How Much Do You Know About Mary?
-
January 10, 1865, in Pepin, Wisconsin. This is the setting for The Little House in the Big Woods.
-
Amelia
-
Blue. Laura’s ribbons were pink.
-
Nettie
-
Mary was so frightened she couldn’t move, so Laura dragged her over the wood-box.
-
A nine-patch quilt
-
She said that Carrie could have her beads. Laura wanted to keep the beads she found for herself, but she couldn’t let Mary be better than she was, so she gave them to Carrie too.
-
“We are country girls.”
-
A book, a pair of blue mittens, and a dark blue coat.
-
We don’t know. Laura called it scarlet fever, initially, but in By the Shores of Silver Lake, she labeled it “brain fever.” Only recently, some scholars have suggested that Mary had meningoencephalitis, caused by a virus that attacks the brain and is typically spread by ticks and mosquitoes.
-
Yes. She made the beds and washed the dishes and cared for her younger sisters. She also sewed and knitted.
-
A rag rug.
-
“Oh no, Grace. I like to hold you, even though you are a big three year old girl.”
-
The 23rd Psalm
-
“Highland Mary”
-
In a red pocketbook under the bed.
-
Mr. Edwards
-
A twenty-dollar bill–the equivalent of more than $1,000 today. He put it in her lap and no one noticed until she stood up after he left. It was quite a lot of money then, but they couldn’t return it because they never saw him again.
-
Fried blackbirds. The birds had destroyed the corn crop.
-
A lamp mat for her mother, a handkerchief for her father, bracelets for Laura and Carrie, and a doll bed for Grace.
-
Blanche
-
On her visit home — the last one before Laura’s wedding.
-
The real Mary never married. Only on the TV show did she have a husband.
-
She never read them. Mary died in 1928, four years before Laura published Little House in the Big Woods.