Things aren't going well for the boy. His father is away fighting in World War II. His mother is working in a factory. And ""Uncle Carl"" is spending a lot of time at their apartment. So the boy's mother sends him to stay with his grandmother at the cookcamp where she works. Nine men live there, building a road in the Canadian woods. To the boy, they are giants, and the cookcamp is a magical place where he can learn to spit, and ride in the truck and on the tractor.