Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farm Journalist

by Stephen Hines

  Which leads me to conclude our lives are like coal tar. This sounds rather unpleasant, but I’m sure I’ll be pardoned for using the simile when it is clearly understood that I have no intention of blackening anyone’s character. Coal tar is not altogether what it appears to be. A great many things can be taken from it. That’s like life, isn’t it—everybody’s life?

  Until recently I always thought of coal tar as a black, sticky, unpleasant substance, fit only for use as a roofing paint. But it is a wonderful combination of elements out of which may be made what one wills. The most beautiful colors, delightful perfumes and delicious flavors are contained within its blackness and may be taken from it. It also contains valuable food elements, and the most dreadful poisons. From it also are made munitions of war, and the precious medicines that cure the wounds made by those same munitions.

  And so our lives are similar in that we may make of them or get out of them what we choose—beauty and fragrance and usefulness or those things that are ugly and harmful. It is necessary to understand chemistry to extract from coal tar its valuable properties and we must practice the “creative chemistry” of life to get the true values from life.

  Just as the chemist in his laboratory today is carrying on the work of the old time alchemist, so we may practice magic arts. We may change unloveliness into beauty and from the darkness of life evolve all the beautiful colors of the rainbow of promise by developing the bright rays of purity and love, the golden glow of constance, the true-blue of steadfastness and the ever-green home of immortality.

  When Grandma Pioneered

  August 1, 1921

  Grandma was minding the baby—“Oh, yes, she is sweet,” she said, “but she is no rarity to me. You see there were ten of us at home and I was the oldest save one and that a boy. Seems like I’ve always had a baby to take care of. There were the little ones at home then when I was older I used to go help the neighbors at times and there was always a new baby, for women them days didn’t hire help unless they were down sick. When I was married I had 11 of my own; now it’s the grandchildren—No indeed! Babies are no rarity to me! I was just a child myself when father and mother drove an ox team into the Ozarks. Father stopped the wagon in the thick woods by the big road; cut down some trees and made a rough log cabin. But mother never liked the house there; father was away so much and she didn’t like to stay alone with the young ones so near the road. The Ozarks was a wild, rough country then and all kinds of persons were passing, so father built another house down by the spring out of sight and we lived there.

  “The woods were full of wild turkeys and deer; when we children hunted the cows at night we thought nothing of seeing droves of them. Snakes were thick, too, and not so pleasant to meet, but none of us ever got bit tho we went barefoot all summer and until freezing weather.

  “Father used to tan the hides of deer and cattle and make our shoes but later we had ‘boughten’ shoes. Then the men of the settlement would drive their ox teams south into the pineries in the fall and haul in logs to the mills. When they had hauled a certain number of loads they were paid with a load of logs for themselves. These they had sawed into lumber and hauled the lumber to Springfield or Marshfield 75 or 100 miles, and sold it to get their tax money and shoes for the family.

  “The men worked away a good deal and the mothers and children made the crops. Neighbors were few and far apart but we were never lonely, didn’t have time to be. We raised wheat and corn for our bread; hogs ran loose in the woods and with venison and wild turkey made our meat; we kept some sheep for the wool and we raised cotton.

  “After we had gathered the cotton from the fields we hand picked it from the seeds. We carded the cotton and wool and then spun them into yarn and thread and wove them into cloth; we made our own blankets and coverlets and all the cloth we used, even our dresses.

  “We worked long days. As soon as we could see, in the morning, two of us would go into the woods and drive up the oxen for the day’s work. Then we girls worked all day in the fields while mother worked both in the house and out. Soon as supper was over we built a brush fire in the fireplace to make light and while one tended the fire to keep it bright the others spun and wove and knit and sewed until 10 or 11 o’clock. Passing a house after dark, any time before midnight you could always hear the wheel a whirring and the loom at work. We cooked in the fireplace too, and I was 16 years old before I ever saw a cook stove.

  “When the crops were raised, mother and we children did the threshing. The wheat was spread on poles with an old blanket under them to catch the grain as it dropped thru and we flailed it out with hickory poles, then blew the dust out in the wind, and it was ready to take to mill.

  “We were taught to be saving. The shoes bought in the fall must last a year and we were careful with them. When they got calico into the country it cost 25 cents a yard and if we had a calico dress we wore it for very best. When we took it off we brushed off all the dust, turned it, folded it and laid it carefully away.

  “I never got much schooling. There was three months school in the year beginning the first Monday in September but that was molasses making, potato digging, corn picking time and we older children had to stay home and do the work. The little ones went and by the time they were older we had things in better shape so they got lots more learning. But it was too late for us.

  “Now school comes before the work at home and when children go to school it takes all their time; they can’t do anything else.

  “I wish folks now had to live for a little while like we did when I was young, so they would know what work is and learn to appreciate what they have. They have so much they are spoiled, yet every cent they get they must spend for something more. They want cars and pianos and silk dresses—Why when I was married all my wedding clothes were of my own spinning and weaving, but my husband was so proud he wouldn’t let me wear my linsey dresses but bought me calico instead.

