Little House on the Prairie

Summer begins to turn to fall, and Pa prepares to go to Independence for supplies, now that the weather is cool enough not to stress the horses on the long trip. While he’s out hunting one day before he goes, a fire starts in the top of the house’s homemade chimney, the top of which is made out of wood. Ma leaves Carrie with Mary in the rocking chair and runs outside to fight the fire. Laura runs out after her and sees Ma beating the fire with a stick. She tries to help Ma, but is told to go back inside, since burning wood is falling down around the chimney.

Laura goes back inside and sees that Ma’s firefighting efforts are knocking burning sticks from the chimney down onto the hearth and into the room. A burning log rolls near Mary’s skirts, and Mary is characteristically paralyzed with fear. Laura pulls the rocking chair away from the log, saving Mary and Carrie from being burned. Ma eventually beats down the fire and comes back inside, praising Laura’s bravery and presence of mind to drag her sisters out of harm’s way. When he comes home, Pa repairs the chimney with less flammable material and gets ready for his trip to town the next day.

Pa goes to town and is gone for four days. It’s cold and windy on the prairie, so Laura and Mary stay inside with Ma and Carrie. Everyone feels forlorn without Pa, including Jack, who patrols the house and stable. Mr. Edwards comes by every day to do the outside chores—Pa stopped on his way to town and asked him to do so. Jack repeatedly corners Mr. Edwards on the family’s woodpile, which makes Mr. Edwards in awe of Jack’s guard-dog abilities.

Mrs. Scott comes to visit one day while Pa’s gone and visits with Ma. She tries to talk about a white settler-Native American conflict she refers to as “the Minnesota massacre” (211), but Ma quickly stops Mrs. Scott from talking about it in front of the girls.

One day during Pa’s absence, Mr. Edwards says that Native Americans are camping in sheltered spots on the prairie and asks if Ma has a gun as a precaution against any conflict with them. Ma says that she has Pa’s pistol, but both she and Mr. Edwards don’t think the Native Americans will bother the house.

The night Pa is supposed to come home, he is later than expected, and Ma finally tells Laura and Mary to go to bed. In the middle of the night, Pa finally makes it home, and he tells them all how he had to keep getting down off the wagon to knock frozen mud from its wheels. He has bought sugar, cornmeal, nails, and panels of window glass for the house’s windows. Everyone is overjoyed with the supplies, and to have Pa home again.

The family soon realizes that their house is built alongside a heavily used Native American pathway, and they see riders on horseback going by frequently. One day, a Native American man comes into the house while the whole family is there, and Ma feeds the man and Pa. Then, the two men smoke together. The man tries to talk to Pa, but Pa thinks the other speaks French, which he doesn’t understand. The man eventually gets up and leaves, and the family later learns that his name is Soldat Du Chêne. Another day Laura sees Du Chêne point a gun at Jack, who is guarding the trail and won’t back down, to try and get the dog to move. Pa chains Jack to the house or the stable after that. In addition to the anxiety caused by the Native Americans, there are also horse thieves nearby, who steal Mr. Edwards’s horses.

Another day, two “dirty and scowling and mean” (233) Native Americans come into the house and take cornmeal and tobacco. They almost steal the furs that Pa has been collecting but leave them at the last minute. Ma is relieved that they didn’t take the furs, because the family needs to sell them the next spring to buy a plow and seeds for their farm. 

It’s nearing Christmas Day, and Laura and Mary are anxious because it hasn’t snowed yet; they think that Santa will only be able to visit them if there’s snow. The weather has been rainy, and the creek near the house is almost overflowing. They invited Mr. Edwards to Christmas dinner with the family, but everyone knows that he won’t be able to cross the creek to their house. Everyone is discouraged, though Pa has gotten them a big wild turkey to eat. Ma hangs Laura and Mary’s stockings on the mantel on Christmas Eve, although they don’t expect to have any presents in them.

The whole family is surprised when Mr. Edwards shows up at their house early on Christmas morning with gifts from “Santa” for Laura and Mary. He tells them that he met Santa in Independence, and Santa asked Mr. Edwards to deliver the presents since he knew he wouldn’t be able to get over the creek himself. Mr. Edwards carried everything in a bundle on his head and waded through the creek, which was so high the water reached to his neck. The family is delighted, and Laura and Mary are ecstatic with their gifts—each gets a new tin drinking cup, a peppermint candy stick, a heart-shaped cake with white sugar on top “like tiny drifts of snow” (249), and a new penny. Ma and Pa are grateful to Mr. Edwards for his kind ruse of the Santa story, though the child Laura only notes that “Pa and Ma and Mr. Edwards acted as if they were almost crying, Laura didn’t know why” (251). The family and their guest enjoy turkey, roasted sweet potatoes that Mr. Edwards brought, preserved berries and little cakes, and everyone is cheered.

What sounds like a woman’s scream outside in the night awakens the family. Pa gets dressed and goes over to the Scotts’s house, thinking that it came from there, but he finds the house quiet and dark. Embarrassed by his mistake, he starts back for home and discovers that the scream came from a panther up in a tree by the creek. He hurries home and vows to not rest until he kills the panther. He hunts it for a few days straight and finally meets with a Native American who mimes that he has shot the panther. Pa comes home relieved.