While Laura Ingalls grows up in a little house on the western prairie, Almanzo Wilder is living on a big farm in New York State. Almanzo and his brother and sisters help with the summer planting and fall harvest. In winter there is wood to be chopped and great slabs of ice to be cut from the river and stored. Almanzo wishes for just one thing--his very own horse--but he must prove that he is ready for such a big responsibility.

In 1880's Dakota Territory, teenager Laura Ingalls struggles to earn her teaching certificate, says good-bye to her sister Mary when she leaves home to attend a school for the blind, and shyly begins a romance with Almanzo Wilder.