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Chapter 1

Little House in the Big Woods

Once upon a ti Woods of Wisconsin, in a little gray house s

The great, dark trees of the Big Woods stood all around the house, and beyond them were other trees and beyond theo to the north in a day, or a week, or a wholebut woods There were no houses There were no roads There were no people There were only trees and the wild ani them

Wolves lived in the Big Woods, and bears, and huge wild cats Muskrats and mink and otter lived by the streams Foxes had dens in the hills and deer roamed everywhere

To the east of the little log house, and to the west, there werehouses scattered far apart in the edge of the Big Woods

So far as the little girl could see, there was only the one little house where she lived with her Father and Mother, her sister Mary and baby sister Carrie A wagon track ran before the house, turning and twisting out of sight in the woods where the wild aniirl did not knohere it went, nor what ht be at the end of it

The little girl was named Laura and she called her father, Pa, and her mother, Ma In those days and in that place, children did not say Father and Mother, nor Mamma and Papa, as they do now

At night, when Laura lay awake in the trundle bed, she listened and could not hear anything at all but the sound of the trees whispering together Soht, a wolf howled Then he caain

It was a scary sound Laura knew that wolves would eat little girls But she was safe inside the solid log walls Her father’s gun hung over the door and good old Jack, the brindle bulldog, lay on guard before it Her father would say, “Go to sleep, Laura Jack won’t let the wolves in” So Laura snuggled under the covers of the trundle bed, close beside Mary, and went to sleep

One night her father picked her up out of bed and carried her to theso that shein front of the house They looked like shaggy dogs They pointed their noses at the big, bright moon, and howled

Jack paced up and down before the door, growling The hair stood up along his back and he showed his sharp, fierce teeth to the wolves They howled, but they could not get in

The house was a coe attic, pleasant to play in when the rain drum room The bedroo roolass in the panes, and it had two doors, a front door and a back door

All around the house was a crooked rail fence, to keep the bears and the deer away

In the yard in front of the house were two beautiful big oak trees Everyas soon as she ake Laura ran to look out of the , and onefrom a branch

Pa had shot the deer the day before and Laura had been asleep when he brought theh in the trees so the wolves could not get the meat