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 Her father Charles Ingalls had died the previous year, and this unpublished fragment appears to be a response to his death, her first attempt at retelling family stories for a larger audience.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

NAUVOO PANORAMA: Views of Nauvoo before, during, and after its rise by JANATH R. CANNON (Author)

NAUVOO PANORAMA: Views of Nauvoo before, during, and after its rise

by Janath R. Cannon

QUOTES FOR DISCUSSION

The Algonquins (some say the Ojibwas) gave the river its name - "Father of Waters" - Mississippi.

Pg. 2

Two Indian chiefs, Black Hawk and Keokuk, left their names to history;

Pg. 2

The Democratic Association of Quincy, for example, appointed committee to help them, stating that "the strangers recently arrived here from the state of Missouri, known by the name of the 'Latter-day Saints,' are entitled to our sympathy and kindest regard." The kindness of the Quincy citizens would be remembered with gratitude by the Saints and their descendants.

Pg. 17

On another occasion a hundred chiefs and their families came across the river from their encampment near Montrose to see Joseph. He addressed them in the grove:

 I advised them to cease killing each other and warring with other tribes; also to keep peace with the whites; all of which was interpreted to them.

 [Chief] Keokuk replied that he had a Book of Mormon at his wigwam.... "I believe," he said, "you are a great and good man... I also am a son of the Great Spirit. I have heard your advice - we intend to quit fighting, and follow the good talk you have given us."

Pg. 29

The first week in October 1845 the Saints met in the Nauvoo Temple, in the first and last official General Conference ever held there.

Pg. 44

"One small nursery may produce many thousands of fruit trees, while they are small. But as they expand towards maturity, they must needs be transplanted, in order to have room to grow and produce the natural fruits. So it is with us." -Parley P. Pratt, October 1845 General Conference, Nauvoo Temple.

Pg. 44

In the mid-1900's a local "Grape Festival" began to celebrate the two tasty foods with a pageant, a parade, and other traditional festivities.

Pg. 59

Seven years later the congregation moved into their own church, a simple one-story building on Mulholland Street. Stoutly constructed of limestone blocks - at least some of them from the ruined Nauvoo Temple - it is still standing as the American Legion Hall.

Pg. 61

On the morning of 19 February 1937 two men stood in a drenching rain on the Nauvoo Temple block. They stepped off of the frontage of the lot Hampton noted that "an old ice barn was back in the Lot not far from the old Well that fed the font in the Temple." Then Jack Smith and Wilford Wood went to the bank to meet with the cashier Mr. Reinhardt, and the vice-president of the bank Mr. Anton. There they tried to purchase the lot they had examined. At first they had no success. Mr. Wood recorded:

It seemed as though no agreement could be made as I was limited to the price I could pay. An influence came to me and I said, "Are you going to try and make me pay an exhorbant [sic] price for the blood of a martyred prophet when you know this property rightfully belongs to the Mormon people?" I felt the spirit of the Prophet Joseph in that place. Mr. Anton said we will sell the lot for $900. I grasped his hand and then the hand of the Cashier of the Bank and the agreement was made and signed. We parted the best of friends.

The next day at the bank sale in Carthage The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints became the legal owner of the first piece of temple property to return to the church. Wilford Wood a furrier from Bountiful, Utah, was a visionary man as well as a persistent bargainer. For nearly a quarter of a century he bought historical properties he thought his church should own, often paying for them himself. In Nauvoo he purchased three-fourths the temple block properties, the Snow-Ashby duplex, the Times and Seasons Building, and the John Taylor home next to it. His correspondence with the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints clearly expressed his vision:

I would like to see the old trail so well preserved that each point would be a landing field with a beacon light to guide the old as well as the young along their way... How lasting it would be if men were trained the same as they are for seminary work and stand at each one of these important spots prepared to tell the whole truth of those wonderful events with a spirit that would tarry with both stranger and friend. They would know they had been on sacred ground.

Pg. 71

Frequent visitors swelled the attendance, especially during such festive times as the annual performance of the pageant, the City of Joseph. Starting in 1976, thousands of spectators came from the West and around the country to sit on the hillside below the chapel and view the musical story of Old Nauvoo.

Pg. 86

THE PERFECT TRIBUTE by Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews

The Perfect Tribute by Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews

1915 edition, (First Edition, 1906)

QUOTES FOR DISCUSSION

There was, moreover, a speech to be made tomorrow to thousands  who would expect their President to say something to them worth the listening of a people who were making history; something brilliant, eloquent, strong.

