The Man Of The Place

The Man of the Place and I were sitting cozily by the fire.  The evening lamp

was lighted and the day's papers and the late magazines were scattered over

the table. But though we each held in our hands our favorite publications, we

were not reading. We were grumbling about the work we had to do and saying

all the things usually said at such times.

The natural stone fireplace in the parlor room at Rocky Ridge farm.

Mansfield, Missouri

"People use to have time to live and enjoy themselves, but there is no

time anymore for anything but work, work, work."

Oh, we threshed it all over as everyone does when they get that kind of

grouch, and then we sat in silence.  I was wishing I had lived altogether in

those good old days when people had time for things they wanted to do.

The Man of the Place

Almanzo Wilder

(circa 1894)

What the Man of the Place was thinking, I do not know; but I was quite

surprised at the point at which he had arrived, when he remarked out of silence,

in rather a meek voice, "I never realized how much work my father did.

Why, one winter he sorted 500 bushels of potatoes after supper by lantern

light. He sold them for $1.50 a bushel in the spring, too, but he must have got

blamed tired of sorting potatoes down cellar every night until he had

 handled more than 500 bushel of them."

"What did your mother do while your father was sorting potatoes?" I asked.

"Oh, she sewed and knit," said the Man of the Place. She made all our clothes,

coats and pants, undergarments for Father and us boys as well as everything

she and the girls wore, and she knit all our socks and mittens-shag mittens

for the men folks, do you remember, all fuzzy on the outside?

She didn't have time enough in the day to do all the work and so 

she sewed and knit at night."

I looked down at the magazine in my hand and remembered how my

mother was always sewing or knitting by the evening lamp. I realized that

I never had done so except now and then in case of emergency.

But the Man of the Place was still talking.  "Mother did all her sewing by

hand then," he said, "and she spun her own yarn and wove her own cloth.

Father harvested his grain by hand with a sickle and cut his hay with a

scythe.  I do wonder how he ever got it done."

A farmer using a scythe (left) and a grain cradle (right).

 The Growth Of Industrial Art

(1884)

Again we were silent, each busy with our own thoughts. I was counting up

the time I give to club work and lodge work and yes, I'll admit it-politics.

My mother and mother-in-law had none of these, and they do use up a

good many hours. Instead of all this, they took time once in a while

from their day and night working to go visit a neighbor for the day.

"Time to enjoy life!" Well, they did enjoy it, but it couldn't have

been because they had more time.

Why should we need extra time in which to enjoy ourselves?

If we expect to enjoy our life, we will have to learn to be joyful in all of it,

not just at stated intervals when we get time or when we have nothing else to do.

It may well be that it is not our work that is so hard for us as the dread of it

and our often expressed hatred of it.  Perhaps it is our spirit and attitude toward

life, and its conditions that are giving us trouble instead of a shortage of time.

Surely the days and nights are as long as they ever were.

A feeling of pleasure in a task seems to shorten it wonderfully, and it makes

a great difference with the day's work if we get enjoyment from it instead of

looking for all our pleasure altogether apart from it, as seems to be the habit 

 of mind we are more and more growing into.

We find in the goods we buy, from farm implements to clothing, that the

work of making them is carelessly and slightingly done. Many carpenters,

blacksmiths, shoemakers, garment makers, and farm hands do not care how

their work is done just so quitting time and the paycheck comes.

Farmers are no different except that they must give more attention to how

a thing is done because it is the result only that brings them any return.

It seems that many workmen take no pride or pleasure in their work.

It is perhaps partly a result of machine-made goods, but it would be much better

for us all if we could be more interested in the work of our hands, if we could

get back more of the attitude of our mothers toward their handmade garments

and of our fathers' pride in their own workmanship.

There is an old maxim which I have not heard in years nor thought of in

a long time. "To sweep a room as to God's laws, makes that, and the action fine."

We need more of that spirit toward our work.

Almanzo's mother busy at her loom.

An illustration by Garth Williams.

From the Little House book,

"Farmer Boy"

(1933)

Laura Ingalls Wilder

As I thought of my neighbors and myself, it seemed to me that we were all

slighting our work to get time for a joyride of one kind or another.

Not that I object to joyriding! The more the merrier, but I'm hoping for a

change of mind that will carry the joy into the work as well as the play.

"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," surely, and it makes Jill also

very dull indeed; but all play and no work would make hoboes of us.

So let's enjoy the work we must do to be respectable.

The Man of the Place had evidently kept right on thinking of the work

his father use to do.  "Oh, well," he said as he rose and lighted the lantern

preparatory to making his late round to see that everything was all right at

the barns. "I guess we're not having such a hard time after all. It depends

a good deal on how you look at it."

"Yes," said I, "Oh yes, indeed! It depends a good deal on how you look at it."

Almanzo Wilder (center) and Laura (right) entertaining some friends

at their farm, Rocky Ridge, in Mansfield, Missouri.

(circa 1940's)

"The Man of the Place"

(January 1920)

Laura Ingalls Wilder

(1867-1957)

Prolific American writer and pioneer girl

From the book, Little House In The Ozarks

A Laura Ingalls Wilder Sampler

The Rediscovered Writings

Laura Ingalls Wilder

Edited by Stephen W. Hines

Guideposts Edition

(1991)