Christy Huddleston hears Dr. Ferrand speak at a church conference about Appalachian missions and volunteers as a teacher.

Christy arrives alone at El Pano train station in a snowstorm with no one from Cutter Gap there to meet her.

Christy walks seven miles through deep snow with postal worker Mr. Pentland to finally reach Cutter Gap.

Doctor MacNeill performs a risky emergency skull surgery on injured Bob Allen inside the Spencer family cabin.

Christy meets Miss Alice Henderson at her cabin and hears her wisdom about the mountain people for the first time.

Christy teaches her first lesson at the mission school and discovers the wide cultural gap between her and her students.

Christy's letter-writing campaign to outside donors results in a grand piano being delivered to the mission.

Christy begins formally tutoring Fairlight Spencer in reading and writing, and the two women form a close friendship.

David follows the mission's drunken pigs and discovers a large moonshine cache hidden under the schoolhouse floor.

David delivers a bold church sermon directly condemning moonshine production and the use of boys as illegal traffickers.

Tom McHone is shot dead in the back just steps from the safety of the mission house.

Fairlight Spencer falls gravely ill with typhoid and dies just as the mountain's shadow crosses her cabin.

Christy's grief over Fairlight drives her to spiritual collapse, but she senses God's overwhelming presence and her faith is renewed.

Lundy Taylor secretly eats hard-boiled eggs during typhoid recovery, ruptures his bowel, and dies before the doctor can arrive.

Weakened by nursing typhoid patients, Christy herself falls critically ill and slips into a feverish near-death delirium.

Nineteen-year-old Christy Huddleston volunteers to teach at a remote mission school in the Smoky Mountains after hearing a stirring conference speech, making the difficult journey to Cutter Gap through a winter snowstorm. She meets the key figures who will shape her year — the enigmatic Doctor MacNeill, the wise Quaker woman Miss Alice Henderson, and the pastor David Grantland — and throws herself into teaching while trying to bridge a deep cultural divide. Determined to improve the school's resources, Christy launches an ambitious letter-writing campaign that brings unexpected results, and she begins a transformative friendship with mountain woman Fairlight Spencer. A dangerous moonshine operation hidden beneath the schoolhouse leads to violence that tears through the community and pushes the mission into crisis. A typhoid epidemic then claims Fairlight's life and drives Christy herself toward spiritual collapse before her own near-fatal illness brings the year to its climax. Through grief, danger, and doubt, Christy discovers both a deeper calling and an unexpected love.

The essential story of Christy's mission year in Cutter Gap.

Christy's father walks her to the train station and instructs the conductor to watch over her, which she silently resents.

Stranded at El Pano, Christy stays at Mrs. Tatum's boarding house, where she is warned that helping the Cove people will be nearly impossible.

Christy enters the Spencer cabin for the first time and is deeply struck by the stoic, timeless strength of the mountain women.

After sleeping through her first night at the mission, Christy meets pastor David Grantland, his sister Ida, and young Ruby Mae Morrison.

Christy visits the O'Teale family cabin and is horrified to find their disabled son kept in a pen in brutal conditions.

An unexpected check for $106 arrives, enough to buy a horse for the mission, which Christy and Miss Alice see as answered prayer.

Christy dresses a McHone newborn for burial after the baby dies from a dangerous superstitious treatment applied by her well-meaning mother.

Christy visits the Morrison cabin hoping to reconcile Ruby Mae with her estranged parents, but the Morrisons refuse to forgive.

Christy dresses in her finest attire and presents the mission's needs to wealthy magnate Hazen Smith, who pledges his full support.

Christy and David visit frail ninety-three-year-old Aunt Polly Teague, who silences David's uncertainty with a profound personal testimony of faith.

Vandals tear apart new books and maps at the school; Lundy Taylor then threatens Christy directly until David intervenes.

The new telephone line into the Cove is completed, and the first call comes through, astonishing the crowd gathered at the mission house.

