No. 19: On the Banks of Plum Creek

On the Banks of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder

This might be one of the more depressing books in the series (although none of them are really that happy) because after Pa rashly abandons their house in Indian Territory - he trades their wagon and ponies (not Pet and Patty! Laura's favorite! How cruel Pa!) to a Norweigan for his dugout house - basically a house dug out of the ground and covered in sod. A dirt house. Remember their previous house - now abandoned - had glass windows. Anyway, Ma is initially very slightly displeased, but Pa makes a joke and she gets over it. Plum Creek seems like a nice place at first, a creek, tons of plum trees, a place to swim, a wheat field. So Pa starts to get a little crazy and builds a big house on credit (with glass windows, and actual nails, and milled wood rather than logs) purely based on the speculation that his wheat crop will be wildly successful. And he buys Ma a big new stove and a store bought broom (every woman's dream!) although to be fair he also buys her dress fabric. So that is nice.

Anyway, tragedy strikes and a plague of grasshoppers descends on Minnesota and eats every plant for a hundred miles. This is literally one of the worst things I can imagine - maybe a plague of spiders would be worse - but I hate grasshoppers and their disgusting crunchy bodies. I can barely bring myself to read the grasshopper chapters. Anyway, the horrifying bugs eat the wheat, the Ingalls family is destitute. So Pa decides to leave his wife and three young daughters to care for the farm while he goes off to find work. I admire his initiative - especially since he had to walk like 300 miles in worn out boots, but if he hadn't moved his family out of Wisconsin none of this would have happened. Anyway, he finally comes back! And they are happy. But now it is winter and there are terrible blizzards all winter. And Pa almost freezes to death in one (in view of his house - but he couldn't see it for the snow) and he eats all the Christmas candy, but everyone is happy because he isn't dead. Isn't that a happy ending?