On Christmas Eve, 1930, in America's dust bowl, a young woman delivers her baby alone. Plain, warmhearted Martha Drusso takes the downy-haired infant she names Belle to raise as her own, along with another orphan in her care, a little boy named R.C. But when Belle is three, her stepbrother mistakenly puts her on a train bound for Los Angeles, then leaves to get her a treat. The train takes off, and Belle is pitched into a child's worst nightmare:...