During their first four years of marriage, Laura and Almanzo Wilder have a child and fight a losing battle in their attempts to succeed at farming on the South Dakota prairie.

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.

When Laura Ingalls and her family leave their little house in the Big Woods of Wisconsin, they head west for the open prairie skies of Kansas Territory. They travel for many days in their covered wagon until they find the perfect spot for Pa to build them a new home. Soon they are planting and plowing, hunting wild ducks and turkeys, and gathering grass for their cows. But just when they begin to feel settled, they are caught in the middle of a dangerous...

Ma and the girls follow Pa west by train where they make their home at a rough railroad camp and plan for their own homestead.

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 Almanzo Wilder and their eight-year-old daughter Rose continue to work to make Rocky Ridge farm in Missouri their new home.