They return home with buckets of syrup, enough to last the year. Later that winter, the Ingalls go to Grandma Ingalls’ house and have a “sugaring off,” when they harvest sap and make maple syrup. The cousins come for Christmas that year, and Laura receives a rag doll, which she names Charlotte. Fall is a very busy time, because the harvest from the garden and fields must be brought in as well. This is all in preparation for the upcoming winter. Laura gathers wood chips, and helps Ma and Pa when they butcher animals and preserve the meat. Hard work is the rule, though fun is often made in the midst of it. It does not contain the more mature (yet real) themes addressed in later books of the series (danger from American Indians, serious illness, death, drought, and crop destruction). The novel describes the homesteading skills Laura observed and began to practice during her fifth year. Class=notpageimage| Location of the "Little House in the Big Woods" in Wisconsin
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