This is a fictional love story with the 1856 Handcart Pioneers as the backdrop. Sam Hunter, falls for a Mormon Pioneer woman, Abigail, as she is moving west. As the pioneers stop in his town of Iowa City, he pretends to desire joining the Mormon Church to show his love for Abigail. As hardships prevail, his faith is tested on their way to Zion.

Lady Booby alias 'Belle', the lively wife of the fat landed squire Sir Thomas Booby, has a lusty eye on the attractive, intelligent villager Joseph Andrews, a Latin pupil and protégé of parson Adams, and makes him their footman. Joseph's heart belongs to a country girl, foundling Fanny Goodwill, but his masters take him on a fashionable trip to Bath, where the spoiled society comes mainly to see and be seen, but drowns in the famous Roman baths. When the all but grieving lady finds Joseph's Christian virtue and true love resist her lusting passes just as well as the many ladies who fancy her footman, she fires the boy. He's found and nursed by an innkeeper's maid, which stirs lusts there, again besides his honorable conduct, but is found by the good parson.