Pet and Patty, the Ingalls family's horses

Pet and Patty are the two small young black horses that carry the Ingalls family through the most consequential stages of their westward journey and their settlement on the High Prairie. Acquired in a trade during the long crossing from Wisconsin, they replace the tired brown horses that had pulled the covered wagon through the early part of the trip, and they quickly become indispensable to every major undertaking the family attempts. They are the animals that pull the wagon through the flooded creek, that draw the plough breaking the prairie sod, and that finally walk the family away from the little house when the U.S. government orders the white settlers out of Indian Territory. Their story is inseparable from the family's own, marking both the promise of the new land and the labor required to claim it.

Acquisition and Naming

The horses enter the family's life during the journey westward, at a moment when the Ingallses have already crossed the wide Mississippi River before the ice broke and travelled through Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and Missouri. One day Pa sold the tired brown horses and obtained in their place two small young black horses with soft gentle eyes and long tails. Pa described them as western horses, very strong but very gentle, and he gave Laura and Mary the privilege of choosing their names. The girls called one Pet and the other Patty, and from that moment the two horses became named members of the family's household, as much a part of the enterprise as Jack the dog or the covered wagon itself. The naming by the children signals the horses' status not merely as livestock but as companions in the family's adventure, creatures with identities that the girls could claim as their own.

Crossing the Flooded Creek

The horses' strength and steadiness are tested dramatically when the family reaches a creek whose waters run high and fast. As Pet and Patty stopped to drink, the sound of fast-running water filled the still air, and the river appeared silver and blue with the water running quickly in the middle. Pa judged that they could cross, and Ma agreed, but the crossing turned into a crisis. The wagon turned in the water, and Pa's voice rang out, telling Ma to take the horses. Suddenly Pa was gone from the wagon, and Ma sat alone holding the reins with both hands while the water roared around them. Laura looked out to see nothing but water everywhere and three heads in the water: Pet's head, Patty's head, and Pa's small wet head. Pa's hand was holding Pet's head, and he was talking calmly to the horses even as Ma's face was white and frightened and Mary was crying. For a long time the wagon rocked in the water, until finally the front wheels hit the ground and Pa shouted. Laura saw the wet horses climbing out of the water, with Pa running beside them shouting encouragement, and then the horses and the wagon stood still, safely out of the creek. The episode reveals the horses' crucial role in the family's survival, as their strength and willingness to follow Pa's calm direction carried the wagon and its passengers through a moment of genuine danger.

Building the House and the Stable

Once the family reached the High Prairie and began to build their new home, the horses' welfare became a central concern in Pa's planning. The morning after Mr Edwards's visit, Pa announced that the walls of the house were up and the family could move in, but he explained that he must build a stable for Pet and Patty as fast as he could, because they should be safe inside walls too. He had heard wolves everywhere around them the night before, and he wanted strong thick walls around the family and around the horses alike. Pa and Mr Edwards built the stable in a single day, finishing the roof as darkness fell, and Pa declared that now the wolves could howl and he would sleep that night. The stable's construction shows how the horses were integrated into the family's defensive strategy against the dangers of the prairie, protected with the same care as the human members of the household.

The Colt and the Wolf Encounter

A surprise awaited Laura when she went into the stable one morning: a little colt with long ears stood beside Pet. When Laura ran toward it, gentle Pet put back her ears and showed her teeth, and Pa shouted for Laura to stay back, warning that Pet could bite her. Pa spoke soothingly to Pet, assuring her that they would not hurt her baby, and Pet allowed Pa to touch the colt but would not let Laura or Mary come near. The colt's birth adds a new dimension to the horses' role in the family, as the young animal becomes another creature requiring protection and care. The protective instinct Pet displays toward her colt foreshadows the vulnerability of the horses to the prairie's dangers. Shortly afterward, Pa rode Patty across the prairie to see what he could see, and on that ride he encountered a pack of wolves that walked along with them like a pack of dogs going along with a horse, jumping and playing with each other. Pa explained that wolves will chase and hurt a running horse, so he pulled the reins hard and made Patty walk, even though she was trembling all over and he was scared himself. When they neared the creek, the leader turned down toward the creek and the rest of the pack followed, and only then did Pa let Patty go. He confessed that he was scared the whole way home, thinking the wolves might come toward the house, and he knew the family could keep the wolves out of the house with the gun, but Pet and her colt were outside. The incident underscores the constant threat the wolves posed to the horses and the family's dependence on the animals' obedience and courage in the face of danger.

The Plough and the Prairie Fire

With the arrival of spring, Pet and Patty took on their most demanding role as the engines of the family's agricultural labor. Pa was working hard getting ready to plant potatoes, and Pet and Patty were working hard too, pulling the heavy plough that was breaking up the grassy earth and turning it over. Pa liked the land because it was so rich, and there was not a tree or stone in it, and the horses made this transformation of the prairie possible. The plough's work was interrupted dramatically one day when the light suddenly went out and great black clouds appeared in the south across the sun. Pet and Patty came running from the field pulling the plough behind them, with Pa running after them, and Pa shouted that there was a prairie fire and ordered the family to fill the tub with water and put sacks in it. Pa put the cows in the barn while Ma ran to the well and Laura pulled the tub to it, and Pa made a long trench all the way around three sides of the house, shouting at the horses to make them hurry as frightened rabbits came running across the prairie past him. The horses' frantic flight from the field and their role in helping Pa create the firebreak show how they were not merely passive tools but active participants in the family's struggle against the prairie's dangers. When Mr Edwards and Mr Scott came that night, worried that the Indians might have started the fire to frighten the white settlers away, Pa disagreed, explaining that the Indians had always burned the prairie to make the green grass grow more quickly and to make it easier to ride their horses in shorter grass. The fire thus connected the horses' labor to the broader ecological and cultural dynamics of the prairie, where fire was both a threat and a tool.

Departure from the Prairie

The horses' final appearance in the family's story comes with their departure from Indian Territory. After the U.S. government ordered the removal of white settlers, Pa and Ma packed the wagon, laying two beds across the back and packing the clothes, food, and dishes, leaving behind the plough as the only thing they could not take. Laura and Mary climbed into the wagon and sat on the bed in the back, with Baby Carrie between them, and Laura wanted to see the house again, so Pa opened the back of the wagon cover and the girls looked out at their little log house. Then Pa climbed to his place beside Ma and took the reins in his hands, Jack went under the wagon, and Pet and Patty walked away from the little house on the prairie. As far as they could see, to the east and to the south and to the west, nothing was moving except the green grass waving in the wind. Pa remarked that it was a great country, but there would be wild Indians and wolves there for many years. The horses' steady walk away from the house they had helped build and protect closes the family's chapter on the High Prairie, carrying them toward an uncertain future just as they had carried them into it. The image of Pet and Patty leaving the little house behind, with the plough abandoned in the field, captures the bittersweet end of the family's experiment in Indian Territory and the horses' enduring role as the constant companions of the Ingallses' journey.