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.
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.
Nine-year-old Almanzo lives with his family on a big farm in New York State at the end of the nineteenth century. He raises his own two calves, helps cut ice and shear sheep, and longs for the day he can have his own colt.
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.