The Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder are filled with many family hardships. Though readers feel each of these differently, there is something particularly jarring about Mary’s blindness. Not only does it seem to come from nowhere, appearing at the beginning of By the Shores of Silver Lake after such a happy conclusion to On the Banks of Plum Creek, but it also proves to be about the only hardship the Ingalls family cannot fully remedy. As we learn, Mary does not get her eyesight back, and her life is thus fundamentally altered.
Mary becomes more reserved, loses her chance of becoming a teacher, and becomes permanently dependent on her parents and then later on her sisters. Although over the course of the rest of the series, we see Mary go off to college, learn to read braille, and find peace with her lot, we the readers are still left feeling sad for Mary. She must have suffered greatly, and in a different way, so, too, must have Laura.
Their relationship changes forever after Mary becomes blind. They stop being childhood playmates and embrace very different paths. Nevertheless, they do not stop loving each other and sacrificing for each other. We see this in the way that Laura steps up to become a teacher in Mary’s place, saves money to put toward Mary’s education, and—most especially—in how Laura becomes Mary’s eyes.
A Language Lesson
Let’s join Laura in one of her first attempts at being Mary’s eyes by classifying and diagramming the following sentences. Some of these are Laura’s words exactly from By the Shores of Silver Lake; others have been adapted. If you are unfamiliar with this type of language exercise, take a look at this blog series here where I break it down in detail.
Final Thoughts
In this particular moment in Laura’s life, we see the blossoming of her worldview, one that is ever focused on seeing the True, the Good, and the Beautiful. Hidden as they sometimes are, she nevertheless knows that they are always present, always waiting to be contemplated and enjoyed. She knows that blindness, true blindness, is more than an ailment of the eyes such as Mary suffers. It is an ailment of the soul, and she earnestly seeks to heal that more damaging blindness she fears for her sister.
Therein lies another of Laura’s many lessons: Imagination opens the window of the soul and lets the True, the Good, and the Beautiful stream through. Happily, Mary welcomes that lesson in time, for in These Happy Golden Years, during a visit home from college, she tells Laura, “I never see things so well with anyone else.” Indeed, many of us feel the same way about Laura.
Images courtesy of Wiki Commons