Relates the boyhood adventures of Thomas Andrew William Addison as he fights the forest, the elements, and the animals of rural Indiana. -- adapted from page [4] of cover.

Presents the adventures of one family of pioneer settlers on the prairie, after the Homestead Act of 1862 opened up the West. Information pages supply additional facts about life in the American West.

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.