Pg. 3

He glanced across the car. Edward Everett sat there, the orator of the following day, the finished gentleman, the careful student, the heir of traditions of learning and breeding, of scholarly instincts and resources.

Pg. 4

-of what use was it for such a one to try to fashion a speech fit to take a place by the side of Everett's silver sentences?

Pg. 4

Most of the men in that group of honor are now passed over to the majority, but their names are not dead in American history - great ghosts who walk still in the annals of their country,

Pg. 10

For two hours Everett spoke and the throng listened untired, fascinated by the dignity of his hybrid look and manner almost as much, perhaps, as by the speech which has taken a place in literature.

Pg. 10

That these were his people was his only thought. He had something to say to them; what did it matter about him or his voice?

Pg. 14

The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or to detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.

Pg. 15

Not a hand was lifted in applause. Slowly the big awkward man slouch back across the platform and sank into his seat, and yet there was no sound of approval, of recognition from the audience;

Pg. 17

We'll manage not to talk about my speech, Mr. Everett," he said. "This isn't the first time I felt that my dignity hot not to permit me to be a public speaker."

Pg. 18

"I want to lawyer," he said  impulsively, looking up anxiously into the deep-lined face inches above him. "I don't know where to find a lawyer in this horrible city, and I must have one - I can't wait - it may be too late - I want a lawyer now,"

Pg. 23

"Is it very expensive to draw a will?" he asked wistfully.

"No, sonny; it's one of the cheapest things a man can do," was the hurry answer, and the child's tone showed a lighter heart.

Pg. 29

They had arrived at the prison. "I can get you through all right. They know me here," he spoke over his shoulder reassuringly to the President with a friendly glance. Dashing down the corridors in front, he didn't see the guards salute the tall figure which follow him;

Pg. 30

AMELIA EARHART - Last Flight by Amelia Earhart, arranged by George Palmer Putnam

Last Flight

by Amelia Earhart, arranged by George Palmer Putnam

Copyright 1937

QUOTES FOR DISCUSSION

He ne'er is crowned

With immortality - who fears to follow

Where airy voices lead.

Keats

This is the story of "Last Flight." It was to have been called "World Flight," but fate willed otherwise. It is almost entirely written by Amelia Earhart herself.

Pg. ix, Foreward

 "The time to worry," she declared, "is three months before a flight. Decide then whether or not the goal is worth the risk involved. If it is, stop worrying. To worry is to add another hazard. It retards reactions makes one unfit. Hamlet," she'd add with that infectious grin, "would have been a bad aviator. He worried too much."

Pg. x, Foreward

The next airplane which impinged upon my consciousness was about the time of the armistice.  For aviation in those days was very limited. About all a pilot could do was to joy-hop. That is (1) taking a few hearty passengers for short rides; (2) teaching even harder students to fly; and (3) giving exhibitions. The idea that airplanes could be transportation as today entered nobody's noggin.

Pg. 5

Pilots, in 1918, to relieve the monotony of never going anywhere, rolled their wheels on the top of moving freight trains; flew so low over boats that the terrified occupants lay flat on the deck; or they dived at crowds on the beach or at picnics. Today of course the Department of Commerce would ground a pilot for such antics.

Pg. 6

I think my mother realized before I did how much airplanes were beginning to mean to me, for she helped me by the first one.

Pg. 8

Anyway, I showed my pilot's license (it happened to be the first granted an American woman by F.A.I.) and inwardly prepared to start back for Boston.

Pg. 10

With these activities came opportunity to know women everywhere who shared my conviction that there is so much women can do in the modern world and should be permitted to do irrespective of their sex. Probably my greatest satisfaction was to indicate by example now and then, that women can sometimes do things themselves if given the chance.

Pg. 12

That Man-who-was-to-find-a-girl-to-fly-the-Atlantic, who found me and then managed the flight, was George Palmer Putnam. In 1913 we married. Mostly my flying has been solo, but the preparation for it wasn't. Without my husband's help and encouragement I could not have attempted what I have.

Pg. 12

That was thoroughly informal flying. Pilot landed in pastures, race courses, even golf links where they were still enough of a novelty to be welcome. In those days domestic animals scurried to the fancied protection of trees and barns when the flying monsters roared above them. Now along the airways there's not enough curiosity left for a self-respecting cow even to lift her head to see what goes on in the sky.

Pg. 13

Looking back, there are less cheering recollections of that night over the Atlantic... not the least the feeling of fine loneliness and of realization that the machine I rode was doing its best and required for me the best I had.

Pg. 17

I don't drink tea or coffee so I had none with me... I carried a thermos bottle of hot chocolate.

