Hod Pierce, a boy not unlike Henry Giles, who grows up on Piney Ridge, where generations of Pierces have made a living from the stubborn soil. Hod loves his people and the land but longs also for wider horizons, for more education, and for the freedom he imagines can be found in the outside world. It takes World War II to carry Hod away from the Ridge and out into the great world, and it is a long time before he comes back. After the war is over, Hod settles into marriage and a factory job in the city. Finally it is Mary, his city-bred wife, who sees at last that to Hod, Piney Ridge will always be home. In her preface to the second edition, Mrs. Giles wrote, "I believe [the story] is timeless and as the hands of the clock have turned and turned, people are turning back to the earth, knowing now that saving this earth is the most important work in the world, that we must all become, as Hod and Mary Pierce did, a man and woman with faith in the earth." (1905-1979), author of nineteen books, lived and wrote near Knifley, Kentucky, for thirty-four years. Her biography is told in .