Promising religious freedom and fertile land, Mary Rodger’s (Polly) father, Reverend Rodgers, moves their Baptist community from England to the Minnesota prairie in America. Polly, who must now adjust to a new home and her father’s new wife, writes this diary with incredible heart and compassion.

		Friday, 4 July Today was a holiday, the first in our new country. It is Independence Day, the day in which these United States once declared themselves free of “British-tyranny”. That is the way they say it here, “British-tyranny”. As though British and tyranny were one and the same. The entire community stopped work, Germans and Swedes and Norwegians and Finns and English together, and gathered at Mather’s Lake for a celebration. There were games – sack races and foot races and horse races – and music and even, when the dark came up, some banging fireworks, brought on the train from the East. And there were speeches. Loud speeches. Speeches boasting of this America as the finest land on earth. I wonder that these Americans do not make all things common by speaking of them o openly and in such grand terms . . . . When it was all over, our family walked slowly back to our small sod house. The little dragged their feet or slept in the arms of someone strong enough to carry them. And Papa said, “Well, then, I suppose we must all be Americans now. We have celebrated our independence from England.” But as I climbed the ladder to the loft with Millie’s curly head lolling on my shoulder, I wondered. Must independence come at such a cost? And do I want to be an American? Truly?