As the New Year dawns, the Ware children'Holland, Jack, Joyce, Mary, and Norman'find themselves on a train to a boarding camp for their ill mother, Mrs. Ware, in Maricopa, Arizona. ' Soon their friend Lloyd Sherman, the Little Colonel, joins them in their cozy wigwam home in the desert. ' After a harrowing experience being lost in the desert and her first experience of romance with the Ware family's friend Phil Tremont, the Little Colonel returns to Dixie a braver and stronger young woman in excited anticipation of her experiences still to come.