Guest post by Lauri Goforth
This chapter starts with Laura’s tour of the house the morning after the wedding. Almanzo hurries off to help with the threshing. First, no wedding and now not even a day to enjoy being together. Laura is jumping in with two feet. However, Almanzo does have the girl next door come help her with the chore she hates. 
She tours the house which sounds lovely. Laura takes stock of her clothing. I notice that the black cashmere isn’t mentioned, but there is a fawn colored silk, hmmm.
We also get a description of her lunch for the threshers. I have no doubt is true, because it just sounds like a story that others forget in a couple weeks, but that I would spend the rest of my life kicking myself over. I mean what kind of idiot forgets to put sugar in the pie?!? Mr. Perry notices it first, and by his comment you can tell he’s a nice person that wants to warn everyone while sparing Laura’s feelings. I do assume he’s the Mr. Perry of the Perry School’s Perrys.
Here’s where it gets interesting to me in the face of THE BET. She thinks the house is prettier than any on a crowded town street, and Laura would do her best to help him win the bet. She’s terrified of the meal to prepare the next day for all the men. After all she’s had always been a pioneer girl and not a farm woman, which for us is an interesting call back to Pioneer Girl and As a Farm Woman Thinks. The Ingalls had always moved on before the fields had grown large. This is my guess as to the purpose of the bet. Laura wanted to be settled. She would love for Almanzo to have a nice farm as she’s no doubt heard stories about Malone and Spring Valley. However, she doesn’t want to keep moving from Dakota to Kansas to Minnesota to who knows where to find the perfect land that flows milk and honey. If they can’t make a good start in several years, Laura wants Almanzo to find a nice job in town as a whatever, so that she and their future children can enjoy the church, school, all the social life that we notice in Little Town on the Prairie that Laura has come to love. She’d rather go to Friday night literary than worry about the Indians attacking.