Mae and Murphy take a well deserved honeymoon in the city, where they meet young Eli Matthews, a streetwise black orphan. They swear they won't get involved, but naturally they end up adopting him and taking him back to Gold Hill.

A mother delivers her son to Gold Hill, saying that he's been incorrigible in school. The real reason is that his father is a child abuser and the mother fears for her son's life. When the father comes after the boy, Murphy intervenes and accidentally kills the man while trying to restrain him. Murphy faces the crisis he's feared all his life—that his great size and strength might kill if unleashed.

Sam Clemens (Mark Twain) arrives in Jackson during his itinerant journalist days, and sets up a newspaper to fight the evil influence of Garrett. Ephram and Will join him as copyboys/reporters, and in a comical turn of events, they become the inspiration for Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn.

Murphy and Mae join the Pinkertons on a cross-country train chase when one of their young orphans becomes heir to a large inheritance... and is kidnapped in an attempt to keep her from showing up to claim it.

Mae announces joyously that she's pregnant and the whole community rejoices... except Will. Finding out that the new bedroom Murphy is building is not for him, he feels ignored and finally, at the baby's birth, he runs away to St. Louis.

Will has run away to St. Louis and fallen in with a Fagin-type and his band of criminals. Murphy enlists Farley's help in searching for Will and goes to convince him to come home.

Lizette grows up; she begins work as an apprentice seamstress in town and falls in love with a n'er-do-well teenager. She's nearly drawn into his troublesome circle of friends before Mae shows her the error of her ways. The boy eventually reforms and then remain friends. Incidentally, the ongoing romance between Will and Lizette is terminated in this period because he is too short.

Murphy and Moses find trouble on a freight run when an old yarn-spinner convinces a whole town that Murphy is a famous bank robber. The fireworks begin when the real robber shows up.

Young Matt is witness to a bank robbery. One of the robbers is a teenaged friend of Matt's who is the sole support of a sick mother, and Matt must wrestle with his conscience as he decides whether or not to turn in his friend.

An ex-gunfighter gets out of prison and comes to Gold Hill to retrieve his son. He finds his son in love with his dad's old criminal image. Murphy and company must help these two come to an understanding and reconciliation.

A teenaged girl in town becomes pregnant, and after a suicide attempt fails, she's found by the Murphys and brought to Gold Hill. She learns a lesson in living, and the children learn a lesson in tolerance.

The kids decide Moses needs some romance in his life, so they send away for a mail-order bride. Her arrival precipitates comic explosions in Gold Hill, but by the time Moses realizes she's a wonderful woman, she's decided to go back to her old boyfriend back east.