Pg. 22

I saw that what wind I had was with me. That was a disadvantage. You realize a plane takes off against the wind, not with it, just as a small boy flies his kite. He doesn't run with the wind to get his kite into the air, but runs against it. Of course an airplane is simply a kite with a motor instead of the small boy.

Pg. 25

However, I had the cockpit window open a bit and the cold rain beat in on me until I became thoroughly chilled. I thought it would be rather pleasant to have a cup of hot chocolate. So I did, and it was. Indeed that was the most interesting cup of chocolate I have ever had, sitting up eight thousand feet over the middle of the Pacific Ocean, quite alone.

Pg. 29

I remember saying into my little hand microphone, "I'm getting tired of this fog." My message was picked up, "I'm getting tired." So a nurse and physician were dispatched to the airport at Auckland to revive the exhausted flyer when and if she arrived. Of course I wasn't tired at all. No one should undertake a long flight who becomes fatigued after staying up just one night under normal flying conditions.

Pg. 31

The Landing at Oakland contrasted with that in Ireland in 1932. Near Londonderry, after scaring most of the cows in the neighborhood, I pulled up in a farmer's back yard. Three people came out to see what was in the airplane. I pushed the hatch back and stuck out my head. Not knowing the proper phrase for the situation I simply said, "I'm from America." It made no impression whatsoever on the reception committee.

Pg. 32

I couldn't believe my ears. Did Wiley Post, the man who braved every sort of hazard in his stratosphere flying, really regard a simple little flight from Mexico City to New York across the Gulf as too hazardous? If so, I could scarcely wait to be on my way.

Pg. 35

My knowledge of geography ; at least theoretically -increased from week to week.

Pg. 52

Indeed, so easily was the plane moving down the runway that I thought the take-off was actually over. In ten seconds more we would have been off the ground, without landing gear tucked up and on our way southwestward. There was not the slightest indication of anything abnormal. Ten seconds later the airplane which brought us so gallantly to Honolulu lay helpless on the concrete runway, a poor battered bird with broken wings.

Pg. 71

But the plane, her landing gear wiped off and one wing damaged, was a sad sight to see. At that, the comparatively slight damage was a fine testimonial to the sturdiness of Lockheed construction - such an accident might will result in total washout.

Pg. 71

... the sad truth that the stress and strains of an airplane accident and its aftermath are just as severe financially as they are mechanically. On the prosaic dollar-and-cent side friends helped generously, but even so, to keep going I more-or-less mortgaged the future. Without regret, however, for what are futures for?

Pg. 78

In addition to routine passports and visas, in much of the territory it was necessary to secure a special authority to land a plane. Here and there were forbidden regions over which when might not fly. In and over other territories no firearms or motion picture cameras were permitted.

Pg. 78

And my mail! A good way to realize how many people would like to fly around the world is to start such an undertaking and then see what the mailman brings.

Many of my most precious letters came from youngsters.

Pg. 80

Then the custom of being "named after." It's a common phenomenon for babies to have fastened on them the names of newsworthy people, and divers infants, apparently, have been inflicted with "Amelia."

Pg. 81

Shortly before the Oakland take-off Fred was in a serious automobile accident. Soon after our return to California he survived another Highway smash-up.  So he and Mrs. Noonan or eager for him to take to the air for safety!

Pg. 84

(In the days that followed A.E. had no time to write. "We'll catch up on that later," she said. "I want to do a careful account of this final job getting ready for a long flight. It's really colorful and I think could be made interesting even for non-flyers."

The opportunity to catch up never came. Instead of filling in myself, I've chosen to present something of the story of that week before departure in words written at the time by C. B. Allen of the New York Herald Tribune, a good friend who was with us at Miami. G.P.P.)

Pg. 87

...they all naturally had preconceived notions about a woman pilot bent on a 'stunt' flight - not very favorable notions, either. It was undoubtedly something of a shock to discover that the 'gal' with who they had to do Not only was an exceptionally pleasant and reasonable human being who 'knew her stuff'...

Pg. 88

Any lingering doubts were dispelled when it developed that this particular woman aviator was not only was thoroughly familiar with every part of her airplane, but was not above helping push it in and out of the hanger or lending a hand on any job where it was needed or her advice or presence was required. A little grease or oil on her olive drab slacks or plaid, short-sleeved shirt, or even in her tousled hair habitually was dismissed by Miss Earhart with a chuckle when anyone called her attention to the matter.

Pg. 89

A great advantage in visiting a pilot is knowing that one's host comprehends a pilot's needs. Which, when much flying lies ahead, are mostly negative. We wanted quiet and sleep. When politely possible, it was helpful to avoid functions and people - even the pleasantest people, for meeting and talking to them at immeasurably to the fatigue factor, nervous and physical.

