Chautauqua manager Walter Hale and his loyal business manager struggle to keep their traveling troupe together in small town America.
A new boy, Harley, joins a club but shows an interest in the girl on whom the club leader has a crush. The two club members trick Harley into stealing a prize watermelon to the dismay of the furious farmer, and later dare him to enter a supposedly haunted house in which they uncover a bag of money stolen in a bank robbery.
Sarah McDavid, an idealistic young teacher, takes a job in a rough high school where she is eventually attacked and raped in her classroom after school hours and decides to buck the school system in an attempt to make schools safer for students and teachers alike, against the advice of the school's principal, Dr. Keys, who tries to gloss over the hazardous conditions and the incident itself to avoid bad publicity and decreased enrollment.
