Farmer Boy, by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Laura Ingalls Wilder based all her fiction on her own experiences of frontier life in 19th century America, with the exception of Farmer Boy, which describes her husband’s growing up on a farm in New York State. Despite the fact that Farmer Boy is put together from Almanzo’s memories, the novel is vividly realised and carries the same personal and intimate tone as Laura’s other novels.

Farmer Boy (1933) is the second in the Little House series of autobiographical novels by Laura Ingalls Wilder. It is slightly unusual in that it is the only book in the series of nine novels that does not concern itself with Laura’s growing up. All the Little House novels follow in chronological order Laura’s progression from young child to married woman, except for Farmer Boy. For some reason, after publishing Little House in the Big Woods in 1932, Wilder decided to write a childhood novel about her husband, Almanzo Wilder.

Wilder would never return to the theme of her husband’s childhood, writing and publishing Little House on the Prairie ( 1935) straight after Farmer Boy, and continuing the series with novels like On the Banks of Plum Creek ( 1937) and Little Town on the Prairie (1941). The First Four Years, a manuscript that Wilder put away and never completed, was published posthumously. It seems that the failure of this manuscript dampened the author’s confidence as a writer, as no other novels were written.

A World Where Everything is Made by Hand

Reading Farmer Boy makes it seem clear that, had she wanted to, Wilder could have developed her husband’s growing up into a further series. Almanzo Wilder would eventually appear as an adult in later novels like The Long Winter (1940) and These Happy Golden Years (1943).

Wilder shows her characteristic delight in describing food, cooking, chores, farm work and the popular amusements of the day. The many descriptions of ice-cream making, freshly baked sweet pumpkin pies and other delicious fare give a palpable sense of a mid 19th century American kitchen in full production. It’s obvious from Wilder’s penchant for sensory descriptions – smells, tastes, weather, the changing seasons, the personalities and comforts of animals – that she was also a canny listener to her husband’s childhood stories. She brings Almanzo’s memories of farming life in the 1860s wonderfully to life, allowing the reader to step back in time before the onset of the modern industrial economy. This is a world where everything is laboriously made by hand, and where waste is abhorred and the humble creations of home are highly prized and valued. Work in Farmer Boy is frequently long and physically demanding, with none of the modern conveniences we take for granted today, yet the rewards of making your own living are deeply satisfying.

There is not much of a plot in Farmer Boy. The novel basically describes the farm and domestic life of the four Wilder children, with a focus on Almanzo, the youngest of the brood who is almost nine years of age. The other children are the wonderfully named Royal, who is thirteen, Eliza Jane, who is twelve, and ten year old Alice. The novel is full of details unknown to modern day readers, like the work of the cobbler, the trade of the tin-peddler, with his wide array of tin goods, and scary encounters with bears when foraging for berries. Wilder plumps her novel full with sweet and happy details of farm and town life, making Farmer Boy as rich and rewarding as one of the freshly baked loaves that it frequently describes.

Farmer Boy is such a delightful and surprising success (considering that, unlike Wilder’s other novels, she didn’t rely on her personal experiences for the story), that it is a mystery she never returned to the theme again. After this 1933 novel, Wilder would carry on her story from where Little House in the Big Woods left off, and never stray from that literary path again. That seems a shame, and a bit puzzling: why did she feel exhausted as a writer after the failure of her manuscript The First Four Years? No matter, modern readers are lucky to have this one-off novel of a skilfully re-imagined past.

Farmer Boy, by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Published by Harper Trophy. ISBN: 978-0-06-440003-9