Young Robert "Bibi" Bonnard (Bobby Driscoll) grows up in Ottawa, Ontario, with his parents, Jacques (Charles Boyer) and Susan (Marsha Hunt (actress, born 1917)), and his roving rogue of a grandfather, Grandpere (Marcel Dalio). Across the street is his uncle, amiable drunkard Louis (Kurt Kasznar), who ignores the complaints of his hard-working dressmaker wife Felice (Jeanette Nolan) and her worries about the future of their daughter Yvonne. Louis agitates about meeting his prospective son-in-law, Alfred Grattin, a teetotaler bank clerk who wishes to marry Yvonne. Next-door neighbour and schoolmate Peggy O'Hare (Marlene Cameron) has a crush on Bibi, but he is as yet too young to understand.