Rose meets a girl named Alva, a neighbor at her Missouri farm, and together they explore the hills, pick pokeweed, explore a cave, and have other adventures in the Ozark Mountains.

When Rose Wilder and her parents arrive in Missouri, they must work hard to make a rundown farm into their own home.

After moving from South Dakota, Rose Wilder eventually makes friends, proves herself to be the best speller in her class, and copes with a difficult teacher at her new Missouri school.

"In 1943, three books appeared that transformed American politics: Isabel Paterson's The God of the Machine, Rose Wilder Lane's The Discovery of Freedom, and Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead. Together, they laid the groundwork for what became the modern libertarian movement. Even more striking were the women behind these books: Paterson, a brilliant but misanthropic journalist whose weekly column made her one of the nation's most important literary critics;...

In 1928, Rose Wilder Lane -- world traveler, journalist, much-published magazine writer -- returned from an Albanian sojourn to her parents' Ozark farm. Almanzo Wilder was 71, Laura 61, and Rose felt obligated to stay and help. To make life easier, she built them a new home, while she and Helen Boylston transformed the farmhouse into a rural writing retreat and filled it with visiting New Yorkers. Rose sold magazine stories to pay the bills for both...