in Little House in the Big Woods, the Ingalls live in rural squalor, at subsistence levels. Ma has a single ornament, a little china woman – a shepherdess – with a china bonnet, china curls that hang against her china neck, a china dress laced across in front, a pale china apron and little gilt china shoes.
The rapturous description of this chimeric object, a prized possession and an indication of Ma’s classiness, seemed more desirable than anything I ever owned.
