WILDER, Laura Ingalls - PIONEER GIRL

PIONEER GIRL
by Laura Ingalls Wilder

QUOTES FOR DISCUSSION

Her marginal notes reveal that from the beginning she intended Pioneer Girl as both a private family narrative written from a mother to her daughter, and as a rough manuscript that would ultimately be edited for publication. In other words, Wilder imagined both an intimate, private audience and a much larger public one. Just four pages into the manuscript, for example, Wilder wrote the words "Not to be used" at the top of page, and from the context of the scene that followed and the sentence that introduced it, Wilder worried that the general public might not find the episode credible. Yet she wrote it anyway -

Introduction, pg. xviii

In 1903, Wilder drafted a short sketch based on memories of her family's experiences on Silver Lake in Dakota Territory and saved it in a file called "Ideas for Work." Her father Charles Ingalls had died the previous year, and this unpublished fragment appears to be a response to his death, her first attempt at retelling family stories for a larger audience.

Introduction, pg. xxv

In an undated letter written between 1911 and 1914, name refer to her mother's life story and Gabe Wilder this advice, "just think [that] you're a writing a diary that no one anywhere will ever see, and put down all the things that you think, regardless."

Introduction, pg. xxv

She returned to the idea again in 1925, a year after her mother, Caroline Ingalls, died.

Introduction, pg. xxv

In urging her aunt to write, she echoed the advice she had received from Lane: "Just tell it in your own words as you would tell about those times if only you could talk to me... As you begin to tell it so many things will come back to you about the little everyday happenings and what you and mother and Aunt Eliza and Uncle Tom and Uncle Henry did as children and young folks, going to parties and sleigh rides and spelling schools and dancing schools."

Introduction, pg. xxv

But when Wilder's sister Mary died at the age of sixty-three on October 17, 1928, Wilder apparently decided it was finally time to write your life story losing her sister may have increased her own sense of mortality.

Introduction, pg. xxvi

It is important to point out that Lane had built her professional career by fictionalizing what she published as nonfiction. ... Lane wrote what was presented to her audience as "true stories," but they were loosely based on the interviews and factual material that Lane  embellished or re-imagined to heighten their market appeal.

Introduction, pg. xxx

After the Sunset series had run its course in the magazine, Charmian London expressed how "hurt" and "enraged" she was that a writer as talented as Lane had set so many "misleading" and "false impressions" in print without first "taking the trouble to find out their truth." Yet, for Lane, mixing fiction with fact with simply good business.

Introduction, pg. xxxii

In other words, Lane hoped to sell Pioneer Girl as a magazine serial before selling the rights again to a book publisher.
Introduction, pg. xxxix

In the summer of 1931, as Wilder awaited a verdict on her revised juvenile Pioneer Girl  - and perhaps a contract - she seemed to have pushed concerns about selling the adult version of Pioneer Girl aside.  ... She and Manly left Mansfield with their dog Nero... for the trip to South Dakota... Wilder have not been back to South Dakota since her father's death in 1902. ... She and Manly stopped in Manchester, South Dakota, where Wilder's sister Grace and her husband were living. "Grace seems like a stranger now," Wilder wrote, "only now and then something familiar about her face. I suppose it is the same with me."
Introduction, pg. xlv

Little House in the Big Woods was the first Wilder's novels based on Pioneer Girl. Harper & Brothers published it in the spring of 1932.
Introduction, pg. xlviii

Instead, Wilder used the original draft of Pioneer Girl as a foundation for one novel after another, beginning in 1935 with the publication of Little House on the Prairie and continuing until 1943, when she published the last novel in the series, These Happy Golden Years.
Introduction, pg. xlix

Pa would come in from his tramp to his traps, with icles [icicles] on the ends of his whiskers, hang his gun over the door, throw off his coat and cap and mittens and call "Where's my little half pint of cider half drank up?" That was me because I was so small. Mary and I would, climb on his knees while he warmed a bit, then he would put on his coat and cap again and do the chores and bring in wood to keep a good fire.  We were very warm and snug and happy and art of log house in the woods...

Pg. 29

Footnote: "little half pint of cider half drank up?" A form of this endearment appears in all versions of Pioneer Girl, as well as in the Little House novels. Wilder introduced it in the second chapter Little House in the Big Woods, (pg. 33), where it is rendered "little half-pint of sweet cider half drank up." Throughout the rest of the novels Pa often calls Laura "Half Pint."

