Fourteen-year-old Clara Hargraves lives on a farm in Hopkinton, a small New Hampshire town, during the early 19th century.
She has a couple of big problems.
First of all, she has a stepmother, Priscilla, who used to be her spinster schoolteacher aunt.
Clara resents that her late mother s older sister has not only married her father but is about to have a baby.
To make matters worse, Prissy Priscilla keeps trying to make the rambunctious, clever, and witty Clara act like a proper young lady.