I actually hadn’t read this book before, which is probably
considered somewhat of a moral failing by the rest of my regional community. (I’ve
lived in the upper Midwest most of my life and currently live in southeastern
Minnesota.) It’s hard not to be somewhat familiar with the story, however,
since just about everybody seems to know something about it. “They had to twist
hay because there was nothing else to burn for warmth!” was something I
remember hearing about the Ingalls family when I was a kid. I also toured De
Smet, South Dakota when I was about 20 years old (and therefore about 50 years
younger than most of the other folks on the tour), so I had picked up a good
chunk of the story from the tour guide: “This is the building Laura brushed
against when they all were lost in a blizzard while walking home from school.”
This novel is about enduring cold on the frontier, but it’s also
about family and discipline and endurance. Laura has always been a positive,
energetic and optimistic heroine, a character that so many little girls want to
be. In The Long Winter, however, her
limits seem to be tested. There are more instances than I can remember in any
other book in this series where Laura is crabby and impatient. Of course one
cannot blame her, especially when her point of view is described as so near the
end of the story:
There were no more lessons. There
was nothing in the world but cold and dark and work and coarse brown bread and
winds blowing. The storm was always there, outside the walls, waiting
sometimes, then pouncing, shaking the house, roaring, snarling, and screaming
in rage.
Out of bed in the morning to hurry
down and dress by the fire. Then work all day to crawl into a cold bed at night
and fall asleep as soon as she grew warm. The winter had lasted so long. It
would never end.
Of course (spoiler alert!) the Long Winter did end
eventually. The near starvation and boredom lasted a little longer than the
cold weather, however, since the folks on the frontier could get nothing new
until the trains could run through the snow-packed cuts. One cannot burn coal
or make bread when there was no train to bring either.
Some of this story is also told from Almanzo Wilder’s point
of view, since he also endured the winter in the same place Laura Ingalls did.
Almanzo is quite the heroic figure in this novel, which is amusing when you
know how Laura Ingalls got her married name. Somehow, he and his brother,
Royal, don’t seem to have suffered as much from lack of supplies as did the
Ingalls family, but I don’t know if that was a better estimation of need or
simple luck.
It’s hard for us with a complete lack of remaining frontier
and modern technology and weather satellites to really understand why most of
the folks in this story were not able to better prepare for such a miserable
winter out in the middle of nowhere. I guess pioneering is all about figuring
out what needs a new environment will demand. And part of being a pioneer is
not really knowing what you’re getting yourself into.
A Year of Books that are Older than Me
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