Miss Hickory, a country woman with an applewood twig body and a hickory nut head, survives a New Hampshire winter in the company of Crow, Bullfrog, and Groundhog.
Heloise lives with her undemonstrative godmother in the caretaker's cottage next to a sinister-looking museum that she is not allowed to enter, but her life changes when she discovers a longtime-desired doll beneath the floorboards of her bedroom.
Hitty, a wooden doll that travels from girl to girl, becomes the valued possession of an Italian girl who emigrates with her family to New York City in 1908.
After coming to live with nine-year-old Emily and her family in Washington, D.C., in 1916, Hitty, a well-traveled wooden doll, witnesses the efforts of Emily's aunt and other suffragettes to win the right for women to vote.