When Clay Spencer fails to arrive home at the expected hour on Christmas Eve of 1933, his family is concerned. The older son, Clay-boy, is dispatched to find his father. On his journey through the snowbound Virginia hills, he experiences a series of hazardous, touching, and hilarious adventures. An encounter with the neighborhood Negro church teaches Clay-boy a lesson in race relations and, while taking refuge from a snowstorm, he is overwhelmed by the intoxicating hospitality of two elderly genteel lady bootleggers. Finally, at midnight, when all hope for him has been abandoned, Clay Spencer provides a surprising climax to the story, and in a single moment illuminates the triumph of the human spirit.