A rambunctious teenager with an inquisitive mind causes much grief for all his New England family and neighbors when he visits them in the summer of 1914, on the eve of World War I.

After having a disturbing nightmare concerning his family, an elderly veteran in 1910's Virginia buys a packet of fire grenades to ward off approaching harm.

In the mid-1900s, an upper class mother observes her two daughters playing with doves they mysteriously find on the lawn. She dwells on her relationship with her daughters, her husband, and her age as a storm brews and tragedy befalls her daughters.

A man reflects on his time as a newspaper boy during World War I. Overwhelmed by the horror of the headlines, he must confront harsh truths about morality during wartime.

As an old woman revisits her family's quintessentially American history, she finds a way to respect and love her parents, despite the scandals and tragedies they endured.

A depressed and suicidal middle-aged woman is about to take her own life — when vacuum cleaner salesmen come knocking on her door. Before long, she finds herself knee-deep in a thrilling affair.

A man recalls a friend whose marriage dissolved in 1914 Bosnia around the time the archduke of Austria was assassinated.

With the help and company of her master's clerk, a young slave girl runs away; however, her search for a habitable town is long and arduous, and she slowly begins to lose hope.

A family goes into the city to celebrate the sixteenth birthday of one of their sons. The siblings all have new experiences during a city-wide festival, and each finds themselves a bit more grown up by the end of the night.

In Galveston, Texas, in the year 1900, a wealthy businessman leaves his family on a train to Fort Worth and takes a ferry back to the island as part of an elaborate plot to murder a rival who dishonored his wife, planning to catch a later train; however, after the act is complete, he is trapped and killed in a hurricane, one of many deaths. His wife, safely in Forth Worth, learns of his death and continues an ongoing affair with his friend's son.