We are almost done reading aloud the classic book Laddie by Gene Stratton-Porter, my three littles and I! They are ages 12, 11, and 7. This book has antiquated language so my kids haven’t been overly thrilled with it. It’s one of those books that you have to chew and digest instead of a twaddle book, where you can get what’s in there with half-hearted reading or listening. Truth be told, they groan every time I have announced that I am going to read it aloud. But once we get into a chapter, and hear the main character, Little Sister, talk about how much she hates being cooped up in the schoolhouse when she would rather be outdoors, I think they start to relate. 🙂 I think they also like the descriptions of family life with the different events. Although they haven’t admitted it, I think they like the different stories about farm life, like the fate of one of the geese.

This book has soooo  many good quotes about whole family roles, true love, and courtship. In other words, it shows what it looks like to find happiness as a husband and father, a wife and mother, a son or a daughter. It also has quotes about how to use leisure time wisely, the importance of education and the classics, loving your neighbor, and being God-honoring. If all my children go about courtship, like Laddie did, I will be sooo over the moon! This book also has great quotes about  marriage and shows a vision of a great marriage. I love how Little Sister’s parents are so in love with each other. And that they have worked so hard to create a beautiful homestead and farm where everyone wants to be. The story shows that they have succeeded with this because one of the older sisters decides that she would rather have her wedding in her childhood home than anywhere else.

I am looking forward to our online discussion on Wed. March 29 at 7 PM Utah time. If didn’t already comment on this blog post here when I first announced the discussion, then please comment on this blog post in the comments section below. I am compiling a list of people interested in the discussion, and I will email you the link to the online classroom so you can  join me for the discussion.

Here are some of my favorite quotes:

“Do you know that being a stranger is the hardest thing that can happen to any one in all this world?”
― Gene Stratton-Porter, Laddie: A True Blue Story

“Is he well educated?”
“Yes, I think so, as far as he’s gone,” I answered. “Of course he will go on being educated every day of his life, same as father. He says it is all rot about ‘finishing’ your education. You never do. You learn more important things each day…”
― Gene Stratton-Porter, Laddie: A True Blue Story

“When it grew cold enough to shut the doors, and have fire at night, first thing after supper all of us helped clear the table, then we took our slates and books and learned our lessons for the next day, and then father lined us against the wall, all in a row from Laddie down, and he pronounced words—easy ones that divided into syllables nicely, for me, harder for May, and so up until I might sit down. For Laddie, May and Leon he used the geography, the Bible, Roland’s history, the Christian Advocate, and the Agriculturist. My, but he had them so they could spell! After that, as memory tests, all of us recited our reading lesson for the next day, especially the poetry pieces. I knew most of them, from hearing the big folks repeat them so often and practice the proper way to read them. I could do “Rienzi’s Address to the Romans,” “Casablanca,” “Gray’s Elegy,” or “Mark Antony’s Speech,” but best of all, I liked “Lines to a Water-fowl.” When he was tired, if it were not bedtime yet, all of us, boys too, sewed rags for carpet and rugs. Laddie braided corn husks for the kitchen and outside door mats, and they were pretty, and “very useful too,” like the dog that got his head patted in McGuffey’s Second.”
― Gene Stratton-Porter, Laddie: A True Blue Story

“Secrets with Laddie were the greatest joy in life. He was so big and so handsome. He was so much nicer than any one else in our family, or among our friends, that to share his secrets, run his errands, and love him blindly was the greatest happiness. Sometimes I disobeyed father and mother; I minded Laddie like his right hand”
― Gene Stratton-Porter, Laddie: A True Blue Story

“Father said man was born a praying animal, and no matter how wicked he was, if he had an accident, or saw he had just got to die, he cried aloud to the Lord for help and mercy before he knew what he was doing.”
― Gene Stratton-Porter, Laddie: A True Blue Story

“Being dead was one thing, getting ready for a wedding another.”
― Gene Stratton-Porter, Laddie: A True Blue Story

“Turn her loose out of doors; give her good books, and leave her alone. You won’t be disappointed in the woman who evolves.”
― Gene Stratton-Porter, Laddie; a true blue story

“A lady must be born of unsullied blood for at least three generations, on each side of her house. Think for a minute about where you are going to fulfil that condition. Then she must be gentle by nature, and rearing. She must know all there is to learn from books, have wide experience to cover all emergencies, she must be steeped in social graces, and diplomatic by nature. She must rise unruffled to any emergency, never wound, never offend, always help and heal, she must be perfect in deportment, virtue, wifehood and motherhood. She must be graceful, pleasing and beautiful. She must have much leisure to perfect herself in learning, graces and arts—”
― Gene Stratton-Porter, Laddie: A True Blue Story

“Maybe after all it’s a good thing to tell people about their meanness and give them a stirring up once in a while.”
― Gene Stratton-Porter, Laddie: A True Blue Story

“Had I life to live over, I see now where I could do more; but neighbour, believe me, my highest aspiration is to be a clean, thrifty housekeeper, a bountiful cook, a faithful wife, a sympathetic mother. That is life work for any woman, and to be a good woman is the greatest thing on earth. Never mind about the ladies; if you can honestly say of me, she is a good woman, you have paid me the highest possible tribute.”
― Gene Stratton-Porter, Laddie: A True Blue Story

“I was ignorant at first of bookish subjects, but in his atmosphere, if one were no student, and didn’t even try to keep up, or forge ahead, they would absorb much through association.”
― Gene Stratton-Porter, Laddie: A True Blue Story

“This is a house of worship. The Lord may be drawing her in His own way. It is for us to help Him by being kind and making her welcome.”
― Gene Stratton-Porter, Laddie: A True Blue Story

“They knew so well how it felt, that they kept one bed in the boys’ room, and any man who came at dusk got his supper, to sleep there, and his breakfast, and there never was anything to pay. The girls always scolded dreadfully about the extra washing, but mother said she slept on sheets when she came out, and some one washed them.”
― Gene Stratton-Porter, Laddie: A True Blue Story

“My mother was the best and most beautiful woman who ever lived. She was clean, and good, and always helped “the poor and needy who cluster round your door,” like it says in the poetry piece, and there never could have been a reason why God would want a woman to suffer herself, when she went flying on horseback even dark nights through rain or snow, to doctor other people’s pain, and when she gave away things like she did—why, I’ve seen her take a big piece of meat from the barrel, and a sack of meal, and heaps of apples and potatoes to carry to Mandy Thomas—when she gave away food by the wagonload at a time, God couldn’t have wanted her to be hungry, and yet she was that very minute almost crying for food;”
― Gene Stratton-Porter, Laddie: A True Blue Story

See what I mean? I could you not love this book if you give it a chance! So come join us to talk about and enjoy its loveliness even more! See you Wed. March 29 at 7 PM Utah time!