Guest post by Amanda Morris
Now that the family has realized its dream of sending Mary off to college for the blind, it is also time for Laura and Carrie to go back to school. The chapter opens with the girls heading to town for the First Day of School. I find it interesting that in this chapter, Laura capitalizes “First Day” multiple times. In all of the books, whenever Laura goes back to school after a break, she is nervous about returning – who she will meet, how she will do in her studies. It is remarkable that someone so gifted had the same insecurities that any young girl has upon returning to school.
There’s a new teacher in town – Miss Wilder, the oldest sister of the Wilder boy. The chapter starts off so promising. Laura is reunited with her friends from her time at school at the start of the Long Winter. Miss Wilder is pretty, stylish and friendly and agrees to allow the big girls to keep the best seats in the schoolhouse throughout the term. We are also introduced to Ida Wright, the adopted daughter of Reverend Brown. Apparently, despite being adopted by the Browns, she still goes by her birth parents’ family name. I wonder if this was the custom back then, or just a biographical detail that Laura included. Ida seems sweet, and Laura offers to share a seat with her.
And then…. (we need some ominous special effects here – thunder claps, perhaps)… someone arrives late for the First Day. Ladies and gentlemen, Nellie Oleson returns! She is still prim and prissy, and still looking down her nose at people. She wastes no time causing trouble, putting Miss Wilder in the awkward position of reneging on her promise to allow Mary Power and Minnie Johnson to keep their seat. Nellie ends up with the best seat in the class all to herself. We get the sense this does not endear Miss Wilder to Laura. But at least Laura gets the satisfaction of learning that Nellie is living out on a claim, and in a satisfying role reversal, she will be the country girl while, during the winter, Laura will be a town girl!
Awkward moment: Miss Wilder’s opening remarks to the school. She gives a sugary speech, smiling all the time, to the point where the boys in the class are squirming in discomfort. She doesn’t say anything inherently bad, but again, we just get the sense from Laura’s reaction that, despite the promising beginning, something is a bit off about all of this. During recess, Nellie makes herself the center of attention, bragging about coming from New York state and dismissing her time in Minnesota near Plum Creek as a brief stopover.
When the girls get home, Laura is conspicuously quiet about the day. Pa senses that she is unsettled about something and asks how school went. She tells about Nellie, and Miss Wilder’s broken promises. Ma admonishes her not to criticize her teacher, which I remember thinking as a child was nonsense. I complained about my teachers all the time.
I also remember Pa’s response very well. “So the Olesons came from New York State, did they? That’s not so much to brag about.” And Laura remembers that Pa was from New York! I grew up in New York, and I remember reading that response and laughing because that had been exactly my thought when I read Nellie’s comment! I love New York and all, but when I read the Little House books I could not imagine anything nicer than living on the rolling prairies. The idea of bragging about being from somewhere else was inconceivable to me.
The chapter ends with one of Pa’s songs and Laura channeling the strength to be good, no matter how hateful Nellie Oleson is.
This is a great chapter because even without the benefit of hindsight, you can see the stage is being set for something to go awry in this school. There is nothing concrete to dislike about Miss Wilder at this point, although there are definite clouds forming on the horizon. Laura’s talent as a writer really comes through here. Despite being left with a mostly positive ending, indicating her determination to be good and get an education, the visual is one of Laura summoning her strength. And by ending on that note, Laura implies that she will need it!
Comments12
What a chapter – Ida, Miss Wilder and the return of Nellie… hurrah!
Re the adoption point: I don’t know whether it was the same in the US, but in the UK, the word ‘adoption’ had a sightly different meaning in Victorian times than it does today. Nowadays it means a formal legal process, which creates a legal relationship between the parents and the children (including changing the name), but in the UK there was no legal mechanism for this till 1926. So when people talk about adoption in (British) Victorian literature, they simply mean an arrangement by which someone assumed care of a child, with no actual legal rights and responsibilities attached to it, no court papers etc. It would be correct therefore for the child to maintain their own name, though common for it to be changed, depending on the circumstances, as the arrangements were informal. I wonder if it was similar in the US?
I believe adoption was rather informal until this century, when protections were introduced to keep children from a kind of indentured servitude. But regarding the name–my husband and I are in the process of adopting twin teens, and after many discussions, the teens have decided to keep their current last names rather than changing to ours. I imagine that decision to be a personal one of identity–especially at the age of adoption.
