In the years leading up to World War II, life at the Tipton Home is tranquil. The children help run the farm that sustains them and obey Dale and Muriel Jenkins, the couple running this rural Oklahoma orphanage on a tight budget. But the arrival of a sensual and impulsive young housemother interrupts Tipton's gentle rhythms. Alice Williams quickly attracts the admiration of the teenaged boys. Ross Gentry in particular develops feelings for Alice, who nurses him to health after a brutal fight and agrees to help him find out the identity of his birth parents.