Brandon DeWilde leads a cast lengthy in character actors playing subdued Byron Turner, a 15-year-old runaway from the Eatondale Orphan Asylum bound for Florida in the pre-World War I time period. He receives a ride into the rural Missouri town of Delphi with rich land-owner Tobias Brown (Lee Marvin). There, after an episode in the town square involving most of the populace, he meets crusty newspaper man Doyle Magee (Gary Merrill).

Both of these men share an interest in the polite and mature youth; one showing kindness, the other almost outright cruelty. Eventually, both of their reasoning become clear to the lad. At the same time, the whole town of Delphi comes to not only accept Byron, but to embrace him as one of the town's own and his dream of becoming a farmer. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Missouri_Traveler