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.

Caroline knows that in order to fight the British, her village desperately needs its shipyards and supply boats and she will do whatever it takes to keep them out of enemy hands, then later, while helping on her uncle's farm, Caroline discovers that the war brings dangers there, too.