Following the death of her husband who she admits she never truly loved in a romantic sense, Bea Pullman is having a difficult time with life trying to make ends meet by maintaining his maple syrup business while raising their daughter, Jessie Pullman. The child care side of the equation is addressed when she meets a black woman named Delilah Johnson, who is looking for a housekeeping job primarily for room and board which includes for her light skinned daughter, Peola Johnson. While Jessie and Peola become fast friends, Bea sees in Delilah more than just a housekeeper, but a friend and business partner when she learns that Delilah makes the world's best pancakes, which triggers the idea that they should open a pancake restaurant and sell syrup as a side business. That successful business morphs, based on a suggestion by a down and out customer named Elmer Smith who becomes their partner, into an even more successful venture selling the pancake flour mix for home use. This business makes both women richer than they could have ever imagined, although all Delilah wants is to continue to live with the Pullmans to look after them and Peola. As the girls grow into young womanhood and go away to college - Peola specifically to one catering to blacks in the South - issues arise which threaten to tear each family apart largely as the girls now have the power to do what they will. For the Pullmans, the issue surrounds what may be the first true loves each has experienced in her life, Bea's with Elmer's friend, ichthyologist Stephen Archer. And for the Johnsons, the issue is Peola taking action to run away from her life as a black woman, wanting to pass as white.