Moreover, this story is delightfully told." In conclusion, "The book's make-up is entirely in character-a homespun-color linen jacket, and inner boards calicoed with tiny strawberry leaves and blossoms.
Too few, nowadays, can tell as real and treasurable a story. Jessie Hirsohl advised, "It should be read by all Middle Border children-and by many others to whom its experiences will not be even an echo of word-of-mouth inheritance. The novel (price two dollars) was reviewed at length for the New York Herald Tribune in its June 12 issue.
In the winter, they enjoyed the comforts of their home and danced to Pa’s fiddle playing. When he returned in winter evenings, Laura and Mary always begged him to play his fiddle he was too tired from farm work to play during summer. One day he noticed a bee tree and returned early to get the wash tub and milk pail to collect the honey. When Pa went into the woods to hunt, he usually came home with a deer and then smoked the meat for the coming winter.
Hunting and gathering were important parts of providing for the Ingalls as well. Pa trades labor with other farmers so that his own crops will be harvested faster when it is time. That summer and fall, the Ingalls again plant a garden and fields, and store food for the winter. Everyday housework is also described in detail. In the spring, the cow has a calf, so there is milk, butter and cheese. Laura remembered that sugaring off, and the dance that followed, for the rest of her life.Įach season has its work, which Laura makes attractive by the good things that result. They return home with buckets of syrup, enough to last the year. Later that winter, the Ingalls go to Grandma Ingalls’ house and have a “sugaring off,” when they harvest sap and make maple syrup.
The cousins come for Christmas that year, and Laura receives a rag doll, which she names Charlotte. Fall is a very busy time, because the harvest from the garden and fields must be brought in as well. This is all in preparation for the upcoming winter. Laura gathers wood chips, and helps Ma and Pa when they butcher animals and preserve the meat. Hard work is the rule, though fun is often made in the midst of it. It does not contain the more mature (yet real) themes addressed in later books of the series (conflicts with Native Americans, serious illness, death, drought, and crop destruction). The novel describes the homesteading skills Laura observed and began to practice during her fifth year. Class=notpageimage| Location of the "Little House in the Big Woods" in Wisconsin
0 kommentar(er)
