A family travels from the big woods of Wisconsin to a new home on the prairie, where they build a house, meet neighboring Indians, sink a well, and fight a prairie fire. A family travels from the big woods of Wisconsin to a new home on the prairie, where they build a house, meet neighboring Indians, build a well, and fight a prairie fire.

Pa's homestead thrives, Laura gets her first job in town, blackbirds eat the corn and oats crops, Mary goes to college, and Laura gets into trouble at school, but becomes a certified school teacher.

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.

Laura and her family move to Minnesota where they live in a dugout until a new house is built and face misfortunes caused by flood, blizzard, and grasshoppers.

Story of farm life before farms were mechanized and electrified. "This farmer boy lived in northern New York about 1868. School days, beginning when he was nine years old, work on the farm and some innocent pleasures rounded out his life." Wis. bul.