Guest post by Jennye Woolf
It is funny that this chapter is titled “Breathing Spell” since the entire chapter seems as though people are holding their breath waiting for the next shoe to drop. It starts off still but so deeply cold that even the few tedious chores they have are made that much harder. And they wait. Wait for Pa to come home with another load of hay to eat what a sentence in the chapter refers to as “the daily bread” — and not in the figurative sense.
The cold has even driven away the checkers game at the drugstore. But he returns with news that wakes them from their stupor –- Almanzo Wilder and Cap Garland are going after the wheat rumored to be on a claim 9 or so miles south of town. I’ve always wondered at this rumor and who had the information. It seems a little like El Dorado at this point and a life risking journey to seek it out seems unbelievably foolhardy. But then again, we don’t know what the rumors are based upon. (We also know how it all turns out!)
Even little Grace is aware enough to know that this is serious news. So serious in fact that, for once, the true danger – getting caught in the blizzard – is acknowledged aloud. And the most positive thing anyone has to say about it is that “They might make it, you can’t tell.”
And then the next blizzard hits, just to prove the point.
I wonder if that was one of the reasons Laura and Almanzo bought the plate that said, “Give us this day our daily bread” They both had lived through a time when that was literally quite true.
In the book The Long Winter, I have always been so impressed with Almanzo for as tired as he was, coming back from getting the wheat, he takes care of his horses first. He was a true horseman, and a very brave soul. I wonder why he told his daughter, late in his life, that “His life had been a series of disapointments.” That statement makes me sad, for he and Laura made their MO farm successful, and at the end of his life, they had enough money to vacation. I have long wondered if the illness in The First Four Years caused him to be unable to have more children?? Greatly admire this fine man…hope he is happy now.
I never had the impression they picked the plate for its saying. They wanted a set of glassware, the set was a good price, and that was the plate that came with it. It’s a pretty generic bread plate saying. My mom and grandma both have one, different types, same saying.