This is the story of how Lucy, her newly widowed mother, and her younger siblings, set out for the Californian gold-rush to make their fortunes.

Lucy arrives to find that their new home, Lucky Diggin's, is a very different place to their old home in Massachusetts that she longs so much to return to.

"Folks called it majestic, noble, imposing, magnificent. Awful, I called it. Just awful."
Told from Lucy's point of view, you quickly get sucked in to her funny money making schemes that will get her back home to Massachusetts, the interesting miners she meets and eventually befriends; the tragic, humorous and touching moments that she and her family share throughout this adventure.