Chapter 5: Sundays

"Now the winter seemed long. Laura and Mary began to be tired of staying always in the house. Especially on Sundays, the time went so slowly.

Every Sunday Mary and Laura were dressed from the skin out in their best clothes, with fresh ribbons in their hair. They were clean, because the had their baths on Saturday night.

On Sundays Mary and Laura must not run or shout or be noisy in their play. Mary could not sew on her nine-patch quilt, and Laura could not knit on the tiny mittens she was making for Baby Carrie. They might look quietly at their paper dolls, but they must not make anything new for them. They were not allowed to sew on doll clothes, not even with pins."

Sunday is a hard day for Laura to sit still through, especially in the winter. One day, late in the afternoon, she begins running and shouting with Jack. Pa tells her to sit down in a chair, and instead of doing it nicely, Laura cries and kicks the chair with her heels. Pa gathers her in his arms and tells her the story of "Grandpa's Sled and the Pig."

After the story, Laura and Mary lay in bed and listen to Pa play on his fiddle until they fall asleep. In the morning, it is Laura's birthday. She gets her birthday spankings from Pa and 5 little cakes from Ma, one for each year. Mary gives her a new dress she made for Charlotte while Laura thought she was working on her quilt.

Thoughts...
I can readily identify both with Laura's frustration on the restraints of Sundays, and her parents' struggles to keep two lively young ladies content and well-behaved until the close of the Sabbath. It is a challenge to make the Sabbath a special day for children, not one just centered on a long list of don'ts. It's not as hard once you reach adulthood and all you want at the end of a long week is to sleep or catch up on some inspirational reading.

I wouldn't want to return to the rigid days described in Pa's story about his father and the pig (very funny!), but I do feel that we've lost some of the specialness about the Sabbath. It's the day God writes us in His daily planner for a whole 24 hours, and that makes it too special to waste on everyday things.

"In the wintertime Pa filled and heaped the washtub with clean snow, and on the cookstove it melted to water, Then close by the warm stove, behind a screen made of a blanket over two chairs, Ma bathed Laura , and then she bathed Mary"

Of course it wouldn't do to be dirty on Sunday, so the whole family took a bath on Saturday night. The lucky one got to go first, but each family had a different hierarchy to decide who that lucky one was. Some washed from the littlest to the biggest. Some from the biggest to the littlest. Some chose to wash from cleanest to dirtiest, and some put the ones that squawked the loudest about it in first place. I would have been firmly in the "Mom always goes first camp."

This particular activity was an easy one for me to do because I have been doing it now and again all winter for various reasons. Sometimes it was because my pump wasn't working and I had to haul water by hand. Lately it's been because the drain pipe of the bathtub wasn't installed correctly and at the moment isn't even hooked up. Whatever the reason, I am an old pro at modern pioneer bathing. Of course, this isn't my only solution to the issue of cleanliness. Most often, I find myself inexplicably in Westby around bath time. Funny thing, that.

I know Pa started the process by filling a large kettle with snow to melt on the stove, but since I have a perfectly nice well, I decided hauling the water in a bucket was enough authenticity for now. My well is just outside the pump house, but the pipe comes through the floor, so I am able to pump my water in comfort. I use "I" loosely, because it is really the electric pump that does the work, but I have to plug it in, so you see I must suffer some.



Then it is inside to heat the water on the stove. While it heats, I can work on warming up the bathroom if the weather is chilly. When the water is nice and hot, I pour it in the "tub", a large storage container I bought to hold my winter gear. After that, I add enough cold water so I don't cook like a lobster. Washing is accomplished by pouring water from a large cup.

After the refreshing bath is completed, the tub is hauled outside and dumped. In pioneer days, if water were in short supply, after everyone in the family had bathed, I would wash the clothes in it, then use it to scrub the floors, then pour it on my garden. I'm glad I don't have to do that, because the water would be solid dirt by the time it got to my plants.

Chapter 4: Christmas

"Christmas was coming.

The little log house was almost buried in snow. Great drifts were banked against the walls and windows, and in the morning when Pa opened the door, there was a wall of snow as high as Laura's head. Pa took the shovel and shoveled it away, and then he shoveled a path to the barn, where the horses and the cows were snug and warm in their stalls.

Ma was busy all day long, cooking good things for Christmas. She baked salt-rising bread and rye'n'Injun bread, and Swedish crackers, and a huge pan of baked beans, with salt pork and molasses. She baked vinegar pies and dried-apple pies, and filled a big jar with cookies, and she let Laura and Mary lick the cake spoon."

