Mildred Stuart is a thirty-year-old mother of two who is unhappily married to her husband George. One day when George goes into town and the children are in school, Mildred sees a group of prisoners working by her house. She doesn't worry about them until she gets a call from her anxious friend Carrie, who describes all the things that could go wrong. After that, Mildred constantly checked out the windows as she went about her housework to make sure none of the prisoners had escaped and was coming up the hill to her house. During her lunch, Mildred gets another phone call. This one is from George, who tells her that he'll be home later than expected. Mildred tells him about the prisoners, expecting him to express concern for her, but he doesn't say anything. As she cleans up from her lunch, Mildred gets an idea of how to get back at George, who wouldn't care if she was harmed by the prisoners or not and who always took her for granted. She decides to invite the prisoners up to her house for ice water after they've been working in the heat all day. Mildred changes her clothes and walks down to the highway. She doesn't like the guard very much, but she tells him about the water and he thanks her and says they'll be pleased to come. As she passes the prisoners, she can hear them talking about her and suspects that they haven't seen a woman in a long time. When she gets back to the house, Mildred gets everything ready for the afternoon. As time passes, however, she begins to regret her decision, worrying that something might happen to her. At five o'clock, she sees the men begin to pack up. They load into the brown prison bus. She suspects they'll be there any minute. Mildred resigns herself to her fate. But after several minutes pass with no sign of them, Mildred realizes that the prisoners are not coming after all. This makes her feel slighted, but she calms down by the time her children get home from school, and it is as if nothing ever happened.