40 Fun Facts About Farmer Boy

In Farmer Boy, what name does Almanzo give the colt his father finally lets him keep?

Starlight, named for the white star on his forehead, is the reward for choosing farm life over a trade in town. Almanzo had spent the whole book proving he was gentle enough to train a young horse.

Farmer Boy tells the childhood of which member of author Laura Ingalls Wilder's family?

Her husband, Almanzo Wilder, grew up on a prosperous farm in the 1860s. The book steps away from Laura's own pioneer childhood to follow his, a full year of chores, feasts and schooldays.

In Farmer Boy, what does an angry Almanzo let fly, leaving a black splotch on the parlor wall?

A stove-blacking brush sails past his sister's head while their parents are away, and she quietly patches the wallpaper. Restorers of the real farmhouse later found a black stain on the parlor wall.

In Farmer Boy, what does Almanzo raise on milk and enter at the County Fair to win first prize?

A pumpkin fed on milk grows so huge that Almanzo cannot lift it, or even roll it over. He frets that the judges might call the milk trick cheating, but his father knew all about it.

In Farmer Boy, what does Almanzo buy with the half-dollar his father hands him in town?

A piglet was his father's own suggestion: raised well, she could produce a litter worth far more than fifty cents. Almanzo names her Lucy and feeds her at first from a rag dipped in milk.

The big Wilder family farm in Farmer Boy lies in which state, far from Laura's prairie?

New York, up near the Canadian border, is where the Wilders farmed long before any of them went west. The cold there was deep enough to cut pond ice into blocks that lasted through summer.

In Farmer Boy, which birthday present lets Almanzo start training his calves Star and Bright?

A wooden yoke, made by his father from red cedar so it is strong yet light, turns the two calves into a team. Almanzo skips school that day to teach them to start, stop and turn.

In Farmer Boy, how do the Wilders save their young corn after a freak summer frost?

Watering each plant before the sun touches it thaws the frozen leaves gently. The whole family races down the rows before dawn, and only a quarter of an acre is lost.

Among the four Wilder children in Farmer Boy, where does Almanzo come in age?

The youngest of the four, he trails Royal and both his sisters, so he is the one told to carry the dinner pail to school. The real Almanzo also had an older sister the book leaves out.

In Farmer Boy, what do the Wilders gather in buckets as the snow melts to boil into sugar?

Tree sap from the farm's maples is boiled down into syrup and hard cakes of sugar, enough to last the family all year. Almanzo hauls the full buckets from tree to tree through the snow.

In Farmer Boy, which gentle schoolmaster boards with the Wilder family for two weeks of the term?

Mr. Corse is slim, pale and patient. When a small boy misses a word he keeps him in at recess to learn it instead of rapping his hand with a ruler.

In Farmer Boy, whose lost pocketbook stuffed with $1,500 does Almanzo find on the road to town?

Mr. Thompson is so stingy and so wary of banks that he carries the cash from a land sale in his pocket. He counts every bill in front of Almanzo and all but calls the boy a thief.

In Farmer Boy, which trade does Mr. Paddock offer to teach Almanzo as his apprentice in town?

Wagon making could one day have handed Almanzo a thriving business of his own. His parents weigh the offer, then leave the choice to him, and all he asks for is a colt.

In Farmer Boy, cousin Frank goads Almanzo into asking his father for a nickel to buy what?

Lemonade, pink and a nickel a glass, is what Frank drinks in front of him at the Independence Day celebration. Almanzo's father answers the request with a lesson about what money is worth.

In Farmer Boy, Father says a half-dollar holds the work of raising half a bushel of which crop?

Potatoes take a year of plowing, planting, hoeing and digging before they can be sold, Father explains. Only then does he hand over the coin and let Almanzo decide how to spend it.

In Farmer Boy, what do the Wilders pack around the pond ice to keep it frozen all summer?

Sawdust hauled from the lumber mill goes down in thick layers under, between and over the blocks. Packed that way, the ice is dug out in hot weather so Mother can make ice cream.

In Farmer Boy, which bossy sister of Almanzo went on to teach Laura Ingalls in real life?

Eliza Jane orders her little brother about all through the book. Years later she taught school in Dakota Territory, having moved there and taken a land claim along with her brothers Royal and Almanzo.

At the County Fair in Farmer Boy, which animal does Almanzo meet for the first time, braying loudly?

A mule lets out a bray that sends Almanzo fighting through the crowd to his father, who says it is only half horse. Father adds that his son was not the only one who was scared.

In Farmer Boy, which machine does Mother work for hours to turn the farm's wool into cloth?

A loom stands upstairs in the farmhouse, its thud carrying through the rooms below. After each spring shearing Mother weaves the cloth for the family's suits and dresses herself.

In Farmer Boy, which of Mother's homemade goods does a well-dressed city buyer come for every year?

Butter from Mother's cellar, five hundred pounds of it, earns her $250 in a single sale. She hitches up straight away to carry the money to the bank.

