 Mr. and Mrs. Valduzzi come to see Judge James Hardy for advice on how to prevent the loss of their home. He senses the aged Italian immigrant couple has a grown daughter who is ashamed of her parents and has not kept in contact with them. Failing to locate her himself, he offers money to his teenage son, Andy, if he can locate her. Andy has been having his usual problems with his car and girlfriends and eagerly accepts the challenge, since he needs the money. At the same time he plans on getting some girl to enter a school essay contest and split the $50 winning prize money with her. Since he supposes that a daughter of the daughter might have Valduzzi as a middle name, he sees three high school girls, Euphrasia V. Clark, Clarabelle V. Lee and Elvee Horton, in the hope that one of them may be the right one. Not only do they all reject Andy s unethical proposal about the essay, but Euphrasia blackmails him into taking her to the Fourth-of-July fireworks show, which causes him more problems with his jealous girl, Polly Benedict. But Andy finally realizes how insignificant these problems really are when his mother becomes deathly ill with pneumonia.