Almanzo and Me

You know it’s going to happen. From the moment that baby girl has her first cry, the intellectual truth is, some day she will be a woman like you. Yet how surprising to catch a glimpse of the sixteen-year-old in front of you, laughing at a text from a friend, when you expect to see the fourth grader, waist long hair, ever bent over a paperback from the stack of Little House books on her nightstand.

I never wish to go back in time. Always mindful of Dan’s wistful grandaddy’s warning, “Enjoy ‘em while their little. It’s gone before you know it,” I do my best to savor each age and enjoy where we are, no backward or forward mind trips.

Right now is one such time. After we bought a camp on Mountain View Lake, we had to install a new well and septic. I selflessly volunteered to stay the last three weeks of summer to water the grass Dan planted over the system. He and Alex left to go back to work on the farm until school starts. My daughter Emelyn, stayed to keep me company.

It’s a lazy time. Emelyn reads late into the night and I let her sleep in. I’m quite content to spend my days puttering on small improvements and paddling my kayak, but to reward her for giving up civilization, I search for sites to take little excursions to avoid teenage doldrums. We’ve done Lake Placid and our favorite creperie café, discovered another French Café called “The Left Bank” in Saranac Lake. But now, I’m afraid I’m already running out of entertainments for her.

I get a stack of brochures Dan picked up from the tourist bureau to riffle through in search of ideas. “Oh my goodness, Em.” I show her one. I’m dumbfounded. How could we have been here all summer and not known about this! “The Almanzo Wilder Farm is right outside Malone. We have to go!” A little light of fourth grade excitement sparkles in my girl’s dark brown eyes. “Would you like that?” I read to her from the “Visit Malone” brochure. “It’s the actual farmhouse where Almanzo from Farmer Boy lived in.”

The cool teen visage lifts momentarily as Em says, “Yes. We should go.”

We drive along the Salmon River to the village of Malone and pass our little shopping areas then head East into the country, through apple orchards and farmland. A simple sign points us into the parking area. We walk with excitement to meet our tour guide at the visitor’s center. The property is shaded by a maple tree, older than the house itself, so big around I imagine Almanzo must have perched in its limbs. Apple trees we learn were original to the Wilder orchard are heavy with fruit, waiting for Mother to put into turnovers.

Our guide is a retirement-age gentleman, dressed in period farm clothes, his look completed with suspenders and straw hat. We learn that he returns to Malone every summer to tell the Wilder’s stories to visitors from far and wide. We push a pin into a map sprinkled all over with pins from visitors, and mark Tabernacle, NJ as home.

Room after room, we cross the same floorboards the Wilders trod, see Mother’s loom and spinning wheel, the washtub in the kitchen where the family successively bathed themselves on Saturday nights. Even Almanzo’s rope bed is in place.

Next, we are ushered into the beautiful parlor with its white and gold wallpaper and horsehair furniture, too slick not to slide off of. “Do any of you know what this might be?” Mr. Guide points to a blackish spot marring the wall. It’s been ages since I read the books. I haven’t the foggiest idea. The room is quiet. “Didn’t anyone in this tour read the book?” He says to our small assembly.

I look questioning at Em. “Do you know what it is?” I whisper. She nods. Mr. Guide calls-out my quiet teen.

“It’s where Almanzo threw the blacking brush and put a splotch on the parlor wall.”

“That is correct, young lady. During renovations, the workers found the patch of Wallpaper Eliza Jane covered the splotch with. And do you know why he threw the blacking brush?”

“He got angry at Eliza Jane for bossing him.” Em answers gently. I smile in amazement at my Laura Ingalls Wilder scholar. For a brief moment, time is suspended. I’m feeling pride in both the little girl with freckles below glasses perched on her nose and the sweet young lady who’s tolerating my solo company these three weeks.

The tour guide proceeds to pepper her with questions up to the end of our visit. “You can see the stalls in the barn for the calves Almanzo trained. And what were the names of the calves?” He looks again at Em.

“Star and Bright.” I think she beams just a little.

Alone outside, we go to the pumphouse and test the hand pump, watching the water we bring up pass through the sluice to the trough. I might be more thrilled with using Almanzo’s pump than Em. “He touched this pump handle every day!” I break my self-imposed rule and spend a brief moment wistfully wishing I could have made this excursion with my Little House expert long ago. The water in the sluice takes that thought to the barn, and Em and I take ourselves to the parking lot. “Did you like getting to see the real landscape of the book?”

“I did Mom. Thanks.”

Your Turn: On a scale of one to ten, rate yourself on how well you live thankfully in the present. If you are less than perfect, do you return to the past, or look forward to the future more?