Summary

This chapter covers the difficult early years of Laura's marriage to Almanzo, whom she called "Manly." They at first lived in a house he had built for her on a tree claim. It was the first house she ever owned. It was a beautiful and well-constructed house whose greatest asset was its custom-built pantry. However, the young couple quickly got into financial trouble by purchasing farm machinery, and it was hard to make a living. Almanzo had kept the debt on their house a secret from Laura, until he found that he could not keep up with his payments. They had to move to a one-room house in which Laura gave birth to her daughter, Rose, on December 5, 1886. In 1887, their barn and haystack caught fire when they were away, and they failed to produce the wheat crop they had...