The Civil War Homestead Act starts this saga in a Danish community in Iowa. A great-grandson restores the Homestead and uses a radio program to help the people of the Midwest deal with the threat and opportunity associated with ongoing change. That change affects him, too, as widower Krag connects with the female director of the Department of Rural Economics at Iowa State University. But a "firebug" related to a past conflict with Krag threatens the Homestead and all associated with it.