 Stella is serving her peach farmer husband Emery a big breakfast when a squirrel appears on the front window screen. She fondles the rodent and gives it food and water, then spots a tramp walking down the public dirt road near their home. Emery says that he has plenty of peaches to pick, and the going wage in the valley is $6 per day, but he might get this tramp to work for $5/day. Emery invites the tramp inside, and offers him three dollars a day plus board and a place in the back yard. The tramp, who says his name is Jesse with no middle or last name, hires on. Jesse gobbles down his breakfast, using a big knife to slice a tomato and some bread. Stella asks him to put the knife away. Jesse asks Stella whether the fat squirrel outside is a pet. She says that it is. He replies that he could kill it so she could make stew for supper. A few minutes later, she hears Jesse s laughter in the yard, rushes outside to find her pet squirrel lying dead, and screams. Jesse claims the squirrel attacked him, and Emery buries it. The men fill their picking baskets with peaches, and Stella transfers the peaches to crates which are stacked on the truck. After a long day and supper, Emery tells Stella that he will take the peaches to the cannery first thing next morning. She says that she wants to go along, and stay at the hotel in town until Jesse leaves, because she is afraid of him. Emery convinces Stella to stay, but the next morning, while Stella provides a breakfast of flapjacks to Jesse, he says that many people are afraid of him, and he likes it that way, especially women, who never invite him and always tell him to get away. In the orchard, Stella overhears Jesse telling Emery that he killed the squirrel because he hates animals, and Emery sympathizes. That evening, after picking three truckloads of peaches, Jesse is tired, as is Stella, who, according to Emery, has cooked her first bad meal in twelve years of marriage. Stella goes to bed before washing the dishes, and Jesse leaves for his bed after supping. In the front room, Emery puts a country music station on the radio to get the weather report, but falls asleep. Stella packs her suitcase and sneaks out the back window. Jesse is waiting for her, grabs her, and threatens her with his knife. Stella screams, but Emery continues to sleep, as the weather report warns of a cold front with thunderclouds, hail, and lightning. Jesse yells that Emery is a slave-driver and tightwad, yet so afraid that he is completely under Jesse s command. Stella manages to grab the knife, and Jesse absconds, taking the truck loaded with peaches. Stella enters the house and wakens Emery. She tells him that Jesse left with the truck, so they should call the police, but he mutters that it is no use, because the thunderstorm will wipe out the crop. Stella realizes then that Emery was awake while Jesse attacked her. Emery laments that he thought that she could handle Jesse, whereas Jesse would probably kill him, and he needed this hired hand who did the work of two men. Mortified, Stella gets Jesse s knife, and kills her husband. She calls the sheriff and reports that Jesse murdered Emery and stole the truck. Then she finishes the dishes.