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On the night that presidential nominee Dewey
Roberts is to speak at a banquet at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington D.C.,
elderly teacher Nora Trinell arrives to wish him luck, for Dewey is one of
her former pupils. As she listens to the band playing Dewey's favorite
song, "(Back Home Again in) Indiana," Nora reminisces about when they met in
Indiana on 14 Apr 1916.
Nora is a new teacher taking over Dewey's class,
and she dismays the headstrong young boy by announcing that she will be
taking the class to a play matinee on the same day that he is to pitch in an
important baseball game. Dewey appeals to his coach and manual
training instructor, Dan Hopkins who, in turn, asks Nora to postpone the
matinee. Although Nora does not appear to be swayed, she and Dewey do
find a common interest in boats and resolve to become friends. Nora
does let Dewey play in the game, which she attends with Kate Hill, another
of her pupils, who likes Dewey. Dewey's knee is injured in the game,
but Nora visits him at home to continue his education.
Nora gently guides the boy into becoming more
studious and living up to his potential, and he soon develops a worshipful
crush on her. Meanwhile, Dan also becomes enamored of Nora and pursues
her. At the semester's end, Nora goes with the other women teachers on
a summer holiday, but is soon bored and is very happy when Dan turns up one
afternoon. Nora spends the rest of the summer at Avery Farm with Dan,
and the two fall deeply in love.
When school resumes in the fall, Nora and Dan
decide to keep their relationship a secret and marry at Christmas. Dewey,
who has refused to go away to prep school so that he may remain near Nora
and play football for Dan, builds a sailboat modeled after one in the
picture postcards of Avery Lake that both Dan and Nora sent him. Mr.
Steele, the school's principal, sees the postcards and assumes that Dan and
Nora spent the summer together having an illicit love affair. Wishing
to spare Nora's reputation, Dan agrees to resign but asks Steele not to tell
Nora why. After Dan tells Nora that he resigned in order to get a
better job, he goes to Chicago, and autumn quickly passes.
At Christmas, Dan returns in uniform and tells
Nora that he has joined the Royal Canadian Engineers. Because Dan must
go overseas in two weeks, Nora decides that she wishes to marry him
immediately, and the couple spend an idyllic honeymoon at Avery Farm.
After welcoming in 1917 together, Dan and Nora return to the school, where
Dewey, after seeing them kissing, feels that they have betrayed him.
Heartbroken that Nora could love someone else, Dewey decides to go to
boarding school and is about to leave without saying goodbye to Nora when
she comes to his house. Nora explains to the boy that although he is
very special to her, she loves Dan. Inspired by her words of
encouragement, Dewey happily boards the train, which also carries Dan, and
the pair wave goodbye to Nora as they leave the station.
After her reminiscences, Nora finds another of
her former pupils, Bill Tower, who is now a bellboy at the hotel. Bill
sneaks Nora into Dewey's office, but Dewey does not recognize her as she
tells him how proud she is of him. In the elevator, however, Dewey
remembers Nora and sends a hotel detective to find her. Dewey and
Kate, who are now married, warmly welcome Nora, and Dewey tells Kate that
all those years ago, on the train, Dan told him that he and Nora were
married. Nora quietly informs them that Dan was killed in France, then
attends the banquet with Kate. As the applause for Dewey swells, Nora
proudly tells Kate that he was always a good boy. |
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