Our Vines Have Tender Grapes

Martinius Jacobson (Edward G. Robinson) is a Norwegian immigrant farmer in Wisconsin with his wife Bruna (Agnes Moorehead) and their seven-year-old daughter Selma (Margaret O'Brien), who is often bedeviled by her playmate and five-year-old cousin Arnold (Jackie 'Butch' Jenkins). Martinius simply wants to work his land and to be a loving husband and father to his family. His one great ambition is to build a new barn, but tragedy strikes. Selma lives a carefree, joyous life, which is only temporarily clouded by the sudden death of Ingeborg Jensen (Dorothy Morris), an emotionally disturbed young woman whose stern father had refused her permission to attend school despite the pleas of newly arrived schoolmarm Viola Johnson (Frances Gifford). The entire town of Fuller Junction comes to the aid of proud Bjorn Bjornson (Morris Carnovsky), who has lost his livestock when lightning struck and burned down his newly erected-but uninsured-barn. When Selma generously donates her pet calf to the impoverished farmer, the townspeople in general, and Martinius in particular, follow suit, prompting Viola to reconsider her harsh views on country life and retract her letter of resignation to the school board.