During Peter's birthday party, strangers arrive and take Father away. Mother says he has gone away on business - but when will he return and what will Mother and the children do?

Now living in their new home in the country, without their father, the children befriend Perks at the local railway station and go ‘coalmining' at the station stores.

Mother is taken ill and the children get a message of help to a kindly old gentleman on the train, who sends her a hamper.