Joe Doane is unable to sleep because his Portuguese neighbors are grieving a horrific boating accident that left their patriarch dead. In a nearby room, a man is celebrating because he was not on one of the boats that tipped over. Joe liked the man who died and is furious at the senselessness of his death, so he yells out the window to the man's family that he is dead. Joe's wife is also sleepless. She says that they ought to help the family, as the widow has numerous children. Joe and his wife have three children as well. Joe begins laughing because he sees the whole affair as a joke on the Doane ancestors, who were captains, but Joe has never been to sea and has only repaired boats. The next day, Joe finds his children staring at the neighbors' house; they are too young to understand what grief is and why the neighbors are crying. The neighbor children receive new toys and the boys are jealous. Joe observes the oldest daughter as she mourns and his own daughter is in awe of her. His daughter, Myrtie, wishes she could be as beautiful. Joe finds it morbidly funny that his wife envies their neighbors' new stove. The last straw comes when the family gets a goat from the government and the Doane children spend all their time looking at it. Joe becomes angry because he feels unappreciated by his family; he also knows that he is going to have to do some odd jobs alongside Portuguese laborers, to whom he feels superior because he has more money. Reflecting on his own good fortune lifts his spirits. He knows that the man who died could never have gotten his family such gifts while he was alive. Racism and xenophobia begin to take root inside him. Joe feels worthless because he is not building or sailing on his own boat, but rather fixing those of others. He buys his oldest daughter a black ribbon and tells her that she can go to the cemetery like the neighbors, but she is confused by this, as the only person she has to grieve is a distant relative who died decades ago. Joe decides to commit suicide so that his family can have some of the material blessings that they crave. As he wedges himself between rocks on the coast so that he can drown, the government goat wanders up to observe him. The tide is up and she can't wander back to shore, so Joe tries to move her back to land because he does not want her to witness his death. He realizes that his family and the neighbors are watching him help the goat. The widow is overjoyed and grateful, and Joe's wife begins to appreciate him again. Joe's children taunt the neighbor children because they do not have a father to save their goat. Joe tries to get them to stop, but they refuse to cede their only advantage.