By the Shores of Silver Lake

The surveyors return in April, and the Ingalls move into the unfinished building Pa is constructing in town. Mr. and Mrs. Boast go to their new homestead, and Laura feels “lonely and scared” amid the “hustle, bustle, and busyness” (258) of De Smet. Their makeshift shelter lacks siding and has gaps in the walls and ceiling. When Laura wakes up in the morning, there is “a good foot of snow” (250) on all the beds, and Pa shovels it off. Laura shakes the snow off her and Mary’s clothes and helps her sisters dress by the warm stove. Pa boards up some of the cracks and builds a partition to concentrate the stove’s warmth in a little room with a table and beds.

The snow clears up after a few days, but Laura’s restlessness and loneliness remain. Carrie befriends a few neighboring children, and Ma suggests that Laura practice for her future profession by teaching the three girls. Laura uses Ma’s old primer to instruct the children in spelling and arithmetic and tells them to sit still and raise their hands. The girls are reluctant to return every day, and they eventually stop coming altogether. Laura is relieved by their absence until she sees a crowd gathered in front of the hotel. A claim jumper killed a man named Hunter when he went to his homestead. Although the murderer was arrested, the Ingalls are shaken by the news. Pa resolves to begin building a shanty on their homestead so they can move in the next day.

The next morning, the family packs the last of their belongings and joyfully embarks for their new home. As the Ingalls climb into their wagon, Ma scolds Laura to wear her sunbonnet. The bonnet limits Laura’s view to what is directly in front of her. She catches sight of two beautiful horses and exclaims in delight. Pa explains that the horses belong to Almanzo and Royal Wilder, two brothers who claimed a homestead north of town. Letting her bonnet stream in the breeze behind her, Laura imagines being rich enough to buy a pair of beautiful horses and ride like the wind.

The shanty on the homestead is so small and incomplete that Ma laughs at it, but she is still “glad to be home” (264). That night, the family sits in peaceful silence and watches the stars come out. Pa tells Laura that he feels like music, and she brings him his fiddle. Together, the family sings about hope, hard work, and home. Ma says she will unpack the china shepherdess once the roof is finished. Pa’s answer comes in the form of “little notes running like water in the sunshine and widening into a pool” (265).

On their first full day on the homestead, Pa digs a well while Ma and the girls struggle to fit all their furniture into the tiny home. Laura finds a way to squeeze Mary’s rocking chair inside, earning her mother’s praise. Pa adds windows and a door, and Laura helps him cover the outside of the shanty in tar paper to keep out the elements. Remembering how much work it took to clear farmland in the Big Woods, Pa appreciates the open prairie. However, Ma misses trees, and Pa reassures her that each homestead claimant must plant 10 acres of trees.

The next morning, Pa drives to Lake Henry to gather lumber. Laura admires the beautiful colors and tart flavors of the spring wildflowers as she tends to her cow. Filled with joy at the beautiful day, Laura races across the prairie, rolls in the blossom-filled grass “like a colt” (271), and finds her eyes filled with happy tears. Suddenly, she worries that she has stained her dress by rolling on the grass, which she has. Guiltily, she hurries back to the shanty to help Ma. Ma and her daughters put their finest belongings on a tiered shelf called a whatnot, such as their books, a clock, and their china. Just as Ma is about to add the china shepherdess, she is distracted by her dinner preparations. Pa returns and surprises Ma with cottonwood seedlings. He plants a tree for each family member in a row to act as a wind block.

When it’s Grace’s turn to help Pa plant a seedling, the Ingalls realize their youngest member is missing. Ma tells Carrie to stay with Mary, asks Laura to search for the lost toddler, and runs after Pa. They fear that Grace is lost in the Big Slough, a marshy area with deep mud, water holes, and “old, dead grass [that] stood higher than Laura’s head, over acres and acres, for miles and miles” (276). Laura is frozen with fear, and Carrie jolts her into action by screaming at her to look for their sister.

Ma and Pa search the Big Slough, but Laura looks elsewhere because she’s sure a toddler wouldn’t venture into that dark, foreboding place alone. The sunny prairie filled with flowers and butterflies seems a horrible, hateful place to Laura as she searches for her sister. She runs until her sides ache. Coming upon a steep bank, Laura finds Grace in a round hollow full of violets. Laura brings Grace home, entrusts her to Mary, and then shouts to her relieved parents that her sister has been found. Ma and Pa haul themselves out of the marsh, “draggled and muddy and very tired and thankful” (281). The little circle of violets seems so perfect that Laura wonders if fairies made it, but Pa explains that it is an old buffalo wallow. Laura finishes preparing dinner so Ma can rest and hold Grace.

After supper that evening, Ma finally puts the china shepherdess in its place of honor on the shelf. Pa hangs his firearms and a horseshoe above the door. He tells a smiling Ma, “This is our tightest squeeze yet, Caroline, but it’s only a beginning” (284). Pa plays his fiddle and sings a song about the good luck horseshoes bring, which Ma finds a trifle heathenish. He plans to build additional rooms, plant a garden and a small field, and devote most of their acreage to raising hay and cattle. When Laura takes the dirty dishwater outside, she pauses to listen to the lonely prairie wind, reflect on the buffalo’s passing, and consider how this land that seems eternal is now their home.

Laura helps Pa build a stable for the horses. The days grow warmer, and mosquitoes torment the Ingalls and their livestock at night. Ma wishes that their home was further from the Big Slough, which she blames for the insects’ onslaught, but Pa values the swamp because he can harvest acres of hay for free there and because no one else will want to live near it. Ma covers the windows in mosquito bar, and Pa builds a screen door and burns “a smudge of old, damp grass” (288) near the animals to keep the insects away at night.

Safe, snug, and settled on their homestead, the Ingalls enjoy a calm night in their shanty. While Pa plays his fiddle, Laura imagines fairies dancing in the circle of violets. As she lays down to sleep, she hears Pa singing, “There is no place like home” (292).