Hattie, a sixteen year-old orphan, lives with her Uncle Holt and his nasty wife Aunt Ivy in Arlington, Iowa. It is 1919, and her secret crush Charlie has left to join the army. As Aunt Ivy plots on how to get rid of Hattie, the girl prepares herself to be on the move again: to be Hattie Here-and-There, a leaf blown about in the breeze, undeserving of a home of her own.
Then a letter comes from her Uncle Chester, her mother’s only brother. He is dead and gone now, but he has left his claim in Vida, Massachusetts, and wants her to prove up on the claim. Hattie sets out right away, ready, after so many years of being told she was worthless, to have a place to call home.
But life in Vida is not easy. The air in winter cuts like a knife. The mud of spring means walking one step forward is walking two steps backward. And the heat of summer bears down on them like the fires of Hades. What’s more, a handsome man named Traft Martin keeps trying to badger her into selling her claim, and she has had little luck with planting. But when the Spanish Influenza claims the life of someone close to her, and her money situation goes from bad to worse, Hattie realizes that she can be a part of someone. Be someone more than Hattie Here-and-There. [Jordan]