It's almost Christmas and the little log cabin is full of activity. Uncle Peter, Aunt Eliza, and the cousins are coming to spend the whole of Christmas day, and when they arrive, what fun everyone has. The children play in the snow and the adults get to enjoy each others' company. Everyone finds it hard to sleep Christmas Eve, wondering what Santa would bring them the next morning.

The next morning the children are delighted to find their stockings full of wonderful things. Each child gets a pair of bright red mittens and a stick of peppermint candy. What riches, but Laura gets the best stocking of all, because in it, besides the mittens and candy, is a beautiful rag doll. Laura names her Charlotte.

After Christmas dinner, it's time for the cousins to begin the long trip back to their house. They wrap up in as many layers as they can because they have to ride in an open sled. Ma slips piping hot baked potatoes into their pockets and Aunt Eliza's flatirons go under their feet. On go the blankets, quilts, and buffalo robes, then it's good-bye.

Laura was the happiest of all. Laura had a rag doll. She was a beautiful doll. She had a face of white cloth with black button eyes. A black pencil had made her eyebrows, and her cheeks and her mouth were red with the ink made from pokeberries. Her hair was black yarn that had been knit and raveled, so that it was curly.

Christmas was a lot simpler back in pioneer days. A lot simpler. But I don't think we've gained all that much since then, with our piles of toys (and piles of credit card bills). Imagine how happy you could be if a new pair of homemade mittens was enough to make you that excited! Nobody was complaining, and nobody was tired of their toys the next day and waiting for more. A stick of candy and bright red mittens was just about as wonderful as you could get.

I decided to make a rag doll, a charming Charlotte of my own. The only way the experience could have been worse would have been if I'd had to do it by hand! Making the body of the doll went fairly smoothly; just cut out a gingerbread man shape on steroids, then sew and stuff. I drew the eyebrows, sewed on the buttons, and painted the mouth and cheeks. Frozen strawberry juice (in the absence of pokeberries) did NOT work, so I used acrylic paints. I should have done the face before I sewed the body, but that would have been the easy way, and evidently I had taken a vow against ease for the duration of this project.

After the body, it was time for the dress. The original Charlotte had a dress of pink and blue calico, but since I didn't have any calico of any shade, in true pioneer fashion, I improvised. I took a skirt from my niece's desperately-grasping fingers and carted it home to be sacrificed for art. And sacrificed again, because the first dress I made didn't fit and went in the trash. This was supposed to be a how-to article, but I can pretty much sum it up in one sentence. Buy. A. Pattern. Seriously.

My second dress went better, but at 11:00 last night, I was blearily working away and wishing I'd picked a different project. At last I had the dress finished except for the detail work, and was ready to start on the hair. I used to have a real loom for sewing doll hair, but got rid of it years ago (I'll never use THIS again)and had to improvise with four chopsticks and some duct tape. I don't know how the west was ever won without duct tape. That's probably why it took so long.

Then I had to stop because all the rest of my supplies were at "Mom's Sewing Emporium" in Westby. After a quick shopping trip this morning, I was able to finish the rest of Charlotte. She was happy when she got her hair sewn on and could quit being bald. Now that I'm finished, I almost think it was worth it. Almost.

Even though I have a Laura of my own, at 15 she's a little old for Charlotte, so I am giving her away to some (hopefully) lucky winner of the "Little House on the Prairie Essay Contest." To enter, post a comment with your best idea for an upcoming activity. I am not making a hard and fast promise until I see what kind of ideas you come up with, but I will think about doing the winning suggestion during "Pioneer Experience Week" later this summer.

You don't have to use an idea straight from a "Little House" book; it's fine if you come up with your own, but do some research and make sure it's true to pioneer experiences in the 1870's. Originality is important, but simplicity might win you points, too! I can't get too complex or I will bog down. And ideas that involve life-threatening activities will not be too popular with the judging panel.

Have lots of fun with your entries and make sure to have them in by May 31st. Soon one of you will have your very own Charlotte to cuddle or share with a special little girl in your life. The rest of you are out of luck, because I don't think I'll be making another doll anytime soon!

Chapter 3: Long Rifle

"When Pa was at home the gun always lay across those two wooden hooks above the door. Pa had whittled the hooks out of a green stick with his knife, and had driven their straight ends deep into holes in the log. The hooked ends curved upward and held the gun securely.

The gun was always loaded, and always above the door so that Pa could get it quickly and easily, any time he needed a gun."

Every evening, before Pa did anything fun with the girls, he took care of one of the most important tasks on the frontier. He prepared his gun for the next day's use. First he made the bullets by melting lead and pouring it into the bullet-mold. When he had replenished his stock of bullets it was time to clean the gun.

