Little Author in the Big Woods (3 page)

Laura and Mary were too little to help with building a house or plowing the land, and Ma could not do much because she was watching them. But as the girls grew older, they pitched in more and more.

Although Ma and Pa didn't meet too many settlers, they did meet Native Americans, who in those days were called Indians. They did not know it then, but they had settled on an Indian reserve. Sometimes the Indians they saw came to their cabin and asked for food. Other times they just barged right in and took it. Ma never tried to stop them. She and Pa thought it best to try to get along with their Indian neighbors, not fight with them.

One day when Laura was three, Pa took her and Mary on a long walk in the prairie. He was taking them to see an Indian camp. The Indians were all off on a hunting trip, so the camp was empty. But Laura and Mary were excited to find the ashes where the fires had been, and the holes from the tent poles. Then Laura saw something bright shining up from the dust. When she leaned down to pick it up, she saw that it was a bead. And look, there were more of them! Red, green, and blue beads, strewn around the camp. Since the beads were scattered all over, it didn't seem like the Indians cared too much about them, and it didn't feel like stealing. Laura and Mary filled their apron pockets. Pa helped. They didn't leave until the sun started to go down.

Laura couldn't wait to show Ma the beads. She would be so surprised. But Ma had her own surprise. They found her dozing in bed, holding the girls' brand-new baby sister with jet-black hair in her arms! Mrs. Scott, a neighbor, had helped with the delivery. Back then there were few hospitals. Babies were born at home with help from family members, friends, or neighbors.

Ma named the new baby Caroline Celestia and decided they would call her Carrie. Life with the new baby was even busier. Ma had all her regular chores of cooking, cleaning, washing, and mending. Added to that was taking care of the baby.

Soon Ma and Pa noticed that the Indians were showing up more often. They were from the Osage tribe. Pa had not known that he had built the cabin along one of their old trails. He had been in such a hurry to start that he hadn't filed a proper claim on the land. If he had, he might have chosen to build somewhere else.

The Indians were angry with the white settlers for moving onto their land. There was talk that the Indians might decide to wage war on them. Night after night, Laura and her family could hear their loud chanting and war cries. The sound was terrifying—even worse than the howling of wolves.

Meanwhile, far away in Washington D.C., the government was trying to decide what to do about the Indians. Over the years, white settlers had been forcing them off their ancestral lands, and there was now a lot of tension between the two groups. Feeling threatened, the Indians were attacking the settlers. The settlers were retaliating against the Indians. Something had to be done.

In 1870, Congress voted to pay the Osage $1.25 an acre for their land in Kansas. They also voted to give them new land in Oklahoma. The Osage accepted their offer. They would leave Kansas and head to Oklahoma.

Laura and her family were watching on the day the Indians left. To Laura, the long line of Osage on foot and horseback was fascinating. She loved the different-colored ponies and was curious about the children riding bareback. Some of them didn't even wear clothes!

After the Indians left, things settled down. No more surprise visitors. No more war cries in the night. Fall turned to winter, and the Ingalls family all came down with whooping cough. Kindly Dr. Tann—an African-American doctor who had treated the Osage—came to help. A lot of folk cures were prescribed for whooping cough: eating the skin of a snake, drinking white ant tea, tying a bag of live bugs around the throat.

Perhaps Dr. Tann used some of these methods to cure Laura and her family. Perhaps not. Whatever he did, it worked, because they survived and got well again. Soon after they had recovered, Pa got a letter from Gustaf Gustafson, the man who had bought their house in the Big Woods. Mr. Gustafson had been paying off his debt a little at a time, but he was unable to keep up with the payments. Instead, he wanted to head west and asked Pa if he would take the house back.

Ma thought of the time and effort that they had put into their prairie home. What a waste it had been. But Pa didn't see it that way. He thought of the hunting in the Big Woods and the fishing in Lake Pepin. He was willing to go back and reclaim their former home.

As they always did, Ma and Pa talked the matter over. And in the end, the lure of the journey won out. The covered wagon would be packed up once more, and the Ingalls family would make their way back to Wisconsin.

 

 

 

TWO

Grasshoppers and a New Baby Brother

1871−1876

Wisconsin–Minnesota–Iowa

The 1871 trip home in the covered wagon took many weeks. Laura was almost five, and this time she remembered more of the journey. When they finally got back to the Big Woods, the Gustafsons were still living in their house, so they moved in with Uncle Henry and Aunt Polly. Laura liked living with her cousins—they had so much fun playing together.

Laura was not quite old enough to join Mary and her cousins when they walked half a mile down the road to the Barry Corner School. But when Mary returned, she showed Laura everything she had learned. Soon Laura was reading as well as her big sister. Ma and Pa loved reading too. Often, Ma read aloud to Pa in the evenings. She read novels, biographies, and a book about the holy city of Jerusalem called
The Land and the Book.
Laura always associated reading and books with the gentle sound of her mother's voice.

In the fall, Laura was finally old enough to go to school with her sister and cousins. How exciting! She and Mary had a shiny new dinner pail and shared a schoolbook. Their teacher was named Annie Barry. Although she was only 25 years old, she knew how to keep order in her classroom.

Life in the Big Woods was more social than life on the prairie. Not only did Laura get to play with other children at school, so many friends and relatives stopped by the house to share a meal or to visit. Sometimes there were dances, and Ma would get all dressed up. Laura loved how fine and pretty she looked. When the music started, Pa chimed in with his fiddle. Laura and the other children stood back and watched as the caller shouted out the steps for the dancers to follow.

The Ingalls family felt safe and happy for the next few months. Laura had lots of playmates. She was especially drawn to Clarence Huleatts, who had red hair and freckles. He liked all the same things she did: running, jumping, and climbing. Mary preferred his little sister, Eva, who had excellent manners. Laura didn't care for Eva so much.

While Laura and Mary were busy with school and friends, Pa farmed and hunted, like he always had. But soon the yearning to head west again took hold of him. He missed the wide-open sky and the plains of Kansas. Once again, Ma wasn't so keen on the idea. She thought their life in the Big Woods was just fine and told Pa he had an “itching toe.” But when Pa was able to persuade his brother Uncle Peter and his wife, Aunt Eliza, to join them, Ma changed her mind. She liked the idea of having family along on the journey.

Pa sold his farm in the fall of 1873 to a Swedish man named Anderson for $1,000. The Ingalls family moved in with Aunt Eliza and Uncle Peter until it was time to go. And in February 1874, the two families set off together. Pa wanted to settle in the western part of Minnesota. Since it was too cold to travel across the state in the winter, he and Uncle Peter took over an abandoned cabin in southeastern Minnesota where the two families could stay until spring, when the weather warmed up. Uncle Peter found a farm along the Zumbro River and decided to settle with his family there. But Pa felt the need to keep going, so the Ingalls family continued west without them.

They made their way across the prairie lands until they reached western Minnesota. Finally they came to a village called Walnut Grove. It was no more than a few stores and houses, loosely spread around the railroad tracks. The first railroad linking the East and West coasts of the United States had been completed in 1869. Laura had never been on a train, but she'd been enchanted by the sound of its whistle. While in town, Pa heard about a Norwegian settler who had travel plans of his own. He was willing to sell his homestead to Pa.