I loved this book back when I first read it - because it was a nice old-fashioned adventure - homesteading on the prairie - with a female protagonist, and it it turned out very happy and hopeful. I re-read it when I need "hopefulness". Phoebe who is maybe 12 and her maybe 11-year-old brother Hartley are left along with their younger siblings on the middle of the prairie while their father is away on a supply trip and their mother must go and help deliever a distant neighbor's baby who is coming too early. Phoebe and Hartley handle everything well, and become heroes, and in the end everything is well (even the baby who arrived too early). Part of the story promotes that women work in the house and men out doors, but the father, Mr. Dawson, also gives and entire speech to Phoebe on why she should go to school, and then eventually to the state university, which now gives allows women to go to the same classes as men, and grants women the exact same degrees. He wants all his children to attend the university. ( )