Laura Ingalls Wilder

Ma had been very fashionable, before she married Pa, and a dressmaker had made her clothes.

Laura knew then that she was not a little girl any more. Now she was alone; she must take care of herself. When you must do that, then you do it and you are grown up. Laura was not very big, but she was almost thirteen years old, and no one was there to depend on. Pa and Jack had gone, and Ma needed help to take care of Mary and the little girls, and somehow to get them all safely to the west on a train.

We had no choice. Sadness was a dangerous as panthers and bears. the wilderness needs your whole attention.

Persons appear to us according to the light we throw upon them from our own minds. -Laura Ingalls Wilder, author (1867-1957)

The snug log house looked just as it always had. It did not seem to know they were going away.

So they all went away from the little log house. The shutters were over the windows, so the little house could not see them go. It stayed there inside the log fence, behind the two big oak trees that in the summertime had made green roofs for Mary and Laura to play under. And that was the last of the little house

Cattle did not have to be led to water. They came eagerly to the trough and drank while Almanzo pumped, then they hurried back to the warm barns, and each went to its own place. Each cow turned into her own stall and put her head between her own stanchions. They never made a mistake.Whether this was because they had more sense than horses, or because they had so little sense that they did everything by habit, Father did not know.

One day in the woods he met an Indian. They stood in the wet, cold woods and looked at each other, and they could not talk because they did not know each other's words.

So they all went away from the little log house. The shutters were over the windows, so the little house could not see them go. It stayed there inside the log fence, behind the two big oak trees that in the summertime had made green roofs for Mary and Laura to play under. And that was the last of the little house.

There was no time to lose, no time to waste in rest or play. The life of the earth comes up with a rush in the springtime.

You can fill a glass full to the brim with milk, and fill another glass of the same size brim full of popcorn, and then you can put all the popcorn kernel by kernel into the milk, and the milk will not run over. You cannot do this with bread. Popcorn and milk are the only two things that will go into the same place.

One day in the woods he met an Indian. They stood in the wet, cold woods and looked at each other, and they could not talk because they did not know each other's words

The true way to live is to enjoy every moment as it passes, and surely it is in the everyday things around us that the beauty of life lies.

Mary was bigger than Laura, and she had a rag doll named Nettie. Laura had only a corncob wrapped in a handkerchief, but it was a good doll. It was named Susan. It wasn't Susan's fault that she was only a corncob.Sometimes Mary let Laura hold Nettie, but she only did it when Susan couldn't see.

It is the sweet, simple things of life which are the real ones after all.

Remember me with smiles and laughter, for that is how I will remember you all. If you can only remember me with tears, then don't remember me at all.

Every job is good if you do your best and work hard. A man who works hard stinks only to the ones that have nothing to do but smell.

Suffering passes, while love is eternal. That's a gift that you have received from God. Don't waste it.