I didn’t really expect to write much about the politics or
ideology of the Little House books, as I normally avoid these
things, but it’s turned out to interest me more than I’d
expected. Ideas about liberty, independence, and responsbility
are not only deeply embedded in the stories and lives of the
characters; they are also made explicit to some extent as they
are passed down from parents to children. Wilder doubly passes
them on to us. That’s what got me so interested in the final
scenes of Farmer Boy. A similar episode from the Ingalls family
occurs at the beginning of The Long Winter, one I think is worth
unpacking on the record if only so I remember it myself. At the
end of the summer before the long winter, Laura is helping Pa
make hay. It’s her first time helping on the farm, and while
they’re mowing Laura and Pa find what will be the first in a
series of harbingers of a hard winter: a muskrat house with
especially thick walls. Pa explains to Laura that the thickness
of the walls indicates the harshne