A man arrives at a fishing village in Newfoundland. He proceeds down the coast's rock formation after considering turning around to return home from his 2,500-mile trip. He learns that one of the boys fishing on the harbor is named John. The sun sets, and the boys are called back home. Walking back up from the harbor, the man encounters an old white-whiskered man— John's grandfather, Ira— who invites the man to his house for dinner. At the house, Ira's wife, preparing dinner, greets them and is surprised to see their guest, whom she initially looks upon with "open hostility" and then "self-control." After dinner, the couple and their grandson sing folk songs as Ira plays the accordion and John the harmonica. 

After they sing, the man and Ira go into the parlor, wherein the man studies the photographs of Ira's five daughters, one of whom, Jennifer, John's mother, as Ira explains, died in a car accident.

Later, the man retires to the room they've prepared for him, and in the late night hours, unable to sleep, he wanders down the hall to the door of John's room.

In a reverie, he remembers his relationship with Jennifer 11 years earlier. John is finally identified as the man's son, conceived as a graduate student studying the local cultural folklore. He considers taking John back home with him but decides against it as John has a life there that he doesn't quite understand and doesn't want to disrupt.

The following day, the man wakes and leaves, explaining to John's grandparents that he will not take John. John enters the house and gifts the man a beautiful wind and sea-carved stone. The man boards the plane and heads back to the American Midwest.