Frank Greerson and Gregory Young have been discharged from the Army and are headed to their childhood homes. They both defied their parents in 1861 when they joined the Army. After battling southern rebels and preserving the Union of the United States of America, the two men set out to battle the Kansas Prairie and build a life together. Once they find their claim, they encounter common obstacles to life on the Kansas Prairie in 1866: Native Americans, tornadoes, wild animals, and weather.<br><br>When a prairie fire destroys their crops and takes their neighbor’s lives, Frank and Gregory are instructed to find their young son’s aunt. Faced with leaving a destroyed claim, the railroad coming through their land, and dwindling funds, Frank and Gregory must decide whether to leave the place they have worked hard to make their own or fulfill their friends' dying wishes.

A Place to Call Their Own

“Come on, Mr. Bernard, Phillip. Don’t do this to us. We’ve been farming this land for the last three years. We have the house on one claim and the stable on the other. Both are well under qualification for the deeds,” Gregory tried to reason with Phillip Bernard.


“It is not up to me, Mr. Young. I don’t make the rules. I just follow them. And right now, I’m just following the requests of my employers,” Phillip answered in his thick New Orleans accent.


“But that means we’ll have to move all our buildings off the property lines. Do you know how much work we’ve put into everything?”


“That, Mr. Greerson, is not my problem. I am not the one who came to Montgomery County before it was properly surveyed. Nor am I the one who didn’t at least attempt to intelligently estimate the distance from the town to here so that your buildings wouldn’t be so close to the property lines.”


Chapter 48