The mysterious Mrs. Eleanor Carter moves to Springfield with her two teen-age children Jimmy and Cathy. Eleanor makes friends with the town’s social leader, Mrs. Wellington, who supports her idea for a town youth center, and she is aided by Tom Griffith, the high school principal. At the town’s annual picnic, to which Eleanor has bought a band (Les Brown and His Band of Reknown), the town busy-body, Eunice, reveals what she had learned from Eleanor’s past.