A Healer’s Geste

Little Hunters

We recently finished listening to Little House in the Big Woods on CD. The boys listened to it several times over while playing in their bedroom or while going to sleep at night and now Hans is reading the book for himself. I was surprised how big a hit it was with them, because I always thought it was a “girl book.” After all, my mom read it aloud when I was young and I liked it in a very girlish sort of way. I loved the descriptions of Ma not getting her dress wet and of the girls playing with their dolls and of Mary and Laura fighting about their respective hair colors.

However, the book is chock-full of boy-appeal. Coyotes, bears, panthers, guns, and hard work permeate the book. There are just as many “Pa stories” as “Ma stories,” if not more; it is, after all, Laura’s and not Mary’s version of the story. I was Mary, not Laura, when I was younger.

Anyway, just now Hans tromped into the house after tromping around the yard with a stick, swung up a toy bear as he came to me, and said in a very gruff and tough voice, “Well, Mom, I got some bear meat for you to cook for dinner. I just hunted and I brought you this black bear so you could cook it right up for dinner. It’s been a long time since we’ve had bear meat!” I exclaimed with joy over this provision, but did double-check that he had already skinned the bear. That, I told him, is a boy job. He assured me he had skinned the bear and he just brought me the meat all ready to cook.

And now I can hear the boys plotting about going wolf-hunting.