Little House on the Prairie Quilt: Block 10

Our first block for "By the Shores of Silver Lake" is a Prairie Queen pattern and one that represents some of the wildlife that Laura saw around Silver Lake in De Smet, South Dakota.  The middle square is from the Little House fabric collection and is a girl (in sunbonnet and dress) running through the prairie among the wild grasses.  Three of the other squares represent the wild birds Laura observed while playing around the lake.  Pa had set up a shanty on the shore of the lake for the family to live in while he was working on building the railroad through town.  Just south of the lake is the Big Slough (pronounced "slew").  A slough is an area of wetland with tall grasses and cattails.  Laura devoted a whole chapter of the book to describe Silver Lake and all the beautiful scenery and wildlife.  She said, "...the sun came up beyond Silver Lake, flooding the sky with wonderful colors while the flocks of wild geese flew dark against them, how thousands of wild ducks almost covered the water...All those birds were feeding among the grasses of the sloughs".  Even though she doesn't specifically mention a pheasant in the chapter, she does mention a prairie hen.  She says, "All kinds of little birds fluttered and flew and twittered balancing in the wind on the tall, bending grass stems, and prairie hens scuttled everywhere."  Prairie hen fabric was hard to find, but pheasants weren't and given that the Ring-necked Pheasant is the state bird of South Dakota, I imagine that one probably existed among the wild birds she saw!  The last square is of wolves.  One evening when Laura and Carrie were out playing around the lake, a large buffalo wolf appeared on one of the shores.  They ran back home as fast as they could but were surprised that the wolf didn't follow them.  The next day, Pa went out to hunt them.  Laura didn't want him to shoot them, because she felt that since they didn't follow her home, they didn't mean any harm.  Pa followed their tracks for over 10 miles and couldn't find them.  He did, however, find the land they would claim for their new homestead!  The surrounding squares represent the blue waters and green grasses of the lake and slough.