A man named David Blake is playing chess with a doctor in his house. The doctor starts to win the game, and Blake resigns. The nurse, Mrs. Pfeiffer, comes from the bedroom and tells the doctor that it is time. The doctor goes to the kitchen to retrieve his glove that is boiling. It is the doctor's third night in a row delivering a child. The nurse comes into the kitchen and says that David's wife is making real progress now. David sits in the living room and worries while listening to the sounds from the bedroom. He thinks about how he could have easily won the chess game against the doctor. As David's wife gets further along, she begins screaming, and David shoves his head into the couch cushions and thinks that he must put an end to this. David's wife calls to him that she is all right. She begins screaming again, and David says aloud that he knows she will not die. He then starts yelling stop over and over again as his wife screams. Suddenly, everything is silent. The doctor says "God Almighty" in astonishment, and he and the nurse pray. A few minutes later, they allow David into the room. He wonders where the sound of the cries are. David's wife is smiling at him, but also crying. The doctor reveals that the baby was born dead because the birth took too long, and it could not be avoided. David asks the doctor what he is to do, and the doctor says he can come into town with him to get a death certificate. David feeds the doctor and nurse breakfast, and the doctor talks about a typhoid case on the other side of the mountain. Blake reveals that he does not have enough money for a coffin, and the doctor asks if he has a cardboard box. David lines a cardboard box with a clean blanket. When nobody is looking, he looks at his dead son and quickly kisses his face.