“Thirty or forty years ago, in one of those grey towns along the Burlington railroad, which are so much greyer today than they were then, there was a house well known from Omaha to Denver for its hospitality and for a certain charm of atmosphere.” 

The novel’s first sentence sets the tone from the very beginning. It indicates to the reader that the story’s events occurred decades ago and that negative changes have transpired in the railroad town since then. This introduction also establishes the Forrester home as the story’s central location and alludes to its importance and character.

“There were then two distinct social strata in the prairie States; the homesteaders and hand-workers who were there to make a living, and the bankers and gentlemen ranchers who came from the Atlantic seaboard to invest money and to ‘develop our great West,’ as they used to tell us.” 

Social stratification is an important theme in this novel, seen in the behavior of the main characters as well as Niel’s childhood friends. The Forresters represent the highest class of pioneer, akin to Western royalty, while most of Sweet Water’s other residents are working-class “commoners.” One of the story’s tragedies involves the Forresters’ fall from elite status when Captain Forrester loses his fortune.

“But later, after the Captain’s terrible fall with his horse in the mountains, which broke him so that he could no longer build railroads, he and his wife retired to the house on the hill. He grew old there—and even she, alas! grew older.” 

This passage foreshadows the changes that occur later in the story. When the main story begins in Part 1, Chapter 2, the reader sees the Forresters, and the original Western pioneer class as a whole, at the height of their prominence. The end of Chapter 1 portends Captain Forrester’s decline as a towering figure, beginning with a literal fall from a horse, and shows that even Mrs. Forrester, seen as an effervescent charmer in Chapter 2, is destined to age as well.