Book Report: Little House In The Ozarks

 

Have you read Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House On The Prairie series? Have you been sad to finish the last book, and longed to read another book by Laura? Then Little House In The Ozarks: A Laura Ingalls Wilder Sampler: The Rediscovered Writings by Laura Ingalls Wilder Edited by Stephen W. Hines is the book you've been hoping for! Stephen Hines, the editor of this collection, felt the same way when he read The First Four Years, Laura's final book in The Little House series. Mr. Hines found that Laura had been a writer long before she ever penned the first Little House book. Laura had been a journalist for farm papers and magazines. Mr. Hines compiled Laura's articles and published them in this volume that he titled Little House In The Ozarks.

I have just finished reading these writings of Laura's, and let me tell you, it was a delight! I'll be honest and tell you that I have some prejudice, and am predisposed to like anything that Laura wrote. I disagree with some of her views on women being able to work outside the home. She thought there were definite drawbacks, but she didn't think it was wrong. She also was more of an environmentalist than I am. That being said, by and large, her perspective is balanced, wholesome, and down to earth. She wrote timeless truths that show very little sign of age. Take this excerpt from 1918, "We read so much in the papers of graft and price profiteering, of federal investigation of first one business and then another, treachery and double-dealing and strikes and riots that one is tempted to be discouraged with people in general, until one remembers that crimes and criminals are news and, as such, are given prominence with glaring headlines on first pages of newspapers. It is seldom that good deeds and their doers have such startling news value, but there are still plenty of them in the world. People are still kind and neighborly and are quietly and unobtrusively helping each other over hard places as they always have done." Isn't that the truth! That could have been written yesterday, it is so relevant.

Reading this book made me realize, again, that there is nothing new under the sun. There are many sentiments that Laura expressed that I've heard and felt in modern times. In 1921 Laura was grumbling over how much better the good 'ol days were. She also observed that every generation must feel the same way. This is from page 83:

"Not long ago, I caught myself saying, "When I was a child, children were more respectful to their parents"; when as a matter of fact, I can remember children who were not so obedient as some who are with us today; and I know, when I am truthful with myself, that it always, as now, has taken all kinds of children to make the world."

Laura regarded the home as a sacred place. Homes and families make up neighborhoods, and neighborhoods make up towns, and towns make up cities, and cities make up states, and states make up countries, and counties make up the world. What we teach in our homes has a trickle down effect and changes the whole of society. She thought that children needed to be taught in the home the values that they would carry with them the rest of their lives. Values like standing for what is right, never compromising when it comes to integrity, being men and women of their word, and caring for the weak. She wrote an article on how a very poor woman was able to give an education to her children by working very hard and teaching her young ones the early grades at home. The woman makes a very good argument for homeschooling, which Laura published. In this paragraph, taken from page 54, you hear the same arguments that are true today.

"I believe it would be much better for everyone if children were given their start in education at home. No one understands a child as well as his mother, and children are so different that they need individual training and study. A teacher with a roomful of pupils cannot do this. At home, too, they are in their mothers care. She can keep them from learning immoral things from other children."

Laura encouraged women everywhere to see their work in the home as important. Though the tasks feel small they are in no way inconsequential. Here is an excerpt from page, 206+207

"Doing up cut fingers, kissing hurt places, and singing bedtime songs are small things by themselves; but they will inculcate a love for home and family that will last through life and help to keep America a land of homes.

Putting up the school lunch for the children or cooking a good meal for the family may seem very insignificant tasks as compared with giving a lecture, writing a book, our doing other things that have a larger audience; but I doubt very much if, in the ultimate reckoning, they will count for as much......

And just as a little thread of gold, running through a fabric, brightens the whole garment, so women's work at home, while only the doing of little things, is like the golden gleam of sunlight that runs through and brightens all the fabric of civilization."

Laura wrote a little of the suffrage movement. She believed that "the hand that rocked the cradle ruled the world". She contended that a woman's natural role, as keeper of the home, helper to her husband, and mother to her children, offered her more power and influence than a place in the voting booth would. She says,

"A great many seem to regard the securing of the ballot as the supreme attainment and think that with women allowed to vote, everything good will follow as a matter of course. To my mind the ballot is incidental, only a small thing in the work that is before the women of the nation. If politics are not what they should be, if there is gaft in places of trust, and if there are unjust laws, the men who are responsible are largely what their mothers have made them, and their wives usually have finished the job. Perhaps that sounds as if I were claiming for the women a great deal of influence, but trace out a few instances for yourself without being deceived by appearances and see if you do not agree with me."

That being her position, she still thought that good, home loving women aught to vote, once given the right. She explains,

"It is easy to forecast the effect of women's suffrage on politics if the home-loving, home-keeping women should refuse to use their voting privilege, for the rougher class of women will have no hesitancy in going to the polling places and casting their ballots. There must be votes enough from other women to offset these in order to keep the balance as it has been."

Many of Laura's articles are thought provoking. She muses over topics such as: the helpfulness of a family motto, how to be neighborly, the cost of crying to the government to fix problems, why divorce is more prevalent in larger cities. She  reminded her readers to be grateful for the small things of life. I found myself thinking over some of her articles for days. These articles led to many edifying conversations. I wish that I could publish some of the most memorable ones on my blog to share these ideas with you. I may have to ask the publisher for permission to do so. Until then you will have to obtain a copy of Little House In The Ozarks to read them for yourself. I am glad I own a copy of the book. I will be perusing and gleaning from it for a long time.