The well-off Smith family leads a comfortable, happy existence in St. Louis, a city set to welcome the 1904 World’s Fair. Seventeen-year-old Esther Smith has fallen in love with the boy who has just moved next door, though he hardly notices her at first. When Mr. Alonzo Smith announces that he has been transferred to New York for business and that his family must follow him, Esther and her siblings are distraught at the thought of leaving St. Louis, their lives and the World’s Fair behind.
