Heading West: Life with the Pioneers, 21 Activities

Heading West: Life with the Pioneers, 21 Activities — page 5
Introduction Itchy Feet and Moving West ne of Laura Ingalls's earliest memories was of riding in a covered wagon That's fitting because Laura spent a lot of her early life doing that Her Pa Charles Ingalls was always dreaming of mov ing west His wife Caroline said he had an itchy foot And one of Laura's uncles said Give him a covered wagon and he's ready to go Laura didn't even remember her first trip by cov ered wagon The family had left their little house in the big woods near Pepin Wisconsin and moved west to Indian Territory in Kansas But they didn't actually plan to go to Indian Territory They planned to homestead on land the government was giving away free to farmers Yet somehow they ended up on the Osage Indian Reserve If Pa had filed a claim on the land he would have known but there was so much land and he was in a hurry to build a cabin The first covered wagon trip that Laura remem bered was the trip back to Wisconsin After being gone three years Pa got a letter from the man who had bought their house in the big woods He wanted to go west and asked Pa to take back the land and the cabin Pa and Ma decided to return It took them several