latch / latch-string
A small piece of iron or wood used to fasten a door. — Webster, 1882
“A latchstring without and a welcome within, Are always awaiting you, my friend. And would that each journey you may begin, Might have our home for its end.”
In Little House in the Big Woods, in the chapter where Ma slaps the bear and Pa hits one over the head with a big stick (or thought he was, at least until that first whack), does Ma pull in the latch-string because she doesn’t want the bear to get inside or because it’s night-time and Pa isn’t home from Pepin yet? If there’s a bear outside and Pa comes home, mightn’t he need to get inside in a hurry? Of course we know Ma’s worried about Pa. He’s late, there’s a bear, and Pa doesn’t have his gun.
In Little House on the Prairie, Laura Ingalls Wilder goes into great detail about how to make both a door and its latch. So does Daniel Carter Beard – one of the founders of the Boy Scouts of America – in his 1914 Shelters, Shacks, and Shanties: The Classic Guide to Building Wilderness Shelters (reprinted in 2004 by Dover Paperbacks). This handy book gives you detailed instructions in how to build everything from a fallen tree shelter to a real log cabin, and how to safely use the axe that will help you build them. The best part is the over 300 illustrations; see one of the drawings of latch and latch-string assembly shown here. Not only does Beard show you the latch from both inside and outside the door, but from the side of the door as well.
The wooden latch as constructed by Pa in Little House on the Prairie consisted of a catch (a single curved piece of wood or two pieces forming an “L” which the latch rested on when the door was closed. The catch kept the latch from dropping so far that the latch-string was pulled through its hole in the door by mistake); a latch (a long, thin piece of wood that was fastened loosely to the door at one end so that it could be raised and lowered), a guard (a piece of wood fastened to the door at top and bottom and restricted the latch’s movement to either resting in the catch or raised just enough to clear it so the door could be opened); and a latch-string / latchstring (a piece of rope or leather long enough to be tied or fastened to the latch, with the loose end passed through the hole through the door). The photo above is of the latch assembly on the door of the old replica log cabin at the Little House on the Prairie Museum south of Independence, Kansas. The catch – fastened to the door jamb – is not shown in the photo.
“The latch-string is always out!” The latch-string was a symbol of hospitality. To say that “the latch-string was out” was to say that your door was always open (even when it was closed), and anyone desiring to come inside was welcome at any time and for any reason. The latch-string could also be left out if a member of the family was “coming and going” and doing work about the home, such as fetching water from the well or picking vegetables for supper. If the weather was cold, you wouldn’t want to leave the door open, but needed to be able to get inside once the door was closed. If the latch-string was pulled through the door hole and the door pulled closed from the outside so that the latch slid up and over the guard and fell behind it, then the door was locked and you had locked yourself out!
When the Ingalls family left Indian Territory to return to Wisconsin, Pa closed the door and left the latch-string out, in case someone wanted to seek shelter in the cabin. It’s unknown if the Ingallses’ cabin was moved to another location after they left, or if it was used by Joseph Sands, the first person to purchase (in February 1872) the forty acres of school land on which the cabin was believed to have been built.
latch (BW 6; FB 25; LHP 8; BPC 37; SSL 24)
door-latch (LHP 9, 17, 19)
latch-string / latchstring (BW 6; LHP 8, 17, 20-21, 23, 26; TLW 23)
“latchstring is always out!” (TLW 23)
making a latch (LHP 8)