A Very Merry De Smet Christmas Part I

I often ask myself, "How did Laura Ingalls Wilder get through hard times?"  The Ingalls family didn't lack challenges.  There were dark days, false hopes, and sequestered seed wheat.  During this period of self-quarantine, I decided to reread The Long Winter to discover - What Would Laura Do?

Hallelujah!  The blizzard finally ended and Gilbert, the long suffering mail carrier, returned with mail.  The Ingalls are joyful for the first time since Mr. Boast stopped by with butter.  Right away Pa rushes to the Post Office.  He is gone a long time.  Could he have made a pit stop at Fuller's Hardware store?  Practical Ma tells the girls, "It does no good to be impatient."  

I hate to admit it, but Ma is right.  My impatience is doing me no good.  I am impatient for social distancing to end, so I can see my own Prairie Pa and Ma.  I am impatient to go scented candle shopping.  (NOTE:  You can't choose the right scented candle when wearing a face mask.  I blindly bought a Sweet Pea jar candle.  It reeks of something I would have loved at 13 years old.)  I want to go to the library, visit dear Prairie Sherry, and see my kids play in a band again.  I want to say good-bye to distance learning and start teaching the old fashioned way.  Face to face.  But.  I need to settle down and go with the flow.  

Readers first meet beloved Reverend Alden in On the Banks of Plum Creek.  

Pa finally returns with church papers, Youth's Companion, newspapers, Inter-Ocean, Pioneer Press and . . . (wait for it) . . . a letter from Reverend Alden.  Ma reads the letter aloud.  The highlight is that Reverend Alden has sent the Ingalls a Christmas barrel which includes clothes and a Christmas turkey!  Of course, the barrel is on the train and the RR crews are still trying to clear the Tracy cut.  

Pa immediately leaves to get another load of hay.  Ma reminds the girls it is Washing Day and tells them to stop drooling over the Youth's Companion magazine.  She reminds them "Work comes before pleasure."  

Ma bringing in the frozen clothes.  Personally.  I would have only washed Pa's clothes since he is the only person who leaves the house.  

This is a wonderful time be grateful for your washer and drier as there are many steps to laundry in the 1880's.  Here they are:  

1. Stir the clothes in boiling water.
2. Lift clothes on broom handle.
3. Soap and rub clothes.
4. Rinse clothes.
5. Stir bluing bag in 2nd rinse water.
6. Make boiled starch.
7. Hang wash on the line.  
8. Wait.
9. Bring in frozen dry clothes
10. Sort Clothes
11. Sprinkle clothes with water.
12. Roll up clothes.  
13. Look forward to ironing.

I wonder what the initiation was to join the Shovel Gang?

Pa returns for lunch and announces he has joined a RR shovel gang.  "If muscle and will-power can do it, we'll have a train through by Christmas!" Pa declares. Later, Pa returns home with red puffy eyes.  He cheerfully announces he might be snow blind.  Ma mixes up a weak salt water for Pa to bathe his eyes in.   

While Pa is doing his chores, Ma sits the girls down.  She warns them a poor Christmas is likely.  Ma suggest they wait until Christmas day to read the Youth's Companion, so they will be assured a treat.  

Goody-Good Mary jumps on Ma's bandwagon and says, "I think it is a good idea.  It will help us learn self-denial."  Laura says, "I don't want to."  (Haven't the girls experienced enough self-denial?  They have no school, no friends, no heat, no privacy, no butter, no flour, no kerosene, no laughter at the table, and . . . should I continue? ) 

Spoiler.  Mary badgers her sisters into agreeing with Ma.  

WWLD Summary:

• Hide impatience surrounding mail delivery.
• Do all laundry on the same day, instead of some laundry every day.
• Practice self-denial - it gets easier the more you do it.

Prairie Eydie with the beloved Prairie Sherry.  
Sadly we are on different QuaranTEAMS.

Join me tomorrow for "The Art of a Merry De Smet Christmas - Part II." 

Prairie Eydie