The Ingalls family packs up their covered wagon and travels from the big woods of Wisconsin to a new home in Kansas Territory, where wide open land stretches as far as the eye can see. On the prairie, they build a house, meet neighboring Indians, build a well, and fight a prairie fire.

Fifteen-year-old Laura learns that living away from home and teaching school can be a bit frightening when most of the students are taller than she is, but every week Almonzo Wilder arrives to take her to her family for the weekend.

The year Almanzo Wilder turned nine (1866) was an important one for the young farm boy in northern New York state.

Ma and the girls follow Pa west by train where they make their home at a rough railroad camp and plan for their own homestead.

After an October blizzard, Laura's family moves from the claim shanty into town for the winter, a winter that an Indian has predicted will be seven months of bad weather.