Pg. 101

But how many of the earthbound realize the relative nearness of sunlight above the cloud-covering? How many know that perhaps only three thousand feet above the gray dank world my plane, if I will it, may emerge into sunlight over a billowy sea of clouds stretching away into blue infinity.

Pg. 108

Yesterday I had my introduction to a continent new to me. Today I crossed the equator for the first time. Fred had plotted an appropriate ceremony, himself officiating as an aerial King Neptune. But at the time the Electra's shadow passed over the mythical Line we were both so occupied he quite forgot to duck me with the Thermos bottle of cold water which he later confessed had been provided for the occasion.

Pg. 116

I went tourist and took pictures of burros loaded with produce and human beings.

Pg. 122

Cows seem to have a special place about the fringes of my flying. A group of them were munching breakfast in the heavy grass at the edge of Fortalezas airport when we appeared at dawn. They just didn't like the commotion created by the Electra's engines warming up. They showed their hurt feelings not by silly protest, but gravely stalking away, turning a cold shoulder (plus hind-quarters) on the interloper. Proud cows, those. Likely they were kin to some haughty hero of the bull-ring.

Pg. 122

At luncheon I could hardly realize that I was in South America, for the food was so like that at home - corn on the cob and apple pie a la mode. Speaking of food, everyone took pity on us

Pg. 125

With him especially I was ashamed of my illiteracy. But my French is rudimentary, particularly the aviation brand, which is not taught in school. Instead I remember questions about my uncle's health and my aunt's umbrella, about walking in the "jardin" and shutting the " fenêtre," none of which helps appreciably.

Pg. 141

Incidentally, all the advanced class about passports, permissions, medical certificates and such, apparently was love's labor lost. Up to Dakar no one had asked for passport. There were no custom examinations, no inspections. About the only formality was signing the police register in St Louis. Officialdom expected us, knew our plans, and that our papers were in order. So why be troublesome? All together an understanding attitude.

Pg. 142

You remember, of course, George Adolpus, the Goop who made his mother cry?

"The Goops they gug and gumble,

They spill their broth

On the tablecloth,

They lead disgusting lives."

Pg. 154

Daybreak starts had been the order of our going because it was wise to get flying finished by noon when possible. Normally, the greatest heat came after midday, to be avoided both by man and machine. Not that either Fred or I particularly minded the occasional broiling of cockpit or fuselage (often the outer coating of the plane's metal was too hot to touch, while the temperatures of its innards sometimes were so high for our piece of mine we avoided recording them). But very hot air can make difficult flying. It is thin and lacks lifting power.

Pg. 158

From the heights we saw the Red Sea. It is not red, but blue. (Both the Blue and the White Nile are green.)

Pg. 167

Massawa admits to being one of the hottest cities in the world. In the summer the thermometer often hits 120 degrees in the shade. For a typical July the mean temperature was 94, twenty degrees hotter than the average for the hottest month in New York - truly a mean temperature!

Pg. 167

Just what is a "monsoon"? I sought the answer to that question long ago. The books say the name was originally given by the Arabs to seasonal winds which blow approximately six months from the northeast and six months from the southwest. In India, the term is especially used for the rain which falls from June to September when the prevailing winds shifts to the Southwest.

Pg. 194

So much for "book learning." Practical experience commenced the following morning. During the hours of the night the monsoon went to work, although only mildly. Its full fury was reserved until we were safely - or unsafely - in the skies.

Pg. 194

I felt as if I were dreaming, to be flying over such fabulous waters, with the shores of Siam on the right and Cambodia on the left.

Pg. 204

Along that day's route I was interested to see charming towns which looked from the air much like those at home. Many had familiar white circles in emergency and regular landing areas, but, unlike those in the United States, few buildings displayed community names on the roofs to help flyers locate exact position.

Pg. 204

The fields and valleys were upholstered with a deep piled green jungle in an unbelievably continuous covering made by separate trees. There were gashes in the verdant carpet of the hills and lowlands, where the roads of rubber plantations and tin mines challenged the forest. But the green growth is unconquerable. Given its head, it swallows up man's puny scratchings almost overnight in the hungry way the jungles have.

Pg. 205

I explained our disagreeable habit of getting up at three in the morning and falling asleep immediately after dinner.

Pg. 206

I end. A.E.'s book with a paragraph reproduced from a letter she wrote me before a dangerous flight - a letter to be read if it proved to be Last Flight. G.P.P.

