THE FIRST FOUR YEARS begins where the books THESE HAPPY GOLDEN YEARS ends. It is the story of Laura and Almanzo Wilder and their first years together on a homestead and tree claim on the South Dakota prairie.

Those years, 1885-1889, were years of companionship and happiness and also a time of struggle, while the young couple worked the land they hoped to own some day. With the making of a home and the birth of their daughter, Rose, came the joys and sorrows that every homesteader knew. Perhaps Laura and Manly encountered more than their share of sadness and hardship.

This ninth book is the last one in the group of stories by Laura Ingalls Wilder which are known to countless readers as the "Little House" books. After THESE HAPPY GOLDEN YEARS was published, many readers of all ages asked what happened to readers of all ages asked what happened to Laura and Manly following their marriage on August 25, 1885. This manuscript was discovered among Laura's papers after her death in 1957. It is Laura's story of her life with Manly—her early years as a wife and mother—just as she wrote it the first time in pencil in an orange-covered school tablet many years ago. (Jr. High up)

From the dust jacket