Danny, a ragamuffin orphan, is adopted by a brutal plumber and his frail wife. His fear of hunger, resulting from his foster father's indifference, at one point leads him to substitute for the plumber in repairing a leak, but he causes a flood. Later, Danny is instrumental in saving a policeman's life and in sending the plumber to jail. He finds new happiness with his foster mother on her parents' farm.

When 9-year-old orphan Oliver Twist dares to ask his cruel taskmaster, Mr. Bumble, for a second serving of gruel, he's hired out as an apprentice. Escaping that dismal fate, young Oliver falls in with the street urchin known as the Artful Dodger and his criminal mentor, Fagin. When kindly Mr. Brownlow takes Oliver in, Fagin's evil henchman Bill Sikes plots to kidnap the boy.

Believing her husband to be unfaithful, Helene Savelli takes her son, Jackie, to the Holdens' farm and dies shortly afterward. The Holdens keep Jackie, but he eventually goes to the city when the elderly couple lose their farm and retire to the poorhouse. Jackie next is befriended by Cesare Gallo, a sidewalk musician who was also the teacher of Paul Savelli--now a famous violinist. A chance meeting with Savelli by Jackie reunites him with Gallo just before the old man dies. Savelli takes Jackie home with him, happily discovers the boy to be his son, and restores the farm to the Holdens.

Left an orphan by the death of his father, Mickey Hogan sails for Australia to live with relatives, but he is shipwrecked and stranded on an island inhabited by cannibals who worship him as a war god.

An orphan boy wins a prize for his drawing.

Timothy and Max are partners in the junk business. They take poor young Mary in as a boarder. Mary gets a job in Nathan's office and falls in love with him, but his mother feels she is beneath Nathan. Nathan faces disaster unless he can corner a particular stock, with which Timothy and Max's room happens to be entirely papered.