After staying up late talking, Urna asks Harp Oletsky if he is afraid of her. He admits to fear, but not of her. She leads him through her lemon-scented house to her bedroom, where they become intimate. Harp, a lifelong bachelor who had resigned himself to solitude, is overwhelmed by the unfamiliar tenderness, feeling as though another, bolder man takes over inside him.

While Urna sleeps, Harp wanders her kitchen, makes a sandwich, and plays with her collie puppy. He reflects on his ingrained pessimism, contrasting it with his Polish immigrant parents who came to Nebraska full of hope only to lose their country and two children. He recalls his father refusing to teach him Polish, insisting Harp be American. Urna's parting word, "tomorrow," rings in his head as a promise of future happiness, and he returns to bed feeling, for the first time, that he is "speaking American."

Harp returns home at 10 a.m. to neglected animals and a clogged Spider tractor fuel filter. He finds the house empty and a neatly written note from Dell announcing an away game in Red Willow, with her handwriting eerily resembling Lada's. The scarecrow sways in his windless fields, but Harp ignores it.

Walking his wheat rows, Harp inspects the swollen nodes, splitting stems to confirm growth is on schedule. He muses about love and his confused feelings for Urna. He recognizes that his miraculous luck has isolated him as completely as misfortune isolates others; while neighboring fields are dusted out, his thrives. Feeling cast out of Uz by his blessing, he kneels and prays for God to forsake him again so he might share in his community's suffering.