I'm Gretchen Rubin and this is A Little Happier.

Pessahai often mentioned I'm a super fan of children's literature,

and one of my very favorite authors is, of course,

Lorengel's Wilder. In fact, Happier at Home's conclusion,

which I think in all modesty is one of the best things I've ever written in my entire life,

centers on the last few sentences from her book, Little House and the Big Woods.

But in addition to the Little House books, which I have read countless times,

I've read many books by and about Lorengel's Wilder.

I read Caroline Frazier's biography Prairie Fires.

I've read Pioneer Girl. That was the autobiography written by Lorengel's Wilder that

preceded the Little House books. And I also read Little House in the Ozarks,

which is the collection of the pieces that Wilder wrote for regional newspapers and magazines.

In her short pieces, I found much that interested me, and I was particularly struck by one paragraph.

Lorengel's Wilder writes,

We are so overwhelmed with things these days that our lives are all more or less cluttered.

I believe it is this, rather than a shortness of time,

that gives us that feeling of hurry and almost of helplessness.

Everyone is hurrying and usually just a little late. Notice the faces of the people who

rush past on the streets or on our country roads. They nearly all have a strained, harassed look,

and anyone you meet will tell you there is no time for anything anymore.

Does that sound familiar?

Well, take note. She wrote this in 1924, when she lived on a farm in a rural part of the Ozarks

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