Allison Hedges

At an elite, old-fashioned boarding school in New England, a passionate English teacher inspires his students to rebel against convention and seize the potential of every day, courting the disdain of the stern headmaster.

Billy Wyatt, a former high school and minor-league baseball player, receives a telephone call from his mother revealing that his former child-sitter, and later in his teens, his first love, Katie Chandler, has died. Wyatt returns home to deal with this tragedy, reminiscing over his childhood growing up with his father, Katie, and best friend Alan Appleby.

Beset by economic unrest, threatened from within by Indian nations and from without by overseas powers, the young country reeled in turmoil. But the gallant general who had commanded the Continental army in battle also agreed to guide the fledgling country - and his sure hand steadied the course.