Across the Rolling River (Little House the Caroline Years)

Chapter OneA Voice in the Woods

The sky between the tall fir trees glowed rosy purple as Caroline Quiner followed her brother Henry through the late-afternoon woods. It was the first of September, and the air was still heavy with summer. The leaves had not begun to burn with fall color, and the forest floor was still a lush and mossy green. The songbirds had come out to sing their final songs before the night closed in.

Fear not, fear not! called the red-breasted robins, darting in pairs among the tall grasses.

And Caroline was not the least bit fearful, even though the shadows were already growing thick in places along the path to the river. She had lived in these woods for nearly three years now, ever since Mother had moved the family west from Brookfield to the little farm in the middle of a vast stretch of Wisconsin wilderness.

Back then the farm was hardly a farm at all. It was a tiny clearing surrounded by towering firs and pines and oaks, wild cherry and hickory. There had been no garden, no fields of corn and wheat, oats and barley. There had been no barn and no animals to keep. There had been no wood-frame house with an upstairs and a downstairs, a room for the girls and a room for the boys, a large kitchen, and even a parlor. There had been only a rough two-room log cabin in which Caroline and her five brothers and sisters had lived with Mother, and later with their new pa, who had married Mother five years after Caroline's own father had been lost when his trading ship went down in a terrible storm.

All these things — the prospering fields, the barn, the wonderful new house — had come after hard work. So much hard work, Caroline could still feel the way herwhole body had ached morning, noon, and night from helping to clear the land and sow the crops and bring in the harvest before a first frost could leave the family in debt and starving for winter.

Not that the hard work was over. Far from it. Henry liked to say that being a farmer was just like signing up for a lifetime of thankless labor. But at least things were not quite so difficult as they had been three years before.

“ Wheat is king!” all the newspapers from Milwaukee to Madison had been shouting. And the almanac had said 1851 would be a good year — not too wet and not too dry. So Pa, who had been Mr. Holbrook before he married Mother, had traded lumber for Slow and Ready, a pair of good strong oxen. Once the wheat was cut, it would be hauled to the mill, where the miller would grind it into flour. Some of the flour Caroline's family would keep, but Pa was hoping to sell some to the miller for a good profit.

Now the wheat was sitting ripe in the fields, just waiting to be cut. But today there was no cutting — no work at all, in fact, except of course for the chores that must be done no matter what. It was Sunday, the day of rest. In the morning Pa had hitched Slow and Ready to the wagon, and the family had ridden the three miles to the growing town of Concord to attend church. In the afternoon they had all sat in the parlor while Mother read to them from the Bible. It was nice to rest, but it was hard to sit still all day long — even though Caroline was nearly twelve years old, and old enough not to wriggle like nine-year-old Eliza and seven-year-old Thomas. Martha hardly ever wriggled anymore. She was fourteen and had begun to wear her skirts longer and herbrown hair pinned up. Joseph never wriggled either. He was very nearly a grown man'seventeen years old. Henry was only a year younger than Joseph, but it was clear he would never stop wriggling. Caroline knew it took all his willpower to sit quietly on Sunday afternoons. He was always itching to move.

He was moving now, darting in and out among the trees ahead of Caroline, their dog Wolf at his heels. They were on their way to the river to fetch Baby and Bess, the milk cow and her calf. All day long, even on Sunday, the animals roamed free to graze the land. It was Henry's job to round them up and bring them back to the barn before nightfall. Sometimes, if Caroline finished seeing to the hens and geese in time, she went with Henry to find Baby and Bess at their favorite marshy places along the river's edge.

“ C'mon, Caroline, ” Henry called over his shoulder. “ Race you to the river.”

Caroline shook her head. “ You mustn't race on a Sunday. And besides, ladies don't race at all.”

Henry stopped in his tracks and gave a loud snort. “ Aw, you're not a lady. Not yet anyways, ” he said with his familiar lopsided grin. “ Seems to me you'd want to run as much as you can before you turn as funny as Martha.”

Caroline let out a little sigh. It was true that Martha had been acting funny for a while now. At first Caroline could not stand the way Martha tried to be so grown-up all the time. But lately she had started to understand Martha a little better. Caroline often felt torn inside. Some days she wished she could still play with dolls like Eliza, but some days she had no patience for childish games and wished she could wear her hairup like Martha.

In pioneer days in Concord, Wisconsin, young Caroline fills her days with quilting classes, harvesting and a new friend--a boy named Charles Ingalls who plays the fiddle. Based on the childhood of the mother of author Laura Ingalls Wilder. Illustrations.

The Little House books have captivated millions of readers with their story of Laura Ingalls, a little pioneer girl growing up on the American frontier. Now travel back to the generation before Laura's and read the story of Caroline Quiner, the little girl who would grow up to be Ma Ingalls in the beloved Little House books.

The little town of Concord, Wisconsin, is bustling with new settlers from the East. Caroline is now eleven years old, and she can't wait to go to the town's new school. Her days are full with classes, chores, and harvesttime. Wisconsin has its very first state fair, and Caroline becomes friends with a fiddle-playing boy from accross the river, a boy named Charles Ingalls. Across The Rolling River is the fifth book in the Caroline Years, an ongoing series about the adventures of another girl from America's favorite pioneer family.

Celia Wilkins has studied letters, diaries, and documents pertaining to the Quiner and Wilder families, and she extensively researched early settler life of the nineteenth century in Wisconsin. She lives in her own little 1850's house in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband and son.