Farmer Boy

The story’s protagonist, Almanzo must change and grow to achieve his goals. He wants to be seen as a mature boy—one old and wise enough to achieve his main goal of owning and training his own horse. Almanzo is patient, gentle, thoughtful, hard-working, and fun-loving. He adores his family, horses, and animals. He greatly admires Father, who he thinks is one of the “most important” men in their state because of his incredible farm, family, and reputation as an exceptional horse-trainer and farmer. Almanzo wants to be viewed with respect as being as smart, honest, and capable as Father, and the story portrays this multiple times through his trying to impress Father or friends by completing more mature tasks, such as taming horses or carrying logs on his bobsled with Star and Bright. Although he’s the youngest, he’s expected to provide hours of work daily, always giving his best effort to each of his chores—from cleaning the horse stalls to putting wood in the stove to polishing his shoes. During this time period, children were more independent, so Almanzo wants to be viewed as more than capable of completing any task to prove himself, taking pride in helping provide for his family and the farm animals.

Although he’s a very determined boy, he sometimes gets upset when he’s tested, most obviously when he keeps failing in trying to haul logs on the sled with Star and Bright in winter. He endures a log hitting him in the head, Star and Bright overturning his sled, and more. While he feels mad, Almanzo never takes his frustration out on his animals, showing his self-control and love for them:

Every Saturday morning he spent in the barnyard, teaching Star and Bright. He never whipped them; he only cracked the whip. He knew you could never teach an animal anything if you struck it, or even shouted at it angrily. He must always be gentle, quiet, and patient, even when they make mistakes. Star and Bright must like him and trust him and know he would never hurt them, for if they were once afraid of him they would never be good, willing, hard-working oxen (98).

Almanzo’s gentleness for animals continues throughout the story as one of his key strengths. In fact, he loses his temper only once, with his mean-spirited cousin Frank, smacking him into the snow during a snowball fight. In addition, Almanzo avidly protects Starlight from Frank when he tries to get into Starlight’s stall. Along with his determination and care for animals, Almanzo’s honesty is an important quality; he never lies to his parents or others. In fact, even though he’s tempted to lie at the county fair when they ask how he grew such a large pumpkin, he eventually admits that he used milk. At the story’s end, when Mr. Thompson suspects that Almanzo might have stolen some of his money, Almanzo is shocked and upset. He has much higher morals than to steal from someone, and his good deed of returning the pocketbook earns him the reward of $200 (at shop owner Mr. Paddock’s insistence), Father’s yearned-for pride, and his own colt—his beloved Starlight. Almanzo grows into a more mature, self-sufficient, serious, and rational boy by the novel’s conclusion, earning his desired reward for hard work: his own horse.