Admiral Frank Beardsley Yields to New London to run the Coast Guard Academy, his last stop before a probable promotion to Go the Guard. Even a widower with eight children, he runs on a loving but tight ship, with salutes and charts. The youngsters long for a home. Helen North can be a designer whose ten children reside in loving chaos, a free spirit, with bunch hugs. Frank and helen, high school sweethearts, re connect at a reunion, and it's really love at. They marry on the spot. Then the problems start as two sets of kids, also the abbreviated preppies and also the free spirits have to live together. The warring factions agree to work together to end the marriage.