Behind the locked gates and barbed-wire fences of a Los Angeles-area reformatory for wayward girls and unwed mothers, the inmates conceal a newborn baby boy from the institution's housemother and caretaker guards two weeks before Christmas to keep them from sending him to an adoption agency. They steal linens and bedsheets to make diapers, take shifts to care for the baby, and make Christmas presents from odds and ends and personal items to give little "Buddy" the Christmas none of them have ever had.