A new version of Truman Capote's 1956 tale based on his own bittersweet upbringing in Alabama. The story deals with a seven-year-old who forms a special friendship with his simple, older cousin whose two sisters and bachelor brother feel he needs better influences and role models and decide to send him to military school after the Christmas holidays.

A boy falls in love with a horse named Flash that's for sale. He gets a job to earn the money to buy the horse, but he's forced to sell when the family falls upon hard times.