Nine-year-old Josefina, the youngest of four sisters living in New Mexico in 1824, tries to help run the household after her mother dies.

In 1825, when Josefina trusts a trader in Santa Fe with an important deal, she makes a surprising discovery about this young American, who leaves town without paying her

Josefina trusts a trader in Santa Fe with an important deal and makes a surprising discovery.

When Tía Dolores, the beloved aunt who has cared for the Montoya family since the death of their mother, announces that she is planning to leave, Josefina and her sisters try to find a way to change her mind.

Josefina hopes to become a "curandera" or healer like Tâia Magdalena, and she is tested just before her tenth birthday when a friend receives a potentially fatal snakebite.

While spending the summer at Grandmary's home on Goose Lake, Samantha and the twins Agnes and Agatha decide to visit the island where Samantha's parents were drowned during a storm.

In the early 1800s, nine-year-old Josefina accompanies her father into the New Mexican mountains to check on the elderly shepherd who works for him, and she proves herself a good traveling companion when her father has an accident.