Widowed Old Man Matthews, (Walter Brennan) has lived his entire life as a farmer & moved his family of himself and his four youngsters, Deborah, Phineas, Abigail, & Susan (Natalie Wood in a featured role), to a just purchased farm following the ecological demise of their last farm. He has a "my way or the highway" mentality about most things in life, most specifically about running a farm.
