What image comes to your mind when you hear the word prairie?
I wonder if sometimes we have a tendency to romanticize our view, choosing to remember Laura’ s vivid descriptions of that large empty flat land with the enormous sky and beautiful lakes and extraordinary sunrises, instead of the truly dangerous place that the prairie could be.
It’s certainly not Laura’s fault that we do this; she described the hazards of prairie life right alongside the beauty. Images that quickly spring to mind — even ignoring weather conditions such as blizzards and tornadoes — are little Grace lost on the prairie and the horrors that she might be in the Big Slough where they would never find her; Mary, Laura and Carrie walking along the lake shore toward the Big Slough and Laura’s shout to Carrie to turn back, she’ll mire down, the lake is among the grasses; and how quickly and easily Laura and Carrie got lost when taking the shortcut across the slough after buying Pa’s mowing machine part.
But somehow it’s so easy to forget about that, or think it can never happen to you, when you’re out on the prairie yourself.
My friend and I with our two little girls were out on the Dakota prairie last month, and spotted a lovely photo op. We pulled off the road, got out of the car, and told the girls to stand by the prairie grasses, with the train in the distance behind them.
My seven-year-old niece, who has a tendency to want to fully experience everything, immediately asked, “Can we go IN the prairie grass?”
We were far far away from any lake or slough, and the prairie stretched flat as flat could be for literally miles. What danger could there possibly be? “You can go in just a little ways,” I said.
My friend felt that more specificity was needed. “Take three steps,” she said. “Just three steps.” And together, we counted as she stepped: “One… two…”
On three, she was gone. She simply vanished right before our eyes. Panic seized my heart as I screamed and ran to the place we had last seen her. How could she be gone? Whatever could have happened to her?
The prairie that appeared to be so flat actually had a sudden drop-off. (My friend speculated that it’s a long lost buffalo wallow.) The grass grew to the same height as the grass on the higher ground so there was no way to tell it was there until she stepped into it. I looked down into the large “wallow” and there she lay on the ground several feet below me, stunned but thankfully unharmed, feeling much like her other favorite literary heroine, Alice, when she fell down the rabbit-hole.
In the terror of that moment, I knew just how Laura felt when Baby Grace disappeared. And I wondered if Ma must have worried every time her girls went off for their walk across the prairie, knowing the secret pitfalls it held.
How about you? Have you had any misadventures on the prairie? Do you view the prairie as a beautiful place, or a frightening one? Which of Laura’s prairie descriptions stand out in your mind?
Three steps in, the prairie drops off dramatically. Would you have guessed?
Yes, the West in general can be a harsh place to live. I grew up on the east coast, but lived out West for 10 years (in New Mexico and Nevada). I never went anywhere without water and food and some few other essentials in case I got stuck in the field; I worked for the Bureau of Land Management. Many times I drove around looking at cattle allotments, and never saw anyone else all day, day after day. The land, as you mentioned, looks flat when it is not; there are many old erosional features that now have grasslands above them. The sudden drop-off that your daughter encountered was probably due to the higher road grade…the roads are built up to keep water off of them, and culverts are run under the road to drain the Arroyos and ditches, although many secondary (unpaved) roads have low water crossings, meaning that the water flows right over the top. Many of the improved roads have dirt ditches along side of them to carry the water, too (as they do in the east, or in Florida); the increased amount of water probably caused the vegetation to grow higher than normal, so that you didn’t see the change in gradient. I have been in places where I crossed a dry Arroyo in the morning, but had to wait to cross back over because a rainstorm in the mountains had caused the Arroyo to flood and be impassable. There are still places in the West where it is still so silent that the silence has it’s own sound.
In NM, if you came into the office, or encountered a friend, and said that it had rained in such and so a place, they would invariably ask, “How much?” And the answer might be, “Oh, it was a three inch rain at best!” Well, in the east you would probably mean three inches in depth; in NM you would mean that there were three inches of space between the raindrops that had fallen to the ground! Of course South Dakota has a little more average precipitation than NM (NM has about 7.5 inches per year)and it is more humid. It has it’s own unique plants and animals and weather patterns. It’s easy to get lost out there if you don’t take a bearing point (line up with a Mountain or other feature, because you can see for long distances), but the land rolls and undulates and you can walk half a mile from your vehicle and not see it anymore. The weather can be freezing in the morning, and you have a coat on, and then over 100 degrees in the afternoon, and you’re boiling.
I highly recommend to anyone with the ability to travel to go see see some portion of the west if you never have. We have millions of acres of public land that, as long as you pack it in and pack it out (leave no trace), you can go enter without “permission”. There are portions of private and state owned lands mixed in, so it’s always a good idea to go the the local agency office and get a map, ask about road and weather conditions. It’s the American taxpayers money at work. Although I have heard of people from the east going a little nuts out west – they can not take the wide open spaces, they feel vulnerable. And many people in the west can not tolerate the closed in feeling of the eastern seaboard, the inability to see where you are going beacuse of the trees, and the jumble of people and cars going in every direction. That is frightening and/or disturbing to them. As Laura says in the Long WInter, she knew that cold is not so cold if you are not afraid of it! I actually remembered and spoke that line to myself when I lived in NM and the temperature dropped to -20 degrees F, actual (not wind chill) and I had to go out to the field and check on something. Although she never mentioned rattlesnakes in her books at all and I wonder why. Another hazard of the west.
I just finished re-reading BTSSL, and I could picture this scene exactly. What a frightening thought! Do you suppose this happened in the same spot as Grace’s disappearance?
I live in a very metropolitan part of Kansas, actually in our largest city. However, I live on the edge of “the country”. 20 feet or so from the back of my house is still a farmer’s field. This year he grew wheat but he has grown corn and soybeans. Corn was the worst because when the ears dry out the husks blow off. With the prevailing southerly wind,they ended up in my yard, my garden’s and under my deck. But,I love it. It is about as close to living on the prairie as I want to get. I found out a couple of years ago that the main street by our house was actually the northern boundary of the Osage Diminished Land so essentially, I live in Laura’s Indian Territory. By 1869 it shrunk even more to just contain what is now Montgomery Co. I can only begin to imagine what it was like to live in isolation. There have been times when we can actually see the rain or hail approaching across the open field. To watch that with little protection on the open frontier would bnde terrifying. And, I hate the wind! It would be enough to drive you crazy.
The play “Quilter’s” gives a very graphic description of the difficulties of prairie life. The companion book does the same.
Danielle: Thank you for all the information, especially about the ditching around the roadbeds which may be exactly what happened here.
Amy: No, definitely not Grace’s spot, this incident actually occurred just west of Brookings.
Laura: The wind would drive me crazy too. I like to VISIT the prairie. I’m always ready to return to the mountains though!
What boggles me is how Ma could not have been terrified the whole time they were in Kansas. I just reread Little House on the Prairie, and found myself amazed to really realize, for the first time – Pa was driving off every day with the wagon and horses, leaving Ma and the girls alone on the prairie with nothing but a bulldog and a tent for protection. Ma just went about her business of washing clothes and cooking. I can’t even imagine how alone she just have felt. Did she worry that Pa wouldn’t come back? That she and the girls would be stranded there? How many people could handle that kind of life without going crazy? Ma was certainly a much more amazing woman that I used to think she was.