This is my first blog entry for three weeks. To those who are following, please accept my apologies. I’ve been grading again, and last weekend was Easter Break.
I was able to read The First Four Years yesterday. Wilder fans dispute whether the book should be included as one of the Little House Books. It does pick up, more or less, where These Happy Golden Years leaves off. However, most scholars don’t include it with the other eight children’s novels, despite the attempts of HarperCollins to sell it that way. Several things clearly separate First Four from the other books:
1) The novel’s voice is completely different than the other eight. This is probably because it was written to be an adult novel, not children’s fiction. Pamela Smith Hill suggests that Laura deliberately adopted a more adult point of view in order to address an adult audience.
2) In this work, Almanzo is called Manly, the name that Laura actually used for her husband, instead of Almanzo, which is used in all of the other Little House books.
3) In First Four, Laura questions the wisdom of Manly making a living as a farmer. They agree to try farming for three years, and if they were unsuccessful, Manly would seek a new profession. A “year of grace” is added to make the four years of the title.
The First Four Years was not published during Laura’s lifetime. It appears that she never showed the manuscript to her daughter Rose Wilder Lane. It was sent to Lane with others of Laura’s belongings when Laura died in 1957. Lane never told anyone about it, and her heir Roger Lea MacBride found it among her possessions after her death in 1968. He moved to get it published. The manuscript was not edited, by Lane or by others, so it is nowhere near as polished or engaging as the Little House books.
I knew all of this when I was doing Wilder research several years ago, but I had to refresh my memory when I reread the book yesterday. For more information about the book, you can see Pamela Smith Hill, Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Writer’s Life (Pierre: South Dakota State Historical Society, 2007), chapter 8, and John E. Miller, Becoming Laura Ingalls Wilder: The Woman Behind the Legend (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1998), p. 240-243.
What I can say about the depiction of religion in The First Four Years is, regrettably, very little. Sunday buggy rides and sleigh rides are mentioned in the initial chapter. Other than that, Sunday isn’t mentioned anywhere else. There is no mention of Christianity, the church, or any type of religious practice anywhere in the book. This is the case even though Laura and Manly are described as going through some of the most crushing events of their lives: crop failures, financial troubles, debilitating disease, the death of their only son, and the loss of their house and all their possessions to fire.
One must always be careful about making an argument from silence. One part of my mind asserts that it is difficult to believe that Christianity played much of a meaningful part in Wilder’s life if it is not mentioned in connection with these kinds of tragic events. There is no questioning of God’s acts here, no expressions of “Why would God destroy our wheat crop repeatedly?” or “Why would He take our son?” or “Why would He take almost everything we own?” (The chapel speaker here at Trinity Christian College spoke on the Biblical book of Job this morning, so perhaps this is close to my mind right now.) There are also no statements of trust in God’s provision, or expressions that they go forward in reliance on His strength.
However, another part reminds me that there may be other reasons for the omission that have less to do with Wilder’s beliefs and more to do with how she approached writing. Perhaps she was just too matter-of-fact in this draft to describe any mental interactions with God’s providence. Perhaps she wanted to show the isolation of the characters as they fought against the difficult realities they encountered. Perhaps she thought that religion should be kept out of an adult novel.
Thanks much for reading. As always, I welcome comments.
The Faith of Laura Ingalls Wilder 
When The First Four Years was finally published and marketed it was placed in the shelving right next to the Little House books. The very minute it hit the bookshelf I had my nose buried in every page. I was totally mesmerized by Laura’s strength of ideas and beliefs about freedom and independence. She and Manly discussed how to live their life together; and she had an equal say which was unique in a marriage in the 1880s. The suffragettes had nearly 35 years to go before getting to vote. She and Manly both saw themselves as equal to being free and independent. I have always admired her because she was so sensible. One had to be thrifty, resourceful, hardworking, and conscientious to survive a lonely life on the prairie with a husband and a baby, and maybe only a few friends. She didn’t have as much of a fun, happy, social life after she got married. When I was eight The First Four Years was my favourite book; and still is one of my top favourites.
LikeLike