Plymouth Colony in December is cold and bleak. One hundred people need food and shelter, but many of them are too sick to work. Samoset and Massasoit show their new neighbors how to get food and plant seeds, but by spring, half the people who made the trip on the Mayflower are dead. So far the Smythe family has been spared, but too many of their friends are gone. John and Sarah spend more hours each day working in the fields and doing chores to help, but they worry. What will happen if their parents get sick?