Relates the precarious plight of Mrs. McDockerty who, with the help of a stool and barrel, climbs higher and higher on a table to finish her knitting and avoid her fighting animals.
Placed in a group foster home, eleven-year-old Cal Lavender learns how to cope with life from the four other girls who live there and from their storytelling guardian, the Knitting Lady.
Grieving for her dead mother, a poor girl finds all her dreams fulfilled when, on Christmas Eve, she hangs above her hearth a stocking she has knitted.
Jemima Jinglebob is ashamed of her father, who knits instead of hunting and shooting, but when Not-Nice Nellie and her bandits hit town, it is Pa Jinglebob who saves the day.
