The O’Riley family is growing in a variety of ways: spiritually, emotionally, mentally and also in number, through birth and adoption, until their small house is nearly bursting at the seams. The town of Timberton is also growing. The small lumbering community now boasts of a church, school, bank, doctor’s office and mercantile, plus families. As one year follows the next, the O’Riley children are steadily growing up and take on jobs and professions, as well as spouses. There is also a growing unrest concerning the trouble that is brewing back East as the North and South disagree more heatedly with one another. In Timberton, the citizens hail from both North and South. Everyone is wondering: Will there be war?