In the year before they become the orphans known as the Boxcar children, Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny Alden live with their parents at Fair Meadow Farm, where, although times are hard, they take in a family who has been stranded in their car during a blizzard.

Illustrations and rhyming text follow an assortment of creatures as they make their way to a nest, the shore, or a porch while the day comes to an end and the moon begins to rise.