Bonnie Shaster, fourteen years old and recently orphaned, has happily come to live with her mother's family in Seattle, never expecting to find such chaos. Her charming, hapless relatives have been forced to take in gentleman boarders to make ends meet. The progressive ladies crusade for causes like women's suffrage, yet they are quite inept at managing the household. Money is always a problem and the boarders are frequently at odds with one another and with the household of women, not one of whom knows how to cook. Yet when handsome young boarder Carson Young, a blind veteran of the Great War, jokingly warns Bonnie to run for her life, she knows she isn't going anywhere. After escaping from the misery of living with her disagreeable aunt, Bonnie has found a home where she is happy and where she is valued – often for taking charge of problems that threaten to become disasters. And as she ties her wishes on scraps of paper to the family's"ornament tree," Bonnie dares to believe that her new home and the people in it are the beginning of a new life where her fondest wishes can come true.

After her friend Bonnie leaves for college, Clare is left to face her fears of her future alone, but when she meets an abused child and his dog, she suddenly discovers what her calling is in life and no longer has fears of what tomorrow will bring.