A seven-year-old is sent to help their eighty-four-year-old grandmother, Lonie, with the annual harvest. Uncle Jolly is usually on hand to assist with the crop. Still, he’s been detained for sabotaging a dam that he believes inhibits the spawning patterns of local fish. The child and Lonie struggle to manage the crop due to their youth and old age. Over months, Lonie confides in her young grandchild, lamenting the lack of help from her children and believing that her daughter-in-law is responsible for the absence of her son Luce. She longs for Jolly, who she believes is the only one of her sons who cares for his mother as a child ought.

Initially, Lonie tells the child they will wait for Uncle Luce to help bring the crop. When he doesn’t arrive in time, she and the grandchild set about harvesting corn, sweet potatoes, and fodder for their mare, Poppet. Rheumatism often forces Lonie to rest for days, but they bring the crop in before Uncle Luce arrives. He has excuses and ends up suggesting they put Poppet down altogether. Distressed, Lonie rails against him until he retracts his idea. Eventually, he reveals that Uncle Jolly has been sentenced to two years and offers to have one of his brothers move in with Lonie. She is dissatisfied with this arrangement, preferring Jolly to her other sons, the latter of whom she maintains abandoned her.

After Uncle Luce leaves, Lonie and her grandchild work to weather her bouts of illness. She tells the child that Uncle Jolly’s dam destruction wasn’t personally motivated against Pate Horn’s owner. The grandchild tries to care for Poppet, but the cold and lack of food overwhelm her, and she dies in the barn. Without notice, Uncle Toll arrives one Sunday with news that Uncle Jolly will be coming home after a fire at the prison. Uncle Jolly arrives shortly after, and Lonie receives him gladly. He talks of buying Poppet new fodder, and Lonie silently commands the child to remain quiet. Over dinner, Uncle Jolly relates the story of the fire, announcing that he was responsible for putting it out. He caps his story off by confiding in Lonie and the child that he made another hole in Pate Horn’s dam and that the fish should have no trouble making it upstream in the coming months.