Lyddie must perform her parents' duties, as her father left for the gold rush and her mother is insane.

Lyddie's mother sees the bear as the devil and moves in with her sister, Clarissa, and her husband, Judah.

While at the house, they receive a letter from their mother, who tells them she signed them up for jobs in the village and they have been hired out as indentured servants.

They are driven there by the Stevenses, a Quaker family; Luke Stevens is very kind to Lyddie and Charlie.

In her house, she finds a runaway slave named Ezekiel Freeman, an ex-preacher who educated himself by using the Bible.

Lyddie then works at a textile mill in Lowell, Massachusetts, to pay the debt on her family's farm.

Lyddie works very hard, and so when the Overseer picks up the pace of the looms, she stays when others are fired or quit.

Luke proposes marriage to her, but she is revolted by the letter and nearly rips it up when she stops as she almost tears Charles' name.

She returns home briefly, considers marrying Luke Stevens, but chooses instead to attend Oberlin College, known for accepting women and decides to come back afterwards.

The cast includes Tanya Allen, Danielle Brett, Andrea Libman and Lexie Lore.

Michele Landsberg of Entertainment Weekly rated it A and wrote of the title character's troubles, "The rewards are all the more cheering for being so hard won.