Sixteen-year-old Katherine Candace Lunden exemplifies the themes of adventure and independence. Having never been thirty miles from Maustone she is curious about the world beyond her rural Wisconsin home and yearns to explore. Katherine has two passions, newspapers and trains.

Both seem uncharacteristic interests for a young woman during the late 1860s, but they indicate that Katherine is not a typical girl. She anticipates someday leaving her safe, dull, rural surroundings for the excitement of the city. She watches trains at the local station where she waits for conductors to give her newspapers from distant places.

These periodicals serve as her guide to communities she imagines visiting.

Although she loves and respects her parents, Albert and Candace Lunden, Katherine feels stifled by their traditional cultural expectations, which she resists. Her mother thinks that Katherine should learn domestic duties so that she can marry a...