also that his wife and daughter had been taken away by death, and that in sheer disheartenment and despair he had blown out his own brains.

My dear brother in the college, what do you think of the difference between these two lives - one given to making money and fame in a great profession at home, the other given to winning souls in the dark, dark realms of paganism abroad? Which was the buried life?

The colossal character of his work in India grows upon me. Think of Mr. Wilder and his wife, the only missionary among 4,000,000 souls. SO large a parish, and yet they practically reached 3,500,000 of them. Unaided and alone he preached the Gospel in more than 3,000 cities, towns, and villages. He circulated more than 3,000,000 pages of tracts, and translations of parts of the Scripture; and he gathered into schools 3,300 children, 300 of whom were girls. You know of his literary work. His kingdom did not come with observation. He never blew his own trumpet before him. His labours in foreign fields would have done honor to one of the most distinguished literary workers. He edited and translated many works himself. He wrote commentaries in the Marathi dialect, and aided in the translation of the Bible. Besides he made a most laborious and voluminous manuscript in regard to the kingdom of Kolapoor. In addition to these, an assiduously-written and carefully-kept diary of his missionary work. That none of these have appeared is due to the fact that they were lost with the effects in a vessel wrecked off the Cape when he crossed the continent, and left his effects to go by sea.

Nothing was sweeter than the fact that while he resided here in Princeton, the parlour of his house was the gathering-place and training-school for all those who looked towards missions. He ever had a hand, warmed by a sympathetic heart back of it, for every young man, and especially for those who had set their faces toward missions, home or foreign. His heart was set upon going back to India, and our only consolation is that he has gone to a better land. I cannot but think that there is something very impressive in the way in which he laid down his life.

I am not here to magnify or glorify him, but I would magnify and glorify Christ; and I tell you solemnly that I would rather have lived the life that he has lived, and to have done the work he has done, than to have occupied the proudest position in the American Republic; or to have amassed the greatest amount of wealth that has ever been held by any man within the bounds of the Republic; or to have the greatest literary reputation that has ever set its crown upon the brow of a human being.


I would like to say, if there is any one present who is not a disciple of Christ, "What do you think of such a life in retrospect, in its religious determination and enjoyments; and above all, what do you think of its present blessings?" I tell you I would not be the child of such a man as that and turn away from Christ, if you would give me the wealth of a thousand worlds. And I would not be the man or woman who had come into contact with such a life and turn away into the darkness of eternal night for any possible position that this world can offer. Royal Wilder was a proof of Christianity that was worth more than all the works on evidence that were ever written and published. He was a proof of the dynamics of Christianity - and the dynamics of CHristianity are the grandest vindication in the way of apologetics. He had a will that would have carried him to any position on earth, but that will, turned towards God, and linked with the will of God, became practically omnipotent for good. Out of poverty and obscurity, without a thought of personal employment or temporal advancement, he rose to be what he was among the millions of Christendom, a mighty power with pen and tongue. And if I were a young man today just starting in life, I would like to follow such an example, and givce my life to missions at home or abroad, as God might graciously indicate my place. Young man, what is the best investment you can make with the capital of your life? Here is a man who has spent thirty years in India and will never be forgotten.

He besought his son Robert to go back to India, and go among that people about fifty miles from Kolapoor whom he once visited, and among whom he told the story of the cross, and who, weeping, followed him for quite a distance, asking that they might hear more of the story of redemption. What can you do better than spend thirty years of your active life in telling the precious story of redemption to those who never heard the Word of God?

If you are asking how you can give your life in the most profitable way to God and to humanity for the furtherance of His Kingdom, I would say, "Here is a life that was ushered on Monday morning into the presence of the King; methinks that there was a crown ready for him, set round with many gems that shine with lustre brighter than the stars."
- posted by pioneergirl at 12:01 AM

 
an american girl who saves the skins and souls of little albanians
(From Literary Digest, August 1921) - In a low, white-washed town of mud-brick walls and cypresses, under the shadow of the blue Albanian mountains, there is a young unnamed American girl who wears a tweed suit and a velvet "tam," with knee boots to defy the muddy walking in the narrow, winding, unpaved streets. She has only been two years in Tirana, but she is said to "chatter the old Aryan language, with its more-than-Latin declensions, as tho it were her mother tongue."

