Wayland Jackson, a widower with a young daughter, moves to a small, impoverished mountain village in North Carolina, circa 1934. They are taken in by Collie Wright, a single mother with an illegitimate baby, and she and Wayland soon fall in love. Trouble starts when the identity of her baby's father is revealed.
Marjorie Turner is suffocating. Her younger sister Jeanine has no ambition, and her 8 year marriage to Harry puts her in constant competition with his family (all doctors)..