Compare Films

Young Mother Hubbard Synopsis

Forced by the death of her mother to care for her three brothers and sisters, little Mona Fairfax is known to farmers of her district as Young Mother Hubbard. The children's step-father, heavily in debt and tired of the burden imposed by the little family, abandons his farm, leaving the children, penniless, to shift for themselves. The following day Daniel Banning, a wealthy "country gentleman" and owner of the Fairfax farm, calls to collect back rent. He finds Mona and her children panic-stricken over a note left by their step-father, telling of his decision to leave. Banning turns a deaf ear to Mona's pleas that she be allowed to remain on the farm with her wards. He notifies the Children's Welfare Society. Directors of the society go to the farm, load them into an automobile, and take them to the society's headquarters. At headquarters the chairman calls for volunteers to take the children into their homes. A square-jawed woman, a miserly old man, a brutal fellow, with bull-dog features, and a ponderous, harsh, mannish looking women, each agree to take a child. When it dawns upon Mona and her brothers and sisters that they are to be separated they break into tears and beg piteously to be allowed to remain together. Their pleas are ignored. Finally Mona begs that they be allowed to spend a last night together on the Fairfax farm. The request finally is granted. That night Mona hitches the family horse to a rickety old wagon and the children set out to escape. They fall asleep and the horse stops near Banning's house. The housekeeper takes them in during the master's absence. When Banning returns he is furious. Mona offers him a wisp of flowers, which he scorns. Finally, however, the child's smile wins his heart and he cuddles her. Later when agents of the welfare society try to take the children, Banning drives them from his place, declaring he will adopt Young Mother Hubbard and her entire family.

The Return of Eve Synopsis

Believing that over-civilization was destroying the race, Eli Tapper, an eccentric millionaire, took two unrelated orphan children, a boy and a girl, and placed them in a wilderness, there in the care of an old tutor, David Winters, to grow up as a new Adam and Eve, and become path-breakers of a better race. In delightful simplicity and educated as much as they could be without contact with the world, the children attain the age of nineteen years. Mrs. Tupper-Bellamy, society leader, lives in costly splendor against the day when she hopes to inherit her brother millions. She plans to marry her daughter, Clarice, to Seymour Purchwell, society idler of standing and also an attorney. Purchwell makes it plain that the marriage can occur if Eli Tupper's fortune goes to the girl and her mother. When Tupper dies the sister and her set learn for the first time of his odd experiment. His will provides that the sister must take Adam and Eve into civilization in order to win an annuity of $50,000 a year. The orphans are heirs to the rest. Purchwell sets out to find them. He locates the Eden of the boy and girl and old Winters, and is literally the serpent in the garden. Winters resents leaving, but a clash between Adam and Purchwell decides him. Plunged amidst the whirl of social affairs Eve is delighted. Adam is disgusted with the sham and deceit of society, and pleads with her to return to Eden. She refuses. Winters takes him to Paris to study. Purchwell, seeking the Tupper fortune, turns his attention to Eve. Clarice is in a frenzy of affection spurned, and after finding the two alone she accuses them before the whole house party. Eve, in her innocence, does not readily grasp the meaning of the charge. When it dawns on her she faces the guests, and in her bitterness denounces them as tools of passion and greed, and announces that she will give up all and return to Eden. With old Winters, she returns. Adam is recalled from Paris, and the girl and the boy, now awake to their love, together with their beloved guardian, give up the world.