In the spring of 1925, Ida Bidson is 14. Less than five feet tall, she drives her family’s Model T car by kneeling on the seat while her seven-year-old brother, Felix, on hands and knees, operates the clutch and brake pedals. They careen along a dirt road through Elk Valley, a narrow plain sandwiched between mountain ranges in Colorado, and arrive at an old, square schoolhouse adorned with a bell tower and peeling walls. Their car screeches to a halt next to another vehicle.

Ida’s best friend, Tom Kohl, arrives on muleback with his sister, Mary. Other students sit on the front steps. Their teacher, Miss Fletcher, a small woman with dark hair, opens the door and tells the students to hurry in: “There’s grave news to share” (6).

The kids file into the one-room building. It’s filled with old wooden desks and benches, an iron stove, and a small library of 15 books and some magazines. The eight students, ranging in grade level from first to eighth, put away their lunch pails and coats, sit at their desks, and wait.