He washed the inside of the gun with boiling water, thoroughly dried it, then while it was still hot, he oiled it. It sounds like it could be a very messy job, but one that was vital to survival. A dirty gun was not a reliable gun. After cleaning, the next step was to load the gun.

Laura and Mary stood on each side of Pa to make sure he didn't make a mistake in the process, but he never did. First a carefully measured amount of powder went in, then a little piece of greasy cloth with a bullet nestled on the top of it. They were both pushed down to bottom of the barrel, then pounded with the ramrod to settle the bullet against the powder. The last step was to carefully place a firing cap underneath the hammer of the rifle--letting the hammer down too hard would fire the gun.

The long rifle played a very important role in American history. The purpose of the ridiculously long barrel was that it increased the accuracy and range of the gun. (something about the longer the powder burns, the greater the muzzle velocity, the greater the accuracy) This advancement in technology allowed the rough frontiersmen to out-shoot the better trained, but surprised, British soldiers.

"Whenever Pa shot at a wild animal, he had to stop and load the gun---measure the powder, put it in and shake it down, put in the patch and the bullet and pound them down, and then put a fresh cap under the hammer---before he could shoot again. When he shot at a bear or a panther, he must kill it with the first shot. A wounded bear or panther could kill a man before he had time to load his gun again."

The down side of this greater accuracy was the increase in the time it took to load. An old-school musket could be re-loaded in 20 seconds--still a little long if a grizzly is charging at you--but the long rifle required a full minute between shots. People on the frontier became good shots because their lives depended on it. If they missed the first time, there was no next time.

Now that's pressure. Miss and you're lunch! I wondered how long I would last in the Big Woods. In the interest of transparency, I didn't wonder very hard---I'd shot a gun approximately 2 times in my life, the first time in my teens. They let me try twice before my dad took the gun away because I was such a danger. (I'm still bitter.) The second time was with a pistol in a shooting range, and that didn't go too impressively either.




I prepared my target. How close would I have to let a charging panther get before I used my one shot? I painted the galloping mountain lion, not quite full size, but a large juvenile, then measured out 300 feet, the standard range for an average shot with the long rifle.






If you look really close and maybe click on the picture so it shows larger, you can see my panther target. Needless to say, I did not hit the target at 300 feet. At this distance the panther would reach me in less than eight seconds. Certainly not time enough to reload if I missed. I moved to 200 feet. Still not a dent in the paper. My dad felt the need to give me a little more instruction on how to hold the gun, as he felt my natural aptitude fell a smidge short.

"If you were any more awkward, you'd fall over."

He also fired a sample shot, and put a hole right through the panther's spine. Showoff!

I moved to 125 feet. The panther is getting closer---at this range, I have 3 seconds to make my shot count. I would be a bit nervous if I weren't dealing with cardboard. I fire another round with the .22 and Laura runs to check. Nope, nothing. Now it's time for the big caliber gun, the shotgun. My dad says the experience of firing it is the closest any of his guns come to firing a long rifle. It doesn't fire a single bullet, but a round of pellets that has a greater chance of hitting the target. I fire one round, and Laura runs forward again. Nothing. Not a mark. A second round, still nothing.

I move forward yet again, to the 100 foot mark. I wanted to go closer, but my dad said I could hit it with a rock from that distance. Speak for yourself! I was down to the last shotgun round and I braced myself for the painful repeat of the previous 2 shots. Literally painful. Shooting a shotgun is a LOT different from shooting a .22! It kicks, and with no earplugs, you're a little deaf for a moment or two afterward. Just as I was about to shoot, Laura told me to wet the sights, ala Sergeant York (great movie, watch and you'll know what she was talking about). At this point, what did I have to lose?

Even from 100 feet away, I could see some faint holes! Yes, I hit the target, and wonder of wonders, one of the pellets went through the heart of the panther. A kill shot at last. Any shot at last. But I still wanted to see how close I would have to be to really show off my superior marksmanship and get a kill shot to the head.


Switching back to the .22, I moved to 75 feet and fired. I must have been improving, because I hit the target on the first try, with a shot to the heart. Still not satisfied, I moved forward and shot from 50 feet away. Definitely improving, because I hit his head this time--I took out a tooth from his cheek. Now he was very mad and would reach me in just over one second.


Only 25 feet from the target, I was one leap away from kitty chow---the mountain lion can cover that distance in a single bound. This shot had to count and it did, a bullet square in the center of his brain. I would live to pioneer another day. Of course, I'd died about 50 times already, but in virtual pioneer land you get do-overs.







