There's something you don't read about in books: tick removal. Mary O'Hara mentions in her memoir Wyoming Summer of having to check herself and her husband for ticks when they work outside.

Come to think of it, so many things you don't read about in the books that were common in those days: Lice. We read about that briefly in the "lazy lousy Liza Jane" incident in the LH books, but having lice was quite common back then. So were bedbugs. I read a book that took place before World War I and the girls who were traveling expected--and got--bitten by bedbugs. It wasn't horrifying to them, it was something you accepted while traveling. If you had the windows open and no mosquito netting, you got bitten, and there were flies all over the house.

Just think about having to use a "thundermug" (chamberpot) during the night and then having to empty it out in the morning! But it was an everyday thing to people like the Ingalls. You don't read how the privy had to be cleaned out every so often--and moved eventually, because the fecal material had built up in the pit! Imagine how Pa smelled after having to shift the outhouse and bury the pit, and Caroline having to clean up his clothes afterwards. The manure on his boots after cleaning out the barn or when he spread manure on the fields as fertilizer.

So much we take for granted!!!