The year is 1809.

Daisie Moon travels to a farm in Massachusetts to live with twelve-year-old Annie O and the Smith Family. What Daisie doesn't know is that Annie O's father plans to send his daughter off to work at a far-away cotton mill. The family needs the money, so Annie O sets out to work with Daisie in her bag.

Annie O works long hours at the mill. The Overseer, Mr. Roughnickel, is mean and the work hours are long. Annie O tries to make friends with the girls who work in the Spinning Room. Mostly they run off and ignore her. Her only friend, besides Daisie, is a dog she...