A group of people are watching Halley's Comet#1835 overhead when Judge Clemens is called away for the birth of his son, Samuel Clemens. The film proceeds to mix in elements of many of Clemens' best-known stories as if they actually occurred. Thus, as he grows up, Sam plays with his friends Huck, Tom, and the slave boy Jim on a raft on the Mississippi, providing a fictitious "real-life" basis for the novels ''Tom Sawyer'' and ''The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn''.