turkey red
When Laura and Mary go to town in Little House in the Big Woods (Chapter 9), they are doing so for the first time in their lives, at ages four and six. They are going to a store for the first time, too. This begs the question: has Ma not been to a store since Mary was born?

One can only hope not, but throughout the "Little House" books, it's Pa who does most of the shopping, not only for seed and tools, but for food, clothing, fabric, hair ribbons, hair combs, and shoes. In the Big Woods and in Indian Territory, the Ingallses are simply too far from town to make it easy to go as a family; perhaps fear of theft also dictated that someone remain at home. It's not until the family is living on Plum Creek that age and proximity allow the girls (and Ma?) to go to town - and shop - on their own.

In Ann Romines' Constructing the Little House: Gender, Culture, and Laura Ingalls Wilder (University of Massachusetts Press, 1997), she implies that "shopping decisions" in LHBW are an example of Pa's asserting his dominance over Ma:

In the first Little House book, Charles Ingalls teases his wife by threatening to strip her of her right to make these crucial decisions about clothing for herself. At the store, he insists that she have fabric for a new apron, although she protests that she doesn't "really need it." "But Pa laughed and said she must pick it out, or he would get her the turkey red piece with the big yellow pattern. Ma smiled and flushed pink, and she picked out a pattern of rosebuds and leaves on a soft, fawn-colored ground" (LHBW 170). Clearly a complicated dynamic is at work here. Although he is strapped for funds and can afford only enough inexpensive cloth to make an apron - not a dress - for his wife, Charles Ingalls makes the purchase into a major opportunity to exercise his will publicly. He allows Caroline Ingalls no say in decisions about how the funds will be spent (perhaps she would prefer knitting wool, or a favorite food?), and he playfully threatens decisions, the choice of the fabrics she will sew and wear. Even from young Laura's perspective, the fawn-colored calico is an important expression of her mother's taste and character. (Romines, 111-112)

Pa may be in control, but if that family was going to be wearing something other than skins, like Adam, then somebody was going to have to do the picking-out of materials, and that person was Pa. Didn't he do a fine job with the china blue calico for Mary? The dark red with golden dots calico for Laura? You've got to love a man who can pick out the perfect dress goods, a man so in tune with his women that he can joke about the "turkey red piece with the big yellow pattern" because knows Ma's likes and dislikes to a T.

Ma doesn't seem to need a dress at all, and Pa's ability to afford the cloth for one isn't the issue; certainly that shopping trip isn't one taken by a family that is "strapped for funds." It's generosity. Ma has just picked out calico for two shirts and a jumper for Pa (and perhaps some of the white goods for underwear will be his, as well), and he wants Ma to also have something new and pretty. He knew she didn't need calico for a new dress because he had brought her the lovely brown calico with the big, feathery white pattern only months earlier. Ma obviously has clothes a-plenty, because she wears a brown dress with purple flowers to town!

Couldn't the verbal exchange while shopping also be taken as a sign of love and complete sympathy between Pa and Ma, perhaps even a private joke between them, and Pa's will had nothing to do with it? I bet Pa's eyes twinkled over that turkey red calico!
- posted by pioneergirl at 6:30 PM