In the summer of 1849, Lucy Whipple's mother packs up her household and her two young children, and leaves their home in Massachusetts for the gold field of California. But moving is the last thing the outspoken twelve-year-old, Lucy, wants to do.

Reaching California, the Whipples set up a crude boardinghouse, and Lucy is put to work washing, cleaning, and baking pies in the rough mining town of Lucky Diggins. There are no books, no school - Nothing but dust and drunken miners. With each day, the homesick Lucy is more and more determined to take life into her own hands and return to New England.