Connie Brooks [Eve Arden] is an unmarried, sarcastic English literature and grammar teacher who arrives in a small Midwestern town to teach at the local high school. She quickly crosses paths with the handsome, athletic biology teacher Phillip Boynton [Robert Rockwell], and the two start dating. Yet Boynton remains wary of tying the knot, and years slip by in a pattern of close, platonic companionship that leaves Miss Brooks hopeful and, at times, frustrated.
When one of her students, Gary Nolan [Nick Adams], struggles in her class, his father, the wealthy local newspaper publisher Lawrence Nolan [Don Porter], publicly accuses Miss Brooks of lacking competence. Rather than defend herself, she persuades Mr. Nolan that he’s overworked and missing his son’s growth, convincing him to hire her to tutor Gary in English and to spend more time with him. As Gary makes real progress and grows more balanced, Nolan begins to court Miss Brooks, planting a new complication in the town’s love rectangle and sharpening Boynton’s insecurities.
Across town, principal Osgood Conklin [Gale Gordon] is under fire from Superintendent Stone [Joseph Kearns], who accuses him of running a tight, even tyrannical ship. Conklin decides to run for Stone’s job and enlists Miss Brooks to manage his campaign. In exchange, Miss Brooks nudges Nolan to throw his support behind Conklin in his newspaper, freeing Nolan to devote more time to wooing her. This chain of events fans Boynton’s jealousy, fueling Miss Brooks’s doubts about whether Boynton truly loves her, and she eventually ends the romance with Nolan.
Conklin appears to be edging toward victory, but he withdraws when he discovers how little the position pays. A misunderstanding then spirals into a comic misread: Miss Brooks overhears part of a telephone chat in which Boynton mentions buying a home and living there with “Mrs. Boynton.” She assumes the home is meant for her and Boynton, hinting at an engagement. The truth, though, is far gentler and more domestic: Boynton is purchasing the house for himself and his mother, whose loneliness has produced psychosomatic illnesses. The emotional tangle is resolved when Mrs. Boynton recognizes how this would affect her son’s relationship with Miss Brooks and decides to move in with Miss Brooks’s own eccentric landlady, Mrs. Margaret Davis [Jane Morgan].
In the end, the heart of the town’s comic drama lands where it began: Boynton proposes to Miss Brooks and presents her with an engagement ring, a moment of happiness that is playfully interrupted when a chimpanzee at the zoo nabs the ring right out of sight. The film closes on a note of light romance and renewed possibility, with the couple poised to start a new chapter together amid the town’s bustling, quirky life.
