This book was a quick and enjoyable read. This story chronicles the journey of Karl from his native Prussian town as he travels to America with the ultimate goal of homestead in the Midwest. On the journey across, he meets his soon to be best friend Heinrich, and together they enter America where they find the stories of American prosperity left much to be desired. Having very little money and unable to speak or read English, both men find it difficult to find work, but are eventually able to make a small living. Karl reconnects a lady he and Heinrich had met on voyage across and she becomes his first love interest, however, his feelings for her are not enough to keep him from leaving the city.
After Karl hears about the potential for a good job working in a newly developed butchering operation, both Karl and Heinrich jump on a train to Chicago where are quickly hired to perform very specific tasks on a butchering assembly line. However, after Karl becomes sick, he cannot keep up with the work and has to take time off. When his is better, he finds that he has been replaced and is forced to look for a new job. This proves to be difficult, but eventually Karl lands another job.
After they meet a person who worked as a lumberjack in Wisconsin and hear the benefits, Karl and Heinrich decide to head Wisconsin, where they meet up with a seasoned lumberjack foreman who helps them get prepared, out to and integrated into camp. All things seem to be going well until Karl becomes injured and can no longer cut down trees. However, he eventually becomes a saw sharpening apprentice and is able to replace the master saw sharper who has decided to retire and the job is one of the best paying jobs in the camp.
After a few seasons working as a lumberjack, Karl and Heinrich hear about the rumor of gold in the Dakotas. Heinrich has a strong desire to try his hand at mining gold, but Karl is still set on becoming a landowner. Eventually Karl decides that he has enough time in his plan that he can go with Heinrich to see if they could strike it rich.
After making a perilous journey through Indian country to Deadwood, where the two find again, that the stories do not hold true and gold is not everywhere. They decide that Karl will get a job, while Heinrich will prospect for gold. Karl meets an acquaintance named Martin from his village in Prussia who is currently running a saloon. Martin hires Karl to help manage the saloon and Karl learns how to live in the lawless unwritten rules of the wild west and the goal of a business making profit. Soon Karl becomes official manager of the saloon. At one point Karl comes to the rescue of Ana, a half-Lakota Indian woman who is one of the saloon’s “happy girls” who provide companionship to the clientele at the saloon. One of the saloon regulars became jealous of the attention Ana was providing to other clients and began to beat on her. Once Karl rescued her, he allowed her to stay in his apartment until she could heal. Ana ends up staying there until the time comes that Karl and Heinrich decide to leave Deadwood since there was no gold and the town was no longer growing. Martin had previously turned over ownership of the saloon to Karl and left town to avoid creditors with the intent that Karl would sell the salon and deliver the proceeds to Martin minus a commission for his efforts. However the economy in Deadwood had grown so bad that many saloons were going out of business and Karl had a hard time selling the Saloon. Eventually he was able to sell the Saloon for a fraction of what he and Martin had originally planned to sell it for.
With the Saloon no longer in his possession, Karl was free to pursue his dream of finding land to homestead. Heinrich agreed to go along with him. Karl also discovered that he cared for Ana and that Ana cared for him and she also agreed to come along, so they set out for the last known location of Martin , so that Karl could give him the proceeds from the sale of the Saloon. When they get there, they find out that Martin has died and narrowly escape having all their money stolen by vagrants who knew Martin and the plan to sell the Saloon.
While on the trail to Fort McCoy, the group is ambushed by two Indians and Heinrich is shot to death. Karl and Ana are saved by Ana’s skill with a gun. The two collect Heinrich’s body and continue on to Fort McCoy where they are able to provide Heinrich with a funeral. Karl puts most of his money in the bank so he does not have to worry about it being on his person. While at Fort McCoy, Ana and Karl decide to get married and Karl is surprised at how the local Lakota Indians contribute. After all their business is done at Fort McCoy, Karl and Ana decide to finally head out, but find that all the money Karl had placed in the local bank is gone along with the everybody else that put money in the bank as the banker and assistant banker left town with all the money. Karl is devastated that he does not have enough money now, but Ana points out that they really don’t need the money. Ana convinces Karl to continue on his quest and the story ends as the couple enters the valley where Karl plans to establish his homestead.
The author states that this is the first story he wrote over 10 years ago and now that the author has a few more books under this belt, he decided to re-issue the story after correcting many common first author errors. He notes that he story itself is no perfect, and he is right. The story lacks depth in many places and some of the points made in the story seem to be clearly made-up and not much in line with the expected sentimentalities of the time. Still, the story was entertaining and I was able to easily read through the book in a few weekend sittings. The author noted that the story is based on a few facts from his family history and much of the story was made up to fill in the rest of the details. Having come my family come from Prussia as well, I would have been interested in see what actual facts the author was working from. It would have been nice if the author had provided an overview of the facts he understood about his family history as it pertained to the story.
Overall, I do recommend this read 4 out of 5 stars. ( )