  “Ah, well, times have changed! I’m an old woman and have worked hard all my life but even now I can work down some of the young ones.”

  Mother, a Magic Word

  September 1, 1921

  The older we grow the more precious become the recollections of childhood’s days, especially our memories of mother. Her love and care halo her memory with a brighter radiance, for we have discovered that nowhere else in the world is such loving self-sacrifice to be found; her counsels and instructions appeal to us with greater force than when we received them, because our knowledge of the world and our experience of life have proved their worth.

  The pity of it is that it is by our own experience we have had to gain this knowledge of their value, then when we have learned it in the hard school of life, we know that mother’s words were true. So, from generation to generation, the truths of life are taught by precept and generation after generation we each must be burned by fire before we will admit the truth that it will burn.

  We would be saved some sorry blunders and many a heart-ache if we might begin our knowledge where our parents leave off instead of experimenting for ourselves, but life is not that way.

  Still mother’s advice does help and often a word of warning spoken years before will recur to us at just the right moment to save us a misstep. And lessons learned at mother’s knee last thru life.

  But dearer even than mother’s teachings are little, personal memories of her, different in each case but essentially the same—mother’s face, mother’s touch, mother’s voice:

  Childhood’s far days were full of joy,

  So merry and bright and gay,

  On sunny wings of happiness,

  Swiftly they flew away.

  But oh! By far the sweetest hour,

  Of all the whole day long,

  Was the slumber hour at twilight

  And my mother’s voice in song—

  “Hush my babe, lie still and slumber,

  Holy angels guard thy bed,

  Heavenly blessings without number

  Gently resti
ng on thy head.”

  Tho our days are filled with gladness,

  Joys of life like sunshine fall,

  Still life’s slumber hour at twilight

  May be sweetest of them all.

  And when to realms of boundless peace,

  I am waiting to depart

  Then my Mother’s song at twilight

  Will make music in my heart.

  “Hush, my babe, lie still and slumber,

  Holy angels guard thy bed.”—

  And I’ll fall asleep so sweetly,

  Mother’s blessings on my head.4

  A Homey Chat for Mothers

  Are You Your Children’s Confidant?

  September 15, 1921

  A letter from my mother, who is 76 years old, lies on my desk beside a letter from my daughter, far away in Europe. Reading the message from my mother, I am a child again and a longing unutterable fills my heart for mother’s counsel, for the safe haven of her protection and the relief from responsibility which trusting in her judgment always gave me.

  But when I turn to the letter written by my daughter, who will always be a little girl to me, no matter how old she grows, then I understand and appreciate my mother’s position and her feelings toward me.

  Many of us have the blessed privilege of being at the same time mother and child, able to let the one interpret the other to us until our understanding of both is full and rich. What is there in the attitude of your children toward yourself that you wish were different? Search your heart and learn if your ways toward your own mother could be improved.

  In the light of experience and the test of the years you can see how your mother might have been more to you, could have guided you better? Then be sure you are making the most of your privileges with the children who are looking to you for love and guidance. For there is, after all, no great difference between the generations; the problems of today and tomorrow must be met in much the same way as those of yesterday.

  During the years since my mother was a girl to the time when my daughter is a woman, there have been many slight, external changes, in the fashions and ways of living, some change in the thought of the world and much more freedom in expressing those thoughts. But the love of mother and child is the same, with the responsibility of controlling and guiding on the one side and the obligation of obedience and respect on the other.

  The most universal sentiment in the world is that of mother-love. From the highest to the lowest in the scale of humanity, and all thru the animal kingdom it is the strongest force in creation, the conserver of life, the safeguard of evolution. It holds within its sheltering care the fulfillment of the purpose of creation itself. In all ages, in all countries it is the same—a boundless, all-enveloping love; if necessary, a sacrifice of self for the offspring.

  Think of the number of children in the world, each the joy of some mother’s heart, each a link connecting one generation with another, each a hope for the future. There are more than 20 million school children in the United States; they would fill four cities the size of New York or eight the size of Chicago. We are told that if placed in an unbroken line four abreast, they would reach across the continent from San Francisco to the city of Washington, and there still would be several thousand children waiting to get into line.

  It stuns the mind to contemplate their numbers and their possibilities, for these are the coming rulers of the world—the makers of destiny, not only for their own generation but for the generations to come. And they are being trained for their part in the procession of time by the women of today. Surely, “The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world.”

  As a Farm Woman Thinks (3)

  November 1, 1921

  Mrs. A. was angry. Her eyes snapped, her voice was shrill and a red flag of rage was flying upon each cheek. She expected opposition, and anger at the things she said but her remarks were answered in a soft voice; her angry eyes were met by smiling ones and her attack was smothered in the softness of courtesy, consideration and compromise.

