Summary
A sun-dappled Connecticut Eden, perfumed by ripening peaches and Sabbath righteousness, becomes the amphitheatre for a morality play in which innocence is auctioned off to the highest bidder. Joe Bascom—calloused palms, eyes full of migratory hunger—loves Elsie Tillinger, the deacon’s hothouse lily, yet the village patriarch slams the garden gate, branding the boy unworthy. Banished, Joe descends into the clangorous underworld of the city, only to be shackled for a theft committed by his employer’s pampered heir: a miscarriage of justice that scorches the screen like a brand on young skin. From the penitentiary’s crucible he emerges flanked by Mugsy and Gilly, two urban satyrs whose cynicism melts beneath the lucent sweetness of Joe’s mother and her legendary peach jam—a nectar so exquisite it could redeem fallen angels. Back home, debt has gnawed the Bascom orchard to the marrow; the deacon schemes to transmute those blushing fruit into industrial gold for the real felon. Joe, now armed with outlaw cunning and the loyalty of reformed thieves, orchestrates a carnival of reversals: mortgages crumble, confessions spill like overturned beehives, and the orchard’s branches once again sway in familial hands. In the final tableau, peach petals drift across the churchyard like roseate snow while Joe and Elsie exchange vows, the ex-crooks court Bascom maids, and even the deacon’s granite heart fractures enough to let a shaft of grace through.
Synopsis
Joe Bascom, only son of a widow, lives in a Connecticut village. He loves Elsie Tillinger, daughter of the deacon, the wealthiest man in town; but the deacon forbids Joe to speak to her. Joe leaves home to make his way in the world, but his employer, Mr. Morgan, a wealthy racehorse owner, accuses him unjustly of stealing. Actually, Morgan's son, Lester, is guilty of the crime, but Joe is sentenced to a prison term; there he becomes acquainted with Mugsy and Gilly, two crooks. Meanwhile, though courted by young Morgan, Elsie remains faithful to Joe. Mrs. Bascom, who makes superlative peach jam from her orchard, is in debt to the Deacon Tillinger, and he intends to buy her orchard and make Lester head of a jam industry. But Joe arrives with his crook friends, outwits the deacon, and takes over the peach orchard. Mugsy and Gilly are reformed by the goodness of Joe's mother and fall in love with Betty and Jessie; and after exposing Lester Morgan's deceit, Joe marries Elsie.
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