"In Which 'The Wilder Boys' Reappear, and Dakota Territory Becomes Hell-Frozen-Over"

Before "Survivor," "1900 House," and the current PBS "Frontier House," there was THE LONG WINTER; before that, the actual long winter of 1880-81 on the Dakota Territory--6 months long. (Yes, thankfully: 6 months, not 7, to go along with the Indian's warning!) Yes, getting through the reading of this "Little House" installment betwen BY THE SHORES OF SILVER LAKE and LITTLE TOWN ON THE PRAIRIE can be difficult, but finishing it can be as triumphant an experience as May 1881 must have been for the people of De Smet, South-Dakota-to-be. (Doesn't the title of the next book make you think of graduation, of successfully coming through a challenge?)

SILVER LAKE ends with the Ingalls family settled on their homestead claim freshly triumphant from a battle with mosquitoes; Ma's china shepherdess is in place and Pa is playing songs about "home" on his fiddle. Now everything will be wonderful, right? THE LONG WINTER starts out that way, with Laura helping Pa at haying time. But while they're working, they notice nature's signs that the coming winter will be long and hard; and after Indian summer, an Indian visitor to a store in town backs up nature's claims. Some newcoming settlers scoff, but not Pa or "the Wilder boys," Royal and Almanzo from FARMER BOY--now grown-up homesteaders and store-owners. And the scoffers don't scoff for long, because the first big snows aren't long in showing up--those who have a mind to move into town for the winter just barely make it.

THE LONG WINTER wisely cuts away from the Ingalls' cabin fever (which seems too weak a term for what it literally is in this case) at well-chosen intervals, to visit the Wilder men in their bachelor quarters and witness the process by which Almanzo launches the big part he plays in the...(that S-word, but it definitely means something here!) of his future wife and her family and fellow S-ers.

To "jenninca": Yes, reading this around Thanksgiving time is a good idea; I might try that this year, thank you. As for my Bottom-Line suggestion, I didn't come up with it myself; it was in a KEYS FOR KIDS story (December 22, of Volume IV Number 6, November/December 1997) of a girl who was complaining of the winter cold, and her mother said, "During the summer you sat in front of the fan and read THE LONG WINTER!" (Check out www.cbhonline.com. Thank you.)

And thank all of you for reading, and enjoy Spring/Summer 2002!