Christy and the women barricade the mission house through the night against unknown intruders apparently hunting for Tom McHone.

Christy returns home to Asheville for a visit and discovers that city life no longer satisfies her the way Cutter Gap does.

Ruby Mae's mountain wedding fills the mission with music and celebration; Doctor MacNeill and Christy dance together for the first time.

Before Christy even reaches Cutter Gap, warnings and wonders surround her journey — from her father's over-protectiveness at the train station to a boarding-house keeper's cautionary words about the mountain folk. Once settled at the mission, she navigates a series of significant encounters: visiting impoverished and troubled family cabins, helping arrange a heartbreaking burial, and beginning to form the friendships that open her eyes to mountain culture. Her determination to secure outside support for the mission wins a powerful local sponsor, even as tensions at the school build toward a direct confrontation with the most disruptive student. The arrival of the telephone brings astonishment to the Cove, while a terrifying siege at the mission house and a revelatory trip home to Asheville mark the year's turning tide. A mountain wedding filled with dancing and celebration rounds out a year of secondary but essential events that together shaped Christy's transformation.

The smaller moments that built Christy's life in Cutter Gap.

Encouraged by Miss Alice, Christy makes a deep personal commitment to the mission, resolving that the Cove and its children are her own.

Christy falls from her horse into a creek and takes shelter at Doctor MacNeill's cabin, where they debate the mission's true purpose.

Miss Alice gently rebukes Christy for writing directly to donors, explaining that the mission's founding policy forbids making direct appeals for aid.

Christy secretly sews beautiful buttons onto a speech-impaired girl's coat; the girl rushes to her gleefully and speaks clearly for the first time.

During a visit to the Spencer cabin, Fairlight Spencer confesses she cannot read or write and opens herself to Christy's friendship.

Miss Alice reveals the history of Doctor MacNeill's Scottish ancestry and how his ancestor financed the voyage of 1,800 immigrants to settle the Cove.

At a community Working organized by Ozias Holt, tensions boil over when Bird's-Eye Taylor fires four shots near David, who refuses to retreat.

During David's sermon, Doctor MacNeill pulls Christy out to assist emergency surgery on Little Burl, then admits he warned the moonshine makers of the raid.

Someone shears the mission horse's mane and tail, and the church pulpit is found burning in the center of the mission square.

Pressed by Christy on his beliefs, Doctor MacNeill explains that years of witnessing suffering and death have left him a practical atheist.

David proposes marriage to Christy after the gloom of Tom McHone's death settles over the mission, asking her not to answer right away.

Miss Alice reveals she was assaulted as a teenager by a trusted spiritual mentor and that her daughter grew up to marry Doctor MacNeill.

When David asks about his marriage proposal on the return trip to the Cove, Christy surprises herself by asking for still more time.

Doctor MacNeill sends Christy to his locked secret room for typhoid medicines; she discovers it holds a private medical laboratory, not a shrine.

Doctor MacNeill prays aloud over the delirious Christy, pledging his love; she awakens knowing his was the voice that called her back.

From the moment Christy resolves that Cutter Gap is truly her mission, a chain of revealing encounters begins to reshape her understanding of the people around her and herself. A chance visit to Doctor MacNeill's cabin introduces a mysterious locked room and a thoughtful perspective on the community's deepest problems that challenges everything Christy assumed about the mission's work. As the moonshine crisis escalates, the doctor's surprising role in the conflict is exposed, and Christy must wrestle with uncomfortable truths about violence, loyalty, and the limits of her own faith. A marriage proposal from David, a shocking confession from Miss Alice about her own hidden past, and the doctor's frank admission of his lost faith all converge to leave Christy searching desperately for solid ground. The secret of the locked room is finally unlocked during the typhoid epidemic, revealing the hidden depths of the doctor's character, and the climax brings two long-concealed truths bursting into the open at once: a faith restored, and a love declared.