Bookish tomboy Frankie Addams (Julie Harris) doesn't get along with the rest of the girls in her tiny southern town. Depressed, socially isolated and perched on the verge of adolescence, Frankie takes refuge with the family maid, Berenice (Ethel Waters), and pals around with her young cousin, John Henry (Brandon de Wilde), while secretly fantasizing about going away with her brother, Jarvis (Arthur Franz), and his new bride, Janice (Nancy Gates), on their honeymoon to Alaska.