Guest post by Naomi
Laura has been home for all of about 6 weeks, still reveling in the joy of being home, when she is given the opportunity to leave again.
When Laura arrives home from school one day, Ma tells her Mrs. McKee, for whom she’s been sewing for the past month, had stopped by and is ‘in distress.’ The McKee’s are getting ready to move out to their claim, or rather, the women-folk of the McKee family are getting ready to move out to their claim. Mr. McKee must stay in town to work, (he can’t afford to give up his job) while his wife and daughter go live on the claim to ‘hold it’ through the summer. But Mrs. McKee is nervous about living far from town, alone, and thought that maybe Laura would come with her. The McKee’s will pay Laura a dollar a week, just to live there. And Laura, eager for the chance to go on earning money, even a dollar a week, jumps at the chance. At least she knows that Mrs. McKee won’t attack her with a knife. (Though … by the end of summer, maybe she will …)
So, the next day, satchel in hand, she climbs onto the train for the 7 mile journey to Manchester. Remembering her trip from Walnut Grove to Tracy a few years before, she thinks herself quite the experienced traveler. From there, it’s two miles by teamster wagon, through sloughs and over non-existent roads, clinging to the McKee Family Furniture and the McKee Family Daughter, to the McKee Family Claim, where a very-little house has been built.
There, once the furniture is set-up, Laura and the McKee’s settle in to hold the claim. They sit. They eat. They talk. They are silent. They sit. They wash the dishes. They sit. They twist hay for the stove. They sit. On Saturday, Mr. McKee arrives by train, and they get to spend Sunday sitting some more, not smiling, talking about religion. On Sunday he gets back on the train and they go back to … sitting. Kinda like the Long Winter, but without the blizzards.
This scintillating existence continues for a couple of months, when at last a letter comes from Ma. Mary is coming home. Laura must come home too. As much as she hates to do it, she has to tell the McKee’s that she’s leaving; she can’t even give them 2 weeks notice. And thankfully the McKee’s agree that she can go. Packing her satchel again, she returns with Mr. McKee on the Sunday train, leaving Mrs. McKee and Mattie to sit for another 5 months while she returns to the bosom of her family.
Now – if you’ve been reading my comments for a while, you’ve noticed that I’m something of a nitpicker. I want things to make sense. And this chapter has always been one of the most baffling to me.
I get that the McKee’s have to live on the claim to hold it. But what I don’t get is the ‘doing nothing’ part. They can’t afford to buy the full range of stock and tools and seed wheat to start the farm going – fair enough. But they can’t afford a few packets of seed and a hoe to start a garden? A cow? A few chickens? Do they own no books? Even Laura didn’t bring her own school books with her. Why not? Why not tutor Mattie? (The book is vague on her age, but in real life she was 11. Surely Laura could have given her lessons.) Are there no other claims in the area with people to visit? Even a stroll into Manchester would have broken the monotony. Maybe Mrs. McKee could find someone who needs some dress-making done. Other historical sources I’ve seen suggest that in most families, the reverse was true – Pa stayed in town to work while Ma and the kids worked very hard indeed on the claim, plowing, planting, caring for the stock – all the usual farm chores. (Maybe this goes back to Ma’s belief , stated back in “The Long Winter,” that American girls didn’t do farm work? Though obviously that belief didn’t extend to gardening and caring for stock.)
The financial end of things also seems shaky. They didn’t earn enough to move to the claim. (Presumably they made just enough to build the house and dig a well.) But it doesn’t seem likely that they’ll be any better off, financially, come October. What with paying Laura to live with them, buying food (I’d guess that they’re living on the standard flour/beans/potatoes/salt-pork/coffee rations of all self-respecting homestead families), paying Mr. McKee’s rail fare back and forth every weekend, (rail fares were not cheap – in 1881 a fare on the Union Pacific from Council Bluffs to Omaha [about 5 miles], was 50 cents, from Omaha to San Francisco was $100, so it was probably costing Mr. McKee 75 cents to a $1 round trip to come home every weekend) –paying his board in town (they took the stove with them, so even if Mr. McKee is living in their town house, he’s probably eating at the hotel) – if Mr. McKee is making the standard dollar a day – they’re barely breaking even. When they return to town in the fall, I fear that Mrs. McKee will find that Miss Bell has grabbed all her dressmaking clients, leaving them even worse off than before.
One final historical note: Manchester, the new little town near the McKee’s claim stayed a ‘very little town’ through its history. When Grace grew up and married, she moved to Manchester. Mary lived with her there for a while as well. And in June 2003, a huge tornado swept through the town, destroying it completely. All that remains are foundations and a commemorative monument.