When the fiddle had stopped singing Laura called out softly, "What are 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 was glad that the cozy house, and Pa and Ma and the firelight and the music, were now. They could not be forgotten, she thought, because now is now. It can never be a long time ago.

The world seems a lonesome place when mother has passed away and only memories of her are left.

A long time ago, when all the grandfathers and grandmothers of today were little boys and little girls or very small babies, or perhaps not even born, Pa and Ma and Mary and Laura and Baby Carrie left their little house in the Big Woods of Wisconsin.

The trouble with organizing a thing is that pretty soon folks get to paying more attention to the organization than to what they're organized for.

Remember well, and bear in mind, a constant friend is hard to find.

No rich man can walk through the eye of a needle.

Many a good beginning makes a bad ending.