This film revolves around an eight year old girl's active imagination and a case of mistaken identity. Alice is taken to the countryside, by her mother, to stay with her grandfather for a night. Wandering the nearby fields, she sees a scarecrow dressed in a purple suit and battered hat. When a tramp, called Joe, steals the clothes of the scarecrow to wear them himself, Alice sees him walking around, and believes that he is the scarecrow come to life. She follows him and befriends him, as he plays his tin whistle for her.

Alice's over active imagination ultimately causes her to "save" her new friend by hiding her grandfather's axe that night, in case he "chops him up for firewood". The next morning she goes looking in vain for Joe, who she finds has now become a lifeless scarecrow once more, much to her disappointment.