Twelve-year-old Della Kelly of Maryville, North Carolina, tries to come to terms with her mother's mental illness while her father struggles to save the farm from a record-breaking drought.

In 1831 in rural North Carolina, sixteen-year-old Martitia, newly orphaned and timid, comes to live with a large, boisterous Quaker familywhose five sons delight in teasing and laughter.