That Pioneering Spirit

The kids and I started to read the Little House on the Prairie series about a year ago. We just finished the eighth book. In it, little Laura Ingalls grew up, became a teacher at fifteen (incidentally, also the age she and Almonzo Wilder began to take notice of each other), and then got married at the end of the book at eighteen. There is one more book in the series, and then I guess we're done. Actually, the kids are already done. They began losing interest when the story line switched to more "grown-up" themes. I, on the other hand, have become completely entranced by these lives. And, no, it isn't much like the T.V. series really.

On the one hand, I feel grateful for modern conveniences. Perhaps, most especially heating, air conditioning and transportation. On the other hand, I feel a bit envious of their lives. In some ways, times back then were simpler than this fast paced information-age era-of-technology. I love the innocence, the industry, and the images of family gathered together in the home for mealtimes and evening sing-alongs. I am humbled by their spirits, their strength, and courage to endure multiple hardships.

In the first book, Laura described their life in a log cabin in the woods of Wisconsin from a very young child's perspective. A fascinating read about life in the 1860's.

Most of the second book described how Pa built their new log cabin with an ax and his bare hands after a move west. I was shocked at the very end when the boundaries for "Indian Territory" were re-drawn by the government, putting their new home just over the line, so that, in the blink of an eye, they had to pack up and leave it all behind.

Later in the series, the family settled in after yet another move and Pa dreamed of becoming rich off his hard earned crops until a cloud of grasshoppers descended and everything was lost. This put them on the move going further west again. I hadn't realized how many times they moved and the devastating hardships they faced (fevers that took Mary's sight, abject poverty, near starvation and almost freezing to death).

To sum up, near the end of the series the family finally settled in the Dakota Territory. Throughout their lives, Pa and Ma repeatedly told the girls that "there is no great loss without some small gain" -- a spin on finding the positive in all of life's situations no matter how seemingly unbearable. They seemed able to keep joyful spirits no matter what.

In the seventh book, the family had just endured seven months of relentless blizzards, during which they nearly starved to death, and they were about to have all of their cash crops eaten by blackbirds (the small gain here, incidentally, was a feast of blackbird pie). Laura takes her blind sister Mary walking and, arriving home, finds Mary's shoes and skirts filled with Spanish Needle Grass, a weed so noxious that cattle must have it cut from their mouths after grazing in it. Laura says:

"The prairie looks so beautiful and gentle, but I wonder what it will do next. Seems like we have to fight it all the time."

Ma replies:

"This earthly life is a battle. If it isn't one thing to contend with, it's another. It always has been so, and it always will be. The sooner you make up your mind to that, the better off you are, and the more thankful for your pleasures."

Just one of the many gems of wisdom found in this series. Wonderful words from someone who had such a hard life and figured out how to endure it with patience, an unfailing sense of humor and an eye on her blessings.