Please know I am quite aware of the hazards I want to do it because I want to do it. Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail, their failure must be but a challenge to others.

Pg. 228

WINSTON CHURCHILL An Informal Study of Greatness by Robert L. Taylor

Winston Churchill: An Informal Study of Greatness by Robert L. Taylor

QUOTES FOR DISCUSSION

The last of the great statesmen, Winston Churchill, a man of multiple genius, will be devotedly remembered as one of the most exasperating figures of history. For seventy-seven years he has flashed over the public scene, a beckoning, outsized diamond in a trumpery world. Before moments of British crisis, he has been so uniformly right that his incandescent prescience has itself become a burden to his colleagues and to his countrymen at large. Though frequently tossed aside, Churchill has never permitted himself the luxury of humility. He inherited superior gifts of impatience.

Pg. 3

Lord Randolph Churchill, a brilliant, impetuous fellow, a once established a high-water mark of nonchalance by hiring a waiter to listen to the end of an anecdote by a club bore. The son is no less reluctant to be harried by prolixity. During one interminable debate in the House of Commons, when a speaker was presenting a dramatic list of statistics on Brussel sprouts, Churchill observed an aged member, toward the read, desperately leaning forward with an old-fashioned ear trumpet. In an voice clearly audible over the House, Churchill said to Anthony Eden, “Who is that idiot denying himself his natural advantages?” He was chided by the Speaker, but without visible effect.  By now, Churchill has developed an immunity to censure.

Pg. 3

As a rule, when Churchill needs new attire he sends his butler-valet, William Greenshields, who has been with him for years, down the street, any street, to buy something off a rack. According to Brendan Bracken, his closest friend and adviser, Churchill never inquires whether these spot acquisitions cost five pounds or fifty but slips them on with abstracted docility and proceeds to whatever function is at hand. Happily so unerring is Greenshields’ judgment that the master thus outfitted always looks faultlessly groomed.

Pg. 5

In former days, when wars arose from individual causes, from the policy of a Minister or the passion of a King, when they were fought by small regular armies of professional soldiers, and when their course was retarded by the difficulties of communication and supply, it was possible to limit the liabilities of the combatants. But now, when mighty populations are impelled against each other, each individual embittered and inflamed – when the resources of science and civilization sweep away everything that might mitigate their fury, a European war can only end in the ruin of the vanquished and the scarcely less fatal commercial dislocation and exhaustion of the conquerors. Democracy is more vindictive than Cabinets. The wars of peoples will be more terrible than those of kings.” (House of Commons, 1901)

Pg. 12

This precocious warning, in 19091, or more than a decade before the sad, opening salvos of the first great “people’s war,” set a level of prediction beneath which Churchill has never fallen. His has been the voice of intelligent criticism, imperial Britain’s conscience, the court of last appeal in time of danger. His friends feel that he was born with an urge to improve and protect. At Harrow, the selct boys’ school from which he was graduated well toward the bottom, he was regarded as interesting, but a monumental nuisance.

Pg. 12

Churchill’s high intelligence is coupled to a memory of uncanny brilliance. The two qualities, so neatly supplementary, make it possible for him to adjudge the probably shape of the future in the light of what he remembers, and interprets, of the past. Whereas intellect is a gift from the gods, memory can be trained; however, Churchill’s powers of recollection, like his father’s approach the abnormal. On a bet one time at the Carlton Club, Lord Randolph read a whole page of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and recited it verbatim. His son is no less endowed. As a schoolboy, Churchill once memorized 1200 lines of Macaulay’s Lays of Ancient Rom and rattled them off at a brisk gallop in class, t the amazement of his instruct and to the exhausted boredom of his fellows.

Pg. 14

…the Lord Lieutenant and his wife…however successful their attempts to cajole, conciliate, and entertain – though out of their private means they may have spent money like water – in a week all is forgotten.

Pg. 31

As others have noted, the Irish have ever been wanting in gratitude for the many fine things Englad has tried to do for them. They have taken, and still take, the baffling view that they would prefer to do things for themselves.

Pg. 31

He continued to make and lose fortunes as his family, in the gaudy French capital, rang up social triumphs never before equaled by Americans in Europe. Jerome’s eventual death, as the age of seventy-four, was of more than routine interest. He had attended a circus, in London, and listened indignantly to the strong man’s offer of fifty pounds to anybody in the house who could stay five minutes with him in the ring. Jerome was walking with a cane at the time, but he hobbled up, removed his cutaway, hung his cane on the ropes, and beat the giant senseless. Not long afterward he fell dead of a heart attack. The doctors suggested that he might have strained himself. His daughter Jennie’s introduction to Lord Randolph Churchill at a ball abroad a cruiser anchored off Cowes in August 1873, was no new sort of experience for the girl. She had only recently been taken boating by Napoleon III. Like most Americans, she had democratic instincts, and she made the descent from emperor to lord gracefully. Lord Randolph was said to have remarked to a friend directly after the meeting, “There is my future wife.” She was greatly sought after, the confidante of such notables as the Princess Metternich, the Duck de Persigny, and the Duc de Praslin.

