At a St. Louis opera house in 1860, a singer in blackface named Jerry Barton, known as "King of the Minstrels", comes backstage and asks his sweetheart, Lettie Morgan (Ann Rutherford), to elope. Lettie's Aunt Hortense, fearing that Barton is a fortune hunter, tells Lettie she is not the heiress she thought she was and that she has been living off her aunt's charity. With no fortune to hunt, Barton informs Lettie that an artist cannot be burdened with the responsibility of a wife.