The First Four Years
- ISBN-10
- ISBN-13
- 9798674696971
- Series
- The First Four Years
- Pages
- 84
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2020-08-12
- Author
- Laura Ingalls Wilder
Description
The novel gets its title from a promise Laura made to Almanzo when they became engaged. She did not want to be a farmer, but decided to try farming for three years.Laura keeps house and Almanzo tends the land and the stock, and they go on frequent pony rides together. At the end of the first year, just as the wheat is ready to harvest, a serious hailstorm destroys the entire crop, which would have brought them approximately three thousand dollars and paid off their debts on farm equipment and the building of the house.Faced with mounting debt, Almanzo decides to mortgage the homestead claim. He and Laura will have to live on it as a condition of the mortgage, so they rent out the house on the tree claim and Almanzo builds a small home on the homestead claim. Their daughter, Rose, is born there in December. At the end of the second year, they harvest a fair wheat crop, and share the proceeds of the sale of the wheat with the tree claim's renter, making enough money themselves to pay some of their smaller debts.
