These Happy Golden Years

These Happy Golden Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder

At the end of Little Town on the Prairie Laura has earned her teaching certificate, and so as These Happy Golden Years opens, she’s off to teach school for the first time.  She’s understandably nervous, but as it turns out, she’s nervous for all the wrong reasons.  While she does a fine job of teaching school, the real challenge is boarding with the Brewsters.  Luckily, Almanzo Wilder picks her up each weekend and brings her home to her parents, braving even the worst cold and blizzards to help her.

Stubborn and at least a little oblivious, Laura is not yet won over by his kindness.  In fact, she’s just about ready to die of embarrassment when anyone suggests that he’s her beau.  Especially when a student says it within Almanzo’s hearing.  (Truth:  There’s no way Almanzo would be embarrassed himself, he’s angling to be her beau.)

When she finishes working at her first school, Laura resolves that she’ll never see Almanzo again.  But whether it’s being older and wiser (dismissing her refusal to see him as a childish fit of temper) or just sheer persistence, Almanzo convinces her to go sleigh riding with him on Sundays.  Soon their Sunday drives are a standing date and the main part of their courtship.

Throughout the book, Laura continues to earn money at various jobs so that she can help her parents and her sister Mary.  When she has time she still attends the local school with her friends.  But almost without her knowing, those rides with Almanzo become the most important part of her week.

Needless to say this book is far more focused on a romantic relationship than any of the others in the series.  For that reason, it may not be as interesting to the smallest listeners or readers, but it may start to appeal to tweens.  No worries about it getting too racy, the first time the couple holds hands is the night Almanzo proposes, and they manage a grand total three kisses by the end of the book.  Whether Laura decided to keep any longing and passion out of the book for personal reasons, or deliberately kept things sweet for her readers or whether they really did have the most chaste dispassionate romance on the books, well, that I don’t know.

You Should Know:Laura is not for women’s rights nor does she want the vote, but she does refuse to promise to obey at her wedding.
Racism – Ma still says that if Laura doesn’t wear her sunbonnet she’ll be as brown as an Indian.
Sex, Nudity, Dating – Handholding, right there on the cover.  Laura has packed underclothes for her stay in the town where she teaches.  Laura tries to tell her friends that Mr. Wilder is not her beau. Some of the other boys and girls ride in sleighs meant for two.  There’s a description of Laura getting dressed and all the underpinnings required.  Before her wedding she and Ma buy chemises, drawers, petticoats, and nightgowns. Almanzo puts his arm across the back of the buggy (clearly what they used to do before the yawn and stretch).  Laura gets asked to go riding by several young men.  Girls and boys go walking together and get engaged. There’s a proposal.  There are several kisses. There is a wedding. A boy’s clothes are removed by a cyclone.
Profanity – “darned”,
Death, Violence and Gore – Mrs. Brewster slaps her little boys hands when he misbehaves. A boy uses his knife to pin a girl’s braid to the desk.  Mrs. Brewster spends awhile ranting while waving around a butcher knife in the middle of the night.  Laura recalls the cattle that nearly died from their breath freezing and suffocating them.  Laura’s Uncle Tom tells of a trip out west where he was in a cavern that had lots of bones and skulls.  Soldiers burn cabins and kill oxen.   People carry guns. Two boys and their mules are carried off by a cyclone.  One boy returns, but the other and the mules are found dead, every bone in their body broken.
Drugs, Alcohol and Smoking – None.
Frightening or Intense Things – Laura must listen to a woman say unkind things about her.  There are thunderstorms and cyclones.