Asbury, a writer living in New York, returns home to his mother's farm in the Southern United States after coming down with a serious illness.
His mother finds a local doctor, Dr. Block, who draws some of Asbury's blood to examine.
In bed Asbury thinks about various experiences, including one the prior year when he interacted with the African-American farm hands and, in a show of rebellion against his mother, smoked cigarettes with them in the dairy barn.
The farm hands refused to drink the milk, saying that's one thing Asbury's mother doesn't allow.
Asbury gives them both cigarettes, the farm hands lie to him by telling him he looks well, and they bicker between themselves over the most effective remedy for a cold.