The book tells the story of Kirk Winfield, his marriage to Ruth, and their child called Bill. Bill's upbringing is threatened by the interference of Ruth's busybody writer aunt, Mrs Lora Delane Porter.
He had the philosophical temperament. He took things as they came. Great natural phenomena, like Lora Delane Porter, he accepted as part of life. When they were in his life, he endured them stoically. When they went out of it, he got on without them.
