Little House in the Big Woods

Summary

Little House in the Big Woods follows one year in the life of a pioneer family in a log house in the forests of Wisconsin, seen through the eyes of Laura, who is about five. She lives with Pa, who hunts, traps and farms; Ma, who keeps the house; her older sister Mary; baby Carrie; and Jack, the brindle bulldog. The nearest town, Pepin, is seven miles away, and wolves and bears live in the woods all around. The book opens in autumn as the family lays in food for winter: Pa smokes venison in a hollowed tree trunk, and when Uncle Henry helps butcher the hog, Laura and Mary play with the blown-up bladder and roast the pig's tail. Through the winter Ma follows her weekly round of washing, ironing, mending, churning, cleaning and baking, colors the butter with carrot juice and presses it in a strawberry mold. In the evenings Pa makes bullets, cleans his rifle, plays his fiddle and tells stories: Grandpa chased home by a screaming panther, and Pa as a boy who dawdled instead of fetching the cows and fled from a voice in the dark that turned out to be a screech-owl. At Christmas Aunt Eliza, Uncle Peter and the cousins visit, Uncle Peter tells how his dog Prince kept Aunt Eliza from a spring where a panther waited, and Laura gets a rag doll she names Charlotte. On Sundays Laura has to sit still, and when she cries out that she hates Sunday, Pa tells how Grandpa and his brothers were caught sledding on the Sabbath when a pig jumped onto their sled. In spring Pa walks to town to trade his furs and, coming home in the dark, beats a stump he takes for a bear, while at home Ma has slapped a real bear in the barnyard thinking it was the cow. The family goes to Grandpa's for the sugaring and the dance, where Grandma outlasts Uncle George in a jig and hot syrup is poured on snow for candy. Laura sees her first town and the shore of Lake Pepin. Summer brings a visit to the Swedish neighbor Mrs. Peterson, cheese-making, a bee tree, and a whipping after Laura slaps Mary for boasting that golden hair is prettier than brown. At harvest, cousin Charley shouts for help as a joke until he truly steps on a yellow jackets' nest. The threshing machine comes, and in the last chapter Pa, waiting at the deer lick, finds the animals too beautiful to shoot. The book ends by the fire as Pa plays Auld Lang Syne and Laura decides that now can never be a long time ago. Harper and Brothers published the book in 1932 with drawings by Helen Sewell. It was Wilder's first book, and Garth Williams's illustrations replaced Sewell's in the uniform edition of 1953.

Plot or Argument

• Chapters 1–3: Autumn stores and winter nights

  Pa smokes venison and butchers the hog with Uncle Henry; Ma keeps her weekly schedule and churns butter; Pa makes bullets, plays mad dog and the fiddle, and tells of Grandpa and the panther and of the voice in the woods.

• Chapter 4: Christmas

  Uncle Peter, Aunt Eliza and the cousins visit; the children make pictures in the snow; Uncle Peter tells how Prince guarded the spring; Laura receives her rag doll Charlotte.

• Chapter 5: Sundays

  Laura chafes at Sunday quiet; Pa tells of Grandpa's Sabbath sled ride and the pig; Laura's birthday follows, with a little wooden man Pa has carved.

• Chapter 6: Two Big Bears

  Pa trades his furs in town; Ma slaps a bear in the barnyard, and Pa, walking home in the dark, attacks a burned stump he takes for a bear.

• Chapters 7–8: The Sugar Snow and the dance at Grandpa's

  Pa explains how Grandpa gathers sap; the family goes to the sugaring dance, where Pa fiddles, Ma dances in her delaine dress, Grandma outjigs Uncle George and the syrup becomes candy on the snow.

• Chapters 9–10: Going to town and summertime

  Laura sees the store at Pepin and the lake shore and tears her pocket with pebbles; the girls visit Mrs. Peterson and save their cookies for Carrie; Laura slaps Mary and is punished; Ma makes cheese and Pa finds a bee tree.

• Chapters 11–12: Harvest and the threshing machine

  Pa and Uncle Henry cut the oats; Charley's false alarms end when yellow jackets sting him and the women pack him in mud; a threshing machine separates the grain.

• Chapter 13: The Deer in the Wood

  Pa watches a buck, a bear and a doe with her fawn at the deer lick and cannot bring himself to shoot; that night he plays Auld Lang Syne and Laura thinks about now.

Characters

• Laura Ingalls, protagonist

  Lively five-year-old who loves Pa's stories, her doll Charlotte and the woods.

• Pa (Charles Ingalls), father

  Hunter, trapper, farmer, fiddler and teller of stories.

