After nearly three years of prairie living, 13-year-old Jim moves with his grandparents into the town of Black Hawk: His grandparents are becoming too old to do arduous farm work, and they want Jim to be a student at the brick schoolhouse. His grandparents buy a house and rent their homestead to the good-hearted Widow Steavens and her unmarried brother. Jim is sad that the Burdens no longer need Jake and Otto, who have been like his older brothers. Otto yearns to return to the Wild West, and Jake decides to accompany him, even though the Burdens fear that Jake will be easy prey for con artists. Jake and Otto help move the Burdens into town and fix up their new house. Months after the two men head West, the Burdens receive a card from them, saying they are working in the Yankee Girl Mines, but Jim’s letter to them is returned unclaimed.

The Burdens quickly adapt to life in town: Jim’s grandfather becomes the Baptist Church deacon, Jim’s grandmother works in the missionary societies, and Jim thinks that he has become “quite another boy” (145). Jim learns how to fight, tease girls, and use forbidden words—things he never did on the prairie.