Hamlin was nine years old when his father moved the family from Wisconsin to Iowa. Hamlin had loved his old home, but he immediately loved the new one even better. So when his father sold that farm and moved the family farther west, this time into the vast Iowa plains, Hamlin was not happy about it. There were no trees at all around his new home, and by then Hamlin was old enough to help with the grueling work of breaking the soil. How, he wondered, could his father be so happy in this harsh, empty land?