A Papoose

We have been reading through the Little House on the Prairie series this year and just finished book 2.  Yeah...we are a little behind what I scheduled but that's okay.  Last week we were finishing up Little House on the Prairie and we read the following passage which had all of us in total stitches!

Then came a mother riding, with a baby in a basket on each side of her pony. 
Laura looked straight into the bright eyes of the little baby nearer her.  Only its small head showed above the basket's rim.  Its hair was as black as a crow and its eyes were black as night when no stars shine. 
Those black eyes looked deep into Laura's eyes and she looked deep down into the blackness of that little baby's eyes, and she wanted that one little baby.
"Pa," she said, "get me that little Indian baby!"
"Hush Laura!" Pa told her sternly.
The little baby was going by.  It's head turned and its eyes kept looking into Laura's eyes.
"Oh, I want it!  I want it!"  Laura begged.  The baby was going farther and farther away, but it did not stop looking back at Laura.  "It wants to stay with me," Laura begged.  "Please, Pa, please!"
"Hush, Laura,"  Pa said.  "The Indian woman wants to keep her baby."
"Oh Pa!"  Laura pleaded, and then she began to cry.  It was shameful to cry, but she couldn't help it.  The little Indian baby was gone.  She knew she would never see it any more. 
Ma said she had never heard of such a thing.  "For shame, Laura," she said, but Laura could not stop crying.  "Why on earth do you want an Indian baby, of all things!"  Ma asked her.
"Its eyes are so black,"  Laura sobbed.  She could not say what she meant.

During the whole entire book Laura asks her Ma & Pa if she will ever see a papoose, which is an Indian baby.  So when she FINALLY sees one she is completely mesmerized and just loses all control.  The girls had me read this passage over and over and over again!  I loved every minute of it!  I love to watch the girls fall in love with a book/passage.  I love that they understand how literature can reach your soul and evoke such incredible feelings.  We have started On the Banks of Plum Creek and have had another instance of just pure enjoyment when we read the chapter where the cow fell through the roof.  Hilarious!  We died laughing....again!