 Richter expresses only her thoughts and speech in the “pioneer” dialect.The central character, Sayward Luckett Wheeler, contributes to the transformation of the frontier settlement founded by her father into a full-fledged town with a church, a school, frame and brick houses, businesses, and improvements such as roads, bridges, canals, a railroad, and a county courthouse – all within her lifespan of some eighty-odd years.Although Sayward at first welcomes the development as a promise of prosperity and improved lives, by the end of the trilogy, she questions whether the rapid changes have fostered traits such as greed and laziness in the townspeople.