War is looming and it poses very special threats to the Sullivans and their friends. Dave is a veteran of WWI and Grace, his wife, fears that he will enlist to fight again - but it is their son Tom who is the first to go off to war. Local German shopkeepers, the Kauffmans, face discrimination and risk internment as aliens. Yet amidst the turnmoil, their daughter Anna and John Sullivan fall in love. With the war preoccupying the adults, 13-year-old Kitty Sullivan embarks on an innocent relationship with a lonely man - much to the consternation of Mrs. Jessup their nosey neighbour.