The year is 1925 and Eddie Clark is graduating eighth grade at the one-room West End School in the northern Maine town of Ashland. Salutatorian in a class of two, Eddie realizes Janice Chase is more than just his smart, pretty classmate. He senses his world is about to change, but he doesn't yet have a clue how much. On Graduation Day, Eddie's reputation for working part-time jobs and paper routes lands him a real job as cookee at a logging camp 30 miles west of town-a place where he soon becomes known as Bon Homme. Eddie understands work and responsibility, even before his father was killed in a woods accident two years earlier, but his life is growing in a laundry list of ways far beyond his wildest imagination. The discovery of cross-county skiing would certainly top that list if it wasn't for Janice.