It's been a while since my last Little House adventure. When I last left Laura and family behind they were trying their luck in the wilds of Minnesota. Let's see, they started out in Wisconsin then traveled to Indian territory in Kansas. It was the government's 'gentle nudging' that sent them to Minnesota where they settled on the banks of Plum Creek. I think Ma was happy to settle and doesn't especially like the rambling life. A town and a proper school is what she wants for her four girls. Laura, however, takes after Pa. And Pa is never happy too settled in one place.
"Pa did not like a country so old and worn out that the hunting was poor. He wanted to go west. For two years he wanted to go west and take a homestead, but Ma did not want to leave the settled country. And there was no money. Pa had made only two poor wheat crops since the grasshoppers came; he had barely been able to keep out of debt, and now there was the doctor's bill."
I had forgotten what happened in the lives of the Ingalls family and one daughter in particular as the story progresses. If you'd rather not know, you might want to skip ahead as a few plot spoilers will follow. At the opening of By the Shores of Silver Lake two important things happen. First, nearly all of the Ingalls family was laid low by scarlet fever. Although they all came through the sickness, Mary was not unscathed. She lost her sight during the illness and is now blind. How could I forget such a dramatic event? It is not, however, dwelled upon at length in the book. Laura simply acts as Mary's eyes and 'sees' for her (though Mary has an uncanny knack for knowing when Laura is not behaving the proper young girl).
Ma and Laura, weak from having to care for the family see a strange woman riding up to their home in a buggy. It's pretty aunt Docia, who we first met back in the Big Woods of Wisconsin. Now she and her husband, a contractor working on the new railroad, want Pa to come help in the construction and live in the camps in Dakota Territory. It's a golden opportunity but one that must be grabbed immediately. A bit of upheaval and rough living it will mean at the outset, but with a little time and hard work, Ma's dream might finally be realized.
So, the second big event. There is literally no time to lose and the family must pull up stakes and follow Docia west. I had forgotten how often the Ingalls family moved about. For Laura, who takes after Pa, she is more than happy to keep moving and westward ho would be her happy refrain, but moving about in the 1800s is no small feat especially for a family that has just recovered from a serious illness.
By the Shores of Silver Lake is all about the Ingalls's family experiences living in a railroad camp. It is their first real taste of living in a settled yet unsettled community--a community that would take some time to be properly civilized. The men who live and work on the railroad are pretty rough and tumble. Pa sets off with aunt Docia in order to be assured a job and Ma and the rest of the family follow and travel by train. This, then, is a novel of firsts almost. The girls are growing up, the States are expanding west, Pa will not farm but work in a store and the world itself is changing right in front of their eyes.
"There had never been such wonders in the whole history of the world, Pa said. Now, in one morning they actually traveled a whole week's journey, and Laura had seen the Iron Horse turn around, to go back the whole way in one afternoon."
No farmstead, or sugar snow season to extract maple from trees, no worries of Indians, or failed crops or plagues of grasshoppers.
"There was really no difference in the flowers and grasses. But there was something else here that was not anywhere else. It was an enormous stillness that made you feel still. And when you were still, you could feel great stillness coming closer."
Laura will get to see how the ground is prepared and graded before the tracks can be laid for the new rails, and Pa will have to try and keep peace among the men who demand their entire pay even before Pa can add up the time sheets and submit their work totals.
It's a run in with wolves that will help Pa find the perfect piece of land on which to build the new family homestead. It is the perfect place for the family to settle, and they will as soon as the winter passes. Pa's offered the chance to live in the surveyor's house and keep an eye on it rather than return east until the weather will allow them to build on new property. It is filled to the brim with bounty and any family would be snug as a bug in a rug to stay there with all the food supplies even as the wind and snow howls outside.
The Ingalls family is not the only one to have the Dakota Territories in their sights when it comes to staking their claim to land and building a homestead on that perfect piece of land--which is not technically theirs until they can make it official. Come spring, every time Pa plans on going to get his official papers to the piece of land, more and more people come on their way west. Ma is adamant about offering them food and shelter, but so many arrive that she has to begin charging the men--almost as in a rooming house. Will Pa get his claim?
Another delightful book by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I thoroughly enjoyed this new direction that the family has set off on. Laura, affectionately (even at the age of just 13!) is still called Flutterbudget and Half Pint. I can't picture her past the age of thirteen. She is still tomboyish and has her mischievous moments--always compared to Mary who is very Good. Carrie is beginning to have more of a real personality in the story and they are joined by baby Grace! Maybe just one other significant event . . . Almanzo Wilder and his family are heading west, too, and 'Manzo makes a cameo appearance.
Already a new story opens on the horizon. The family will need to put down roots. In order to keep their land they must stay there for five years! By story's end the shanty is built and Ma's china shepherdess graces the shelf--her new home, too.
More adventures to follow and I have already started reading The Long Winter. Part of me wants to race ahead and find out what happens. But with just a few more books to read I don't want to rush them either. I wonder if my winter will be a long one? I have a stack of books to keep me company in any case.