Pg. 35

Accustomed to the freedom of France, Lady Randolph thought England straight-laced and dull.

Pg. 36

A young lady never went driving by herself, and feminine smoking was entirely out of bounds.

pg. 36

All in all, Lady Randolph was vastly pleased when the Duke accepted his appointment in Ireland and the family moved to Dublin. Later she came to love England and lived on there the rest of her life.

Pg. 37

Authority acted on Churchill like magnesium on water.  Nannies, governesses, and nurses followed one another in pretty rapid succession. One day, learning that a new warden -somewhat younger and stronger - was expected, he followed the only course possible to a boy of such spirit; he borrowed a donkey and ran away.  It was bad judgement, however, for he had not taken the precaution of learning to ride. He felt off on his head and suffered a concussion which healed. Happily, both for Churchill and the countryside, he was at last provided with a nurse of real ability, a Mrs. Everest, who took him in hand with great tact. It was the beginning of a relationship that was to play an influential part in his life. Mrs. Everest encouraged him at innocous pursuits, such as collecting lead soldiers. The military passion of the first Marlboro long latent in the line, suddenly sprang to life in the child. He was attracted immediately to the fascinating game of war, and has had a good deal to do with it ever since.

Pg. 38

"Would you like to go into the army?" Churchill replied affirmatively, and the father said the matter would be arranged. Some years afterward, Lord Randolph confided to a friend that he had considered his son a little retarded and thought that the army might be an easy solution all around.

pg. 39

Churchill and Shaw maintained a curious friendship on a basis of high cerebral sparring. Before one of his opening nights, Shaw sent Churchill a pair of tickets, with a note saying, "Come to my play and bring a friend, if you have a friend." Churchill returned the tickets with the message, "I'm busy for the opening, but I'll come on the second night, if there is a second night."

Pg. 41

In 1880 the Churchill family’s political world took a great fall. Disraeli, the English-Jewish Prime Minister, the leader of the Tory Party, was defeated by Gladstone, the Liberal, of whom Winston Churchill was later to write, “[He] was a very dangerous man who went around rousing people up, lashing them into fury so that they voted against the Conservatives and turned my grandfather out of his place as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.” The Churchills had affection and respect for Disraeli, but they cared nothing at all for Gladstone.

Pg. 42

Mrs. Everest played a role in his young life not unlike that of Peggotty in David Copperfield’s. She was devoted and faithful and had anecdotal relatives in interesting places. Whereas Copperfield journeyed to Yarmouth to hear Peggotty’s brother talk of the sea, Churchill went to Ventnor to hear Mrs. Everest’s brother-in-law talk about jail. He had been a prison warden.

Pg. 43

Lord Randolph became the most beloved man in England, far better known than his father.

Pg. 44

Only infrequently was he encouraged to play with other children; his manners, tastes, recreations, his thinking in general were shaped by his scrutiny of the thrilling adult drama being performed so close at hand. For most children this would have meant a disastrous start in life, and even Churchill was often miserable. “Al the great men of my acquaintance are the products of unhappy childhoods,” he was to remark long afterward.

Pg. 47

Randolph under full steam was a rich and rewarding entertainment, no matter what the circumstances. Churchill stood silently, reloading his shotgun and committing to memory various crushers in the high-sounding blasphemy. A short while later, his father unexpectedly descended to apologize. “Do remember things do not always go right with me,” he told his son. “my every action is misjudged and every word distorted. So make some allowances.” Then, for a great change, he talked in what Churchill has described in his book A Roving Commission as a “wonderful and captivating manner” about school, the Army, “and the grown-up life which lay beyond.” It was to prove virtually the sole occasion when the boy and Lord Randolph ever chatter on terms of father-and-son intimacy.

Pg. 47

…wrote the British historian Guedalla; “and in default of a more solid destiny he became the Peter Pan of politics.” The son’s enduring youth had fortunately been coupled to balance and self-control, but it has familiar facets. A few years ago, H.G. Wells wrote of Winston, “There are times when the evil spirit comes upon him and then I can only think of his as an intractable little boy, a mischievous, dangerous little boy, a knee-worthy little boy. Only by thinking of him in that way can I go on liking him.”

