Ten year old Lizzie Baker loves her family life pioneering their farm in the Southwest Territory. She faces a horrible fact: Lizzie has a sickness that we now call "asthma", and the doctor does not know how to treat it. Each year gets worse, and this young girl faces the fact that she may not make it another one. This perceptive and insightfully told tale paints a graphic portrait of the treatment oddities of the period, as well as the a sensitive study of a young girl's thoughts and fears of ding.