When thirteen-year-old Stephanie made the long trek from Carolina to Kentucky in the spring of 1780, she brought with her an apple seed. Even so had her Grandmother Linney carried an apple seed from France to Charleston. The seed that Stephanie nurtured in the wild Kentucky soil, the "tree of freedom" as she called it, was not merely a link with the past, but a symbol of the new way of life that the pioneering families meant to build in the fresh green land.

Kentucky was full of promise in 1780 but it was also full of hardship. Before the winter set in, the seven Venables had to clear their land, raise a crop, and build a cabin. Tales of Indians in the neighborhood, demands for army volunteers, and the threats of a Britisher rivaling their claim did not do much to help. The Venables discovered that the Revolution had not been left behind in the East; the problem of belonging or not belonging to the new nation was even more important now that the authorization of the land office and the legality of their claim were in question.

More than just a story of homesteading, this is a warm and interesting study of character and family relationships. And the numerous line drawings by Mrs. Morse pleasingly round out the picture of the seven Venables.

From the dust jacket