Plot
It's 1935 in Waxahachie, Texas, a small town during the Great Depression. One Sunday afternoon, the sheriff, Royce Spalding, goes to investigate gunshots at the rail yards. A cheerfully drunk black teenager, Wylie, is firing a revolver. He reaches an empty chamber and, thinking the gun is empty, he aims at the sheriff, killing him. Royce's body is brought home to his widow, Edna, and their children, Frank and Possum. A truckload of vigilantes drags Wylie's body behind them, stopping in front of the Spalding house. Later, Wylie's friends take his body down from a tree. The two men are buried on the same day.
Edna must now raise her children alone. She is comforted by her sister, Margaret, who helps with the funeral. A drifter and handyman, a black man named Moses "Moze" Hadner appears at her door the night of the funeral, asking for work. He offers to plant cotton on her 30 acres, citing his experience. Edna feeds him and sends him on his way. The next morning, she finds him chopping wood in her yard. She makes him breakfast. Moze steals some silver spoons and goes.
The bank has a note on the family farm, and the price of cotton is plummeting. The local banker, Albert Denby, insists she needs to sell the farm.
When the police find Moze with her silver, they bring him back to confirm the theft, Edna says she has hired him and explains the spoons. The next day, Edna tells Denby she will not sell the farm. He is appalled that she is taking advice from a black man. Later, he visits the farm and forces her to take his brother-in-law, Will, blinded in World War I, as a paid lodger.
Frank gets caught smoking at school. Edna is forced into yet another male role previously performed by her husband, as she must punish Frank. Edna gathers instructions from Frank as to the way she should spank him; she hesitates, then delivers the punishment while Moze and Possum empathize from outside. Frank takes his spanking bravely, while Edna confides to Will that she will not do this again and that she dearly misses her husband.
Will is slow to warm up to Edna's children, but they eventually become close. He rescues her daughter, Possum, during a tornado that levels part of town but leaves the Spalding house standing.
Wayne Lomax, Edna's brother-in-law, has a fine time making love to married schoolteacher Viola Kelsey. The tornado is the last straw for Viola, who tells her husband they must move. Wayne admits the affair to Margaret. She says she won't forgive him this time.
Edna realizes she cannot make the next payment even if she sells all her cotton. She learns of an Ellis County contest: a $100 cash prize to the farmer who produces the first bale of cotton for the market each season. Edna realizes the prize money plus the proceeds from the sale of her cotton would be enough to save the farm. Moze helps her find the pickers they need to harvest the cotton on time.
Their efforts pay off. Edna and Moze find themselves first in line at the wholesaler with the season's first bale of cotton. Moze carefully coaches Edna on how to negotiate with the buyer, and as a result, he is unable to cheat her. Edna makes plans for the future. Moze is excited, but that night, he is accosted by Ku Klux Klan members. Wielding Royce's gun, Will interrupts the savage beating. He recognizes all the assailants' voices and identifies them. They leave. Weeping, Moze realizes he must leave the farm or die. He gives Edna a handkerchief that belonged to his mother.
The film ends in a dreamlike scene evoking Holy Communion. A choir sings in the modest church, where the pews are mostly empty. During a reading of 1 Corinthians 13, Margaret takes Wayne's hand. The congregation, after filling the pews, partakes in Protestant communion, passing the elements of the sacrifice to each other as the choir sings "In the Garden". The camera shows townspeople in the pews who were seen throughout the film, including a woman who died when the tornado overturned her car. Eventually, Moze is shown in the church, though he is long gone; the camera then shows Edna, who passes a communion tray to her dead husband, quietly saying "Peace of God"; with the same blessing, he hands it to Wylie, who shot him and was killed in revenge. After Wylie replies, "Peace of God", the camera lingers on the two men in contemplation as the hymn ends.
