In Brazil in the 1920s, boy is sent to live with some parents in a sugarcane plantation, after losing his mother. His adaptation will be difficult and painful.

1920, in Paraíba. After his mother's death, the boy Carlinhos (Sávio Rolim) is sent to the Santa Rosa mill to be raised by his grandfather and uncles. There he witnesses the arrival of a new era, with the advent of modern sugar mills and the economic and social transformations that sugarcane production goes through, changes that will affect everyone's life. When he grows up and goes to school, he is no longer the naive and innocent boy who arrived at the mill.