Little Girls On the Prairie

It was ever thus. Modern American womanhood -- especially those girls of the 1970s -- will always discern the Nellies of the world from the Lauras, based on events that occurred more than a century before "Mean Girls." Wilder invented Nellie Oleson for the purposes of her historical fiction; scholars have generally agreed that Nellie was an amalgam of three little girls who lived in Walnut Grove circa 1875, one of whom belonged to the Owens family, which owned a store. Nellie is known across cultures, and watch out: I'll show you, Laura Ingalls.

Erbes, 23, who with her mother co-directs the pageant, is wearing a calico-print prairie dress and Ray-Ban sunglasses. She gathers the young contestants under a party tent in the middle of the field, which provides some relief from the heat. She explains the rules. They sit on the ground and look up at her.

Each girl will be called up to the microphone so she can say her name and where she's from, and then she will have to answer a trivia question from the Wilder books. Eager parents get their digital camcorders ready. Bored brothers are fidgeting beyond belief. The girls look nervous and shy.

"Contestant No. 51," Erbes calls out.

A tiny girl in pigtails gets up and steps over the others.

"What's your name?"

"Gracelyn."

"Here's your question. What was Pa's nickname for Laura?"

"Um, Half-Pint?"

"That's right, but does anyone know what the full nickname was?"

"Yeah."

"What?"

"Half-Pint of sweet cider all drunk up!!"

Then Courtney, Lilliana, Ellie, Cassidy, McKenzie and more. There's even a freckled, red-haired Laura from Ohio dressed as Laura, with a slate board and a tin lunch pail (and in fact she will win). The girls have come from near and far -- California, Illinois, Canada.