The world of 1952 was much different from today’s Vermont. There were over ten times as many working dairy farms and, though phones and TVs were becoming commonplace in most of America, they came to Vermont a little more slowly. Children worked on the farm or in village stores which were owned and operated by their neighbors. Each community had its own characters and each community took care of itself and its people. 

This is the place that our main character, eleven-year-old Walter Hacks, is growing up in. He, along with his sixteen-year-old brother Clifford, lives on a hillside farm with their father, Warren Hacks. The farm sits half-way up Hacks Mountain, a prime location for a new ski area — which if the farm were sold to the ski area, it would benefit a lot of townspeople. A lazy summer soon turns hard with a series of gritty events that challenge Walter’s youthful innocence and test his ability to trust.