Pg. 30

Sometimes Pa would make bullets for the rifle to take with him in his hunting next day. He would melt bits of lead in a large spoon over the coals of fire. While it was hot as hot he would pour it through a little hole into the bullet molds and after minute he would open the molds and drop out a bright, shiny new bullet onto the hearth.

Pg. 31

Several days afterward I heard Pa tell Ma that the man and the woman who sang the Whippoorwill song had run away together. I wondered why they had run away and what from.

Pg. 78

We usually had time to play anti-over or ring-around-the-rosie awhile before school.

Pg.87

Mary and I liked to go to school this winter. I learned to sing the multiplication table and was put in the fifth reader. We liked our reading lessons very much and used to practice reading them aloud at home nights.  Pa knew, but did not tell us until later, that a crowd used to gather in the store beneath to hear us read.

Pg. 106

That was a delightful summer! Work and play was so mixed that I could not tell them apart.  Of course it was work helping Ma take care of Grace but it was the best kind of played too. Going after the cow is work but it was a best part of the day. Even if it rained the wet was nice on my feet and the rain felt good on my face and on my body through my thin summer clothes.

Pg. 110

The graveyard was a beautiful place. The grass was so soft and green and short like velvet; there were mossy places in little hollows and growing on some of the tombstones; and there were tall, dark, evergreen trees and lovely flowers everywhere. We might look at the flowers and smell them but never, never pick them.

The white stones standing among all this beauty didn't look lonesome. We could wander for a whole afternoon looking at them and reading the names and verses on them. It seemed a very pleasant place to lie and sleep forever. But we always went away before sundown.

Pg. 110

 I am sure Pa was happy to be going back west. He said the air was fresher where there were not so many people and he played his fiddle by the campfires.

Pg.112

Anti-over, Pullaway, Prisoner's Base, and handball.

All these children games except handball involved variations on the game of tag in anti-over or anti-i-over, two teams gathered on opposite sides of a small building, and a designated player from one team threw the ball over the roof shouting into over as warning. Players on the opposite side of the building tried to catch the ball before it hit the ground. When someone caught it, the entire team dashed around building, and the person with the ball tried to tag his or her opponents. The team that captured the most players won. Pullaway, also known as Pom-Pom Pullaway, Pump Pump  Pullaway, or similar variations, was also a chasing game. A player usually stood in the center of a field, with a group of children lined up on the other side of the school yard. When the player in the center called out "pom pom pullaway," the remaining players raced toward her. Those she tagged became her teammates, who tried to catch the remaining players when she next called out. The game was over when everyone had been tagged. Prisoner's Base was a similar running and chasing game. Opposing teams tried to catch each other's players and bring them to designated base or prison. Handball, as Wilder might have played it, probably involved hitting a ball against the schoolhouse wall, although she could be referring to baseball, or a catching game.

Pg.120

Howard Ensign joined the Congregational church after their revival and would testify at prayer meeting every Wednesday night. It's some way offended my sense of privacy. It seemed to me that the things between one and God should be between him and God like loving ones mother. One didn't go around saying 'I love my mother, she's been so good to me.' One just loved her and did things that she liked to do.

Pg. 136

One night while saying my prayers, as I always did before going to bed, this feeling of homesickness and worried was worse than usual, but gradually I had a feeling ever hovering, encompassing Presence of a Power, comforting and sustaining and thought and surprised 'That is what men call God!'

Pg. 137

An old Bachelor lived alone six miles away at Lake Thompson. We never saw him all winter. Other than that our neighbors were forty miles away to the east and sixty miles to the west.

Pg. 181

At night we heard wolves howl and coyotes slipped around and picked up the crumbs where we shook the tablecloth from the door.
Pg. 181

Pa bought two business lots diagonally across the street from each other and sent out for lumber to build… When the rough sheathing of the building was on the frame and the roof over it, we moved in…

Pg. 189

We move don April 3^rd a nice, warm day but it turned cold in the night and the wind blew through the cracks between the boards. I felt uncomfortable and waked just enough to know I was cold, so I pulled the covers higher to shelter my head and snuggled closer to Mary and Carrie. The next thing I knew, I hear Pa singing,

I peeped out. Everything was covered with snow and Pa was standing barefoot in it pulling on his pants. “Lie still all of you,” he said, “don’t move and mix the snow up! I’ll shovel it off in a minute.”

