Set in a tenement boarding house, a lonely confirmed bachelor occupies a room across the hall from a dour spinster. Children run amok in the hallways playing pranks. Believing the bachelor perpetrated one particular prank, the spinster woman enters his room to confront him. She is followed by a neighbor child. Meanwhile, the other children have stolen a scarlet fever quarantine sign and posted it on the bachelor's door. The police, unaware that the quarentine sign is a prank, enforce the confinement. But aided by the sweet disposition of the toddler quarantined with them, the icy relations between spinster and bachelor begin to thaw, . . .

A potentially violent patient in an insane asylum is calmed when he hears a nurse playing the piano. But shortly afterwards he breaks free, eludes his pursuers, and acquires a gun. He soon comes to a house where a young wife is home alone, and there is a tense confrontation.

A father, anxious for his son's financial well being, develops a special soda pop called Dopokoke which is laced with cocaine. Dopokoke is advertised as relief "for that tired feeling." The drink is a success, but the son becomes addicted to it, much to his father's regret. Loosely based on the allegations that the Coca-Cola company and other soft drink manufacturers laced their soda with dope.

The orphan Dora is a favorite with everyone in the gold mining settlement where she lives, but her special favorite is Dandy Jack. When Jack tells her that he is leaving for a location farther north, feeling that the current location is almost at the end of its profitability, she wants to go with him. But Jack insists that the tearful Dora stay behind. Later, when a new miner begins to court her, she gradually overcomes her initial reluctance, but she never forgets Jack.

A young woman who works mending fishermen's nets is engaged to be married. But her fiancé has an old love who refuses to let him go. Further, his former girlfriend has a brother who is willing to use violence to protect his sister's honor.

Kathy, a young child, has befriended the elderly miser who lives on an upper floor of the building where she lives. Today, while playing outside, she also makes friends with Jules, a homeless petty thief. Later, when she is in the miser's apartment, two violent criminals break in. They tie a rope around Kathy and dangle her out of a window, threatening to let her fall to the ground if the miser does not give them the combination to his safe. Outside, Jules sees her in danger, but to help her he must risk dealing with the police.

A young woman has a peaceful existence, living near the sea and enjoying a romance with a simple, hard-working fisherman. But she finds herself in sudden danger when she happens upon the crew of a boat while they are ashore in the act of smuggling. She is abducted and forced aboard their boat. While the fisherman races to organize a rescue mission, the crew of the boat decides to seize her from the captain, in order to have their way with her.

When Mrs. Harding dies, she leaves a mysterious letter to her pastor. The note tells how her cold, miserly husband worked her to death. She asks the pastor to administer a small trust which she has bequeathed her daughter so that the girl might enjoy some finery which her father has always denied her. The village milliner carries the latest hat styles from New York, one of which has caught the girl's fancy. The pastor, loyal to the dying mother's wishes, buys the young lady the hat. Soon gossip spreads through the village...