the one where Jack dies.

By the Shores of Silver Lake is where it's at.  So much happens in this book.
 - the family dog Jack dies.  Boo-hoo.
 - Mary becomes blind after scarlet fever runs through the house.
 - the Wilder boys come to De Smet.
 - short reappearance of Mr. Edwards.
 - Laura finds out that she has to become a teacher.
 - Reverend Alden returns and encourages Mary to attend the college for the blind.

Also, there was a lot of boring talk about geese.


"I wanted the children now to understand more about the beginnings of things, to know what is behind the things they see -- what it is that made America as they know it," Laura Ingalls Wilder once said.

Laura Ingalls was born in 1867.  She didn't write her autobiography until almost sixty years later.  Her first attempt, Pioneer Girl, was not picked up by a publisher.  Talk about an incredible second act.

Makes you kinda think it's not too late for anything.

On to The Long Winter.  Feels sadly appropriate right now.