chew on this
One thing that I sometimes wish hadn't been edited out of Farmer Boy is Almanzo Wilder chewing on the balsam gum:

The hot sun shone on the two big balsam trees that stood one on each side of the front gate. Its heat drew some of the sap out of the trunks of the trees and it formed in small, bright lumps of gum here and there. The gum was a clear, pale yellow and it looked so good that Almanzo could not resist breaking off the lumps and chewing them whenever he passed the trees. And always he was surprised to find that the gum was very bitter and not good at all. But he still ate it. Mother said she thought he did it just to get his clothes all over pitch.

The Farmer Boy manuscript doesn't end with, well, how the book ends. The manuscript includes the story of the Wilders deciding to move to Minnesota, and one of the endings has Mother calling to Almanzo ("Where be you?"), and Almanzo, who has made everyone wait on him, comes from behind the balsam tree. The sun had not been "hot enough to draw the least, little drop of sap and Almanzo went away without a last chew of the bitter balsam gum." (page 197, end of tablet)

Of course, the balsam and spruce are both mentioned in Farmer Boy, and it would have been even better if Almanzo had chewed spruce gum, because then the Wilder Homestead could have sold THIS.

The major difference in the ending of the manuscript - as I've blogged before - is that Mr. Paddock isn't the wagon maker, he's the hardware store owner, and he doesn't want Almanzo to apprentice as a wheelwright, but as a tinsmith. And even though Almanzo didn't turn out to be a tinsmith, there are enough tin items mentioned in Farmer Boy to keep a LH collector very happy: tin pails, and pans, and basins, cake-pans, bread-pans, dishpans, cups, dippers, skimmers, strainers, steamers, colanders, graters, tin horns, tin whistles, toy tin dishes and patty-pans, and all kinds of little animals made of tin and brightly painted...

Almanzo wants to be a farmer, not a tinsmith OR a wheelwright. And what he wants more than anything is a horse. But sadly, Starlight isn't mentioned in the manuscript, and one ending has Mother Wilder again waiting for Almanzo (not as they leave for Minnesota, but one day as they are heading to church), and Almanzo appears with horse hairs on his coat, because he has been brushing the colts.
- posted by pioneergirl at 11:00 PM