After moving from South Dakota, Rose Wilder eventually makes friends, proves herself to be the best speller in her class, and copes with a difficult teacher at her new Missouri school.
Rose meets a girl named Alva, a neighbor at her Missouri farm, and together they explore the hills, pick pokeweed, explore a cave, and have other adventures in the Ozark Mountains.
Articles and fictional works by Laura Ingalls Wilder and her daughter Rose Wilder Lane, some of which were published in magazines of an earlier era, create a chronological account of their lives.