Charley Appleby is a hardware store owner whose frugality and commitment to his job have enabled his family to avoid poverty during the Great Depression and Prohibition. However, his relationship with his children and wife Nettie is strained. They especially want to go to see the Chicago World's Fair. His growing sons Willie and Rupert manage to find work in a junkyard owned by a man named Felix with ties to bootleggers, and his teenage daughter Leonora decides to elope with a young man named Ray who seems untrustworthy.