Indian scout Tom Jeffords is sent out to stem the war between the American settlers and Apaches in the late 1870s Arizona. He learns that the Indians kill only to protect themselves, or out of retaliation for white atrocities.
The U.S. government recognizes land grants made when the West was under Spanish rule. This inspires James Reavis to forge a chain of historical evidence that makes a foundling girl the Baroness of Arizona. Reavis marries the girl and presses his claim to the entire Arizona territory.
After a long absence, Mary Jane visits her schoolfriend Eloise, and Eloise's daughter Ramona. Eloise drinks too much and is unhappily married to Lew Wengler. Eloise falls asleep and remembers her time with her true love, Walt Dreiser, at the beginning of the Second World War. She recalls the events that lead up to her split with Mary Jane, and how Lew married Eloise rather than Mary Jane.
A dancer who has just gotten engaged to her partner and choreographer and is about to embark on a major career is devastated to learn that she has contracted polio.
An illiterate stooge in a traveling medicine show wanders into a strange town and is picked up on a vagrancy charge. The town's corrupt officials mistake him for the inspector general whom they think is traveling in disguise. Fearing he will discover they've been pocketing tax money, they make several bungled attempts to kill him.
When strongman Samson rejects the love of the beautiful Philistine woman Delilah, she seeks vengeance that brings horrible consequences they both regret.
Just before Christmas, department store clerk Steve Mason meets big spending customer Connie Ennis, who's actually a comparison shopper sent by another store. Steve lets her go, which gets him fired. They spend the afternoon together, which doesn't sit well with Connie's steady suitor, Carl, when he finds out, but delights her young son Timmy, who quickly takes to Steve.
A woman's attempted murder of her uncaring husband results in everyday quarrels in the lives of Adam and Amanda, a pair of happily married lawyers who end up on opposite sides of the case in court.
David Palmer, a young chemist, returns to his father's Indiana farm, to marry a local school teacher, Ruth Treadwell. David meets again his father's horse-trainer, Ben Lathrop, whose daughter, Cissy, has left high school to help her father. Palmer marries and becomes wealthy through an invention, and is able to indulge his socially-ambitious wife. His father dies and Palmer returns to Indiana, where his interest in harness-racing is rekindled, as is his interest in Cissy Lathrop.
A bump on the head sends Hank Martin, 1905 auto mechanic, to Arthurian England, 528 A.D., where he is befriended by Sir Sagramore le Desirous and gains power by judicious use of technology. He and Alisande, the King's niece, fall in love at first sight, which draws unwelcome attention from her fiancée Sir Lancelot; but worse trouble befalls when Hank meddles in the kingdom's politics.
Roland Dane finally retires to the house he was brought up in. Lost in thoughts of his lost love Lark, he does not want to be disturbed in his last days. However, the appearance of his niece and her subsequent romance with Lark's nephew causes him to reevaluate his life and offer some advice so the young couple doesn't make the same mistake he did, all those years ago.