This story takes place in the first week of March 1895, in the renowned health resort and spa of Hot Springs, Arkansas. It was a time when people throughout the United States traveled, to Hot
Springs to bathe in the thermal springs as part of what was known as the water-cure. The main characters,two eleven-year-old cousins, Rachel Lee and Henrietta, encounter three strangers intent
on seeing their grandfather, Dr. Robert MacNeil, a local physician and Civil War veteran. Each stranger presents their grandfather with a gift: one shocking, one a pleasant surprise, and
another not wanted at all.
