Five orphans are left at the Little Tulip Orphanage in outrageous circumstances that break all the Rules for Baby Abandonment--one is left in a coal bucket, one a tin toolbox, and three others in a wheat sack, picnic hamper, and coffin-shaped basket. Those babies were named Lotta, Fenna, Milou, Egg, and Sem, and the cruel Elinora Gassbeek, matron of the Orphanage, thinks they are all "unadoptable." The five don't think so, however, and band together when a sinister man appears and threatens to split their group up.