Little House

"When the fiddle had stopped singing Laura called out softly, 'What are the days of auld lang syne, Pa?'

'They are the days of a long time ago, Laura,'

Pa said. 'Go to sleep now.'

But Laura lay awake a little while, listening to Pa's fiddle softly playing and to the lonely sound of the wind in the Big Woods. She looked at Pa sitting on the bench by the hearth, the fire-light gleaming on his brown hair and beard and glistening on the honey-brown fiddle. She looked at Ma, gently rocking and knitting.

She thought to herself, 'This is now.'

She was glad that the cosy house, and Pa and Ma and the firelight and music, were now. They could not be forgotten, she thought, because now is now. It can never be a long time ago."

-from Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Photograph: Two dear friends on my old street in Flossmoor, a long time ago