I Asked My Mother for Help

Here's why:  long, long ago (I think it was last summer), I started reading On the Banks of Plum Creek to my boys; and yesterday evening I wanted to finish it.  Why did it take me such a horrendously long time to read that book to them?  Because, quite simply, I cried through the whole book.  Is that ridiculous or what?  But wow, at this stage of life, I can't read the Little House books and not identify with Ma in the hardships she faced.  It moves me to tears every time I read about, for example, Pa needing to walk hundreds of miles away to find work so the family wouldn't starve when the grasshoppers devoured all their crops and Ma and the girls don't hear from him for ever so long and finally the letter comes and Ma starts to read it and...by this point, I'm crying so much that I can't even keep reading.  I feel silly for admitting my weakness in this area, but at least I'm not the only one.  My blogging friend Patti is the same way, so that makes two of us.  ;-)

So, after seeing the book on the we're-reading-this-now shelf for too many months and knowing that it would be nice to finish it before this school year ends (which is next week for us, by the way), yesterday I convinced myself to summon all my courage and exert my highest degree of self-control and read more in that book.  I managed fine for a little while.  True, Pa had gone to town (all because he wanted tobacco, for shame!), and a blizzard came, and they didn't know where he was, and Ma sat up all night in the rocking chair with the lantern in the window, and Laura woke up in the night and peeked through the hole in the floor from her second-story bedroom, and the snow blew through the cracks around the doors and windows and put a fine layer of snow on the floors and beds.  But I was doing fine.  No tears.  Even when I read about Carrie's tears because she was missing her daddy.

However, when the FOURTH day of the blizzard rolled around and I knew that surely Pa would be coming home in the next chapter and I knew just as surely that my restraint wouldn't be able to handle that homecoming without showing my emotions, I conveniently discovered that it was time for lunch and I needed to stop reading right away.  "Maybe we'll finish it later this evening!" I told the boys as they begged for another chapter.  But already I was plotting how I could get away with NOT reading it to them.

At the supper table, I made an announcement after the boys had finished eating and had left the table, "I need someone to finish reading On the Banks of Plum Creek tonight.  Can either of you (looking at Jeff and then at my mother) do it?"  My dear mother eagerly volunteered for the job, since reading to her grandchildren is something she enjoys very much.  Before too long, she was settled on the couch, with little bodies snuggled around her, impatient to hear the end of the story.

 Would you believe, she was able to read the rest of the book without crying!  I thought I got my emotional nature, my ability to cry at any little thing, from her!  How did she do it?!  :)

Meanwhile, I was in the kitchen doing the nightly clean-up and, even though I had secretly read ahead to know how it all ended, I was still getting a huge lump in my throat and watery eyes as I listened to her reading to them.  Not only is there the moment when Pa, looking like a bear in his buffalo coat, first comes into the house, but also there's the time when he's telling them what happened and he says that he ate the oysters crackers to keep alive and then, even worse, he ate the Christmas candy and Mary and Laura say it's OK, knowing that they won't have any presents at all for Christmas but not wanting any because THEY HAVE THEIR PA HOME WITH THEM...  Oh, dear me.  I just can't stay unemotional at moments like these.

But one thing I can do:  be especially grateful that I have my mother around to help me out when I need her!!!  :)

Now that we've finally finished On the Banks of Plum Creek, I have a new dilemma.  Should I even attempt to start the next book in the series?  I guess I'll have to skim through it and see how many near-tragedies there are.  Any wildfires?  Attacks from Indians?  Anybody get lost in a blizzard?  Any sickness that almost kills them?  Any sad goodbyes?  Any chance at all that I could read the whole book and not shed a single tear?  :)