Ma was so quiet and gentle that she never made any noise, but now the whole house was listening for her. The house was empty and still, with Ma gone. Or similarly simple descriptions of the girls waiting for their mother to come home: Her descriptions of scenery are gorgeous, of course but I love the tiny sentences that tell so much, like this one when eight-year-old Mary and seven-year-old Laura are confronted by a wild herd of cattle:

It's easy to get so stuck on the subject matter of the stories Wilder tells that we fail to notice her brilliant, deceptively quiet writing. The next time somebody's bitchin' at me, I'm going to preach some Little House to them. What must be done is best done cheerfully.' Word, Pa. Oh, Ma, you're so tough.Īnd Pa, when he says to Laura, 'We must do the best we can, Laura, and not grumble. Ma keeping the family together and strong while Charles is gone, making money to make up for their lost wheat, or when blizzards come through and he's missing. They go to church for one Christmas, and see an actual Christmas tree, and Laura gets a fur cape and muff that blows away Nellie Oleson's. It just warms my heart when they have these sweet, simple holidays but are just so truly happy to be together (and alive, cough, Charles). And I could skip around with my cow and my faithful dog Jack (and not my stick in the mud sister Mary) and hope my crazy, adventure-loving parents don't kill us all. And be outside for FOUR DAYS with nothing to eat but the children's Christmas candy.'Īll that yelling aside, this is the reason (not Tolkien) that I want to live in a hill.

'And by the way, Caroline, Pa doesn't always know what's best, so seriously do not let him leave when it might blizzard. Listen to those freakin' Norwegians, will you? 'Grasshopper weather' isn't just some cutesy foreign term for, 'Gee, it's warm,' it means that zillions of grasshoppers are going to take over the world!!!

To the point where I wanted to grab Pa and yell, 'Do you see? What can happen? With little research and no family to rely on, this new way of life you're trying out, riding high on the hog after that wheat crop comes through, can do to you? Because there's no wheat, Pa! Only grasshoppers. There were some bumps in the road, but oh boy, we have some major battles for survival in Plum Creek. When Ma and Pa packed up the kiddos and left the Big Woods because there were too many people, less land and game to go around, I thought a little bit to myself, Um.Pa, did we think through this completely? Are you sure? Are we safe? But Pa is supposed to be an example of Great American Spirit. Good grief, as an adult and as a parent, have I grown too practical to read and completely enjoy these books?

On the banks of plum creek