What strikes me, soon into this chapter, is that it is told mostly from Almanzo’s perspective. I always have liked that. As a fellow horseperson, I could relate to how he felt when he thought he may have lost Lady for good.
We have a break between blizzards. A sunny day with new hope as Pa hurries into the house telling the family that a herd of antelope has been sighted west of town. The men were gathering, excited, to plan their strategy. When Laura looks out of the window, she sees several men on horseback and notices that Almanzo and Mr. Foster are riding the beautiful Morgan horses.
The Ingalls girls begin planning a meal of roast venison with gravy. Ma, ever the realist, warns, “We must not count chickens before they are hatched,” while at the same time admitting that she would be glad to have meat to go with the brown bread.
The men head out, following Pa’s suggestion to go slow until they’re within gunshot. He tells them that if they work it right they should be able to get one apiece. Mr. Foster is anxious and overly excited. He doesn’t seem to know how to ride a horse and Almanzo is already regretting letting him ride Lady.
They should have the herd surrounded in a few minutes and as Almanzo turns to speak to Mr. Foster, he hears a shot. As he reins Prince in, he sees Lady running away. Mr. Foster has jumped off of Lady, let go of her and fired at the antelope when they were too far away to get a good shot. The antelope run away and Lady overtakes them and goes with them. Almanzo hollers not to shoot, he doesn’t want anyone to hit Lady.
In a few minutes, the prairie swallows the antelope herd and Lady with them. They are gone. There’s not much to be said now. The antelope are likely not to be seen again. Almanzo says that he won’t risk his life, looking for her, but maybe he’ll just circle around to see if catches sight of her, or maybe she’ll find her way back. The other men head back to town, empty-handed.
Almanzo rides on alone, over each prairie swell with nothing in sight except for the blowing snow. He feels sick at heart losing her, but not intending to jeopardize his life for a horse. He chastises himself for being such a fool to lend her to a stranger and keeps riding, looking for Lady. There’s always another slope and the sky remains clear so he goes on. He rides until he looks back and does not see town, nothing but the white land and the blowing snow, and the wind and the cold. He feels very alone.
He decides to go over one more slope and then turn back if he doesn’t see anything. From the top of that slope he sees the low edge of a cloud in the northwestern sky. And he sees Lady, very far away, but she is looking eastward, away from them. His whistle that has called her since she was a young horse is carried away on the wind, as is Prince’s call to her. Then she turns, sees them and starts galloping toward them. Almanzo waits until she gets a little nearer and then he turns and rides toward town.
He reaches the stable behind the feed store and is taking care of Prince when Lady rattles at the door and he lets her in. I love his conversation with her, reprimanding her while taking blame by letting someone else ride her. He’s a very dedicated horseman and takes proper care of his horses before he leaves them.
Meanwhile, Pa has arrived back home without saying anything. There is no need. They know. There will be no meat. After a few minutes he tells the story of what happened. They console themselves thinking that the antelope would have been poor eating this time of year anyway. But it would have been something. Things can only get worse!
Pa decides to head over to the feed store to see if Almanzo has returned while Ma is getting dinner ready. Royal is making pancakes and bacon and Pa tells him how lucky he is to have brought in supplies. While they are talking, they see Lady streak past the window. A few minutes later Almanzo comes in and both he and Royal urge Pa to eat with them. He does.
As I read this, I always had mixed feelings. Does Pa feel bad for his family as he fills himself up? But then, as I have read, Pa often ate smaller portions so that the family would have enough to eat, while still doing chores and hauling hay. Maybe he deserved this one fine meal. But still he must have felt guilty as he headed home and ate brown bread and potatoes with his family.
I don’t think he would worry too much, he had the opportunity and they didn’t. The man that said a nice comment to the man who fired the shot, must have been mindful not to upset him under those circumstances, looking out for his state of mind.
It was at this point that I lost all respect for Pa. There would be no way in the world I would have eaten a warm delicious meal while my family was at home hungry. I would have packed up everything I could and took it home to my family.
And I also don’t understand why they did not kill their cow and eat it.
Pa couldn’t pack up the meal and take it home to his family. He wasn’t offered food to take home, he was offered to sit up and eat with Royal and Almanzo. It was a social gesture of “hey, we’re eating, you’re here, eat with us”, not a gesture of charity. For Pa to pack it up and take it home would have been very improper, as it would have turned a social nicety into a begging for charity.
I think Pa was right to eat up while he had the chance. By him eating that good meal, he not only preserved his strength a little bit for all the work he was doing to keep his family alive, but he also filled up which meant that night at dinner, he could get by on a lot less food and leave more of it for his family.
Notice that Almanzo recognized from his thinness and his obvious need for wheat, and counting the members of his family to see how far it would go, that the family was in dire straits, and despite having plenty to eat themselves, he and Royal didn’t hike on over with food for them. Why not? They probably didn’t really have enough — sure, they had plenty to feed the two of them for the next few months, but to take on feeding another six?
I just think inviting a visitor to join you in your supper is quite a different thing altogether from giving someone something to eat because you know they don’t have anything, and Pa understood that and reaped what small benefit he could from it. It causes me to lose no respect at all for him.
Do I make it sound as if Pa is being selfish? No, I didn’t lose respect for Pa at all here. I just wondered if he felt guilty. He was doing chores and hauling hay. Such hard work to do and only be eating bread and potatoes. I also think that Ma and the girls would have wanted him to have that meal.
Laura, no, you didn’t — I was responding to Mama Hen’s comment above.
Kill the cow! And sell some of the meat for profit!
Remember the theme of Self-Reliance/Self-Preservation. It’s ok to sit and eat as a guest. It is not ok to take food home as if begging.
They didn’t eat the cow because they needed her for milk, for future calves and they didn’t know when the winter would end. Besides, children would be traumatized!
I still say kill the cow and eat it. These were prairie children and they knew where their meat came from. I am almost postive the cow was not giving any milk at this time as she was probably starving herself.
And for the begging. If my children were at home starving I would be going to every door I could get to and beg for whatever I could get.
I love Little House. I just don’t understand Pa here. It was way past the time of worrying about when winter was going to end. It was time to do whatever you could to feed your family.
I meant the reader kids, not the character kids. Sorry for the confusion. Also, Laura and Rose were both very anti reliance on others. They wanted to support the theme of Self-Reliance in the face of all the social welfare programs that were being established during the depression.
You have to admire Almanzo’s generosity at letting Mr. Foster borrow his horse. It’s like lending someone your Porche to drive around on icy roads. Didn’t horses cost $75-$100 back then? That’s a ton of money, and there was no “horse insurance.” And a beautiful, well-trained horse like Lady would probably be worth even more– not to mention that Almanzo raised her from a colt and I’m sure she was dear to him as well.