"One day in the very last of the winter Pa said to Ma, "Seeing you don't object, I've decided to go see the West. I've had an offer for this place, and we can sell it now for as much as we're ever likely to get, enough to give us a start in a new country."
"Oh, Charles, must we go now?" Ma said. The weather was so cold and the snug house was so comfortable.
"If we are going this year, we must go now," said Pa. "We can't get across the Mississippi after the ice breaks.".....
(So) Everything from the little house was in wagon, except the beds and tables and chairs. They did not need to take these, because Pa could always make new ones."
Little House on the Prairie
Chapter 1, Going West
By Laura Ingalls Wilder
For the past couple of springs, I've taken my little gal on a
pilgrimage up to Kansas to visit the Little House on the Prairie site. There, just off an unassuming ribbon of highway in land that is still fairly rural, sits the remains of Pa's well and a replica little house and wagon. When I first saw the wagon, with my adult eyes, I was amazed at the size of it. Because, well, it was tiny. Comparable to the storage space in my Honda, Pilot, which I can stuff to the gills just packing for a craft show alone. I can't imagine having to pack everything important to me, both practical and sentimental, in a tiny space like that. But Ma Ingalls did, and she did it several times over her life.
A recent antique mall find, an old pin cushion doll. Perhaps she was something special to someone long ago?
If anything can be learned from Ma and her traveling regimes, it's 'pack light.' She didn't seem to be overly sentimental about much. Her must-haves to put in the wagon after her cookware and clothes and supplies were probably the family Bible and of course, the china shepherdess.
That little shepherdess, with no real function aside from looking pretty, seems to have been Ma's one little luxury.
It's interesting to wonder about what it was about this simple little piece of china that Ma adored so. What would make her tote it from the big woods to the prairie of Kansas, north to the prairie of Minnesota and then finally west to the Dakotas. Perhaps, through this little shepherdess, we see that Ma was a little sentimental. And that she liked pretty things. And that she could find little ways to bring some beauty and finery into her life, no matter if she was literally living in a hole dug into a creek bed or some little rickety shanty.
Two of my most favorite little dolls, made by Christine Crocker. They'd be in my wagon!
Today, most of us anyway, don't live in a situation where we'd need to be able to pack all we own in the back of a wagon and leave the rest abandoned, with no sentimentality. If you're anything like me, you delight in the pursuit of constantly looking for that next treasure. Of making little collections out of things that are not the least bit useful, although are very pretty.
I think if we can learn anything from Ma's gypsy ways, its that the little fripperies we collect aren't really what is important. A beautiful life can be made just as easily with a happy family, no matter where you are.
But then again, if you find something you really love, and would be willing to tote across the forbidden landscapes, you must always love it and take care of it and appreciate it. Even if you only have just one little pretty thing, it will always be your little pretty thing, and its the love and importance you place on it that makes it so.
In an essence--- its quality, not quantity.
Thanks, Ma!
Here's a little snapshop of what I've been working on this afternoon. Sort of an ode to the bearded man :) I have one of my own! This little mug shows a knitting girl and a bearded guy that says "Bearded Boys Love Crafty Girls."