My shoulder is still sore from the recoil of the shotgun, but I feel a sense of accomplishment. I am not as putrid a shot as I was this morning. I'm still glad my life does not depend on my ability to hit a moving target. If it's got to depend on anything, I am hoping for a slow, patient target at least. Maybe a rabid, vicious giant sloth.

Chapter 2: Winter Days and Winter Nights

"The snow kept coming till it was drifted and banked against the house. In the morning the window panes were covered with frost in beautiful pictures of trees and flowers and fairies.

Laura and Mary were allowed to take Ma's thimble and made pretty patterns of circles in the frost on the glass. But they never spoiled the pictures that Jack Frost made in the night."

Winter is tightening its grip in the vast expanse of the Big Woods. Pa spends his days walking the trap lines, gathering wild creatures while their fur was thickest and most valuable. He never leaves his gun behind because the woods are still a dangerous place and you never know when you'll need to defend yourself. Each evening he comes home with icicles hanging from the ends of his mustache, chilled and ready for the warm, cozy fire.

Ma and the girls do the housework during the day; each day of the week has its own chore to do:

"Wash on Monday,
Iron on Tuesday,
Mend on Wednesday,
Churn on Thursday,
Clean on Friday,
Bake on Saturday,
Rest on Sunday."

After a day of busy work by every one in the family, Ma sews by the light of the kerosene lamp (lucky Ma) while Pa sings, plays games with Laura and Mary, or tells them stories of the old days.

After reading Chapter 2, I had two options for my experiment this week. I could either make butter or be chased through the woods by a panther. I chose to make butter, even though the second option would have been more exciting for my readers, I'm sure. I couldn't even find a cow to milk; dairy farming has gone seriously out of style in this region of the country. I could have tried to milk a wild range cow, but it turns out I do not have enough love to do that for you.

"Laura liked the churning and the baking days best of all the week."

My butter making supplies were somewhat different than Ma would have used, but the core process is still the same. Milk the cow, separate the cream, or go to the store, buy a container of (vastly over-priced) cream, and draw a picture of a cow on it so you don't feel so bad. Then you're going to need to agitate the cream by some method.

In the olden days, a churn was used. And used. And used. A more modern method is to use an electric mixer, just as if you were making whipped cream. In fact, I found out my own grandma, farm cook extraordinaire, occasionally turned her whipped cream to butter by beating it a smidge too long. I tried both methods, but lacking a churn, used a glass jar and a whole lot of energy shaking it.

I poured part of the cream in the jar, covered it with a plastic baggie and a rubber band, and started shaking it. My family provided moral support by putting on music to shake by, telling me I needed to shake faster, and laughing at me. Five minutes into it I was finished---unfortunately, the butter was not. It was another five minutes before I even began to see a change in my fluffy cream. However, having begun to change, it shifted rapidly, and another minute showed why you never want to over-beat your whipped cream.


"At first the splashes of cream showed thick and smooth around the little hole. After a long time, they began to look grainy. Then Ma churned more slowly, and on the dash there began to appear tiny grains of yellow butter."

Within 15 minutes of shaking, with breaks for taking pictures, I was looking down at a beautiful glob of creamy yellow butter swimming in thin buttermilk. I took it out onto a wooden board and began to work the buttermilk out of it.

Then it was time to try the modern appliance way. I tried the blender first, but all that did was whip it up too thick for the blender to work. So I poured it into a bowl and started mixing it with the mixer. It went much faster, and I had butter within 8 minutes. And it was much thicker butter, too, with more of the buttermilk worked out. I mixed the two batches together and added salt.

"Laura and Mary watched, breathless, one on each side of Ma, while the golden little butter-pats, each with a strawberry on the top, dropped onto the plate as Ma put all the butter through the mold. Then Ma gave them each a drink of good, fresh buttermilk."

I didn't have a butter mold, but made do with squishing the butter into a little glass bowl. Then it was time to clean up the rather large mess I'd made. Who would have thought innocent, little butter would be so untidy? My wonderful mom did all the dishes I'd gotten dirty, so a special thanks to my "Ma." Motherhood hasn't changed all that much since pioneer days--moms still get stuck with all the jobs nobody else wants.

Little House in the Big Woods: Chapter 1

Chapter 1

"Once upon a time, sixty years ago, a little girl lived in the Big Woods of Wisconsin, in a little gray house made of logs."


So begins the first book in the series. The forests of frontier Wisconsin where Laura and her sisters live are vast, almost wholly trackless, and filled with wild animals. Laura is a young girl living in a very frightening and overwhelming world, but it doesn't seem so to her because she has Ma, and the very strong and capable Pa, to protect her.

