Farmer Boy

When I was a little girl, our family read the Little House on the Prairie series together as a family. (We “read aloud” as a family, and as a homeschool unit, but that’s a story for another day.) I don’t remember any of the others, but Farmer Boy (1933, Laura Ingalls Wilder) stuck with me and afterwards, I read it a few times on my own. It remains my favorite book of the whole series.

It’s the story of the childhood of Laura Ingalls’ future husband, Almanzo Wilder. He grew up in upper New York state in the 1860s. The book covers his ninth and tenth years, and tells the adventures he and his family had running a farm. 

I remember with great vividness a few of the stories in the book, even though its been many years since the last time I read it. (The funny thing about my memory: I can’t remember some things in my own life, but I can remember in great detail, my favorite fictional characters.)

At Almanzo’s school, he had to make a presentation one day. It wasn’t anything daunting, except for a nine-year-old it might have been. He had to memorize the following words: “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” His brother changed it when they were at home, doing chores, and studying, to: “If at first you don’t fricassee, fry, fry a hen.” As you’ve probably guessed, the second version implanted itself in his head. When he stepped in front of the entire class, in the little one-room schoolhouse, he blurted them out. He was mortified. But, a loud clap of thunder disrupted proceedings. It began to pour down torrential rain. The teacher sent everyone home.

As Almanzo and his brother and sisters were running home, they stopped under a large oak tree, as shelter from the rain. His older sister, Alice, pushed them on, insisting that they had hurry the rest of the way home. They ran on. Seeing a flash of lightning, and hearing a tremendous crash, they turned back to see the tree they had just ran from, smoking, split in two by a bolt of lightning. 

Another story that stuck in my head was a tale that his father told. His father got stuck in a blizzard on his way home. He was on foot, and completely disoriented, wandering. His father spotted a bear, and, not having any weapon, he yelled and charged towards the bear. The bear didn’t move, and his father decided he had intimidated it sufficiently. His father discovered the following week, when the snowfall abated, that the “bear” he had so valiantly addressed, was in fact, a dead tree. 

I remember we all loved this part of the book when we read it aloud, and we enjoyed some serious communal merriment.

Another story: Almanzo and his brother and sisters got oranges in their stockings for Christmas and they were so happy and elated to get them. Fresh fruit was extremely rare, especially in the middle of winter. 

Farmer Boy is a wonderful book, a great book to share with your children; its stories will stick with me wherever I go.

This post is part of the 31 Days of Bibliophilia series.