Phyllis is the daughter of a millionaire and accustomed to life in the big city. She finds the country life a little unnerving; and she can't help but feel badly about how the people in Byrdsville view her family, moving into the big mansion no one else can afford to live in. And she knows everything is changing for her, with this new life. "Phil, old girl," her father said before leaving the city. "I'm not going to take Miss Rogers with us to go on with your solitary brand of education. There is a little one-horse school in Byrdsville that they call the Byrd Academy, and I watched a bunch of real human boys and girls go in the gate the morning I got there. I think you will have to be one of them. I want to see a few hayseeds sprinkled over your very polished surface!" And so it begins -- maybe the hardest task in her life, of finding acceptance, friendship, and maybe more, in a place she must try to make her own.

Author Biography

Maria Thompson Daviess (1872 - 1924) was an American novelist and artist, best known for her popular novels written with a "Pollyanna" outlook. Daviess was born in Harrodsburg, Kentucky in 1872. After her father died when she was eight, her family relocated to Nashville, Tennessee. She studied one year at Wellesley College and then went to Paris to study art. Returning to Nashville, she continued to paint and also took up writing. Her first novel, Miss Selina Lue and the Soap-box Babies was published in 1909. The Melting of Molly, published in 1912, was one of the top best-selling books for the year. She published sixteen novels between 1909 and 1920. In 1921, she moved to New York City, where she died in September 1924. She did not marry and had no children.