A farmer depends on himself, and the land and the weather. If you’re a farmer, you raise what you eat, you raise what you wear, and you keep warm with wood out of your own timber. You work hard, but you work as you please, and no man can tell you to go or come. You’ll be free and independent, son, on a farm.
They could not be forgotten, she thought, because now is now. It can never be a long time ago.
Our inability to see things that are right before our eyes, until they are pointed out to us, would be amusing if it were not at times so serious. We are coming, I think, to depend too much on being told and shown and taught, instead of using our own eyes and brains and inventive faculties, which are likely to be just as good as any other person’s.
The stars and stripes were fluttering bright against the rain, clear blue overhead, and their minds were saying the words before their ears heard them.
Snow as fine and grainy as sugar covered the windows in and sifted off to the floor and did not melt.
Where’s my little half-pint of sweet cider half drunk up?
Mothers always fuss about the way you eat. You can hardly eat any way that pleases them.
They were cosy and comfortable in their little house made of logs, with the snow drifted around it and the wind crying because it could not get in by the fire.
Where a light can’t live, I know I can’t.
It was muskets that won the Revolution. And don’t forget it was axes, and plows that made this country.- Father Wilder.
He knew you could never teach an animal anything if you struck it, or even shouted at it angrily. He must always be gentle, and quiet, and patient, even when they made mistakes. Star.
Then the sun peeped over the edge of the prairie and the whole world glittered. Every tiniest thing glittered rosy toward the sun and pale blue toward the sky, and all along every blade of grass ran rainbow sparkles.
This is Indian country, isn’t it?” Laura said. “What did we come to their country for, if you don’t like them?
There is good in everything, if only we look for it.
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.
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.
Maybe everything comes out all right, if you keep on trying. Anyway, you have to keep on trying; nothing will come out right if you don’t.
You could buy a suckling pig with it, if you want to. You could raise it, and it would raise a litter of pigs, worth four, five dollars apiece. Or you can trade that half-dollar for lemonade, and drink it up. You do as you want, it’s your money.
These little creatures looked soft as velvet. They had bright round eyes and crinkling noses and wee paws. They popped out of holes in the ground, and stood up to look at Mary and Laura. Their hind legs folded under their haunches, their little paws folded tight to their chests, and they looked exactly like bits of dead wood sticking out of the ground. Only their bright eyes glittered. Mary.
Pa took her hand and comforted it in his big one. He said, “We must do the best we can, Laura, and not grumble. What must be done is best done cheerfully.