Winter is coming and every creature, both wild and tame, works towards one purpose--survival in the coming winter. Pa is busy hunting and butchering the animals and Ma works hard to get the garden in and preserve the meat that Pa brings her. Laura and Mary work hard, too, because in those days helping the family get by was everybody's job. But there are also times for fun and games, especially in the evenings when Pa gets out his fiddle.

The iconic scene from this book, and one that thrilled my soul with fascinated horror when I read it as a little girl, was the butchering of the pig. Those were not the days when uninformed activists, decrying animal abuse by hunters, asked, "Why don't people just eat the meat from the stores so no animals would have to suffer?" Back in pioneer days you knew your bacon by its first name.

Mary and Laura waited eagerly during the butchering for the exciting treats they had coming their way. The wonderful sizzling of the pig's tail over an open fire and the fun they had playing with their new "balloon", the bladder of the pig, blown up and tied shut.

Now, I've been a vegetarian all my life, so I'm not very familiar with any pig parts, but the whole playing-with-the-body part-of-a-pig thing seemed particularly gross. So of course that is what I chose for my first experience. Oh, yes. I did. I had to wait a couple weeks for the local market to get their hogs in to butcher, but yesterday I received the word. The pig bladder was waiting for me.

Suddenly it didn't seem like such a good idea!


I went to pick it up, all tucked in its little ziplock baggie, and took it home. Turns out that in their excitement over my interest in a normally-discarded body part they'd been more than generous with how much they'd included. I had to play butcher myself.



After the bladder was trimmed and cleaned up a bit, it wasn't quite as intimidating, but I still was not about to blow it up the old-fashioned way like Pa did. Thank goodness, they've invented air compressors since then!



It was very windy, so Laura wanted to do it inside.
"Of course not! I don't know if this will work. It might explode if the air pressure is too high. We are doing it outside!"

After that, Laura wasn't too keen on standing close, but she was the cameraman, so she was right there as I fitted the end over my compressor nozzle and pressed down on the lever.

Pshhhhhtttttt! The noise was unexpected and deafening as the bladder slipped from my hands and shot onto the ground. But not as deafening as Laura's screams. I picked it up, dusted it off and got ready for Round 2, only this time I was holding on a little better.



Laura and I watched in amazement as the bladder expanded. What do you know? This actually works! I still don't know that I'd want to toss it around like a ball, but I suppose after a while you get desperate enough for anything to play with.

Introduction

I've loved history and old-fashioned things for as long as I can remember. I was permanently warped in my middle-school years by an obsession with authors like Lucy Maud Montgomery, Gene Stratton Porter, and Maude Hart Lovelace. But somehow, I never read that premier of American women authors, Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote the Little House books to record her experiences as a pioneer child. She was born near Pepin, Wisconsin in 1867, but before long her father had packed up the whole family and moved to Indian Country in Kansas. There were a series of moves that took them to Iowa, Minnesota, and South Dakota where her parents finally settled.

Laura grew up, married Almanzo, and began a lifetime of moving around herself before settling in Mansfield, Missouri in the later years of her life. It was there she first published Little House in the Big Woods in 1931. She went on to publish 9 books in the series, plus many other works including Let the Hurricane Roar (1932) and Free Land (1938 which told the story of her pioneer childhood in an adult format.

I don't know exactly why I never read her books. I think it might be because I was given Little House in the Big Woods as a present when I was too young for it. I read it anyway and maybe that turned me off the series. I've always intended to read them as an adult, but never got around to it. Now, after a lifetime of living in crowded California, I've moved half-way across the country to North Dakota. I live on far edge of the same wind-swept prairie that Laura and her family settled. There's no way I'm not going to read the books now!

My new home state is located between Montana and Minnesota. It is the 19th largest state, but is the third least populated in the union. It had 680,000 people in 1930 before the Dust Bowl, but in 2008 had only 641,481 residents. However, the American Lung Association gives it high marks for clean air, and there's lots of room to stretch your arms and legs. It's a big change from California, that's for sure!

When I first moved out here last spring the land seemed very wide, very empty, and a little bit scary. I was very glad that I hadn't come back when there were no roads, markers, trees, or towns. Just prairie stretching as far as the eye could see, and of course the wind always blowing with nothing to slow it down. Now I'm used to the wide open spaces and find it too crowded and cluttered when I travel back to California, the land of fences, billboards, houses, and trash.

So come join me as I discover what it's like to be a 21st century emigrant (without the hassle of actually leaving my country). At the same time, I'll be learning about Laura's experiences as a pioneer back when the land was wild and untamed. And of course, I'll be experimenting with some of the "old" ways in a modern form.