In the town of Fremont, janitor Abraham Lincoln Jones is being groomed as the successor to Mayor Joe Bush. The old men who discuss politics in back of Hobart's grocery store like Abe, as does Mary Shelby, whose dress shop carries Vogue magazine and the latest New York City fashions. Feminist Aurora Noyes and her daughter Lotta arrive in town to politicize the women. Abe finds Lotta intellectually stimulating and loses interest in Mary. After war is declared, the eligible men in town enlist, Aurora ousts Joe, then convinces the townswomen to assume men's jobs and wear men's clothes, to the detriment of Mary's business.