Jim and Antonia come to the Nebraska plain from different places in the social hierarchy and from different parts of the world. Orphaned at the age of ten, Jim leaves his parents' Virginia home to live with his grandparents on their comfortable Nebraska farm. Arriving in America from Bohemia with her family, fourteen-year-old Antonia faces linguistic and cultural barriers as well as ethnic tensions common to first-generation pioneer immigrants. Early in her friendship with Jim, Antonia highlights their differences. ''but they will be hard for us''.