Makes me think of Anne Shirley (who never became Anne Cuthbert). Marilla and Mathew just “sent word” by a third party for someone to bring them a child, and that’s all there was to it! I know that is a fictional story, but LMM said it was inspired by a newspaper article about that actually happening.
I also always “sided” with Laura about criticizing the teacher, but at the same time appreciated how Ma said, “Nor should you…,” acknowledging that Laura is right.
TLynn, that’s a great point about the “Nor should you…” I didn’t think of it quite in that light!
Eddie and Amy, I believe you are both correct about adoptions, particularly in the 19th Century. Children had nearly zero protections by law in earlier generations, and formal adoption is something that arose with much greater frequency when the societal trends shifted to recognize that children were much better off living in family units rather than orphanages.
It was much more common then to have children in one’s home who were not biologically those of the head of household…think of Caroline and her many Quiner siblings, with stepfather Frederick Holbrook. With mortality rates high, and life expectancy considerably shorter than modern society, a great many children were left with one, or no, parents before they reached maturity. A family who could take in a child may reap many benefits from doing so, whether monetary or not. In my own family, multiple instances of cousins being raised as siblings occurred just a few generations back…but they nearly always kept their own names, and there is no evidence to suggest that formal legal proceedings occurred to “adopt” these particular children.
Also, up until the last century and a half or so, many families “traded” an older child or two, temporarily, with other households, in the form of apprenticeships or domestic service, so of course in those situations the child would maintain his or her own name, but act as a member of, or servant to, the new family. This practice served multiple functions:
~Learning new domestic skills, or a formal trade, with a family whose work and skill set varies from that of the child’s.
~Different, perhaps enhanced, educational opportunities.
~Development of Self-Discipline, in the form of a “stranger” as authority figure. Thus, encouraging a sense of responsible autonomy–it would not do to represent one’s parents negatively through improper or impertinent behavior!
~Moody, hormonal, head-butting children were no longer “underfoot” and causing discordant relationships, whether amongst siblings or between parent and child. Ever notice how much better-behaved even obedient children tend to be when “Auntie” or “Neighbor” is in charge? Family life offers plenty of stress in itself, particularly in larger families, so why not do something to ease it a bit?
~Exposure to different society. There are more opportunities to socialize under respected supervision with other youths in the new neighborhood, and fewer of these acquaintances are likely to be close relatives, therefore easing the eventual search for a suitable spouse.
Of course, I do hate how Ida is so marginalized, being “only adopted” and therefore expected to be eternally grateful and completely, almost unnaturally, selfless!! She deserves a little fun, too!
Thanks for this, Melanie, that’s really interesting. I agree with you about Ida – clearly, the Browns have given her opportunities and a lifestyle she wouldn’t otherwise have had, unless someone else had adopted her, and that is good – but presumably they wanted to do so, and it seems she’s been raised to feel obligated about it. It’s uncomfortable to modern ears to hear her describing herself as “only” adopted.
I’ve thought it was interesting that in Laura’s columns she explains how they thought the one neighbor was so lazy requiring her adopted daughter to do all the housework until they found out she was writing to earn money for a new winter coat for the daughter. In the books, we never see all Ida’s work pay off in the form of new clothes. We see Laura not like sewing, but it pays off in material to make fashionable clothing It’s interesting to me that the story is completed in the books.
Small correction….Eliza Jane is not Almanzo’s oldest sister…he has an older sister named Laura (which is why he doesn’t wish to call Laura by her given name)
Two older sisters, Alice is the other.
Three older sisters. Laura, Eliza and Alice.
My paternal grandfather was orphaned when he was only 3 or 4 years old and was ‘adopted’ by a nearby family. I saw the page of the 1920 US Census where he was listed with his original last name, at 4 years old, as a boarder, in his adopted family’s household. I haven’t found the 1930 Census information, but I know that he did take or was given the adopted family’s last name, because it’s my family’s name. There weren’t any adoption papers or a decree, just a family willing to take in a young child after his own parents died.
That is very interesting. My father-in-law’s uncle was “adopted” as a child. This was about 70 years ago in rural England. Except he was not orphaned. His family packed up and moved and literally left him there when he was 3. So my FIL’s grandmother simply took the child in and raised him as her own. It was not until he reached adulthood and needed his birth certificate that he found out about his “adoption”.
Comments are closed.