A couple leave urban life to buy and work a nearby farm, describing their house-hunting, surprises about land values, and the practical work of adapting to country living. The narrative contrasts romanticized accounts of the simple life with the economic and social realities of rural communities, observing idle land, declining local markets, and ingrained habits of longtime residents. It follows efforts to stimulate change through cooperative ventures, new agricultural methods, and civic organization, and traces the gradual results of those experiments in revitalizing town life and local enterprise.