Twelve-year-old Mem presents a diary account of the trip she and her family made on the Mayflower in 1620 and their first year in the New World.

Lucille has so much trouble getting her snowsuit on that she is almost too tired to go outside and join her brother and sister playing in the snow.

At the age of seventy-five, Elzibah Swan decides to take up swimming, a pastime which enriches her life and one which she shares through letters with her young grandchildren.