Young Scattergood Baines arrives in the small New England town of Coldriver. Through some shrewd business maneuvering, he manages to open up a hardware store. Twenty years later he has become a prosperous and respected member of the community, a member of the local school board and the owner of a railroad that transports timber to the local sawmill. Problems begin to arise, however, when a young schoolteacher he has hired turns out to be not quite what he expected, and the mill owners pressure Scattergood to sell them his railroad, with the idea of raising the transportation fees paid to them by the local loggers.

When Martin Knox, a friend of Scattergood's who owns a horse-breeding farm, is killed in a harness race Scattergood tells Martin's son Dan that he will send him to college if he forgets about taking over his father's business, which was heavily mortgaged and has been put up for auction after Knox's death. The boy reluctantly agrees, but when he discovers that his favorite horse Starlight is sick, he decides to bring the animal back to health and then enter him in the Governor's Race, whose $5000 prize would enable Dan to pay off his father's mortgage and keep the business in the family.

Small-town store owner Scattergood Baines helps a runaway boy find his father, who has escaped after being unjustly imprisoned, and a young chemist who is trying to invent a color television but is being opposed by his girlfriend's father, who wants the girl to marry a pharmacist like himself instead of some crazy inventor.

A singing cowboy and his sidekick encounter misunderstandings and rodeo havoc as they try and save a man and daughter from con men.

Of the singing Beebe brothers, young Mike just wants to be a kid; responsible Dave wants to work in his garage and marry Martha; but feckless Joe thinks his only road to success is through swapping and gambling. It seems the only thing all three can join in is their singing act, which Mike and Dave hate. Finally, all Joe's hopes are pinned on a race horse he's acquired swapping, but it's a bigger gamble than his family knows.

Duke Ellington and His Orchestra perform "Bli-Blip" with Marie Bryant and Paul White

Jimmy, the owner of a failed music shop, goes to work with his uncle, the owner of a food factory. Before he gets there, he befriends an Irish family who happens to be his uncle's worst enemy because of their love for music and in-house band who constantly practices. Soon, Jimmy finds himself trying to help the band by getting them gigs and trying to reconcile the family with his uncle.

Pacific pearl diver Duke Slade escapes angry natives by joining a whaler whose dying captain persuades him to marry his daughter who is already being wooed by the first mate.

A well-meaning doctor lends his building to a group of neighborhood kids. When the neighbors learn that the kids are members of a tough Harlem gang, they begin to suspect they're up to nefarious deeds.

Larry is engaged to Lisbeth Blair but he becomes attentive to Gail, a singer, and is injured in an accident in her apartment. He is slowly going blind and decides that he shouldn't marry Lisbeth. A surgeon restores his sight and he and Lisbeth reconcile to the strains of "My Old Kentucky Home" sung by the Hall Johnson Choir.