Chapter 1, Linn County, Kansas, 1861 Summary

This fact-based historical novel opens with 16-year-old Jeff Bussey plowing the field on his family's farm in Linn County, Kansas in 1861. As he guides the mules and plow, he thinks about the past, the present, and the future. He recalls the 16-month drought of last year. One-third of the population of Kansas Territory decided to flee the state for fear of starving. He remembers his father's opinion of the drought. Emory Bussey, a veteran of the Mexican War and a Free State man in the raging guerilla warfare over slavery dividing the people on the Kansas-Missouri border, thinks the drought is a blessing to the new state. The weakest families evacuate; the strongest ones remain. Jeff thinks of his mother, Edith Bussey, and he compares her life in the rolling hills and stately homes of Kentucky to...