It's an "Indian Summer"

This is the original cover of The Long Winter.

I often ask myself, "How did Laura Ingalls Wilder get through hard times?"  The Ingalls family didn't lack challenges.  There were destroyed crops, LONG winters, and a lack of antibiotics.  During this period of self-quarantine, I decided to reread The Long Winter to discover - What Would Laura Do?

This is a Little Auk and most likely what Pa found in the haystack.  Sure is a cute little guy.

Chapter 6 begins with an unhappy auk.  The strange bird isn't enjoying life in the shanty and has been giving Laura desperate looks.  Pa says there is open water on Silver Lake and they can set Little Auk free.  Laura and Mary accompany Pa to the lake.  The auk was indeed distressed as "Laura barely had time to see it rising tiny in the great blue-sparkling sky."

This picture of a South Dakota shanty gives insight into why Laura is always writing sky descriptions.  

I relate to the distressed auk and want to zip away from my metaphorical shanty - soaring above the grey clouds, moody children, Zoom meetings and my partially painted kitchen.  Escape the endless screens, grocery-shopping phobia, corona virus briefings, and all the books I bought but don't want to read. 

I don't need orders to live in gratitude and self-righteous reminders about how important sheltering at home is.  I am grateful I can safely stay home with my kids.  But, isn't it okay to want to soar away, sometimes?  Isn't it?  Ma probably wanted to fly-the-coop from her life of salt pork bits, shoddy shanties, and Pa's whims.

Pa - Prairie Prophet

Anyhoo, after the ungrateful auk bolted, Pa and the girls listened to the silence surrounding Silver Lake. "The silence was no sound, no movement, no thing; that was its terror."  (I guess that means the silence was worse than a quiet two year old.  Shudder.)  Pa, once again, eloquently lets Laura and Mary know his feelings.  "I don't like it.  I don't like it at all."   

Chapter 6 Odds and Ends

• Ma encourages the family to get themselves full of sunshine before winter arrives.  I encourage the same thing for you and your family.
• The chapter ends with Ma playfully calling Pa a "goose."  (I am not sure LIW ever learned the art of a good cliffhanger.) 

Prairie Eydie social distancing at Old World Wisconsin

See you tomorrow for Chapter 7 - "Indian Warning" (the chapter I wish was NEVER written)

Prairie Eydie