One fall about sixty years ago, in Dakota Territory, it looked as though the coming winter would be a hard one. So Pa decided that it would be wise to move in from the claim to the little town of two hundred persons. If blizzards were really coming it would be better to be near neighbors than alone on the prairie.

No sooner had the little family moved than the snow and bitter cold started. For days Laura and Carrie couldn't even get down the road to the schoolhouse. Then the train couldn't come through any more, and supplies became dangerously low. Christmas was as cheerful as the Ingalls family could make it, but as January passed the food situation became acute. Young Almanzo Wilder then set out on a search for wheat. It was a dangerous journey but he made it.

At last there came a night when Laura awoke to hear dripping on the roof. The winter, that hard winter of 1880-81, was over. The sun came out, the snows melted, the trains came through again. And in May when the Ingalls Christmas barrel finally arrived they had the best, the happiest celebration they had ever had. 

From the dust jacket