• Ma (Caroline Ingalls), mother

  Calm, capable housekeeper who keeps the family's week in order.

• Mary Ingalls, older sister

  Well-behaved elder sister with golden hair.

• Baby Carrie, youngest sister

  The baby; her sisters save half their cookies for her.

• Jack, dog

  The brindle bulldog who guards the house.

• Grandpa and Grandma, Pa's parents

  Hosts of the sugaring and the dance; Grandma wins the jig.

• Uncle Henry, Aunt Polly and Charley, relatives

  Help with butchering and harvest; Charley learns the cost of false alarms.

• Uncle Peter and Aunt Eliza, relatives

  Christmas visitors with cousins Peter, Alice and Ella and the dog Prince.

• Uncle George, Pa's brother

  Wild young uncle who ran away to the army as a drummer boy.

• Mrs. Peterson, neighbor

  Swedish neighbor who shows the girls her laces and gives them cookies.

Lessons

• Work done together makes a home

  Every season in the Big Woods has its work: smoking meat, churning, sugaring, cheese-making and harvest. Even small children help, and the work is shown as part of family love rather than a burden.

  • What jobs do Laura and Mary help with in the little house?
  • Why does the family work so hard in the autumn before winter comes?
  • What work do you do to help your own family?

• Obedience keeps us safe

  Pa's story about the voice in the woods and Charley's false cries for help both show that disobeying or playing tricks can lead to real danger. When Charley truly needs help, no one believes he is in trouble until they see him.

  • What happened to Pa when he played in the woods instead of bringing the cows home?
  • Why didn't Pa and Uncle Henry come running the fourth time Charley screamed?
  • What story from the Bible or from fairy tales is like Charley's?

• Fear and courage in the dark

  Ma stays calm when she finds a bear in the barnyard and gets Laura safely inside, and Pa decides to face what he thinks is a bear on the road home. The chapter shows both real danger and the fears that darkness makes bigger than they are.

  • What did Ma do when she found out the cow was really a bear?
  • Why do you think the stump looked like a bear to Pa?

• Kindness and jealousy between sisters

  Laura and Mary share their cookies with baby Carrie, but Laura also slaps Mary when Mary boasts about her golden hair. The book shows that sisters can love each other and still be tempted to jealousy, and that wrongs are corrected and forgiven in the family.

  • Why did Laura feel so hurt when Mary said golden hair was prettier?
  • How did Pa help Laura feel better after he punished her?
  • Why did the girls save half their cookies for Carrie?

Context

The book recalls the Wisconsin frontier around 1871-72, when the woods near Pepin and Lake Pepin on the Mississippi were still being cleared by settler families who grew, hunted, preserved and made most of what they needed. It was written and published in 1932, in the depth of the Great Depression, when many readers were drawn to a picture of family self-reliance in hard conditions.

Composition

Wilder first wrote an adult memoir, Pioneer Girl, around 1930, which her daughter Rose Wilder Lane tried to place with magazines. Out of its earliest pages Wilder shaped a children's book about her first years in Wisconsin, revised with Lane's help, which Harper and Brothers published in 1932 with illustrations by Helen Sewell. For the story's sake Wilder simplified the family's chronology, placing the Wisconsin year before the family's time in Kansas.

Reception

Reviewers welcomed the book on publication, and it sold well enough that Harper asked for more; Wilder followed it with Farmer Boy in 1933 and six more Little House books. The 1953 uniform edition with Garth Williams's drawings became the standard text, and the series became one of the best-known pictures of American pioneer childhood, later adapted for television in the 1970s and 1980s.

Comparisons

• farmer-boy

  Wilder's second book turns to her future husband Almanzo's boyhood on a prosperous New York farm, a fuller, richer household set against the Ingalls cabin in the woods.

• little-house-on-the-prairie

  The sequel takes the same family out of the Big Woods to Kansas, trading the safety of relatives nearby for open prairie and isolation.

• the-courage-of-sarah-noble

  Another young girl on an American frontier, set in early eighteenth-century Connecticut, who must be brave in the woods while her father builds the family's house.

• heidi

  Both books find a child's happiness in a simple mountain or forest home, with plain food, animals and a grandparent or father who tells and teaches.

• little-women

  Alcott's sisters, like Laura and Mary, quarrel and make up under a wise mother's eye, though in a New England town rather than a log cabin.

Quotes

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

• Each season of the year, and the work the family does to get ready for the next one.
• The stories Pa tells at night, about Grandpa and the panther, the voice in the woods and the pig on the sled.
• Laura's rag doll Charlotte, which she gets at Christmas.
• The animals in the woods, from the bears and the panther to the deer Pa will not shoot in the last chapter.

