The Wiggs family plan to celebrate Thanksgiving in their rundown shack with leftover stew, without Mr. Wiggs who wandered off long ago an has never been heard from. Do-gooder Miss Lucy brings them a real feast. Her boyfriend Bob arranges to take Wiggs' sick boy to a hospital. Their other boy makes some money peddling kindling and takes the family to a show. Mrs. Wiggs is called to the hopsital just in time to see her boy die. Her neighbor Miss Mazy wants to marry Mr. Stubbins who insists on tasting her cooking. Mrs. Wiggs sneaks her dishes past Stubbins who agrees to marriage. Mr. Wiggs appears suddenly, in tatters, with just the amount of money (twenty dollars) needed to save the family from foreclosure. Miss Lucy and Bob get married.
Mrs. Elvira Wiggs has been rearing her children, Jimmy, Billy, Europena, Asia and Australia, alone for three years since her husband Hiram left for the Klondike. The family is destitute, living in the shantytown of Cabbage Patch, and faces a dismal Thanksgiving. After a man leaves his horse for dead, the Wiggs revive it, naming it "Cuby" (after Cuba). Jimmy uses the horse to haul kindling to earn money. To their surprise, Lucy Olcott, a wealthy young benefactress, brings them two baskets of food for Thanksgiving. Lucy shuns her boyfriend, Bob Redding, however, after he shows up late with alcohol on his breath. She is unaware that he was attempting to assist an alcoholic friend back to the hospital, and his friend slipped liquor into his drinking water. Bob takes an interest in the Wiggs family, and takes Billy to a charitable hospital after finding out he has been sick for some time. Bob then buys tickets for the whole Wiggs family to attend the theater. In the meantime, Miss Tabitha Hazy, a spinster and close friend of Mrs. Wiggs, has selected a husband from a brochure with Mrs. Wiggs's assistance. The Wiggs are thrilled with the show, but their joy is interrupted when Mrs. Wiggs is called to Billy's bedside at the hospital. As she tearfully recounts the highlights of the performance, Billy dies. Touched by the tragedy of her situation, Bob advertises in his newspaper to locate Mr. Wiggs and bring him home. Still in mourning, Mrs. Wiggs helps Miss Hazy elicit a proposal from her demanding suitor, C. Ellsworth Stubbins, who promises that if she can make a good mince pie, he will marry her. Mrs. Wiggs exchanges her excellent cooked pie for Miss Hazy's terrible meal. Stubbins and Miss Hazy are married the next day, and their wedding inspires Lucy and Bob to reconcile. When Mr. Bagby, who holds the mortgage on the Wiggs home, demands final payment from Mrs. Wiggs by noon, Jimmy frantically rushes to Bob, hoping to sell his horse to him for the funds. Mr. Wiggs, responding to Bob's advertisement, slips in through the back door of his home just before noon, and Bob slips the final payment into his pocket. The Wiggs home is saved and their family reunited.
