Ma Birdsong, her son Jimmie, and her daughter Essie live together in New York City's East Side. Essie, enamored with the city's night life, becomes an usherette in a cheap theater where she falls in love with Joe Ullman, a crooked ticket speculator. Her ailing mother repeatedly asks to meet Essie's fiancé, but Joe always has a ready excuse to decline. Following a heart attack, Ma makes another plea to meet Joe. Essie finds him in a poolroom, but he scornfully refuses to accompany her. In desperation, Essie relates her story to a stranger; he agrees to pose as the girl's fiancé for the sake of her mother. Ma Birdsong dies, secure in the thought that Essie is to marry "a real man." Essie later falls in love with the stranger and they marry.
—AFI