Backroads: Bella Goes to Mansfield

Bella took her Christmas trip this weekend. She's a big fan of the Little House book, and like any fan, knows that Laura Ingalls Wilder lived in the Missouri Ozarks in the tiny town of Mansfield.


This is her little white farmhouse. It is an absolute jewel. I could barely breathe when I was inside, I was loving it so much. It's preserved today exactly the way it was when Mrs. Wilder died in 1957. Exquisite.


A tiny front porch with low white rails, a gray-painted floor, beadboard ceiling, and a view of the sloping green front lawn shaded by pecan trees.


No interior photos allowed (a shame!), but a detail of the upstairs window. The all-white guest bedroom and its organdy curtains. Oh, there were ruffled and tied-back organdy curtains in the dining room as well. Shelves of depression glass. Green tins in the kitchen. Chenille spreads on the beds.


Laura and Almanzo were supposed to "retire" from working their farm in this fairy-tale stone cottage built on their property by their successful daughter Rose. They lasted eight years before getting homesick for the farmhouse and moving back. But. This house is a Sears and Roebuck mail-order plan house. Tiled windowsills. Little arched alcoves with shelves. An unbelievable tiled arched shower. The kitchen sink drainboard! The drawers built into closets! So human and comfortable. Warm yellow walls. And I love the brick terrace.


We rented a tiny cottage across the highway from the museum. Unprepossessing from the outside, but actually quite lovely inside, clean and fresh and well-furnished. And a lovely deck overlooking a pond with a Muscovy duck. We picked up a supper picnic and ate outside in the evening air.


After dark we sat out listening to an owl, until finally he swooped down in front of us in a flash of pale feathers and was gone.

A truly unexpected bonus with our rental was the presence of the ruins of a Renaissance Fair. Apparently the previous owner had tried to run one of these for a few years, and the set pieces were hanging around decomposing.


Fortunately not *right* where we parked.


The next morning we did a little low-key spelunking in a magnificent cave on the property. A perfect limestone tunnel with a stream running out of it--we were told it runs 1.8 miles underground, but we only made it to the first few turns.


We topped that off with a hamburger stop and then an afternoon at a water park. Fun for Bella, fun for us!