- Caleb's Crossing is the story of Bethia Mayfield, a twelve-year-old girl growing up in the tiny settlement of Great Harbor, MA, and Caleb, the young son of a Wampanoag chieftain. Bethia and Caleb forge a tentative, secret friendship that draws each into the alien world of the other. Bethia's father, a minister, treats Caleb as a project, and sends him to Cambridge for an education. Geraldine Brooks is the author of People of the Book and the Pulitzer Prize-winning March, among others.