The adventures of a spirited boy growing up in a Mississippi River town in the nineteenth century, as he tries a new method for curing warts, witnesses a murder, runs away to an island and pretends to be a pirate, watches his own funeral, and falls for the new girl in the neighborhood.

Recounts the legend of Robin Hood, who plundered the king's purse and poached his deer and whose generosity endeared him to the poor.