This novel can be regarded as a Bildungsroman of sorts, except that instead of being the story of the development of a young man it is the story of the transformation of a young woman from girl to adult.
The story, like many in the Laura Ingalls Wilder series, is based on the recollections of the author as her pioneer family moves gradually Westward in search of prosperity. This always seems to elude the Ingalls family, whose patriarch Charles Ingalls (also called "Pa") struggles to provide for a wife and four daughters, two of whom have special needs. In this book, the Ingalls family sends their eldest daughter Mary off to college and then moves into town one fall to avoid living in a badly insulated shack through the winter.
Laura, the second of the Ingalls daughters, grew up in her elder sister Mary's shadow. Whereas Mary was blond, good-looking, well-behaved, and ladylike Laura was more of a tomboy who felt constrained and limited by many things including the Ingalls family's poverty and the myriad rules, duties, and expectations placed upon her. She resents Mary, who lost her eyesight and who is limited to only the lightest of domestic chores while Laura has to work hard and find employment to help send Mary to a specialized college for the blind. Although Laura is self-aware enough to know that her resentment of her sister is wrong, and she tries her best to be a "good" sister who vividly describes the scenes Mary cannot see, in her own thoughts she also recognizes the inherent unfairness of her situation. In many ways, Mary's departure for college means that Laura is now the oldest of the remaining Ingalls girls at home. This thrusts her into a position of responsibility but it also allows her to grow and blossom in ways that were not possible while the entire family was revolving around Mary and her blindness.
Early in the book, Laura considers herself a victim. She feels victimized by the spiteful and obnoxious Nellie Oleson, who is an academic and social rival of hers who manages to turn the new and immature teacher, Miss Wilder, against her. She feels victimized by her family's poverty, and she dislikes and resents her job as a seamstress which she takes to help raise money to send Mary to college. Laura, who has always preferred to be outdoors, hates to sew and particularly despises the process of making and stitching buttonholes. Since she hates making buttonholes, she learns to get through each buttonhole quickly and is a very efficient worker. Ironically, her employer praises her for the speed and precision of her buttonhole work. Laura even feels victimized by the weather and by the variable things that affect farming: Charles Ingalls finally has a bumper crop, but an enormous cloud of blackbirds descend on the fields and eat everything in sight. So, to ensure Mary's college opportunity at a special college in Iowa devoted to blind people, Pa sells a cow. The entire family sacrifices to create an opportunity for Mary, and Laura cannot help but notice that no such effort is being made to help or support her. Likewise, she feels as though she has to shoulder an unfair amount of work to compensate for what the other three girls-- the blind Mary, the weak and sickly Carrie, and the very young Grace-- cannot do.
With Mary living in a different state and with the farm work much reduced in their town based winter quarters, Laura finally gets a chance to explore different living situations besides rural pioneer life. Her experience with paid employment as a seamstress allows her, for the first time, to feel like an important contributor to the family instead of a somewhat inadequate second daughter. Her earnings are not enough to support an individual living independently, but they do contribute to the household and help to defray the cost of Mary's tuition.
Laura is a perfectionist, especially at school, which she uses to some extent as an escape from the other realities of her life. She makes extremely high grades and is consistently at the top of her class. Some of the other students regard her as a leader, however she initially abuses her social authority. She encourages some boys to engage in naughty, distracting behavior in Eliza Jane Wilder's schoolroom, and she improves a poem written by her friend Ida that satirizes the teacher, inspiring some of the more frustrated children to set it to music. The inexperienced Miss Wilder, who is making many mistakes as a novice teacher, loses the respect of her students partly due to her own error in listening too much to the spiteful Nellie Oleson and partly because Laura discreetly encourages the other students to rebel. Miss Wilder places the entire blame on Laura and eventually the school board restores order, but Miss Wilder leaves at the end of the fall term.
Another subplot in this book relates to Laura's growing interest in a young man named Almanzo, who is Miss Wilder's younger brother. A farmer who raises horses, Almanzo initially meets Laura in passing but the two begin to see each other more seriously. Laura successfully puts a stop to Nellie Oleson's attempt to sabotage their budding romance, which develops gradually. Almanzo, for example, asks to walk Laura home from church. This is a surprise, because Laura is only fifteen.
Laura's transition to adulthood occurs when her academic achievements are noticed by two members of the school board, who arrange for her to take the examination for certification as a third-grade teacher. She earns a third-grade teaching certificate despite not yet being sixteen, and is now qualified to work and live more independently while continuing to contribute to her family. By the end of the book, Laura is experiencing less frustration and resentment along with more hope and even triumph.
