Though the young redwood grows is a supernally happy story with childhood surliness that explains how machines exist to augment man and may cast off the shackles of his physical limitations. This tale is about a capacity for empathy that had never existed in a robot before. The year is 3217 in Eddy, the coastal town where Marshall Powers lives. Marshall Powers who is a forester at Toad Island clocks out and goes to his home before receiving a call from Chester. True to life, Marshall and Chester meet a girl. They go to a party she invited them to. Marshall becomes spaced-out with a party goer whose son wakes up after going to bed. He decides to take a stand, responsibility drops in his lap, after seeing what the little boy's Mother allows him to do. The next day at work the technical ignoramus with a linebacker's build calls Child Welfare. Marshall talking to a social worker about Joey (Frieda's son) puts into motion him seeing treelike machinery with a human form. The sylvan mechanism is followed by Marshall before they reach Jude, an ergonomics student.