  I feel sure Mrs. A had intended to create a disturbance but she might as well have tried to break a feather pillow by beating as to have any effect with her angry voice and manner on the perfect kindness and good manners which met her. She only made herself ridiculous and in self-defense was obliged to change her attitude.

  Since then I have been wondering if it always is so, if shafts of malice aimed in anger forever fall harmless against the armor of a smile, kind words and gentle manners. I believe they do. And I have gained a fuller understanding of the words, “A soft answer turneth away wrath.”5 Until this incident I had found no more in the words than the idea that a soft answer might cool the wrath of an aggressor, but I saw wrath turned away as an arrow deflected from its mark and came to understand that a soft answer and a courteous manner are an actual protection.

  Nothing is ever gained by allowing anger to have sway. While under its influence we lose the ability to think clearly and the forceful power that is in calmness.

  Anger is a destructive force; its purpose is to hurt and destroy, and being a blind passion it does its evil work not only upon whatever arouses it, but also upon the person who harbors it. Even physically it injures him, impeding the action of the heart and circulation, affecting the respiration and creating an actual poison in the blood. Persons with weak hearts have been known to drop dead from it and always there is a feeling of illness after indulging in a fit of temper.

  Anger is a destroying force. What all the world needs is its opposite—an uplifting power.

  As a Farm Woman Thinks (4)

  November 15, 1921

  The season is over, the rush and struggle of growing and saving the crops is past for another year and the time has come when we pause and reverently give thanks for the harvest. For it is not to our efforts alone that our measure of success is due, but to the life principle in the earth and the seed, to the sunshine and rain—to the goodness of God.

  We may not be altogether satisfied with the year’s results and we can do a terrific amount of grumbling when we take the notion. But I am sure we all know in our hearts that we have a great deal for which to be thankful. In spite of disappointment and weariness and perhaps sorrow, His goodness and mercy does follow us all the days of our lives.

  As the time approaches when we shall be called upon by proclamation to give thanks, we must decide whether we shall show our thankfulness only by overeating at the Thanksgiving feast. That would seem a rather curious way to show gratitude—simply to grasp greedily what is given!

  When a neighbor does us a favor we show our appreciation of it by doing him a favor in return. Then when the Lord showers favors upon us how much more should we try to show our gratitude in such ways acceptable to Him, remembering always the words of Christ, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, ye have done it unto me.”6

  * * *

  1. Ruralist editor John F. Case asked women readers to write Wilder on “Why I Should Like to Leave the Farm.” Wilder had become concerned about reports of “lessened rural population” and felt the dissatisfaction of farm women might be a cause. This “First Prize Letter” is representative of the many she received:

  Mrs. A. J. Wilder—Give me just one logical reason why I should try to keep my boy and girl on the farm where all the odds are against them; where they are exploited in the market place; where they get less for their toil than in any other calling; where they have longer hours of harder work than do the folks in the city and get poorer pay for doing it?

  Why should I keep my boy and girl on the farm where they must attend the poorest schools on earth?

  Why should I desire them to remain thru life where they are made the butt of every stale joke sprung by every cheap joke-smith in the land, when the city offers a ten to one better chance to rise in the world than is afforded in the country?

  Why should I want them to remain among a class that by many is looked upon as a harmless group of “ig
noramuses,” a class who suspect their kind to such a degree that they will not take any measures to protect one another against the abuses that are heaped upon them by their exploiters?

  In the country we must travel over the worst roads in the world and where we are exposed to the worst weather conditions. We have poor churches and poorer schools; we cannot hear the best lectures, nor attend the best entertainments as can the folks in town.

  We are told that many great men were born on the farm. But they did not become great on the farm. Every mother’s son of them left the farm before he became great!

  Why should I desire to remain on the farm where the men do not have time to keep posted on at least some of the news of the day and where women do not have time to clean their teeth; where men toil from 12 to 14 hours a day and grow crops that they must sell for less than the cost of producing them, and the women work from 12 to 18 hours a day, to care for babies and to cook for harvest hands, until when the supper work is over they are too tired to sleep.

  Now can you, with a clear conscience, insist that I remain on the farm under its unfair terms? Mrs. W. M.

  2. This article may be Laura’s reply to those farm women who wrote saying they wanted to leave the farm.

  3. Perhaps an allusion to World War I commodity controls.

  4. Perhaps one of Laura’s own poems.

  5. Proverbs 15:1.

  6. Matthew 25:40.

  1922

  As a Farm Woman Thinks (5)

  January 1, 1922

  With the holidays safely past, it is a good time to make resolutions not to overeat. It is easy to do so just after eating too much of too many good things.

  We do eat too much! Everyone says so! But we keep right on eating. I remember a neighborhood dinner I attended recently. You who have been to such dinners know how the table was loaded. There were breads and meats, vegetables and salads, pies of every kind, with flakey crusts and sweet, juicy fillings, cakes—loaf, layer, cup, white, yellow, pink, chocolate, iced and plain, pickles, preserves and canned fruit and such quantities of it all! We ate all we could and then some.