Based on the Depression-era bildungsroman memoir of writer A. E. Hotchner, the film follows the story of a boy struggling to survive on his own in a hotel in St. Louis after his mother is committed to a sanatorium with tuberculosis. His father, a German immigrant and traveling salesman working for the Hamilton Watch Company, is off on long trips from which the boy cannot be certain he will return.
Jacob's farm is in trouble from a severe drought. Jacob and Sarah begin to wonder if Sarah can stay, and what will happen to Jacob if she and the children have to leave the farm.
April has a problem. Whenever she gets anything like passionate with a guy all sorts of things seem to spontaneously combust. The only men she meets more then once are firefighters. Actually, it's Mom's way of trying to keep her little girl to herself, but new boyfriend Andy is having none of such nonsense. So the heat's on. Unfortunately it's Fluffy the cat who keeps getting caught in the middle.
