Springfield Present and Prospective: The City of Homes, the Sources of Its Charm, Its Advantages, Achievements and Possibilities, Portrayed in Word and Picture (1905)

For Elrad Beans, an orphan at eighteen months, his career in the military is second only to his dream of his own family with lots of children to love. He joins the Army at age fifteen and, eager to get on with his life, marries young, but his marriage doesnat last. Still determined to have his own family, he marries again. Still childless, a medical discharge forces him to become a night watchman at a warehouse where he fights off thieves, but heas not sure he deserves happiness until a boy, an orphan like him, comes into his life.