A juvenile court services director strives to fight the odds following his promise to a resourceful 11-year-old to keep her and her four younger brothers and sisters together as a family after their parents abandoned them, despite a bureaucrat's insistence that it is impossible to locate a single foster home for all five.

A bible salesman finds himself saddled with a young girl who may or may not be his daughter, and the two forge an unlikely partnership as a money-making con team in Depression-era Kansas.