When their old friend, Barney O'Hara, dies, vaudevillians Kit and Joe Ballantine adopt his infant daughter Wendy. Wendy is barely able to walk when she joins the Ballantines' song-and-dance act, and although she is beloved by her audiences, Joe and Kit think that she deserves a normal life instead of one filled with hotel rooms and trains. Consequently, they purchase a farm in Stonefield, Vermont and leave the theater. The gregarious Ballantines arrive in Stonefield to find that they are unwelcome by the narrow-minded citizenry, who are led by Hester Appleby, the hidebound town matriarch and schoolteacher. They are are welcomed, however, by newspaper owner Mike Shea, the only person in town who believes in change. Mike's outspoken opinions create problems in his courtship of Judith, Hester's niece. During a town meeting, the civic-minded Joe supports Mike's idea to promote tourism, and to humiliate Joe, the citizenry appoints him a one-man chamber of commerce. While Mr. Dakin and others make fun of Joe behind his back, Wendy transforms Hester's prosaic school show into a dynamic vaudeville act. When the children stage the show, however, their parents object to the material and stop it in mid-performance. This last humiliation prompts the Ballantines to decide to pack up and return to show business. In a final act of cruelty, one of the children tells Wendy that she is adopted. A raging storm strikes on the day of their departure, and on their way to the train station, they find a group of lost children and take them to Hester's house for shelter. Discovering that little Jerry Dakin is still lost in the storm, Joe braves the weather to rescue the boy. Joe's bravery forces the townsfolk to revise their opinions of the newcomers, and they finally unite behind the Ballantines' progressive ideas.