By the Shores of Silver Lake by Laura Ingalls Wilder

By the Shores of Silver Lake is a bit less quaint and a bit more hard-core than the preceding books in the Little House series. Before the first two pages are over, we learn that the family has been sick, is still weak from that illness, and Mary is blind. The hunting has become poor near Plum Creek and the farm has not produced a good wheat crop. The Ingalls’s decide to sell the farm and move west toward a homestead in Dakota Territory.

The style of this story is colored not only by the transitions in the American West brought on by the rush to settle the empty spaces and the breaking of ground for the railroad, but also by Laura’s own changes in maturity and understanding. In some of the earlier books, Laura Ingalls Wilder, the writer, is giving us hints about the seriousness of situations that maybe the less mature Laura of the story does not understand. In By the Shores of Silver Lake, we can see that Laura has grown up enough to understand, worry, fear, and desire to participate in some of the more difficult situations. She is still a free spirit and bravely meets new challenges such as being “eyes for Mary” and “seeing aloud” for her, and quickly learning to walk steadily in a moving car during her first train ride.

The Ingalls’s life in their new home seems like it will be more challenging than ever, although not just because of the necessity of braving the elements under relatively primitive conditions. The world now seems to be full of what Caroline Ingalls calls “rough men,” the kind of people from which Laura and her sisters have been sheltered for most of their life. Caroline’s worries, warnings, and attempts to keep her daughters proper young women seem to be symbolic of another transition, that of decent American society itself. From my point of view, it seems like sheltered, genteel girls wouldn’t have much of a chance of survival in the environment in which the Ingalls end up in Dakota Territory.

Laura’s plucky spirit is probably up to the challenge. There are some foreshadows of her future life (she decides she must be a teacher to help pay for Mary’s education, and she gets her first glimpse of Almanzo Wilder, though she is more interested in his horses.) It seems that being the eyes of her blind sister helped to make her such and observant and descriptive writer. She is adventurous, more like her father, and, even if I knew nothing about these stories ahead of time, I think I’d be convinced she’s going to be just fine. Her poor mother, on the other hand, faithful and hard-working as she is, still seems to be in for a bumpy ride.


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