Rachel Stewart has a toddler, William, and is five-and-a-half months pregnant when she receives word that her husband has died and been buried. Her exploitative father, William Bratton, Esquire, tries to take control of her life. He sells all her belongings at an auction, pays James' debts, and keeps the remaining money. Women in frontier Pennsylvania in 1804 have few legal rights, including over their children. In the eyes of the court, her son is considered an orphan, and her father takes Willie to raise.

Baffled by a court system that supports her father, Rachel struggles to be independent and to keep her sons. She is aided by her two brothers-in-law, her mother, and her friends, but it is a long, difficult conflict.