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Guest Post by Wendy Corsi Staub

It’s the last day of school for the spring session, and Laura is taking a long last look around the schoolroom. She knows this is goodbye forever. She won’t be coming back on Monday morning with the others, because she’s leaving to teach another term of school.

Mr. Owen, her teacher, has no idea she isn’t planning on returning. When she tells him, he’s upset and apologetic that he didn’t graduate her—he was waiting until the whole class was ready to graduate together. He apologizes, and Laura assures him that it doesn’t matter. She’s glad just to know she could have.

With characteristic stoicism, Laura gets past her melancholy by reminding herself that endings are really just beginnings. As if to drive that point home, we see her on a twilight buggy ride with Almanzo, singing a song about metaphorically moving on and looking ahead to their future as man and wife.

It’s fitting that the chapter “School Days End” pops up this week, the next to last of my own sons’ school year. (I know many of you have been out for awhile, but here in suburban NYC, we’re in session till late June.)

In the midst of overseeing my boys packing up their school supplies and books, studying for finals, saying goodbye to teachers, and getting ready for my younger son’s middle school graduation, I reread these pages that feature the same theme, only as it unfolded a hundred and thirty years ago.

I am struck, as always, by the universal themes in Laura’s books—how the events she lived are so similar, in so many ways, to the events we live now, and how similar they promise to be a hundred years, two hundred, in the future.

There’s a note of quiet wistfulness in this brief chapter, and we sense that for all Laura’s excitement to marry Almanzo and begin a new life, she’s not quite ready to let go of the old one.  I liked hearing her say aloud that she was going to be married, though—suddenly, she seemed like a new, grown-up Laura.

There were some things about this chapter that gave me pause the first time I read it, and they continue to do so.

For one thing, I was always surprised that Mr. Owen didn’t know yet that she’d never be coming back to school. Unless this scene unfolds on the day after she told Florence she’d take the job at her father’s school? But even then, wouldn’t she have told him before the day was over that this was the end for her? That always bothered me. It seemed as though there was an odd absence of communication—particularly when something as significant as graduation was hanging in the balance.

That’s the other thing that still bothers me: Laura saying it doesn’t matter that she wouldn’t be graduating. She seems to take this news in stride. After all it took her to overcome her shyness to go to school in town (in past books) and to keep up her own studies while teaching throughout this one, it seems kind of anticlimactic that she wouldn’t really seem to bat an eye when she found out she wasn’t going to graduate. Sign of the times or not, I felt kind of let down that our Laura would let it go so easily, and that the subject was more or less dropped after this chapter. Not that she’s one to brood or fret over something that can’t be changed—but I felt disappointed for her, and perhaps a bit in her.

Maybe it especially bothers me given the difficult  “First Four Years” we know are in store for Laura and Almanzo. The first time I read this chapter, it was with dreamy optimism that their “for better, for worse” wouldn’t contain any “worse.” But thereafter, having completed the final book and knowing about the illnesses, the lost child, the fire, and the poverty, I have always felt as though Laura was robbed of the last remaining shred of childhood and school days and the opportunity to call herself a high school graduate.

I wonder if she ever looked back with regret? Not over marrying Almanzo, because theirs was ultimately a long, happy, successful marriage. But did it ever bother her that she hadn’t graduated from school? Was that part of the reason Rose went to such great lengths to get an education and become self-sufficient?

Whatever the case, it’s gratifying that although this chapter might open with Laura looking back, when it closes, she’s definitely looking ahead to the next adventure.

Guest post by Jaime Brooks

Once again it is Christmas Eve at the Ingalls homestead. Everyone is busy with their Christmas preparations, looking forward to the Christmas tree in town. Unfortunately the snow and wind had started and Pa decided not to risk the trip to town.  Instead Laura and Ma make popcorn balls, while Carrie and Grace make pretty pink bags full of Christmas Candy; there is even one bag extra.

Laura remembers times when the family did not have as much at Christmas time, Christmas in Indian Territory with Mr. Edwards walking 80 miles to bring Mary and Laura one stick of candy each.  Also on her mind is the Christmas when Pa was caught in a blizzard, finding shelter under the creek bank, and eating all of the Christmas candy to survive.  Laura is missing Mary, and she is not trying to think of Almanzo.  When he first left, his letters came frequently, now no letter for three weeks. Laura was afraid that would forget her, or even worse regret giving her the ring.

Pa broke her thought by telling her to bring him the fiddle. While Pa was playing all of their favorites, he started a song about coming in and shutting the door. Towards the end of the song there was a loud knock on the door.  Pa told Laura to open the door, at first the snow swirled around the person, but then she was in shock to see Almanzo.  He came back early!  He was greeted by the family; he brought oranges for a treat, and a special gift for Laura.  Ma decides to clear the room, Pa gets more coal, and the girls help Ma in the kitchen giving the couple a few minutes alone. Laura opens the package and nestled inside is a gold bar pin.  Etched on the pin were a little house, a lake, and some tiny leaves and grass. She tells him it is beautiful, Almanzo thinks she can thank him better than that. Laura gives him a kiss and tells him she is glad he is back.

Once the family is settled back in the sitting room, Almanzo describes the sites of his journey.  Camping on the open prairie, seeing Omaha, and Des Moines, farmers burning the corn because they cannot sell it, and of crossing the Missouri river were just some of the adventures described.  With such interesting talk, it was soon midnight. Ma stood up and wished everyone a Merry Christmas.  When Almanzo left, Laura asked Pa if he heard him arrive, he said yes, and that there was no one more welcome.  In the morning would be surprises from Santa Claus, and for dinner a big juicy fat chicken hen stuffed and roasted, along with Almanzo’s company, for Ma had invited him to Christmas dinner.  As Laura blew out the lamp, Carrie told her that this was the nicest Christmas, and then she asked if Christmases get better all the time, Laura simply said “yes they do.”

This has always been my favorite of the Little House Christmases. This chapter also sees a change in Ma, for the first time she is accepting of Almanzo, and welcomes him into the family. I think that Ma must be remembering her own time with Pa as an engaged couple, by giving the couple a few minutes alone with each other.  I also love the fact that Almanzo could not stay away from Laura any longer. It makes me wish she had written a chapter from his point of view during his journey and his time at home.  All the while Laura is missing him too.