Josiah Cole writes to his delinquent son, John Ephraim, on January twelfth. He says if he wanted to, he could root John out by hiring men to roam the surrounding towns and find him. But he won't waste his day's work on John's foolishness, and he expects him to come home imminently. On the sixteenth Josiah writes that he will forget the episode of John returns home immediately. In subsequent letters he details the pains he's taken to have letters delivered to different towns, the social scorn the family is subject to because of John's absence, and John's mother's worsening health.

A rumor surfaces of a crazed religious group camping across the river, believing the Book of Revelation has forecast an imminent end to the world. Josiah hears John has joined them, and he writes of how valiantly he must defend his name among peers. He brings letters to his Reverend and the Reverend gives them to a drunken man who frequents the encampment to (hopefully) reach John. Josiah journeys near the encampment often but never sees John. He despairs in his son's wasted potential, writing letter after letter bearing him and his mother's pleas for his return.

Josiah learns that the fringe group believe the end of days is two days away. He writes a long letter detailing how home life has been, appending his most sentimental note yet. On the nineteenth, the day of the predicted apocalypse, he rides to the encampment and watches a group of men start a fire which ravages the whole area, killing and burning. Josiah cannot find John among the living or the dead. He writes the Reverend thanking him for his help and wonders in his letter about the letter-bearer - did he pass the letters off to John, did John read each one and never respond? Or did they stay in the stranger's room, papering his floor?