In letters to her cousin Tovah, Rifka describes her family's harrowing flight from Russia in 1919, the inspections by soldiers and doctors along the way, and the typhoid fever that nearly kills them all. Worst, when they are finally ready to board the ship for America, a doctor discovers that Rifka has ringworm and refuses to let her go. Her family must leave without her. Only twelve, Rifka must recover and make it to America on her own.