How she happened to be in Albania is a little romance all by itself. She was in Switzerland when the earthquake of war began to shake Europe. Without any hesitation she borrowed enough money to buy a motor-ambulance, and joined one of the first ambulance corps. She drove her car straight through the war, just behind the front lines. She was under fire, shelled, wounded, decorated - and went right back and continued to drive her ambulance, to carry stretchers under fire, and to bring in the wounded. And then, when the war was over, she went to Paris, volunteered for further Red-Cross work, and was sent to Albania in charge of motor transport. The motor transport, she found on landing at Durazzo, consisted of one aged machine without spare parts or extra tires, but, writes Rose Wilder Lane in The Red Cross Bulletin (Washington):

She drove it over trails meant for ox-carts till there were no inner tubes left. Then she stuffed the tires with pieces of her own clothing - there is no smallest rag in Albania not used for clothing - until she wore the tires odd. After that she ran the car on the rims, still bringing in relief supplies, until the rims wore out, and the car quit, and there was no motor transport. Being without a job, she then went out into the street and gathered together a dozen homeless, wretched children. She borrowed more money - the Red Cross was doing only relief work - and rented a house and hired a teacher. She bathed the children, clothed them, and saw that they were fed and taught. Slowly they began to be normal children again.

But Tirana was full of wandering orphans, living like the hungry dogs in the streets. They besieged the home of the "Red-Cross lady": she took in a dozen, twenty, forty. She borrowed more money and rented a larger house. She had a thriving school; she started kindergarten work, she brought in equipment for a little museum and a laboratory, she taught drawing and English and manners and morals. She kept the children clean and happy; she hired other Albanian teachers and supervised their work. She had on her hands a large institution, manufacturing sturdy, intelligent human beings from the waste material left by war.

And then Captain Crawley came to Albania as Red-Cross Director, and took the school over as a Red-Cross activity. The tremendous need for it had been too overpowering – it was like a raft to the shipwrecked – and children were over-crowding it until no one person could keep it from sinking. Red-Cross help made it a ship, large enough for them all. It is now the largest school in Tirana, a many-roomed building, humming all day lone like any American school, and, continues Mrs. Lane:

The "Red-Cross lady" still manages it, superintends it, and fills it with her own spirit of cheerful, undaunted achievement. Four Albanian teachers are all day in the classrooms; the "Red-Cross lady" still teaches her special subjects. In the courtyard she has started gardens which the pupils enthusiastically cultivate, not realizing that they are learning modern agricultural methods to take back with them to the peasant villages in the mountains. There is a room for silkworm culture; there are open-air dormitories and leacture-rooms. There is a class in botany and one in bird-lore. Three hundred children – who otherwise would have died or more tragically lived to be broken spirits and distorted minds – are learning here the beauty and richness of a world in which they will take useful places.

The "Red-Cross lady" had still a little energy left over. The way Tirana boys spent their idle time troubled her. They had no sports, no amusements, no knowledge of out-of-doors. They sat in dark, windowless rooms, in the fumes from charcoal braziers, smoking cigarets, drinking Turkish coffee, and absorbing the evil of idle men's talk. She went out one day and organized an Albanian Boy Scouts. One week she had a dozen boys taking long walks with her after school hours, bathing once a day, and once a day doing a kind deed. They thought it fun. Next week there were forty. Then she sent to Italy and with her own money bought forty uniforms. Mohammedans can not wear hats with brims that shade their eyes from Allah, so she designed a cap in red and black – black mourning for Scanderbeg, the hero whose death dyed all Albanian jackets black, and red for the blood Albanians have shed to keep their people free. The third week the boys marched through Tirana in their uniforms, and the people in the market-place rose and cheered them. In the fourth week four other Albanian towns sent in requests for a Boy-Scout organization; two Albanian men who had been scoutmasters in Italy and Switzerland came forward to help; the people contributed 30,000 kronen to carry on the work, and the Albanian Government took it over.

The incident of the Boy Scouts helps to complete the picture of one of the girls who in Europe carry a power-of-attorney from the American people. She herself will perhaps forgive me if I add another personal bit. She has recently received a legacy that repaid all the money she borrowed to spend in saving lives in France and in Albania; this winter she goes to America to work her way through a last year of college so that she can come back to her work in Albania.

"Because really, you know, I’m very stupid. I’ve just done what I could, she said to me.

