As Kristin Swensen anxiously awaits her first glimpse of America, she is filled with a sense of the freedom that her new life promises. But she soon finds herself living on a farm in Minnesota where her parents and neighbors cling as closely as possible to the life they had known in Sweden.Kristin can't accept coming all this way only to re-create what she left behind. She longs to speak English and help the cause of women's rights. Her parents, however, want her to settle down and get married. Must Kristin give up her dream of independence and accept her parents' Old World values?