When a drought tests the commitment of a mail-order bride from Maine to her new home on the prairie, her stepchildren hope they will be able to remain a family.

During their first four years of marriage, Laura and Almanzo Wilder have a child and fight a losing battle in their attempts to succeed at farming on the South Dakota prairie.

"Drought has forced farmers around the small town of Bountiful in the Hope region of Oregon to mortgage their property. Then word comes of plans for a spur line to run through the area and join the railroad in nearby Milton. Folks with money see an opportunity to fill their coffers by buying farmland cheap then selling to the railroad for a profit. The Bank of Bountiful, owned by Eli Whitman, appears to be doing that, as well. Widowed two years earlier,...

Follows a family's emigration by prairie schooner from the East, across the plains to Kansas.

A year in the life of two young girls growing up on the Wisconsin frontier, as they help their mother with the daily chores, enjoy their father's stories and singing, and share special occasions when they get together with relatives or neighbors.

A romance develops between a woman forced to make a new life on the Texas frontier with her overbearing stepfather, and the scout who leads their wagon train through the uncharted territory.

The Golly Sisters, May-May and Rose, share further adventures as they take their traveling show through the West.

Kirsten and her family celebrate their first Christmas in their new home on Uncle Olav's farm in mid-nineteenth-century Minnesota.