And The Changes Keep On Comin'

The girls and I have been reading the Little House books since last year. There are nine altogether, and we read a little bit every day. We are on the sixth book, which is called The Long Winter. These books are so very heart-warming, and they make you appreciate not only the conveniences of modern life, but the people you call "family", as well. On one hand, we are thankful for what we have, such as insulated walls and running water!, but on the other, these precious stories cause one to long for the simpler times. Times when children wouldn't dare talk back... times when a Christmas gift of a stick of peppermint and a shiny penny would cause such delight in a child that they could stare at their treasure ALL DAY, and remember it for years to come!... times when a cornhusk doll and a pig's-bladder-ball were sufficient toys for children lucky enough to have them... times when a man would rather thresh wheat in a barn in the middle of winter than hire the fancy new threshing machine to do the work, because if he wasn't threshing he'd be sitting around twiddling his thumbs!
Almanzo asked Father why he did not hire the machine that did the threshing. Three men had brought it into the country last fall, and Father had gone to see it. It would thresh a man's whole grain crop in a few days.
"That's a lazy man's way to thresh," Father said. "Haste makes waste, but a lazy man'd rather get his work done fast than do it himself. That machine chews up the straw till its not fit to feed stock, and it scatters grain around and wastes it.
"All it saves is time, son. And what good is time, with nothing to do? You want to sit around and twiddle your thumbs, all these stormy winter days?"
"No!" said Almanzo. He had enough of that, on Sundays.
-From Farmer Boy (Book 2)
A couple of days ago, we read something that really struck me. The Ingalls family has claimed a homestead on the open prairie of South Dakota. An ancient Indian (they were still Indians when these books were written, not Native Americans yet) comes into a store in the little town and warns the men (who were gathered to "get the news", like at a modern-day Starbucks) that this will be a particularly long and difficult winter. Pa Ingalls decides to move his family to their little building in town where they will be able to get supplies, rather than trying to weather it in the tin-walled claim shanty. Unfortunately, though they were definitely warmer and safer in town, the supplies ran low anyway, because there were so many blizzards that the train couldn't make it through to restock the stores. By Christmas they were out of coal, kerosene, flour, and butter (which were the bare necesseties). Every day they ate potatoes and "brown bread" that Ma figured out how to make with some wheat Pa was able to procure. Here is their take on the situation:
"If only I had some grease I could fix some kind of a light," Ma considered. "We didn't lack for light when I was a girl, before this newfangled kerosene was ever heard of."
"That's so," said Pa. "These times are too progressive. Everything changes too fast. Railroads and telegraph and kerosene and coal stoves- they're good things to have but the trouble is, folk get to depend on 'em."
-From The Long Winter (Book 6)
Ha! Talk about depending on 'em. What would we do without our "newfangled" vehicles and cell phones and computers and electricity and running water and store-bought meat? If I was left alone with a cow and a bucket, I'm pretty sure I couldn't figure out how to get milk!