Compassionate small-town lawyer Richard Clarke moves to New York City to seek his fortune, but is unsuccessful until he takes a friend's advice and tries to convince the world he's a ruthless heel. Suddenly he's the most popular lawyer in town -- but he could lose his fiancée.

Elderly schoolteacher Nora Trinell, waiting to meet presidential nominee Dewey Roberts, recalls him as her student back in 1916 and his relation to Dan Hopkins, the man she married and lost.

A state welfare agent persuades a Maine lobsterman to take a troubled orphan boy aboard.

In 1948 rural America, two stepbrothers compete for the same gal and the younger brother buys two untamed mules for work projects while the older brother tries to sabotage him.