The novel begins on a train trip in which the narrator and a childhood friend, Jim Burden, share words about the past. Their conversation is a reminiscence about their small hometown of Black Hawk, Nebraska, and a Bohemian girl they both remember named Ántonia Shimerda. Jim has written a memoir about her and the narrator expresses interest in reading the manuscript. Jim delivers it to her, changing the title to My Ántonia, and thus indicating that the script will be a personal story. With this introduction, Ántonia Shimerda's story begins and is marked by the changes in the seasons of both life and the prairie.
The reader travels back in time to when Jim Burden's parents die and his Virginia relatives send the 10-year-old Jim to his grandparents, who live on a Nebraska farm. During his train trip, Jim learns of an immigrant family that is also traveling to Black Hawk. When they reach their destination, Otto Fuchs, a cowboy, picks up Jim and Jake Marpole, a hired hand who has accompanied Jim; leaving the station, Jim sees the immigrant family, looking huddled and lost.
Jim meets his kindly grandparents and by the next day he is already appreciating a whole new world of earth, sun, and unending prairie. The following Sunday, Grandmother, Otto, and Jim take provisions to their new neighbors, the immigrant Shimerda family, and find that they are living in a lean-to that fronts a cave. Jim plays with Yulka and Ántonia and agrees to help Ántonia learn English. He also takes his first long pony ride in the autumn colors of Nebraska. But, unlike Jim, the Shimerdas stay close to their farm, believing that the townspeople cannot be trusted, and allowing Ántonia to faithfully see Jim for her English lessons.
