As the New Year dawns, the Ware childrenHolland, Jack, Joyce, Mary, andNormanfind 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 cozywigwam home in the desert.After a harrowing experience being lost in the desert and her firstexperience of romance with the Ware familys friend Phil Tremont, the LittleColonel returns to Dixie a braver and stronger young woman in excitedanticipation of her experiences still to come.