- posted by pioneergirl at 12:01 AM

 
why not move this one?

There is a drawing in the museum at the Wilder Homestead showing the Wilder farm, a path through the woods and across Trout River and through more woods, and Almanzo's school at the end. It also shows Hardscrabble Hill, which is mentioned in Farmer Boy but actually existed in Spring Valley, where Almanzo also went to school.

While I was in Malone this past summer, I talked to a number of people about the location of the school Almanzo Wilder must have attended, and almost everyone I talked to said that there had long been controversy as to whether it was the school on Brainardsville Road on the way to Malone (the one on the map) or another schoolhouse that was once located southeast of the Wilder farm and also in Burke Township. The "other" schoolhouse is in Bellmont Township.

I am inclined to agree with those who believe the schoolhouse was the one in Bellmont. That schoolhouse is still standing, you know. You can get there several ways and from multiple directions, but the way Almanzo and his siblings would have gotten there is by walking a half mile down the dirt road just past the Wilder farm (and down a nice, steep hill suitable for sledding), then across bridge over the Trout River (and near a "pond" suitable for swimming), then another mile through the woods to arrive at the back of the schoolhouse. This wouldn't be too far for tourists to walk, except that the "woods" is now private property and the owner of the schoolhouse isn't selling. Or won't sell. Or is asking way too much, depending on who you talk to.

What amazed me the most was that there is still a path through the woods from the river to the schoolhouse. No, I didn't walk it - I was a law-abiding citizen that trip - but you can clearly see the path after crossing the bridge. And because I was curious, someone showed me photos taken from the path and some photos from the air of the path. I was suitably impressed.

I applaud the fact that the Wilder Homestead is planning to build a replica schoolhouse on the Wilder farm, but I do wish heaven and earth had been moved in order to restore or relocate the existing historical schoolhouse instead.
- posted by pioneergirl at 12:07 AM

 
where did my blog and website go?
The pioneergirl website and blog were missing in action most of today due to problems with the web host; no, I didn't yank them because of something you said or did, goosie. Since there were blizzards in Montana this weekend and the temperature hovered around minus-50 at one point, just imagine Pa Ingalls holed up in that snowbank at Plum Creek and unable to get home right away. All that matters is that everything turns out okay at the end. And that there are oysters!

I love modwest.com. And you may quote me.
- posted by pioneergirl at 11:39 PM

 
you, too, can be a winner
Register HERE today to win "Little House on the Prairie" - the complete series on DVD (the one in the covered wagon packaging). Sponsored by "In Touch Weekly."
- posted by pioneergirl at 10:39 AM

 
closing books limits understanding

If you haven't bought your 2008 "Little House" banned books poster and bookmarks from the American Library Association, there's still time, and they make dandy stocking stuffers. The image above (sorry about the flash) shows the poster, with text from Little House on the Prairie (about having to get Mr. Scott out of the well) and Garth Williams' illustrations from Little House in the Big Woods. Yeah, that was a little weird to me, too.

The poster is 24x36 inches and costs $14 plus-a-lot-of-postage to non-ALA members, but their speedy delivery is certainly a plus, and they ship posters rolled in tubes, so they are suitable for framing. The LH bookmark is part of a set. You can see the 2008 items for sale HERE. Note that these items may not available once the 2009 Banned Books Week items are added to the ALA Store.
- posted by pioneergirl at 11:06 PM

 
how to put henry hinz out of business
Henry Hinz was the first man to erect a building on the townsite of De Smet. Laura Ingalls Wilder mentions "young Mr. Hinz" (age 25) in By the Shores of Silver Lake (see Chapter 24, "The Spring Rush" and Chapter 25, "Pa's Bet"). In February 1880, he drove up to the Ingallses' house with a load of lumber which he had hauled from Brookings. He planned to build a store, and he urged Ma to board him while he was building. Mr. Hinz was such a nice young man that Ma didn't refuse. It was only later that the family discovered that the first building in town was... a saloon!

That saloon was 16 by 24 feet, and although Mr. Hinz had intended to build on the corner lot, he missed the mark and built on the lot just south of where the hotel soon stood. He was granted a liquor license at the cost of $400, but residents soon took a vote to deny the sale of liquor and it was rescinded. No matter. Hinz and his partner moved the saloon to the Lake Preston area, and they moved it back and forth between De Smet and Lake Preston as often as votes were called to allow, then deny, the sale of liquor.

