On her 12th birthday, Sarah Simmons decides she must find out why her birth mother abandoned her on the steps of the Collins' home 12 years earlier. With just the basket she was left in and some baby clothes as clues. Sarah and her cousin, James, try to unravel the mystery of her past. The story is set in London Township, Ontario, in 1870, and based on the actual abandonment of a baby on the doorstep of Edward Collins' home in 1858, as recorded in the minutes of a London Township Council meeting.