A lonely wife runs off with a traveling actor, taking her boy with her but leaving her daughter behind. The boy, Byron Bennett, grows up, and is stranded back in Mayville with a theater troupe. To make enough money to get out of town, they teach the local fire department how to put on a play. While the village cutie Grace Jessup is being shown how to act, one of the troupe tries to seduce her. Byron, knowing what the lecher is up to, even if Grace doesn't, follows the pair and chokes the man senseless.

Desperate because a wealthy man has reduced her father to thievery, Rhoda agrees to rob the poor box of the church, although she finds the act abhorrent.

Born in a prospector's camp, orphaned by a flood and taken care of by relatives to whom she was unwelcome, Mercy grew up dodging blows and curses with equal dexterity and indifferent success.

Jane and Katharine are the sweetest youngsters in the world, in their mother's eyes. The family is summering at a seaside resort when mama is called to town for a week. Not wishing to interrupt her darling's good time, she has her young bachelor brother come to the hotel to take care of the children until she returns. "Billy" Parke undertakes the job.

A corrupt art patron finds himself in love with the same girl as his stepson.