So exactly why is she teaching the calf to drink?
Someone needs to let me in on this. It is only now, having actually lived around cows and calves and seen many bucket calves being fed, that it occurs to me that this scene does not make sense. Is Laura trying to wean the calf? I mean, the calf’s mother – Ellen – is right there, is she not? And Laura milks the cow, then brings the milk that she got from the calf’s mother over to the calf. Isn’t that an unnecessary step to play the middleman? As I understand it, mama cows aren’t necessarily all that nice when they’re ready to wean their calves. They might just, say, kick them off – literally. But Ellen is a caring mom: she “answered with a soothing moo” when her calf “bawled anxiously.” Her “baby calf,” no less. I don’t get it.
(I’m waiting for Sarah Uthoff to comment here.)
OK, I’ll back up. I love this chapter. Not only does it set the stage for post-winter happiness and contentment, it’s full of lines that have been seared into my memory for thirty years:
Pa looked at her. He knew how she felt. “I think, myself, it’s pretty nice,” he said.
Mary eagerly offered to do all the housework, so that Laura could help Ma. … “I couldn’t tell the difference between a pea vine and a weed at the end of a hoe, but I can wash dishes and make beds and take care of Grace.”
[Don’t you want someone in your household to offer to do all the housework? And not just offer but eagerly offer?]
“Why Pa?”
Every time a bean popped up, Grace squealed again.
“You needn’t see it for me, Laura. I can feel how large and fresh and pretty it is.”
It was a beautiful room.
This is also the chapter where Mary and Laura have their “I wanted to slap you” discussion, which is always fun (and is where I finally decide to like Mary). Before that, “It really tastes a little like lemon flavoring, Laura,” Mary says, harshing Laura’s poetic mellow, but for some reason Laura lets this go. They then get into talking about inherent good and evil, an exchange that strikes me as very Rose in flavor. “‘But my goodness! How can anyone be good without thinking about it?’”Laura demanded. It’s the demanded that gets me. For a second, I feel like I’m reading Free Land.
Well, this is Little Town on the Praire; I guess there will be more of that to come.
Mostly this chapter is about, well, springtime on the claim. We hear about Ellen and the calves on their picket pins, and the garden, and adding onto the shanty, and spring cleaning combined with moving. We know that Pa has gotten a new plow that’s so handy he’s not too tired to joke at night. We see Mary sink down into the sweetness of the violets and hear her saying that she doesn’t want to eat the only bug in the whole of Dakota Territory. If The Long Winter was bleak, “Springtime on the Claim” is full of sharp color and vivid contentment, a reminder that the bleakness was temporary. Whenever I am on Ingalls Homestead, I think of this chapter.
Kind of makes me want to move right in with them.
I love how in her later books she seems to show more about the relationships between the characters. Or maybe it just seems that way to me. Laura and Mary seem like more normal sisters here in this chapter.
I think they weaned the calf early so the family could have the milk and the cream for butter and cottage cheese. I’m not sure, though. I honestly never thought about it until you asked. Lol. Good question!
I worked at a dairy farm for a little while in another lifetime, so I’m pretty sure that I know the answer. Sarah has the experience and can explain it though.
This is one of my favorite chapters in the books and it contains what would probably be my favorite Garth Williams illustration.
Kim has it right, and I bet Laura would too. I was finally able to ask my husband. Greedy calves!
Lots to love in this chapter
1. “She felt she never could get enough sunshine soaked into her bones”. We’ve just had a particularly cold and gloomy winter by our standards (nothing like as bad as the US gets) and we’re now basking in an unusually pleasant spring (over 70 degrees is definitely unexpected in April) and this is exactly how I feel.
2. The bug joke. It’s really interesting to see Mary develop as a character.
3. The beans popping! I would be squealing along with Grace.
4. Extending the shanty – I love all house-building scenes.
It’s just such a lovely, warm, contented chapter, and so absorbing that I never once think “oh-oh, but that job’s going to wreck things” while I’m reading it.
I must agree, that these chapters always made me feel like they were breathing deeply for the first time. As you said Sandra, like they were recovering from the long winter. It feels to me like after that winter, things just get better for them. Pa even has a new plow!
I have to admit to being jealous about the whole bean-popping thing. I have never in my life been able to see the beans popping out of the ground. One day there was nothing, and the next….there they were! How rude! I even made it a point to watching for this after reading LTOTP when I was 10. We had a huge garden (several acres worth, anyway) and it seemed like most of it was beans. Oh-my-aching-back. I used to wonder why Laura would rather be in the garden instead of inside.
Growing up on a dairy farm I vividly remember the same experience as Laura. Calves are weaned from their mothers almost immediately after birth so that the milk can be used by the family. The cream is skimmed off and the calf is feed the more skim remaining milk. Since calves are naturally wired to nurse from a mother cow, they have to be taught to drink from a pail. Laura describes the process wonderfully.
Well, I got around to this late and it’s already basically answered, but I will add that this is a difference between milk cows and beef cows. Beef cows (like we raise) the cows primary responsibility is to raise the calf. Dairy cows or milk cows are supposed to raise the calf and provide milk for the humans. If the calves are pulled off, they will eat other things besides milk and the humans can have the milk. This was especially true with pioneers because their cows (dedicated purebred breeds were just beginning to come in) were more like mutts and didn’t produce as much milk as modern dairy cows. I think perhaps I will start working on the differences with how people experienced milk in the 19th century.
Our latest bottle calf http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5t-w40z8a8