A license was granted during the Hard Winter, but business was light, mostly because nobody had any money to spend on liquor. In her handwritten Pioneer Girl manuscript, Wilder wrote that Mr. Hinz's supplies of drink were the only supplies that lasted through the winter. "A man might have taken a drink occasionally but we never saw or heard of anyone drinking and no one got drunk through all the hardships." The place was always popular, though; Hinz had put up 500 tons of slough hay prior to the Hard Winter, and loiterers sitting around and twisting hay could keep the stove red hot and themselves fairly warm.

The following appeared in the Lake Preston newspaper during the Hard Winter of 1880-1881 as a humorous and practical way to keep the drinking man at home, and to put the local saloon operators out of business.

If you are bound to drink - are determined to go to ruin - why don't you set your wife up in business? Instead of buying your liquor at ten cents per drink from the saloon keeper, thereby paying six dollars per gallon for what you drink, why don't you buy a gallon, which can be done for two dollars or less, and give it to your wife and let her sell it to you for ten cents per drink, and when you have drunk the gallon up, she can give you back two dollars to buy another gallon with and have four dollars left to support your family instead of going into the saloon keeper's pocket. In this way you will always have money to buy the next gallon - and the oftener you drink it up the more money your wife will make and the sooner you will go to the devil.

Although he was arrested a number of times for the illegal sale of liquor and appeared before Charles Ingalls (as Justice of the Peace) more than once, Henry Hinz seems to have straightened up and flown right after his 1889 marriage. He became a rural mail carrier and served over 25 years by team and later by automobile. He and his wife, Randi, had ten children. Henry Hinz died in 1938 and is buried in the De Smet cemetery.
- posted by pioneergirl at 11:59 PM

 
marvin hughitt

It was common in Dakota Territory during the "Little House" years for land companies to plat towns in the name of an official of a railroad company. The Western Town Lot Company platted twenty Dakota towns between 1879 and 1882 in the name of Albert Keep, the Chicago and NorthWestern Railroad's president from 1877 to 1887. These towns included such familiar names as Brookings, Volga, Preston, Iroquois, and Huron.

De Smet and Manchester, on the other hand, were platted by Marvin Hughitt, who served as second-in-command under Albert Keep for many years. The plat for the town of Manchester was drawn up before the surveyors left to go back east in the fall of 1879, leaving Charles Ingalls in charge of their tools. De Smet was platted the following spring, on March 27, 1880.

In By the Shores of Silver Lake (Chapter 7, "The West Begins"), Laura Ingalls Wilder writes that as they are leaving the Big Sioux Railroad camp, surveyors are busy pounding stakes to mark a new townsite. This camp was just west of the present town of Brookings, but both Brookings and the next town to the west, Volga, were platted during the last week of December, 1879. The Ingallses traveled west from Walnut Grove in September.

The Western Town Lot Company was a subsidiary of the Chicago & NorthWestern. According to its articles of incorporation:

The principal business of this corporation shall be to buy, improve, plat and lay out into town lots, and sell and deal in land and town lots in the states of Iowa and Minnesota and the Territory of Dakota and in other states and territories where it may lawfully transact such business, to promote immigration, and the settlement or occupation of lands in such states and territories, and for this purpose shall be vested with full power to make contracts with individuals or incorporations for the purchase or sale of real and personal property.

Negative feelings about the railroad - some of which Wilder writes about in By the Shores of Silver Lake - were why railroad companies did not flaunt openly that they were also responsible for the town site companies locating towns along the tracks and selling town lots. The railroad further profited by hauling goods to settlers in these towns and charging exorbitant prices for them.

Who was this man responsible for the town of De Smet?

Marvin Hughitt was born in New York in 1937. When not quite fourteen years old, he decided to leave the farm, and he found work in a telegraph office as a messenger boy while learning to master Morse code. By the time he was seventeen, Hughitt had become an expert telegraph operator.

Eager to seek his fortune in the West, Hughitt moved to Chicago and accepted the position as Chief of Telegraph with the St. Louis and Chicago Railroad. The job also came with the responsibility of train master, which meant that Hughitt dispatched all train crews. At one point during the Civil War, Hughitt stayed on the job for thirty-six hours straight in order to dispatch supplies and troops where needed. He had barely slept before being back on the job for another thirty-six hours. His hard work brought him to the attention of those in charge, and he was appointed assistant railroad superintendent.

