The fairest Flower From the humblest beginnings. Dandy Baxter grows up in deprivation, cramped in a two-room Paisley tenement with her six brothers and sisters, her exhausted mother and her hard-drinking father. Yet her spark of defiant intelligence is recognised by her neighbours, gentlewomen fallen on hard times, and they resolve to nurture their young protegée. Somehow, in between tending the little ones and completing endless chores, Dandy manages to escape with the Misses McLaren to their brother's garden. Here the eager young girl experiences for the first time the thrill of planting precious seeds. The other Baxters do not fare so well. Finally threatened with the sack for his drunken unreliability, Will Baxter sees only one solution to save himself and his family – emigration to Canada. But Dandy cannot leave her garden. How will she survive?