Annetka Kaminska is a thirteen-year-old girl living in Russian-controlled Poland in 1896. She bitterly resents the Russians that have taken over her country and are forcing her people to give up their language and customs. But she is even more angry when her father, living in America, arranges a marriage for her, with a Pennsylvania coal miner twice her age. A widower with three little girls, Stanley mounrs for his wife and does not love Annetka, treating her almost like a servant. Yet when he dies in a mining accident, things become even more difficult, as she must care for the children and pay the rent. Yet in spite of her bleak life, she finds some hope in the children, and in the possibly of true love.