Sooo cold outside!

The kids and I have just finished reading the Long Winter and once again I hear familiar words in the kitchen, "Don't be so picky!  Laura had nothing but potatoes and brown bread for months!"

I love this book for reminding us all how good we have it now.  I love the line, "Don't get up, I'll shovel the snow off you as soon as I dig your Ma out."  And that was inside the house!

They wrote letters using as few words as possible to make the most of the paper.  A letter was a rare thing.  Every few years depending on where you lived and then months between sending it and the person getting it. 

Food was seasonal.  No greens until the snow melted and everything grew large enough again.  Candy on Christmas day.  That was it! 

I wonder about privacy.  The girls wait until Pa left to do chores to dress.  No mention of bathing.  Of course during the worst of the long winter they only ate bread twice a day.  They rose late and went to bed early because their was no lamp or candles,     They burned grass to keep warm so I imagine that boiling water to make a bath was a luxury they could not manage. 

Blizzard after blizzard for seven months and a town left to starve because the train could not get through.  This is a great book.  I read later that this book was edited because it was too sad for a children's book.  makes me wonder what was left out. 

Laura speaks breifly about faith in this book, memorizing scripture,praying and singing hymns together.  Mary's testimony is in here as well and if any of them were truely saved it was her. 

Anyway, this book is a family tradition.  I love how my girls react at certain parts.  Like Laura describing Cap Garland... She really had a crush on him.  How Almanzo thawed his frost bitten feet with snow and still did his share of the chores with feet so swollen that he had to borrow his brother's boots.  How Laura describes working with her father in the field even though ma did not like her working like a 'foreign woman' though relented because Pa did need the help..  However, she did not allow Laura to go to town to help Pa, it wasn't proper. 

Now we have started in on The Little Town on the Prairie.  These books are more and more appealing as my girls have grown. The courting of Laura and Almanzo.  For me it is the way Laura expresses the bitter sweet feelings of the changes in her life.  The amazing bond and love for family and the necessary parting that comes.