age old question

If Cap Garland and Almanzo Wilder are said to be the same age (nineteen) when they go for the wheat in The Long Winter (see Chapter 27, "For Daily Bread"), doesn't this make Cap a little old to be attending school in Little Town on the Prairie? That's the question I was asked recently.

Based on what Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote, the Hard Winter wheat run takes place after Christmas but before Laura's birthday in February 1881. It's not until The First Four Years that we learn that Laura and Almanzo share the same birth month (February) and that Almanzo is ten years older than Laura. In the earlier, edited books, their age difference is only six years. This discrepancy is something fans discuss frequently, but I'd never really thought about it in terms of Cap's age.

Laura is said to turn 14 at the beginning of Little Town on the Prairie, so Cap and Almanzo turn 20. LTOP covers two years, so there is another birthday (Cap turns 21), and yet he is apparently still in school after Ben's birthday party. At age 21?

Cap Garland was actually born in December 27, 1864. Arthur Johnson was born in March 1865, and Ben Woodsworth in July 1867. Almanzo Wilder was born in February 1857. Note that even though Almanzo and Cap are said to be "the same age" in The Long Winter, their birth months suggest that perhaps Cap had just turned 19 and Almanzo was about to turn 20. Whatever.

Suddenly, it's not Cap's age in school that I wonder about, it's Cap's age when going after the wheat in The Long Winter, if this trip actually took place as described not only in the "Little House" books, but in Laura's memoir and letters as well.

Did Cap Garland really go on a dangerous mission with Almanzo Wilder mere days after turning SIXTEEN?!?
- posted by pioneergirl at 11:33 PM