In the early 1900s, after his family joins other Amish families on the Colorado frontier, young Joe, dreaming of an easier life, tries his hand at gold panning and learns some of life's truly golden lessons from an old prospector.
Ten-year-old Ben and eight-year-old Polly are used to their parents' struggle to make ends meet on their Indiana farm in the 1890s and look forward to a better life in North Dakota where they will be homesteaders, but the windswept prairie will provide new challenges.