We are in Parker's Falls, a tiny New England village and the home of Sarah Pike's parents where Sarah and her husband Dominicus, stay between trips through the Connecticut valley. Her husband is one of the original Yankee peddlers, specializing in painted portraits, stencils, frescoes, murals, door panels, barn doors and signs - you name it, Dominicus will paint it! Only now their fall peddling trip has been delayed... It's a very worried husband who knocks on Sarah's bedroom door...