Kirsten Larson, a young Swedish girl on the Minnesota frontier, searches for an answer to the disappearance of her friend, Erik Sandahl, while her family and neighbors assume that he has skipped out on the harvest labor he promised and money he owes.

"Between 1854 and 1929, so-called orphan trains ran regularly from the cities of the East Coast to the farmlands of the Midwest, carrying thousands of abandoned children whose fates would be determined by luck and chance. This is the story of one such child. As a young Irish immigrant, Vivian Daly was sent by rail from New York City to an uncertain future a world away. Returning east later in life, Vivian leads a quiet, peaceful existence on the coast...