Spring is in the air. Simple-minded and good-spirited Marika travels from her Hungarian hamlet to Vienna, where she gets a job at her aunt's bakery, selling Salzbröthchen to the Emperor. She meets a very nice soldier who is composing a march, yet she is expecting the wealthy man a fortune-teller did promise. Anyway, to help him she puts the march in the Emperor's brötchen. The military Spring parade (Frühjahrsparade) is approaching.