When Lydia complains to her father about the dullness of her history lesson at school, John tells her his own version of the story of Generals Grant and Lee at Appomattox, a version that plays fast and loose with the facts. After Lydia repeats John's fanciful take on the story in class, her beautiful teacher pays John a visit at home.

When the noise from the freight elevator beside his office becomes intolerable, John decides to try working at home, only to be confronted by Lydia, who is unhappy with her seat at school. She decides to run away into Manhattan to stay with her bohemian Aunt Kate--accompanied by her worried father.

In order to get closer to her father, with whom she seems to share little in common, Lydia learns how to play chess from her mother and begins seriously beating John at the game. He enlists the help of Oscar, a chess expert who works at The Manhattanite, to beat her, but to no avail. So John imagines the results of three increasingly bizarre plans to win out over his daughter.

John has dog problems with just about everyone: Greeley, over a magazine piece about his childhood family pet who bit people; Ellen, who makes him sleep on the couch after an argument about animals' eyes; and Lydia, who wants a new puppy. Then Christabel, the family's ancient poodle, becomes ill, and everyone seems to hold John at fault.

When Lydia comes down with a bad cold, John takes the opportunity to try to show her that people with vivid imaginations are better off than those who approach life from a more ""realistic"" point of view. The story of ""The Unicorn in the Garden"" doesn't seem to work, so John relates the story of his great-grandfather, who not only was a prolific storyteller but managed to get the fire department called out when he was trying to attend to young John's sniffles.