This book is about Luella, a girl of fifteen or sixteen, who grew up in the back hills of the Arkansas Ozarks in very primitive conditions but after many difficulties was able to overcome her childhood and make a new and more modern, fulfilling life for herself. In the process of accomplishing this, she runs away from home, is caught, sent home, kidnapped, almost killed, and then forced to marry at sixteen. After several months of an unhappy marriage, her husband is murdered. Of course she is a suspect but does have an alibi. Luella survives through her faith in God, her desire and ambition to escape from the life of her parents, and through the help of family.