Pg. 51

Churchill’s early school days have no counterpart in the annals of great men. Neither in fact nor in fiction is there to be found precisely that quality of volcanic rebellion which characterized nearly all his actions. Penrod Schofield’s departures were the accidental by-products of abstraction, and Tom Sawyer was a serious researchist. Whatever Churchill did (and he accomplished wonders) he did on purpose.

Pg. 52

“The figures were tied into all sorts of tangles and did things to one another which it was extremely difficult to forecast with complete accuracy,” Churchill later wrote in his memoirs. Like many another, he complained that it was not any use being “nearly right.” “In some cases these figures got into debt with one another; you had to borrow one or carry one, and afterwards you had to pay back the one you had borrowed. These complication cast a steadily gathering shadow over my daily life. They took away from one all the interesting things one wanted to do in the nursery or in the garden. They made increasing inroad upon one’s leisure. One could hardly get time to do any of the things one wanted to do. They became a general worry and preoccupation. More especially was this true when we descended into a dismal bog called ‘sums.’ There appeared to be no limit to these. When one sum was done, there was always another. Just as soon as I managed to tackle a particular class of these afflictions, some other much more variegated type was thrust upon me.”

Pg. 52

In the newcomer’s second month at the establishment, a visitor to the school, at recess, noticed a small red-haired boy running at full tilt in wide circles, spurred on by an under-instructor. “Who on earth is that?” inquired the visitor, and the head master replied,” Why, that’s young Churchill- it’s the only way we can keep him quiet.”

Pg. 53

The child took an abnormal dislike to Latin, viewing the subject as a piece of calculated persecution on the part of the authorities. He has preserved minutes of a session in which he catechized his unfortunate Latin teacher. The point under discussion was the vocative case in the noun mensa, meaning table or “O table,” in this case.
“What does “o table mean?” inquired Churchill.

“Mensa, O table, is the vocative case,” said the teacher.
“But why “O table?”
“O table- you would use that in addressing a table, in invoking a table. You would use it in speaking to a table.”

“But I never do,” replied Churchill.

Pg. 53

His mechanical ideas were so elaborate that nothing short of a professional company of great resources could have brought the production off. In this period, he had begun to read a good many plays, as well as novels and poetry. While Churchill reacted rather dangerously to the effort of other people to educate him, he was not averse to undertaking the assignment himself. He read King Solomon’s Mines and found it entertaining, though no more expert than his rewrote job on The Smuggler.

Pg. 58

He read Treasure Island and was enchanted; he has gone through it nearly every year since then. In 1950, while making a critical speaking tour by train, he sequestered himself in one of the private coaches and left word he was not to be disturbed; he was preparing to “polish up” his remarks. When an important cablegram was delivered to the train, Gerald O’Brien, the Conservative public relations officer, tiptoes in to Churchill’s compartment. The great man was preparing for the political crisis by reading Treasure Island; the book was opened to the inspiriting fight at the stockade, when Silver’s group was routed. O’Brien dropped the cablegram and fled, while Churchill glared crossly, looking a little like a frustrated pirate himself.

Pg. 59

He later wrote of [C.H.P] Mayo, “he convinced me that Mathematics was not a hopeless bog of nonsense, and that there were meanings and rhythms behind the comical hieroglyphics; and that I was not incapable of catching glimpses of some of these. Of course what I call Mathematics is only what the Civil Service Commissioners expected you to know to pass a very rudimentary examination.” Moriarty was greatly beloved by the whole school; he more than anyone else was responsible for easing the traditional class tensions.

Pg. 70

For the Army test, he and the others knew they would be required to dreaw from memory a map of some country. The night before, he put all the maps of his atlas into a hat, then he withdrew one, which proved to be New Zealand, and set about learning it. The next day, the first question asked him was to draw a map of New Zealand. His memory was in well-oiled shape; he filled it in with such specificity, including streams of a dozen yard’s breadth and whistle stops on the narrow-gauge railroad, that Moriarty never quite got over it. “This is what is called at Monet Carlo an en plein, and I ought to have been paid thirty-five times my stake,” Churchill said afterward.

Pg. 71

At Harrow, the boys walk past the authorities in single file and themselves announce their names. At Churchill’s first roll call, his family and a number of other visitors were present. For reasons of scholastic deficiency and other considerations, he had been placed last in line. The visitors were astonished to see the son of Lord Randolph pacing along in this ignominious position, but his demeanor effectively took the curse off it. “He was totally unconcerned and in fact seemed to suggest that I was the post of honor,” said a man who was there.

