Its action begins almost immediately after the conclusion of The Trees, a few weeks after the marriage of protagonist Sayward Luckett and her husband, lawyer Portius Wheeler.

The action of the novel spans a much longer period of time than its predecessor, covering approximately 20 years of their marriage as the couple become parents to a very large family.

An influx of new settlers, particularly after Ohio becomes a state, transforms the frontier of the first novel into a small town surrounded by many miles of farms, with a population that is still growing and cheap land that is becoming ever more expensive.

Eventually, Sayward discovers that Portius has been having an extramarital affair with the town schoolmistress, Miss Bartram (his only intellectual equal in the community), who is expecting his out-of-wedlock child.

Richter conducted extensive research in order to convey in his writing the mode of speech of the early 19th-century pioneers of the Ohio Valley, many of whom originally emigrated from Pennsylvania and the Upper South.

In order to write a dialect to convey a historic sense, Richter used rare collections of old manuscripts, letters, and records that documented the speech of early 18th- and 19th-century residents.

He noted that, although it is often mistaken for a "native" form of speech there, it should be considered "a living reminder of the great mother tongue of early America.

When Sayward has problems in her marriage or with her own children, whether due to her husband's infidelity or generational differences, she tries to defuse tensions and ultimately forgives any wrongs committed.

The central character, Sayward Luckett Wheeler, witnesses the transformation of the frontier settlement founded by her father into a town with a church, a school, frame and brick houses, businesses, and improvements such as roads, bridges, canals, a railroad, and a county courthouse – all within her lifespan of some eighty-odd years.

Although Sayward at first welcomes the development as a promise of prosperity and improved lives, by the end of the trilogy, she questions whether the rapid changes have fostered traits such as greed and laziness in the townspeople.