Muth recasts a short story by Tolstoy into picture-book format, substituting a boy and his animal friends for the czar and his human companions. Yearning to be a good person, Nikolai asks, "When is the best time to do things? Who is the most important one? What is the right thing to do?"
He believes that if he can find the answers to his three questions, he will always know how to be a good person. His friends ¡V a heron, a monkey, and a dog ¡V try to help, but to no avail, so he asks Leo, the wise old turtle. Leo doesn't answer directly, but by the end of Nikolai's visit, the boy has discovered the answers himself.
