Effie is a woman in her late sixties who lives on a farm in Georgia that has been passed down through her family for generations. Once Effie's mother dies, her lawyer relative from Atlanta, Samuel, decides to live at the farm. Though Samuel claims he wants to assist Effie, he really wants the real estate and to take advantage of an old woman. Soon, Samuel says that he needs assistance, so he hires a twice-widowed woman named Mrs. Stramp to help around. Mrs. Stramp comes to possess more ownership of the house than Effie does, and takes all the keys and access to their ancestral home from Effie. One day, Effie looks out her window at the river nearby, and she spots commotion. She calls Mrs. Stramp, the two see a man come out from the water and take shelter in their shed. They go to the shed, not sure if the man needs help. They find him tangled in their fishing gear, injured, and much younger than he looked from afar. They decide to help him, and bring him into the house, but observe how he can't stop talking about the snakes and birds that attacked him in the river. He seems to have trouble remembering what happened, and recalls only that he'd been swimming for an hour in the river from Florida. When he's inside the house, they realize that Samuel is home, and they know that if he found them with the man he'd be very angry that they had done something on their own. They decide to knock the man out, tie and gag him, and hide him in their home until Samuel goes to sleep, then they can think through their next move. Effie sympathizes with him when he wakes, and knows that he must be scared, but tries to relax him and ease him into sleep. While he dreams, Effie imagines what story could've possibly landed him in their home, and thinks that he must've run from a psych ward or jail and been roughed up by the police on his great escape. An officer shows up, and leads Effie to take the boy around back to their shed again so that they don't find him and take him back. Effie leaves him in the shed to talk to Mrs. Stramp about what the officer wanted, and is informed that he is a pilot they've been looking for who crashed nearby in the river. When they return to the shed, he escapes and climbs up a tree to avoid them. They try to tell him that they meant no harm, but he no longer trusts them. They return his shoes to him and tell him where he can walk to find a road and some help, and he runs off into the night. When newspapers publish his story, there is no mention of them, since he, as a man, was too prideful to admit that a couple of old ladies had held him hostage. Despite the outcome, the event solidifies a friendship between Effie and Mrs. Stramp.