To Ginny, almost anything would be better than living any longer with the miserly, ne'er-do-well, distant cousins who had claimed her and all she possessed when her parents died of a fever during the wagon-train journey to Oregon Territory. And they had married her off—for a very good price—at the age of ten to a much older farmer, because girls were in great demand, since married men could take title to twice the amount of land the government allowed a bachelor. On her fifteenth birthday, this kindly near-stranger, Mr. Mayhew, came to claim his bride. Unfortunately, on that same day Mr. Mayhew died of a stroke and Ginny, the young Widow Mayhew, was left in possession of his well-built house and flourishing farm.

This sometimes funny and often touching story, in which Ginny learns to fend off a stream of suitors who have their eyes only on her rich farmland and almost fails to recognize the merits of a shy young man who helps out on the farm, gives a vivid sense of life as it was during a brief period of our history when marriage was often considered a practical necessity instead of an affair of the heart.

From the dust jacket