Early Whitcomb's family needs a miracle. Their Iowa farm has been in the family for generations, but a long drought has withered their savings and left them in debt. Meanwhile, the great Chicago and Northwestern Railroad wants their land, and if the Whitcombs can't pay their loans, the local banker, Judge Fuslin, will foreclose and sell the farm as his own. Early's uncle (though he's more like a brother), Jesse, thinks he has the solution-to head...

"Twelve-year-old Belle Martin and her family move to Mingo, Colorado, in 1910 when the U.S. government offers 320 acres of land free to homesteaders." --

A grandfather tells how the family's Christmas tradition of placing a carved wooden nest with a pair of geese and their babies in the large spruce tree started years ago when his parents first settled in Colorado.

In 1878, thirteen-year-old Eva seeks her birth mother in Colorado, only to find the city and her mother are not what she imagined. The year is 1878, and 13-year-old Eva has lost all the family she-s ever known. Eva feels like an orphan-but she's not. Sadie Lewis, the woman who gave her up at birth, is alive and well in Denver. And Eva sets out to find her, carrying only an address on a slip of paper. But Denver holds more surprises than Eva can bear....