For Sterling North, life in Brailsford Junction, Wisconsin, is simple and quiet; he spends most of his free time caring for animals. With his mother hospitalized and his brother fighting on the Western Front, the boy lives only with his father and his dog, Hauser. One weekend, skipping his usual chores, Sterling, his friend Oscar, and Hauser head out on a fishing trip. On the way to the river, the dog catches a scent at the base of a tree. Digging up a raccoon's nest, the two boys find an orphaned kit. A passing hunter has killed the kit's mother to make a fur hat, leaving Sterling to adopt and care for the orphaned raccoon. Torn by his fracturing family, with a brother in the trenches and his mother's ailing health, Sterling's bonds with life and the world around him are kept together and strengthened by life with his new friend, the "ring-tailed wonder" and scoundrel, whom he names Rascal.