The story takes place in and around Thirty-nine Palms, California, where Retta and her family live in a sprawling adobe ranch house on Desert Lily Street. The move west from their former home in Pennsylvania has proved challenging to her mother, father, and younger brother who embrace their new California lifestyle. Retta, however, misses the wooded fields, the tree-lined roads, and the quiet green of rural Pennsylvania.

Much of the action of the story occurs at a two hundred acre ranch outside Thirty-nine Palms where Dallas Dobson has secured employment for the summer. Rancho Arabian is a prosperous layout with valuable Arabian stock, and Dallas has heavy responsibilities with little leisure time. Retta often drives to Rancho Arabian in the evenings to help with the chores in order to spend time with Dallas. She grows to love the austere beauty of the ranch, the vast, barren expanses that...