Jul 6, 2026 · 16 min · 6 segments
Episode 193 Little Town on the Prairie ch. 19 "Whirl of Gaiety" Join us this week as we discuss Commentators on the Acts, to be on one's mettle, "Rock Me to Sleep, Mother," "The Good Old Way," a New…
Pa with his fiddle and Jared Fuller with his accordion made such music that the schoolhouse and the school crowd seemed to dissolve into an enchantment.
Everyone had said surely nothing could be better than that musical program, but Pa said mysteriously, you wait and see.
It was a nice church, even though it was so new, it still looked raw, and yet there was no bell on the belfry, nor any finish on the board walls.
The pulpit and the long benches with boxed-in ends were raw lumber too, but it was all fresh and clean-smelling.
With Sunday school and morning church, Sunday dinner and dishes, going to church again in the evening, every Sunday fairly flew past.
There was again school on Monday, with the rising excitement of waiting for the Friday literary.
laura carefully brushed her school dress and brushed and combed and braided her hair and curled her bangs afresh ma put on her second best and pa trimmed his whiskers and donned his sunday clothes in the very center of one table was a pig standing roasted bread and holding in its mouth a beautiful red apple how much pork you got there laura heard a man ask as he passed back his plate for more and the man who was carving it answered while he cut a thick slice can't say exactly but it weighed a good forty pounds dressed laura did not care so much for the fruit pies and the cake but she did hope that some of the pork might be left when it was her turn to go to the table the tables were finally cleared ida and laura washed and wiped the dishes again and the women sorted them out and packed them into baskets with whatever food was left it was a compliment to ma's cooking that not a bite of pumpkin pie nor a spoonful of the beans remained i'd washed the baking-pan and the milk-pan laura wiped them and ma crowded them into her basket there was to be a debate resolved that lincoln was a greater man than washington laura was eager to hear it for lawyer barnes was leading the affirmative and his argument would be good Mary's teacher had written, praising Mary highly, the letter, too, said that Mary could send home an example of her beadwork if she could buy the beads and perhaps needed a special slate to write on.
And later they would, excuse me, and perhaps later they would wish her to own another kind of special slate that could write Braille, a kind of writing that the blind could read with their finger.
together laura and carrie bought a german silver thimble for ma a blue silk necktie for pa and at laura's place was a blue and gilt book tennyson's poems pa and ma did not guess she was not surprised they had brought from iowa a book for carrie too and kept it hidden it was stories of the moorland quietly the day went by after the letter was read once laura said if only mary were here how she would enjoy the literaries mrs jarley called each figure by its name touched it with a pointer and each one moved jerkily daniel boone raised and lowered a gun Queen Elizabeth put on and took off a tall gilt hat.
While wet in the world, Laura said, she slipped the envelope carefully with a hairpin and drew out a folded sheet of gilt-edged note paper.
She unfolded it and read aloud, Ben M. Woodworth requests the pleasure of your company at his home, Saturday evening, January 28th, supper at eight o'clock.
Pa with his fiddle and Jared Fuller with his accordion made such music that the schoolhouse and the school crowd seemed to dissolve into an enchantment.
Everyone had said surely nothing could be better than that musical program, but Pa said mysteriously, you wait and see.
It was a nice church, even though it was so new, it still looked raw, and yet there was no bell on the belfry, nor any finish on the board walls.
The pulpit and the long benches with boxed-in ends were raw lumber too, but it was all fresh and clean-smelling.
With Sunday school and morning church, Sunday dinner and dishes, going to church again in the evening, every Sunday fairly flew past.
There was again school on Monday, with the rising excitement of waiting for the Friday literary.
laura carefully brushed her school dress and brushed and combed and braided her hair and curled her bangs afresh ma put on her second best and pa trimmed his whiskers and donned his sunday clothes in the very center of one table was a pig standing roasted bread and holding in its mouth a beautiful red apple how much pork you got there laura heard a man ask as he passed back his plate for more and the man who was carving it answered while he cut a thick slice can't say exactly but it weighed a good forty pounds dressed laura did not care so much for the fruit pies and the cake but she did hope that some of the pork might be left when it was her turn to go to the table the tables were finally cleared ida and laura washed and wiped the dishes again and the women sorted them out and packed them into baskets with whatever food was left it was a compliment to ma's cooking that not a bite of pumpkin pie nor a spoonful of the beans remained i'd washed the baking-pan and the milk-pan laura wiped them and ma crowded them into her basket there was to be a debate resolved that lincoln was a greater man than washington laura was eager to hear it for lawyer barnes was leading the affirmative and his argument would be good Mary's teacher had written, praising Mary highly, the letter, too, said that Mary could send home an example of her beadwork if she could buy the beads and perhaps needed a special slate to write on.
And later they would, excuse me, and perhaps later they would wish her to own another kind of special slate that could write Braille, a kind of writing that the blind could read with their finger.
together laura and carrie bought a german silver thimble for ma a blue silk necktie for pa and at laura's place was a blue and gilt book tennyson's poems pa and ma did not guess she was not surprised they had brought from iowa a book for carrie too and kept it hidden it was stories of the moorland quietly the day went by after the letter was read once laura said if only mary were here how she would enjoy the literaries mrs jarley called each figure by its name touched it with a pointer and each one moved jerkily daniel boone raised and lowered a gun Queen Elizabeth put on and took off a tall gilt hat.
While wet in the world, Laura said, she slipped the envelope carefully with a hairpin and drew out a folded sheet of gilt-edged note paper.
She unfolded it and read aloud, Ben M. Woodworth requests the pleasure of your company at his home, Saturday evening, January 28th, supper at eight o'clock.
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