In 1856, having traveled with his young sister from New York to a foster home on a farm in Missouri, ten-year-old Danny plots to get his foster father to send for and marry his mother.
Eleven-year-old Michael Patrick Kelly from New York City is sent to a foster home, a Missouri farm with a sadistic owner, a bullying son, and a number of secrets, one of which may be murder.
Deeply unhappy about her family's separation because of poverty, Megan gradually finds contentment and purpose in her new home on the Kansas prairie with a kind and loving adopted family.
When their mother can no longer support them, six siblings are sent by the Children's Aid Society of New York City to live with farm families in Missouri in 1860.