Pg. 73

Churchill himself is a heckler of unparalleled talent. His disagreements take a rich variety of forms. Sir William Joynson-Hicks, once defeated by Churchill, was making a speech before Commons and noticed him, on the bench of the Opposition, shaking his head in such vigorous style that attention was distracted from the address. “I see my right honorable friend shaking his head,” cried Joynson-Hicks in exasperation. “I wish to remind him that I am only expressing my own opinion.”

“And I wish to remind the speaker that I am only shaking my own head,” replied Churchill.

Pg. 219

Although Churchill has always been impatient with mulishness, he conceived a genuine respect for Chamberlain. On one occasion early in 1939, according to Beverley Baxter, a well-known Member of Parliament, he even spoke out against a group of young Tories who had (at last) voiced disgust with Chamberlain’s weak attitude. “It’s all very well for those young fellows,” said Churchill to Baxter, “but it’s Chamberlain who has to press the button. It’s a terrible thing at a time like this to be the one man who has to decide whether the button must be pressed or not.”

All too late, Britain awoke to the fact that Churchill, again, had been right from the start. His ten years of unheeded prophecy were drawing to a close.

Pg. 343

As the memorable message went out to all units of the fleet, by radio, blinker, and signal flags – “Winston is back” – he arranged his affairs for an extended visit in London. One of his friends says that he moved with calmness and a hint of anticipation. Ever practical, he included several boxes of cigars and a revolver in his luggage. Perhaps because of the gay times in India and the Sudan, Churchill has always seen war as carrying the hopeful chance of personal encounter. “If it comes to hand-to-hand combat,” he said referring to the revolver, “I mean to get on or two before they finish me.”

Pg. 344

One of the stewards has said, “Of all the men I ever met, the Prime Minister was the hardest worker. We couldn’t get him to stay in the sleeper. He only took cat naps, then he would come down the aisle wearing his bathrobe and smoking a cigar, and get to work on his papers.”

Pg. 355

Churchill’s reason for needing a body guard again were stated succinctly when they reached home: “Some Frenchmen told me a bunch of spies were planning to assassinate me. I was going down to see the Duke of Windsor in Southern France, but I gave it up. Now, I can look after myself in the daytime, but I can’t have them springing on me when I’m asleep. Do you wish to borrow a gun?” [Sergeant, not Detective, his former body guard] Thompson and Churchill did considerable bickering about what kind of weapon was best to carry. The detective had the reasonable notion that he qualified as an expert on the use of firearms. Churchill felt qualified too.” And indeed,” Thompson says, “Mr. Churchill is in fact a first-class shot.”

Pg. 358

However, he did complain, amidst the privacy of his British associates, that Roosevelt seemed to him an unusually talkative man. “He tries to monopolize the conversation,” explained the Prime Minister. Roosevelt had an identical view of Churchill. At one war conference, the President remarked to James Byrnes that it would be wonderful if Churchill could refrain from making long speeches, adding that they “hold up business.” Byrnes agreed absently and suggested that they were, nevertheless, pretty good speeches. Roosevelt laughed and said, “Winston doesn’t make any other kind.”

Pg. 378

As to the claims of the left and right, certain conclusions are now possible in the light of the seven years since 1945. Collectivism has had several bad seasons. The Russian system has become at least ostensibly (and even noisily) unpopular with Americans who formerly cherished it deeply; also British Socialism has demonstrated its incapacity to survive without fiscal support from the hated capitalist whom it hopes eventually to socialize. This gives rise to an interesting question. In the words of the unpartisan Viennese economist, Dr. Karl Fuerbringer (translated by H. Howard Thurston), “If socialism, a scheme of mediocrities rather than men of proven ability, is financially unworkable, what happens when the United States is at last socialized by confiscatory income taxes and strangulation of industry in the British Manner? With a capitalist nation to produce wealth, civilization may expect chaos.”

Pg. 391

In an age of increasing moral decay, when it is considered backward in a few circles to be steadfastly married, it is  heartening to know that Churchill, in his backward way, has never as much as lifted an eyebrow at any woman besides his wife. He is undoubtedly the least flirtatious of history’s important men. The fact is that his anger over any kind of moral laxness borders on a complex. An anecdote from the days when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer has to do with Lady Houston’s going to him with a voluntary payment of a million and a half pounds as death duties on her husband’s estate. When she had written the check, she offered her cheek and said, “Now that I’ve done it don’t you think that I deserve a _____”

“A pat on the back?” cried Churchill with alarm, and giving her a masculine whack, he beat a hasty retreat.

Pg. 402