By a stroke of luck, eighteen-year-old Louise Tanquist has fallen into a new job as a photographer’s assistant. But it’s 1917 and the United States is in the verge of entering World War 1. Suddenly, Tacoma, Washington where she lives is being overrun with army recruits headed for nearby Camp Lewis. The Red Cross is asking for socks, socks, and more socks; the Foundation Boat Building Company needs volunteers to paint camouflage on their shops, and spies are skulking around the waterfront. Just when Louise thinks she has more things to photograph than she can find time for, let alone to find time for a new romance, she suffers a serious assault. With her beau out of town, she has an opportunity to go north to the Makah Indian Reservation and provide photographs for a book on Native Americans. It’s an exciting time to be alive but Louise knows she will lose friends and relatives in the war, and that the perfect summers she grew up with are over.