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?