They are as poor as a family can be, among those rolling northern hills. Amos and his girls, Lydia and Patience -- with the hired help Lizzie whom Amos can barely afford -- scrape out a meager living on the edge of a town nestled among maple-edged farmlands. But Lydia is as rich with life as the motherless family is poor of pennies. With her friend Kent and even the spoiled Margery she finds play and joy aplenty. Troubles loom ahead, though: sickness, worries, and debts -- and then political turmoil so fierce it threatens to tear the community apart -- and that even more direly threatens the nearby Indians on their ancestral lands. Lydia has no choice but to face the difficulties as they arrive. Yet it is when she learns about the old pine woods, and takes to heart what they mean, that she moves at last, and forever, beyond girlhood.