Jim’s restless older brother Reuben is always chasing a new scheme to make money in America of the 1890’s. But fourteen-year-old Jim determines to find a way to stay on the Arkansas prairie. Moving to the prairie years ago had been Reuben’s first venture to make his fortune. The land was advertised as the most fertile soil, but when it failed to produce the promised quick profit, the impatient Reuben set off again, settling Jim with his sister and her family on a nearby farm. Now Jim belongs to the prairie. And although he watches the unrelenting drought force settlers to return to their previous homes every year, he aspires to reopen their first homestead—the one Reuben abandoned. Fortunately, Jim knows a man just as stubborn as he is who has a daring plan for making a good living on the Arkansas prairie—growing rice!

From the Bethlehem Books reprint