The First Four Years

The First Four Years chronicles the first four years of Laura and Almanzo Wilder's marriage on the Dakota prairie in the late 1880s. The narrative opens with a romantic evening buggy ride across the grasslands, starlight reflected in Silver Lake and wild prairie roses scenting the air, setting a mood of youthful love and open possibility.

On a hot August afternoon in 1885, Almanzo, whom Laura calls "Manly," urges her to marry him quickly, before his mother and sister can travel from Minnesota to plan a large church wedding he cannot afford. Laura hesitates. She has always refused to marry a farmer, believing farm life is grueling for women and that farmers are economically exploited by townspeople. Manly counters that farmers are the only truly independent people and proposes a bargain: If he has not made a success of farming within three years, he will quit and do whatever Laura wishes. Drawn by her love of the horses and the wide prairie, Laura agrees.

They marry on August 25 in a brief ceremony at Reverend Brown's homestead. Her parents, Charles ("Pa") and Caroline ("Ma") Ingalls, and her sisters Carrie and Grace see them off, and after dinner with her family, the couple drives to their new home on Manly's tree claim, a government land grant requiring him to plant 10 acres of trees before receiving title. Together they hold two quarter sections, each a 160-acre parcel: the tree claim and a homestead on which Manly has already fulfilled residency requirements. Laura admires the little house, with its combined kitchen-living room, lovingly built pantry, and carpeted bedroom.

Their first harvest disappoints, yielding only 10 bushels of wheat per acre at 50 cents a bushel. Manly remains cheerful, buying two horses and a sulky plow, a riding plow for turning prairie sod, on credit to double his acreage. Laura learns to handle the four-horse team herself. Manly gives her a pony she names Trixy, and on Sundays they sing "Don't Leave the Farm, Boys," reflecting their shared hope. Laura tries selling butter and eggs but finds no market, and invests her final teaching salary in a colt.

Winter arrives with a violent three-day blizzard. Manly, caught at the barn, nearly misses the house on his return, brushing the corner only by chance. A man in town freezes to death, and hundreds of range cattle perish. The couple passes winter quietly with sleigh rides and holiday gatherings, ordering Christmas glassware from the Montgomery Ward catalogue, including an oval bread plate inscribed "Give us this day our daily bread."

In spring, Laura learns she is pregnant. Frequent rains produce magnificent wheat and oats. Manly estimates 40 bushels per acre, and Laura calculates a potential income of $3,000, enough to clear all debts, including chattel mortgages, loans secured by personal property such as livestock and equipment. He buys a McCormick binder, a horse-drawn machine that cuts and binds grain, on installment and begins harvesting. On a still, hot afternoon, the light turns greenish and a hailstorm strikes. In 20 minutes, hailstones as large as hens' eggs pound the wheat flat. The entire crop is destroyed.

Laura learns for the first time that they owe $500 on the house, plus notes on machinery. Manly renegotiates debts, mortgages the homestead for $800, sells their work team, finds a renter for the tree claim, and moves the family to the homestead shanty on August 25, exactly one year after their wedding.

The second year is leaner. Haying is their only crop income. Laura joins Manly in the field, driving a bull rake, a wide horse-drawn plank with teeth used to gather cut hay. On December 5, after a difficult labor attended by Ma and Ma's friend from town, Mrs. Powers, Laura gives birth to an eight-pound girl they name Rose. During a visit to their childless friends the Boasts, Mr. Boast offers his best horse if the Wilders will let him and his wife Ellie keep Rose. Laura refuses instantly. The second year ends with debts still outstanding.

The third year brings worse trouble. Laura hosts a surprise birthday dinner for Manly but catches a severe cold that proves to be diphtheria. Rose is sent safely to Ma's house. Manly then contracts the disease as well, and his bachelor brother Royal comes to nurse them. Ignoring the doctor's warning, Manly works too hard during recovery. One morning his legs go numb to the hips, a partial paralysis resulting from the illness. He improves gradually, but his hands remain clumsy and his legs unreliable.

Unable to work both claims, Manly sells the homestead and they return to the tree claim. Laura's Cousin Peter, who works for a neighboring farmer, reports that his employer, a Republican anxious about a possible Democratic election victory, wants to sell a hundred purebred Shropshire ewes cheaply. Laura sells the colt for $100 and Peter contributes $100 in wages; they buy the flock at two dollars a head. Peter herds the sheep on an adjacent school section, publicly accessible land set aside by Dakota law to fund local schools. But three days of scorching wind dries the grain while still in the milk, destroying it for the third consecutive year.

Manly asks Laura to extend the three-year trial, arguing one good crop will set them right. Laura agrees. In December she discovers she is pregnant again. A neighbor, Mr. Sheldon, brings her Sir Walter Scott's Waverly novels, which restore her spirits through winter. A catastrophic April windstorm blows away the newly planted seed, and a simultaneous prairie fire rages for miles. Manly buys replacement seed on credit. Shearing and lambing double the flock's value, but a week of hot winds kills the wheat and oats again, along with nearly all the trees on the claim.

On August 5, Laura's son is born. Three weeks later, the infant is seized by spasms and dies. A week after the baby's death, Laura lights the kitchen stove using old slough hay for fuel. The hay ignites and the house erupts in flames. Mr. Sheldon rescues the wedding silver through the pantry window, but the house burns to its foundations. Laura saves only the deed-box and Rose. She is found on the ground, her head blistered and her eyes damaged by the heat.

After recovering at Pa's house, Laura and Manly stay briefly with Mr. Sheldon before Manly and Peter build a crude shanty of tar paper and boards near the ruins. The family moves in as September nights grow cool. August 25 passes unnoticed, ending the fourth year.

When Laura asks whether farming has been a success, Manly insists bad luck could strike anyone and points to their stock as real assets. Laura acknowledges that their possessions barely balance their debts, yet she feels her spirit rising for the struggle. The incurable optimism of the farmer blends with her pioneer forefathers' belief that things will be better farther on, not in space but in time. She accepts their identity with Ma's saying: "We'll always be farmers, for what is bred in the bone will come out in the flesh." Manly comes from the barn singing "Don't Leave the Farm, Boys," their old Sunday song, and Laura smiles.