Pa comes for them in town, and the next day they leave for the railroad camp. This is their first train trip and they are excited by the novelty of this newfangled mode of transportation, which can cover in a few hours the distance a horse and wagon would travel in a day. Several months later, Ma and the children travel to Dakota Territory by train. (The dog upon whom he was based was no longer with the Ingalls at that point, but Laura inserted his death here to serve as a transition between her childhood and her adolescence.) The morning Pa is to leave, their beloved old bulldog, Jack, dies in his sleep, saddening Laura greatly. Since Mary is too weak to travel, Pa went ahead with the wagon and team, and the rest of the family followed later by train. Aunt Docia comes to visit, and suggests that Pa work as the bookkeeper in Uncle Henry's railroad camp for fifty dollars a month. The story begins in Plum Creek, shortly after the Ingalls have recovered from the scarlet fever which caused Mary to become blind. The novel also introduces Laura's youngest sister, Grace. Because her sister, Mary, was recently blinded due to scarlet fever, Pa asks Laura to "be Mary’s eyes" by describing what she sees, and she becomes more patient and mature through this service. The novel is based on Laura's late childhood spent near De Smet, South Dakota, beginning in 1879. The novel was a Newbery Honor book in 1940, as were the fourth through eighth books in the series. It spans just over one year, beginning when she is 12 years old and her family moves from Plum Creek, Minnesota to what will become De Smet, South Dakota. By the Shores of Silver Lake is an autobiographical children's novel written by Laura Ingalls Wilder and published in 1939, the fifth of nine books in her Little House series.
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