The little boy was lonely. He never had any one to love him, as he could not remember his father and his mother was always away resting her nerves. He would picture how it would be to have a real father and mother, but he had to be satisfied with his housekeeper. Every night after supper he would go to the gate and see the little girl next door meet her father. One night he looked through the window into their living-room, where the little girl was playing with her father. The housekeeper not noticing the little boy's absence had locked the door, so he sat on the step to wait. There he fell asleep. Later the man to whom the housekeeper had rented a room in the house, in order to turn an extra penny during the time her mistress was away, found him. He carried the little boy to bed. The next day the little girl was swinging on the boy's gate, and she taunted him with having no father. A plan came into the boy's mind. That night he proposed to the man to rent him as a father for so much every week, the man to agree to "bring things home every night." That night he rushed out with joy to meet his father, with the little girl. Both found things in the men's pockets, and both were supremely happy. One night the boy dreamed that his mother had come home, that she met the rented man, and that he turned out to be his real father. He woke up fully to hear voices in the next room. He went in and there to his joy he found that he had dreamed true. Both his parents promised to stay at home forever afterwards and love him.
—Moving Picture World synopsis