In this variation on the Cinderella story set in the Smoky Mountains, Rose longs to go to the party given by the rich feller on the other side of the creek and receives assistance from an unlikely fairy godmother.
Tumpie, a young black girl who will later become famous as the dancer Josephine Baker, longs to find the opportunity to dance amid the poverty and vivacious street life of St. Louis in the early 1900s.