How Laura Learned to Write

After they’re all but forced out of Indian Territory, the Ingalls family moves to Minnesota, almost retracing their steps back home to Wisconsin. They trade their team for some land and a sod hut, and so On the Banks of Plum Creek begins. The weather and natural events are not kind to them here, and Pa has great difficulty making a go of it. Worse, by the beginning of By the Shores of Silver Lake, scarlet fever has ravaged the family and left Laura’s older sister blind.

“On that dreadful morning when Mary could not see even sunshine full in her eyes, Pa had said that Laura must see for her,” and see she did. The family begins to go on new adventures; Pa goes west to Dakota by himself to work on the railroad, and Ma and the girls follow by train—a terrifying new experience. Laura must see the train for Mary: “‘Both sides of the car are windows, close together.’ Laura said now. ‘Every window is one big sheet of glass, and even the strips of wood between the windows shine like glass, they are so polished.’” She describes the red velvet seats and the people, where the sunshine falls and what the countryside looks like going by so fast.

This is how Laura learns to explain so patiently and clearly every shape, object, and movement that makes up the natural and man-made world—how she can tell us just what it’s like when Pa uses a hollow log to smoke venison, or how he builds a log cabin. After the family arrives at Silver Lake, Laura describes one of the most impressive things of all: how a railroad grade is built. Pa, who works in the company store, takes her for a walk one day to see where the men are really working. Laura is amazed at the clockwork-like movements of dozens of men and teams going in circles, digging and depositing dirt, minding the foreman, over and over across the whole West.

It comes naturally to Laura to see out loud for Mary, but so do some fancy, more literary tricks that her sister is not quite ready for. On their way from an older settlement to a brand-new one, Laura describes the landscape as their wagon heads toward new territory.

Beyond the low river the grassy land was low curve behind curve and the road looked like a short hook.

“The road pushes against the grassy land and breaks off short. And that’s the end of it,” said Laura.

“It can’t be,” Mary objected. “The road goes all the way to Silver Lake.”

“It know it does,” Laura answered.

“Well, then I don’t think you ought to say things like that,” Mary told her gently. “We should always be careful to say exactly what we mean.”

“I was saying what I meant,” Laura protested. But she could not explain. There were so many ways of seeing things and so many ways of saying them.

There is true and there is true; the road ends and the road goes on to Silver Lake. Laura is learning valuable lessons here, and passing them on to us just as she passed on the lessons on how to make head cheese and milk a cow. These writerly lessons are ones I entirely missed as a child but they continue throughout By the Shores of Silver Lake and beyond, until Mary leaves home.