As an unnamed girl plans a picnic supper in the woods with her friends, her idea is brutally rejected by her Aunt Minnie. Aunt Minnie begins telling them a story from her girlhood. The story detailed how she had fallen ill as a teenager and her parents sent her to the country to heal and get a change of scenery. She stayed with her mother's Cousin Ella and her son-in-law Malcolm. When Malcolm is in a horrible firework accident, his face is mangled. He becomes the preacher of the local church and has the reputation of a saint. Aunt Minnie grows fond of Cousin Malcolm and quite proud of him and his reputation. As she heals, she begins to explore more. This exploration includes the corn fields that Cousin Ella told her to stay away from. Cousin Ella tells her that the corn fields are dangerous and dark and there are plenty of men who would like to----- she never finishes. One day, while cutting through the corn fields against Cousin Ella's wishes, Aunt Minnie gets lost and begins to panic. She runs frantically until she comes across Cousin Malcolm in the woods. She runs to him with her dress torn open and hugs him, happy to see him and feel safe. Cousin Malcolm begins ripping her clothes off. Aunt Minnie screams and runs frantically away from him until she makes her way out of the corn field. Finishing her story, Aunt Minnie condemns Cousin Malcolm and tells the girls how terribly men can behave, even when they have the reputation of saints.

Over the course of her life, Aunt Minnie tells the story two more times. The second time she condemns Cousin Ella for not explicitly warning her of the dangers of what men were capable of, and what to do if she got lost in the corn fields. The third time, she pities Cousin Malcolm, and says that she probably threw herself onto him on purpose subconsciously because he was a halfway attractive man and she was curious. She says if it weren't for his scarring, she probably would've allowed him to rip her clothes off. She says her running away probably made him feel terrible knowing how any woman would react to his face. Her entire point is that young boys and young girls are not properly sexually educated and it leads to uncertainty, even in her old age.