Pa carries young Laura to the window at night to see wolves standing in front of the house.

Pa kills two deer and hangs them over the oak tree branches outside the log house.

A bear attacks the family's pig and Pa uses his gun to scare the bear away.

Uncle Henry comes to the homestead and helps Pa slaughter the family's pig for the winter food supply.

Mary and Laura play with the pig's blown-up bladder like a balloon after butchering day is done.

Pa shoots a bear that is attacking the pig at the start of the first snowfall of winter.

Uncle Peter, Aunt Eliza, and their children arrive by bobsled to celebrate Christmas with the Ingalls family.

Laura receives her first real rag doll in her Christmas stocking and names her Charlotte.

Laura turns five years old and Pa gives her five gentle birthday spanks and one extra to grow on.

Ma and Laura realize in the dark that they have approached a bear in the barn instead of the family cow.

Pa returns home the morning after his town trip, bringing candy and calico fabric for the family.

The Ingalls family travels by sled to Grandpa's house to help with maple sugaring and attend a dance.

The Ingalls family makes the seven-mile trip to the town of Pepin to trade furs at the general store.

Laura slaps Mary for boasting about her golden hair, and Pa whips Laura with a strap before comforting her.

Pa returns from a night deer-hunting trip completely empty-handed, and the girls are glad when they learn why.

The Ingalls family lives in a log house deep in the Wisconsin woods, where Pa hunts and protects the homestead through every season. Life revolves around preparing food for winter, and Pa's skill with a gun is essential for defending the family's animals from bears and other threats. Christmas brings visiting relatives and the gift of Laura's first real doll, while spring delivers both a frightening bear encounter and the joy of maple sugaring at Grandpa's house. Summer and fall offer a long-anticipated trip to the town of Pepin and the harder lessons of sibling rivalry and discipline. The year ends quietly but meaningfully when Pa returns from a night hunt empty-handed, changed by the beauty of the wild animals he could not bring himself to shoot.

The headline events of the Ingalls family's year in the Wisconsin woods.

After the daily household chores are finished, Ma makes paper dolls for Mary and Laura to play with.

Pa plays mad dog, chasing the girls so fiercely that Laura screams and drags Mary over the wood-box to escape.

Pa tells the story of Grandpa outrunning a screaming panther on horseback and shooting it dead at the door.

Pa secretly spends his evenings carving an intricate wooden shelf as a Christmas gift for Ma.

Uncle Peter tells the story of dog Prince saving Aunt Eliza from a panther lurking near the spring.

Pa plays his fiddle on Christmas Eve to calm the children's excitement and sing them to sleep.

Pa tells the story of Grandpa's sons sneaking out on the Sabbath and accidentally sled-riding directly into a hog.

Ma pulls the leather latch-string through the door at bedtime to keep the bear out while Pa is still away.

Pa returns from Grandpa's with maple syrup and explains to the girls what a sugar snow means for the sap.

Pa announces Grandpa's invitation for maple sugaring and a dance, and Ma says she will wear her green delaine.

Laura watches Aunt Ruby and Aunt Docia lace their corsets and put on their finest dresses for the dance.

Pa spots a deer with her fawn in the spring woods and tells the girls he will not hunt baby animals.

The storekeeper in Pepin calls Mary a pretty girl but ignores Laura entirely, leaving Laura feeling hurt.

Pa discovers a bee tree on Uncle Henry's land and returns home carrying pails overflowing with honey.

Ma braids straw into hats for the whole family while Laura learns to braid a smaller hat for Charlotte.

Behind the biggest moments of the Ingalls family's year lie smaller but equally meaningful events that define the rhythm of frontier life. Pa fills winter evenings with vivid stories of panther attacks and his own grandfather's mischief, while Ma finds gentle ways to bring play and warmth to their isolated days. Christmas preparations show how much care each family member puts into giving something special to others, and the extended family's stories add danger and humor to the holiday gathering. Spring and summer bring Pa's tender refusal to hunt baby animals and a trip to town where Laura feels the sting of being overlooked beside her golden-haired sister. By autumn, Ma's quiet art of braiding straw into useful hats for the whole family reminds Laura that skill and beauty are woven together even on the frontier.

The stories, preparations, and quiet milestones that shaped Laura's year.

Mary has a proper rag doll named Nettie to play with while Laura has only a corncob wrapped in a handkerchief.

Pa and Uncle Henry render lard from the pig while Ma makes headcheese and sausage from the remaining parts.

Each evening the girls help Pa mold hot bullets by the fire, burning their fingers but saying nothing.

Pa tells the story of his own boyhood disobedience, a ripped-off toenail running in the dark, and a thrashing from his father.

Laura receives Charlotte on Christmas morning and is urged by Ma to share the precious new doll with her cousins.

Laura can no longer bear sitting still through a quiet Sunday and starts running and playing until Pa catches her.

Pa plays Pop Goes the Weasel on the fiddle and the delighted girls cannot catch him doing the string-popping trick.

Grandma is pulled away from the maple syrup to dance and then beats Uncle George in a jigging contest.

Everyone at the dance pours hot maple syrup over packed snow to make soft candy, then stirs pans into maple sugar.

Laura tears her pocket by cramming it full of lake pebbles, and Ma scolds her for being so greedy.

Laura sees the town of Pepin for the first time and can barely breathe at the sight of so many houses.

Cousin Charley cries wolf three times during the harvest and is stung all over by yellow jackets when no one believes him.

Pa declares he is all for progress after watching hired threshing machines complete the harvest far faster than any man could by hand.

Pa confesses he was so entranced watching a bear in the moonlight during his hunt that he forgot he had a gun.

Laura stays up watching Pa fiddle and Ma knit by firelight in the warm house, thinking simply this is now.

Laura's earliest memories are shaped by discoveries both small and profound, beginning with the realization that her sister has a real doll while she makes do with a corncob. Pa's storytelling delivers hard lessons about disobedience and consequence, while hands-on chores like molding bullets teach the girls their vital place in the family's survival. The dance at Grandpa's house opens a wider world of music, sweet maple candy on snow, and a wild uncle Laura initially fears but comes to love. As the year goes on, Laura's spirited nature leads her to break the Sabbath, strike her sister, and pocket too many pebbles at the lakeshore, each moment teaching her something about herself. The year closes with Pa's wonder-struck confession about the animals he watched instead of hunted, and Laura's own quiet revelation as she sits by the fire feeling perfectly content in the present moment.