Just before the beginning of World War I, eight-year-old Ruthie, who lives with her parents and six brothers on a farm in Indiana, wishes for a sister and tries to behave like the lady her mother wants her to be.

Crippled in a horrific accident, Wayne Lambright feels unable to care for himself, much less Loraine Miller, his future bride, so he does everything he can to rekindle feelings between her and ex-boyfriend Jake Beechy, but Loraine's heart is torn.

When teenage heartthrob Luke Stryker shows up at a small-town Indiana high school to do research for a movie role, he persuades junior Jenny Greenley to use her considerable talents to try to change things at school for the better.

Quaker pastor Sam Gardner has an unexpected crisis of faith, and the other members of his parish all try to help him overcome his doubts before he makes a rash decision that will change their town forever.

Quaker pastor Sam Gardner tries to keep his eccentric flock on the path of righteousness while congregant Dale Hinshaw floats another crackpot ministry project, his wife contemplates a trip to the Caribbean without him, and the Friendly Women's Committee strategizes to come to the aid of single woman Deena Morrison.

When fourteen-year-old Viola is sent from her beloved Brooklyn to boarding school in Indiana for ninth grade, she overcomes her initial reservations as she makes friends with her roommates, goes on a real date, and uses the unsettling ghost she keeps seeing as the subject of a short film--her first.

Orphaned and maimed, Freckles' bitterness about his fate is lessened when he is hired to guard a stretch of lumber in the wild Limberlost and, after meeting the beautiful "Swamp Angel," he determines to find out about his past.

Fourteen-year-old Eleanor "Peewee" McGrath, a tomboy and automobile enthusiast, discovers new possibilities for her future after the 1914 arrival in her small Indiana town of four young librarians.