Stella's Place

“The real things haven’t changed. It is still best to be honest and truthful; to make the most of what we have; to be happy with simple pleasures; and have courage when things go wrong.”   — Laura Ingalls Wilder 

This story is from the book, Little House On the Prairie, written in 1935, the third book in the Little House series.

About the book, according to Wikipedia:

The book tells about the months the Ingalls family spent on the prairie of Kansas, around the town of Independence, Kansas. At the beginning of this story, Pa Ingalls decides to sell the house in the Big Woods of Wisconsin, and move the family, via covered wagon to the Indian Territory near Independence, Kansas, as there were widely circulating stories that the land (under Osage ownership) would be opened to settlement by homesteaders imminently…

Ma’s fears about American Indians and Laura’s observations at the time of them are contrasted with Pa’s liberal view of them, and all these views are shown side by side with the older Laura’s objective portrayal of the Osage tribe that lived on that land.

At the end of this book, the family is told that the land must be vacated by settlers as it is not legally open to settlement yet, and in 1870 Pa elects to leave the land and move before the Army forcibly requires him to abandon the land.

“Laura was anxious because Christmas was near, and Santa Claus and his reindeer could not travel without snow. Mary was afraid that, even if it snowed, Santa Claus could not find them, so far away in Indian Territory. When they asked Ma about this, she said she didn’t know.”

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