A young Midwestern woman resists her family's demands and pursues the dream of a farm of her own in this early twentieth-century classic.
As the youngest child, and female, in a large prosperous farm family, Kate Bates has been designated as her mother's helper in old age. Kate finds this unfair, since all of the brothers have been given land and the older sisters sent to teacher training.
With the help of a nephew and sister-in-law, she defies her parents, becomes a teacher, and leaves home. Her real ambition, however, is to own and cultivate a large farm. After rejecting the easy path to her dream, she suffers through a bad marriage—but refuses to let go of her goal—in this inspiring novel by the author of A Girl of the Limberlost, Laddie, and other beloved stories.