In Farmer Boy, which Christmas stocking gift does Almanzo find along with a new cap and mittens?

A jackknife with four blades is the one present he cannot guess by feel, thin and hard inside the stocking. Until then he had to borrow his father's to whittle a handle for his whip.

In Farmer Boy, what do the big boys from Hardscrabble Settlement come to school to do to teachers?

Beat him up and break up the school is their boast, and no teacher has ever finished a term against them. This year the quiet new master is ready with a borrowed ox whip fifteen feet long.

In Farmer Boy, which rule binds the Wilder children at the supper table when a guest is present?

They must keep silent apart from a polite thank-you, because children were to be seen and not heard. Almanzo eats his way through supper while his parents and the boarding teacher talk over his head.

In Farmer Boy, which jolly spring visitor swaps new household wares for Mother's saved-up rags?

The tin peddler, Nick Brown, drives a bright red cart from farm to farm, telling stories and singing songs. Mother bargains hard over every pan and pail before she parts with her rag bags.

In Farmer Boy, which travelling craftsman sets up his bench in the Wilders' dining room each fall?

The cobbler turns up three weeks late that year, with Almanzo's moccasins already worn to rags. He makes the family's boots and shoes from hides the Wilders had tanned the year before.

In Farmer Boy, which career does Almanzo's older brother Royal announce he wants instead of farming?

Storekeeper is Royal's choice because such men dress up every day, keep clean and ride behind a carriage and pair. He confides it to Almanzo in bed one night, having shown little interest in the chores.

In Farmer Boy, what do the men fire in the town square to thrill the Fourth of July crowd?

Cannons, two brass ones, are packed with black powder and then with armfuls of grass and weeds the boys pull beside the railroad tracks. Two men touch them off with red-hot rods.

In Farmer Boy, who grabs Almanzo by the leg just as he slides toward open water at the ice pond?

French Joe, one of two woodsmen hired to saw the ice, jerks him back just in time. Father says Almanzo ought to have the worst whipping of his life, then lets the fright be punishment enough.

At the fair in Farmer Boy, which huge European draft horses does Father say could pull a barn?

Belgians had reached America by way of Canada, Father explains, after crossing the ocean by ship. Almanzo decides that the family's lighter horses suit a buggy far better.

The farm in Farmer Boy lies a few miles from which town, where the Wilders spend Independence Day?

Malone is where the band plays, the Declaration is read and Almanzo learns what a half-dollar is worth. The real farmhouse still stands about five miles east of the village.

Laura Ingalls Wilder used which pet name for the real Almanzo, the hero of Farmer Boy?

Manly was her name for him, and he in turn called her Bess, from her middle name Elizabeth. He already had a sister named Laura, so a different name saved confusion.

The grown Almanzo of Farmer Boy hauls wheat to a starving town in which later Little House book?

The Long Winter has him cross the open prairie with Cap Garland to buy sixty bushels of wheat from a settler. They get back just ahead of another four-day blizzard.

Which Charlotte's Web illustrator drew the familiar pictures in the 1953 edition of Farmer Boy?

Garth Williams toured the Midwestern sites of the Little House books with camera and sketchbook before he began. He drew in pencil, charcoal and ink after a plan for oil paintings proved too costly.

What has the real boyhood home from Farmer Boy become since a Wilder association bought it in 1987?

A working farm museum now welcomes visitors to the restored farmhouse and its rebuilt barns. The house is described as the only Little House home still standing on its original site.

Which actor played the grown Almanzo of Farmer Boy in the TV series Little House on the Prairie?

Dean Butler joined the show for its sixth season, when the story reached Laura's teenage years. He looked back on the part decades later in a memoir called Prairie Man.

In which Dakota town did the real Almanzo of Farmer Boy first meet the young Laura Ingalls?

De Smet is where he took up a homestead claim in 1879, arriving with his brother Royal. The Ingalls family had been among the first settlers there, before the town was formally organized.

Laura named which Missouri property, where the real Almanzo of Farmer Boy lived out his life?

Rocky Ridge Farm began as 40 hilly, stony acres near Mansfield, secured with a $100 down payment. Over the years it grew into a 200-acre poultry, dairy and fruit farm.

Family lore says Almanzo, the hero of Farmer Boy, was named for a rescuer from which wars?

The Crusades, in the family story, were where an Arab named Almanzor saved a Wilder's life. Sons were named for him from then on, which is how an American farm boy came by so unusual a name.

To which state did the real Wilder family of Farmer Boy move after leaving their eastern farm?

Minnesota drew the family west, and they started a new farm at Spring Valley. Almanzo set out from there in 1879 to claim land of his own in Dakota Territory.

The father in Farmer Boy raises which American horse breed, a lifelong favorite of the real Almanzo?

Morgan colts from the Wilder barn, perfectly matched and bright brown, draw a horse buyer out to the farm in the book. In old age Almanzo still kept Morgans on his land in Missouri.