- Soon after arriving in the U.S., Romanian immigrant Franz Libelt dies, leaving his daughter Michelna an orphan. The girl is befriended by newsboy Blackie Moyle, who invites her to share his home, which is a large piano box in a vacant lot. After he teaches her to be a "newsie," she cuts her hair, dresses as a boy, and changes her name to Mike. When Blackie is blinded while protecting her from a thief, Mike is forced to find a way to support them both. It occurs to her that two clay statuettes they sculpted might be valuable, so she takes them to an art exhibit. Mike's statue, known as the "trouble buster," sells immediately, but she credits Blackie as the sculptor. He then becomes the sensation of the art world and is sent to Paris to have his sight restored. Blackie comes to understand Mike's deception and returns to the U.S. to set things right. When Blackie is finally reunited with Michelna, she asks why he came back, and he replies, "For the love of Mike."
- Michelna Libelt and her father, Franz, arrive in America from distant Koumania. Franz is taken ill and dies, leaving Michelna alone in the world. "Blackie" Moyle, a young waif of a newsboy, offers the child the protection of his own piano box home. "Blackie" has made this home with his dog, Spunk, in any empty piano box in the rear of a deserted factory. Michelna decides that her curls are a nuisance and with Blackie's assistance cuts them off, secures an old suit of boy's clothing, and changes her name to "Mike." In their spare moments, when not selling papers, the two sit in the piano box and make statuettes out of clay given Blackie by an artist. Tip Morgan, a young crook, discovers that Mike is a girl, and lures her into a room where Blackie finds them. In the fight that follows Blackie is struck on the head with a bottle and loses the sight of both eyes. While he is in the hospital .Mike sees an advertisement of an art exhibit, and believing that the twenty-five cents admission entitles her to exhibit her wares, lakes two little statuettes that she and Blackie have made and places them on display. One peculiar little character she has named "The Trouble Buster." An art dealer sees in it the same commercial possibilities of popular success as the "Billiken" or "Kewpie," and when Mike is asked as to the ownership, she gives the credit for the successful one to Blackie. The latter is at once made a social pet and his fortune assured, for the Little "Trouble Busters" prove extremely popular. He is taken to a famous hospital in France where his sight is restored. Mike is recognized by one of the patrons of the orphan asylum from which she escaped and flees in terror from the art exhibit. She resumes her girl's clothing and secures a position in a distant part of the country in a large country estate. There she is found again by the crook, Tip Morgan, who threatens to tell that she is the real designer of "The Trouble Buster" unless she gives him money. Mike has rescued the old piano box and now has it for a playhouse in the garden of her new home. Blackie has recovered and starts out to find Mike. He tells everyone that it was Mike who designed "The Trouble Buster." He finally locates her just as she is being again blackmailed by Tip. Blackie drives the crook away and when Michelna asks him what he came back for, he draws her close to him answering, "For the love of Mike."
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