Marvin Hughitt became railroad superintendent of the Chicago & NorthWestern Railroad in 1872, vice president and general manager in 1880, and its president in 1887. And no, it's not Marvin Hughitt as superintendent that we read about in The Long Winter (see Chapter 21); it's his successor!
- posted by pioneergirl at 9:37 PM

 
age old question

If Cap Garland and Almanzo Wilder are said to be the same age (nineteen) when they go for the wheat in The Long Winter (see Chapter 27, "For Daily Bread"), doesn't this make Cap a little old to be attending school in Little Town on the Prairie? That's the question I was asked recently.

Based on what Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote, the Hard Winter wheat run takes place after Christmas but before Laura's birthday in February 1881. It's not until The First Four Years that we learn that Laura and Almanzo share the same birth month (February) and that Almanzo is ten years older than Laura. In the earlier, edited books, their age difference is only six years. This discrepancy is something fans discuss frequently, but I'd never really thought about it in terms of Cap's age.

Laura is said to turn 14 at the beginning of Little Town on the Prairie, so Cap and Almanzo turn 20. LTOP covers two years, so there is another birthday (Cap turns 21), and yet he is apparently still in school after Ben's birthday party. At age 21?

Cap Garland was actually born in December 27, 1864. Arthur Johnson was born in March 1865, and Ben Woodsworth in July 1867. Almanzo Wilder was born in February 1857. Note that even though Almanzo and Cap are said to be "the same age" in The Long Winter, their birth months suggest that perhaps Cap had just turned 19 and Almanzo was about to turn 20. Whatever.

Suddenly, it's not Cap's age in school that I wonder about, it's Cap's age when going after the wheat in The Long Winter, if this trip actually took place as described not only in the "Little House" books, but in Laura's memoir and letters as well.

Did Cap Garland really go on a dangerous mission with Almanzo Wilder mere days after turning SIXTEEN?!?
- posted by pioneergirl at 11:33 PM

 
it's in the bag

A while back, Historymom and I emailed a bit about reusable shopping bags. I said I was going to make "Wilder Feed" bags for the LIW gathering prior to the Betsy Tacy Convention next summer. It's just something I've been thinking about since my family and I went to Callaway Gardens decades ago and we bought take-out lunches in white paper sacks with paper handles, appropriately called "feed bags." I doubt we'll need bags for a lunch on the BT-LIW outing, but it's an idea. Mostly I thought that something that said WILDER FEED STORE on it would be cute (or HARTHORN GROCERY or BRADLEY DRUG STORE), and I was picturing those brown craft paper bags with the twisted paper handles, possibly with a printed sticker on them instead of being screen-printed.

Historymom said she wanted to play around with a logo to iron on a bag, and she came up with a great one and even sent me a bag while I was visiting in Seattle a couple of months ago! I'm using it for my laptop bag at the moment. Isn't it adorable?
- posted by pioneergirl at 10:18 PM

 
"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

 
wtf?

If you've ever wondered what the font used for the title in the opening of "Little House on the Prairie" (the television show), it's Minuet Bold. Or maybe Rondo MN. With something custom done to the those final letter E's, most likely.

That's the word on www.myfonts.com, a great site to download free fonts, find interesting fonts to purchase, or even ask "What's that font?"

Hey, what font is used for the text in the "Little House" books?
- posted by pioneergirl at 11:59 PM

 
judge for yourself
I blogged in October about the "complaint" (which must be the legal term for "sue your ass and rob you blind") filed by Friendly Family Productions against the historical Little House on the Prairie site near Independence, Kansas, claiming "trademark infringement, unfair competition, and trademark dilution." Remember that the Little House on the Prairie site owners registered "Little House on the Prairie" as a trademark for certain types of merchandising years ago, and the Friendly family didn't seem to care until recently.

Shouldn't we care?

I've uploaded my copy of the 31 page initial complaint HERE. Consider it an early Christmas present.

What do you think? Shouldn't fans of Laura Ingalls Wilder, the LH books, the LHOP television show, and the heritage homesites be concerned, and shouldn't we be vocal in our concern? Isn't there enough Little House on the Prairie to go around?
- posted by pioneergirl at 11:59 PM