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The downtrodden Lester family lives in rural Georgia on once-prosperous farm land, now fallow, which lies alongside the old tobacoo road.  The head of the family is Jeeter, a shiftless man who is always making grand plans but never following through with them.  The other Lesters are Jeeter's hard-working wife Ada, their daughter Ellie May, who is a spinster at twenty-three, their high-strung son Dude, who is obsessed by automobiles, and Jeeter's silent, browbeaten mother.

The Lesters are constantly on the verge of starvation, and one afternoon, when they are visited by Lov Bensey, who is married to Jeeter and Ada's daughter Pearl, the family attacks him and steals his bag of turnips.

Soon after, Jeeter hears a rumor that Captain Tim Harmon, for whose father Jeeter used to farm, is coming to the tobacco road.  Believing that Tim will extend credit to the farmers, Jeeter becomes convinced he can restore his farm and, in order to clear his conscience, confesses stealing the turnips to Sister Bessie, a local revivalist.  Soon after, however, Jeeter meets Tim and banker George Payne, who explain that Tim is broke and subsequently, the bank has taken over his land, including that on which the Lesters live.  Payne tells Jeeter he has to pay $100 rent for the year, but Jeeter has not brooded on the matter for long when it appears that his problem will be solved.

Sister Bessie, who was recently widowed, announces that she heard a voice telling her to marry Dude, despite the wide disparity in their ages.  Jeeter, knowing that Bessie's husband left a substantial amount of insurance money, agrees to the match, but his scheme to borrow the rent from her is thwarted when Bessie spends all of her $800 inheritance on a new automobile for Dude.

Later, Jeeter talks Dude and Bessie into taking him to Augusta to sell a load of firewood, and when no one buys the wood, he convinces the newlyweds to stay overnight in a hotel.  While Dude and Bessie sleep, Jeeter steals the car, which has become increasingly dilapidated through careless treatment, and attempts to sell it.  He is picked up by the chief of police, however, and the car is returned to Dude and Bessie.  Jeeter then returns home, and he and Ada prepare to leave for the poor farm, a depressing, government-run home for paupers.  Lov arrives, and after informing them that Pearl has run away to work in the cotton mills, is persuaded by Jeeter to take Ellie May home to care for him.  Tim drives by as Jeeter and Ada are walking to the poor farm and takes them back to their home.  Although he can barely afford it, Tim has given Payne six months' rent on the Lester farm, and now gives Jeeter ten dollars for seed and fertilizer.  Jeeter promises to make good, but after Tim leaves, tells Ada that he will attend to his big plans "pretty soon."