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    There were only five students in her new class, and Laura did her best to teach them. She modeled her lessons on her own classroom in De Smet, and she did her own schoolwork while the students were working on their lessons. The worst part was living with Mr. and Mrs. Bouchie. She felt unwelcome in their house and was homesick for Ma, Pa, and her sisters.
    When the weekend came, Laura despaired. There was no escaping the gloomy and unfriendly Mrs. Bouchie. But, happily, she found a surprise visitor at the schoolhouse: Almanzo Wilder had come with his buggy and offered to drive her home. Laura knew Almanzo from town. Sometimes he had walked her home from church, and he had a pair of beautiful horses she had always admired. His sister had been her teacher in De Smet.

    For the next eight weeks, Almanzo came faithfully to pick Laura up on Fridays and then drove her back on Sundays. When the two-month job ended, she was grateful to go back to her own lessons at school. She did very well, and her teacher, Professor Ven Owen, was extremely proud of her. He told Ma and Pa that she was exceptionally bright and that she should further her education.
    Laura continued seeing Almanzo Wilder. He was 10 years older than she was, and he was a homesteader with 320 acres of land. His family had farmed in Minnesota and New York State. When he told her that his brother called him Mannie and his parents called him Manzo, Laura did not like either of those names. She decided to call him Manly, and so a new nickname was born.
    Laura and Manly had a lot of fun together. He bought another pair of very fast, frisky horses he called Skip and Barnum, and they pulled the buggy quickly along through town, over the prairie, and to places like Spirit Lake, where there were ancient Native American burial grounds. In the winter, they took sleigh rides around town; Laura loved being outdoors in the brisk, bright weather.
    In the summer of 1884, Manly proposed to Laura and gave her a gold engagement ring set with pearls and garnets. Ma said that she was not surprised; she had known it was coming. She and Pa gave Laura and Manly their blessing.
    Laura and Manly didn’t marry right away. Laura was still in school, and Manly had to take a long trip with his brother Royal to visit their parents in Minnesota, and to the New Orleans Exposition in Louisiana. He would not be back for months. When he left, Laura missed him very much. He missed her too, and he showed up on Christmas Eve, saying he could not be apart from her for so long.

    In the spring of 1885, Laura agreed to teach one more term of school. Since married women were not allowed to teach, she would have to give up her career after the wedding. Her new job was at the Wilkins School, where she earned $30.00 a month for a three-month term and got to live with the Wilkins family, whom she liked. She was glad to give this money to her parents to help with Mary’s expenses.
    Even though Laura had accepted Manly’s ring, she still had doubts about being a farmer’s wife. From Ma’s experience, she knew all too well just how hard a life it was: lots of work, and very little money. Manly listened to her concerns and asked that they give farming a try for three years. If they had not succeeded by then, he’d give it up.
    His words must have calmed Laura’s fears. On August 25, 1885, Laura and Manly drove to Reverend Brown’s house and were married.
    Laura was too independent of spirit and mind to accept the word obey in the wedding ceremony, and so she did not utter it. Manly agreed with her.
    After the wedding, they drove to Ma and Pa’s for dinner. Laura might have had mixed feelings about starting a new chapter in her life; she loved Manly but would miss her parents and sisters very much. When the time came, she bravely kissed them all good-bye. She was a married woman now, and she went home to the house that Manly had built for them, just two miles north of De