Abigail's husband is lost, presumed dead, in the great fire that destroys their home in colonial West Jersey. She refuses to believe he is dead.

Without a man to support her, Abigail struggles to provide for herself and her baby, taking in laundry, spinning, weaving, sewing. Then she takes in Tilly, a young orphan girl.

While gathering thistle they meet Caesar, a young escaped slave. After several days of feeding him in secret, they decide to help him run to New France, where he can be free. If they can find a way to get Caesar north of York City, to the Hudson River, their friend Tamaqua, a Lenape warrior, can help them. But they have to get there first.

How will a woman and a girl, traveling with a baby get a fugitive slave from Burlington to the Hudson? Then, how will they make their way through a hostile frontier made more dangerous by intertribal warfare.

Abigail's Tale, Book Two in the Bompeau Family Saga, is the sequel to The Fourth Son.