There are strength and beauty in this gripping novel of post-colonial days in southern New Hampshire. The tale is of Jared Austin, journeyman painter, in those soul-trying years of the early nineteenth century. No period in all the history of these New England settlers is more filled with drama and grim struggle than the dread eighteen-hundred and froze-to-death, when snow fell every month of the year, crops were ruined, cattle perished, and men's hearts were sorely tired.

It is a colorful, exciting story that Elizabeth Yates tells—a tale that reconstructs the past of America—a past which built up the ideals we are now fighting to preserve.

From the dust jacket