Zipporah finds a new life in the theater as she watches her mother struggle with a new life that she cannot fit into. Mary Driscoll leaves her Ma and Pa in Ireland to come to America. The potato famine had left the land barren and life was very hard so Mary's Aunt has sent money for her passage to America. She arrives in the U.S. and works at the mill as a weaver. The work is hard and many disasters happen around her as she learns to adjust to the new way of life.
Life is hard but happiness comes in the form of a friend.
With a friend you have someone to share things with. A documentary, written for children, follows the story of the children of the millions of European immigrants who arrived at Ellis Island during the late 1800's and early 1900's. With actual photographs, quotes, and documented incidents, the book explains what it was like coming over on the ships, their new homes, their lives at school in the new country, their work and their play. The photographs graphically portray the harshness of their new lives in this country. Then Lucy hears about the Children's Aid Society, a group that sends orphans out west to new homes.