In Little House on the Prairie, Pa took Mary and Laura on a walk down the trail near their to the abandoned Indian camp. The girls were delighted to explore, but I’m pretty sure Laura was pretending she was an Indian princess.
When they first settled in the area, It amazed me that apparently Pa didn’t know the trail was active. Aren’t homesteaders supposed to know all that good stuff about tracking, footprints, and Indian trails? Maybe he just wanted the land, so he told the family it was old. Maybe he didn’t know. But, after living there awhile, the Indians had sadly moved off their land, and Pa was free to explore the area.
They saw holes left by tent poles and charcoal remains of fire pits. Pa read the tracks of large moccasins, small moccasins, bare toes, rabbits, birds and wolves for his two little girls. He had them examine the bones around the fire to determine that the women had cooked rabbit for dinner. A homeschooling father in all his glory, turning an adventure into an education.
When Laura finds a blue bead, the educational moment ceased, and a treasure hunt began. Living in such simplicity, those beads were a prize. I wonder if Laura dreamed of that moment for years to come, the thrill of bending over to pick up yet another bit of brightly colored glass. When they were through, Pa tied Laura’s beads in one corner of his handkerchief and Mary’s in another. Since the girls rarely owned anything of their own, I loved Pa’s wisdom in keeping them separate. At home they unwrapped them to show Ma.
Laura remembered, “The beads were even prettier than they had been in the Indian camp.” (p. 179)
What happened next I still have a hard time sorting through in my mind. Mary, the Good Daughter, gives her beads to Baby Carrie. Laura felt the pressure to be good and gives her treasure away, too. They strung all the beads together into a necklace for a baby. When the baby began pulling at the strand, Ma put it away in the trunk for when she grew up. For the rest of her life, Laura felt naughty for wanting those beads.
I don’t understand why Ma didn’t stress sharing, instead of just giving. The girls had so little, and the beads brought no joy to the baby. She deprived two girls of a joy that would have brightened their prairie life by giving a treasure to someone incapable of enjoying it.
The assignment for the prairie primer was to make a beaded necklace. Like Ma, I’ve made some mistakes in parenting, micro-managing projects has been one of them. A type A person, I like things done correctly, on schedule, and according to directions. I like to tell them exactly how to do it.
It took me awhile to realize nurturing creativity is just as important as nurturing the ability to follow directions.
For this project, I said, “Make a beaded necklace.” I let Rebekah know what types of beads I had and the types of beading I could teach her. I offered to run to the craft store if she wanted to learn something more complicated.
She went for the simple plastic pony beads and yarn. I didn’t say anything. Ya’ know, I sure don’t want her to write a book about her disappointing bead experience years from now.
I was surprised to see her book propped open in the tub of beads. When I asked why, she said, “I only want to use the colors that Mary and Laura found.”
Yea, she totally owned that project.
She’s learning to multi-task, a necessary skill for a woman.
It was beautiful, it was simple, and it was done according to her standards. I was happy she finished. She had fun creating. Years from now, when she reads Little House on the Prairie with her kids, and they get to the part of Laura’s bad bead memories, I hope she speaks of her beaded necklace and her mother with fondness.
Prairie Momma 