Wilder, Laura Ingalls: Fourth of July

Luara, a young girl, is interested in everything and wants to know and understand the whole world.

Carrie, the older sister of Laura, is also a very intellegent girl and they both always stick together.

Mr. Ingalls:

Mr. Ingalls, the father of three daughters, who he loves a lot works very hard together with his wife, to give their family the best life they can.

After the middle of the night, Laura suddenly hears a harsh and unpleasnt sound, which is gunpowder exploding in the night. First Laura doesn´t know what´s going on, but then her father explains that it is the Fourth of July. So they get up and make breakfast. In the morning, it is still the same flowing of the day as always and that is not o.k. for the Fourth of July, because it is a special and they will celebrate it, and not being at home. So the father, Laura and Carrie ask their mother if they can go to the town because there is a kind of celebration. When they come to the village small boys fire crackers, and it is loud and there is smoke everywhere. They don´t like this and so they go into a building, where their father works and rest there for some hours, while their father walks through the town. It is a very high building and so Laura and Carrie can see the whole village and they are very impressed of the happening in the village.

As their father comes back he brings some firecrackers and the bred their mother has made for them. Then they go to the horse races, which start an hour later. On the way they see a man speaking on the top of a platform to a mess of men standing in front of him. He says that they have to be proud of being independent. They have to be proud of their forefathers, who have fought for them. And he says that they have to be proud of being Americans. After that he starts reading the “Decleration of Independence“ and everybody speaks with him, also Laura, Carrie and their father. Then they go to a stand where free lemonade is given to the people. The lemonade tasts very good, because it is made of cool water and it is given much sugar in it. When they all have drunk they go across the trampled grass to the crowd. There are four ponies that come out on the race track. Among them is a gray and a black one which Laura loves immediately so she hopes it will win the race. Her disappointement that the pony hasn´t won the race doesn´t last very long after her favourite hourses have won a buggy race.

After the exciting races, they drink some limonade and go home to tell their mother, what they have done the whole day.

In my view this book shows very well how the Fourth of July was spent by the poor ones in former days and how Laura starts at this special day to think about her independence and what it means to her and the other people.