Timothy is a young boy living on the streets of Toronto. He must routinely flee and hide from a bully who chases him for "five bucks! five bucks!" One day, to escape, Timothy hides in a big, battered, antique trunk that he finds in an alley. When he opens the lid and climbs out, he finds himself about one hundred years in the past where the trunk belongs to Zachariah Gibson, a charlatan (with a heart of gold) who sells "elixir" from a horse-drawn wagon. The short episodes follow the adventures of Timothy and Zachariah, now his friend and unlikely father-figure, as they face different challenges in both the "present" and the "past" always travelling between the two time periods through the magic trunk.