""What happened this afternoon is too terrible to write...Please, God, let Will live. And please, God, forgive me.""

Cassie's journal opens her dramatic story and that of her older brother Will, as they are both forced to reexamine their lives after a farm accident leaves Will without a leg -- and without hope.

After a winter of healing, Will knows his future must be away from the farm that he loves. He and Cassie go to stay with their older sister and her husband in the nearby town of Wiscasset. There, with the excitement of Maine's new statehood as a backdrop, Will finds that being disabled can be a social handicap as well as physical one. But with hard work he can win respect -- and find exciting possibilities for his future.

Living in town opens Cassie's eyes too. She sees Will considering career options not open to her, and she wonders if she can be fulfilled by keeping a house and a family. Are there other possibilities for a young woman in 1820? As Cassie watches Will make his life decisions, she struggles to find her own place in the world.

From the author of "Stopping to Home" and "Seaward Born" comes this remarkable story of hardship, determination, and the joy of finding the right path in life.