Pg. 191

There was a nice spell of weather after it, but an old Indian passing through town warned the people that a terrible winter was coming. He said the seventh winter was always harder than those before; then the winter would be mild again until another seven, which would be harder than the first. Mild winters would follow again until the third seven which would be much worse than either of the others. He said it had always been so; that the winter coming was the third seven and there would be “heap big snow” and the wind would blow and blow.

Pg. 203

Just after the party the aid society gave a social at Mrs. Tinkham's where she lived over their furniture store. It cost 10 ¢ to go and each one was served a dish of ice cream, home made of course and frozen with the natural ice of which of there was plenty out doors  Mary Power and I went together, but it was a very stupid time and we wished and we left early wishing we had saved our 10¢.

Pg. 252

The grown people organized a literary society that met at the school house every Friday night. They spelled down, spoke pieces and had debates.

Pg. 252

On one of these entertainment nights a young lawyer named Alfred Thomas came in and stayed and kept on staying for no reason that I could see, until I was afraid Pa and I would be late. At last he asked Pa if he were going to the meeting and to my surprise Pa said "No!" Then he asked me if I were going and I thinking if Pa didn't go of course I wouldn't and said 'No!' too. So Mr. Thomas went away alone and then Pa laughed at me and said all Thomas had come for was to take me. I had refused my first offer of an escort and I was indignant.  If he wanted to take me why couldn't he say "Come go with me!" and not be such a coward. Not that I wanted to go with him, but I hated to miss the fun and now Pa and I couldn't go, but sat home all evening.

Pg. 256

The church women mad at mrs. Brown's in organized a Women's Christian Temperance Union (W.C.T.U.). Their next meeting was at our house and the[y] insisted I should join. Ida Brown had joined and because of that they urged me harder, but I refused for no very good reason. I just had a distaste for everyone at the meeting except Ma.

Pg. 256

Footnote:

A Women's Christian Temperance Union was formed in the mid-1870s is American women took a stand against alcohol and the personal and social problems it created. Initially organized in Ohio, the movement spread across the United States. Among the group's defining principles for the concepts of moderation in all things and total abstinence from alcohol.

Pg. 256

One week Mr. Barnes was away and didn't get back on Saturday. Sunday morning at Sunday-school Ma said to Mrs. Barnes that perhaps Mr. Barnes would come on the morning train. Mrs. Barnes was horrified and said "On No!" She was sure he would not. He would never do so wicked a thing as to travel on Sunday. And just then Mr. Barnes came from the depot off the morning train.

Pg. 257

Mr. Louis Bouchie was looking for someone to teach the little school in his district and Mr. Boast had recommended me. Two months was all their district could afford to have and $20 a month all they could pay. Papa told him I was not old enough to get a certificate. One must be sixteen and I could not be that hold until February. But Mr. Boast and Mr Bouchie said they could fix that with the county superintendent if I would go and I promised to teach this school if I could get a certificate. When I went to the superintendent I passed the examination and he did not ask my age. So I got my certificate and went out to Mr. Bouchie's the first of December to begin the first school in their District. There were five scholars.

Pg. 260

I did think of how she lay in bed in the morning and let her father get the breakfast, of how she was often too sick to work and lay in bed all day, but would get up at night and go to a dance.

Pg. 299

Never, thought I, did I try to hold any one that wanted to go and I'm not enter into any competition for Manley.

Pg. 301

I started hopefully to teach him his letters and found that he could not learn them. He seemed to try, but form his first lesson in the morning to the next before noon couldn't remember to tell A from B.

Then I remembered Ven Owen and the boy everyone called a fool and I brought a switch to school one morning.

I said, meanwhile toying with the switch in my hand, 'Now Georgie, we will try again the first four letters. If you don't learn them so you can tell them to me the next time, I will whip you. Just after recess, I called him up again. There was a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomache. I didn't want to whip the poor little rat. But glory be! He knew them!

Pg. 318

Ma and I made my wedding dress of black cashmere,

Pg. 320

Footnote,

In 1885, white had not yet become the standard color for a wedding gown in the United States, nor was dress to be worn just once. By 1943, however, when These Happy Golden Years first appeared, white had become traditional, and Wilder used the hasty wedding scenario to explain the black dress to her readers.

Pg. 321

We were at Mr.Brown's at eleven and were married at once with Ida Brown and Elmer McConnell as witnesses. Mr. Brown had promised not to use the word "obey" in the ceremony and he kept his word.

Pg. 320