Key terms and names

The Big Woods

The great forest of Wisconsin around the Ingalls's log house, where wolves, bears and deer live and the nearest town is seven miles away.

Churning

Beating cream with a dasher until it turns into butter. Ma does it on Thursdays and colors the winter butter with carrot.

Sugaring off

Boiling maple sap down to syrup and sugar at Grandpa's. At the dance, hot syrup is poured on snow to make candy.

Deer lick

A place where Pa put out salt so the deer would come to lick it, and where he waits to hunt.

Threshing machine

The wonderful machine, pulled by horses, that separates the grain from the straw at harvest.

Seminar Questions

1. Comprehension What gift does Laura get for Christmas, and what does she name it?
2. Comprehension Ma went out to the barn in the dark to milk the cow. What was really standing at the gate?
3. Comprehension Why did cousin Charley get stung by so many yellow jackets?
4. Interpretation Pa does not shoot the deer at the deer lick. Why do you think he lets them go, even though the family needs meat?
5. Interpretation Laura says she hates Sunday. How does Pa's story about Grandpa's sled help her feel about it?
6. Interpretation Why do Laura and Mary save half their cookies for baby Carrie, and was it fair?
7. Big Question At the end, Laura is glad that the cozy house and Pa and Ma and the music are happening now. What is something happening now in your family that you want to remember?

Faith Connections

• Exodus 20:8-11 (Scripture)

  God commands that the Sabbath be kept holy. The Sundays chapter shows the Ingalls family resting from work, and Pa's story of Grandpa's sled shows how strictly an earlier generation kept the day.

• Ecclesiastes 3:1-2 (Scripture)

  To every thing there is a season, a time to plant and a time to pluck up. The book moves through the seasons of one year, each with its own work and its own joys, from the butchering in autumn to the harvest.

• Ephesians 6:1-4 (Scripture)

  Children are told to obey their parents, and fathers not to provoke their children. Pa corrects Laura when she disobeys, then holds her on his knee and makes peace with her.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: A family that works together through every season, keeps its rules and tells its stories can be safe and happy even in a wild wood far from town; small, ordinary days, remembered, are worth as much as great events.

Rhetorical device: frame (opening and closing image). The book begins with the little log house alone in the great woods and ends inside the same house by the firelight, with Pa's fiddle and Laura falling asleep, so the whole year is held inside the picture of home.

Debate: Resolved: Pa was right not to shoot the deer at the deer lick.

Writing Prompts

Essay: Choose one of Pa's stories (Grandpa and the panther, the voice in the woods, or the pig on the sled) and explain what lesson Pa wants Laura and Mary to learn from it.

Comparison with Farmer Boy: Compare one season on Laura's family's farm in the Big Woods with the same season on Almanzo's farm in Farmer Boy. What work does each child do, and how are their homes different?

Medical Lens

The book is not about illness, but it records frontier home care with documentary plainness. When Charley is badly stung by yellow jackets in the Harvest chapter, Ma and Aunt Polly plaster him with mud, wrap him in sheets and give him herb tea for his fever; no doctor is sent for, and seven miles to town makes home remedy the only care at hand. Laura and Mary burn their fingers on Pa's new-cast bullets. The family's careful laying-in of meat, butter, cheese and vegetables for winter also reflects how near the frontier lived to want, though no one goes hungry in this book.

• Chapter 11, "Harvest"

  Charley, stung all over by yellow jackets, is packed in mud and sheets and given herb tea for his fever by Ma and Aunt Polly.

  Nursing Caregiving Pain Fever Infection
• Chapter 3, "The Long Rifle"

  The girls burn their fingers touching the bright bullets Pa has just cast.

  Pain

Creative Prompts

• Classroom

  Make a chart of Ma's week (wash, iron, mend, churn, clean, bake, rest) and draw what Laura might be doing to help on each day.

• Fiction

  Tell the story of the night of the two bears from Jack the bulldog's point of view.

• Classroom

  Make butter by shaking cream in a jar, as Laura and Mary watched Ma churn it, and describe how it changes.

• Dialogue

  Write what Laura and Mary might say to each other in bed the night after Laura slapped Mary, once they have both said sorry.

Further Reading

• Farmer Boy, Laura Ingalls Wilder

• Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography, Laura Ingalls Wilder, ed. Pamela Smith Hill

  Wilder's original adult memoir, from which the Little House books grew.

• Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Writer's Life, Pamela Smith Hill

• Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder, Caroline Fraser

• The Little House Cookbook, Barbara M. Walker