After eleven-year-old orphan-train rider David Howard settles with a strict Texas farm family, his best friend, an ex-slave, is threatened by the growing presence of the Ku-Klux Klan.

Sent away on an orphan train by his self-centered father Jessie, Will keeps hoping Jessie will return to claim him, even though the people he lives with care for him far more.

Twelve-year-old Will Scott is not happy to be riding the orphan train. He has a father--Jesse, a circus performer, who tells Will that he will have a better life with a new family out west. Will is placedwith the kindly Dr. and Mrs. Wallace and is happy with his new family,until one night Jesse's circus comes to town, and Will has to make a bigdecision.

A clumsy and unattractive twelve-year-old, Aggie is sure no one will want to adopt her when she rides the orphan train out west, but when she meets the eccentric Bradon family she begins to have some hope. Includes historical information about orphan trains and the woman's suffrage movement.