The
Ingalls and the Wilders may not have been gypsies but they seemed
never to be satisfied with their situation establishing numerous
homesteads in several states. Indeed there are at least 5 locations
claiming to be the author's birthplace. The books are written in a
simplistic style seemingly to explain to succeeding generations how
settlers lived and how they built their homes from the materials at
hand without the aid of architects and contractors. This book
describes in great detail the building of a log cabin on the prairie
40 miles from Independence Missouri.
In
contrast to a neighbour I had whose wife claimed he was incapable of
even changing a lightbulb these men are extremely handy with their
tools. Since I grew up with many of the tools now exhibited in
museums I find these descriptions interesting and the books are light
reading compared to many of the other tomes I read.
Unlike
today's permissive milieu children were expected to be seen and not
heard for example not speaking at table unless spoken to.
Interrupting adults was unheard of.
The
attitudes espoused in these and other books are at odds with Thomas
King’s The Inconvenient Indian or AS King’s Bury My Heart at
Wounded Knee. It was people such as the Ingalls who encroached on
Indian territory and felt it their right to squat on Natives’
ancestral lands and agitate for the Indian’s removal from it.
As
this volume ends the Ingalls are on the move again after having just
put in a garden.
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