Harp Oletsky, a Polish dryland wheat farmer and lifelong Granger, attends an Emergency Election at the Uz Grange Hall three weeks after Black Sunday. The previous Grange Master abandoned his ruined land for Oregon, leaving the chapter to choose new leadership amid devastation. Harp arrives sleep-deprived, having spent three nights watching an unnameable, marvelous color sparkling up from his fallow field—a phenomenon he cannot name and which terrifies him.

At the meeting, Grangers commiserate about weather, banks collapsing, government aid, and the run on the Antidote's Vault, gossiping about her customers fleeing town. Neighbors press Harp about his inexplicable good luck: his wheat survived three dust storms unharmed. Alf Olafson and others demand his secret, but Harp insists he knows nothing. Urna Buczek, an old schoolmate, flatters him, claiming his hair is growing back, and he wonders if it is true.

To his shock, Harp is elected Grange Master in a 45-1 landslide—he cast the only vote against himself, having nominated Daniel Ulin. Overwhelmed, Harp hallucinates ink dripping from the Nebraska maps and the state's Sower transforming into a Reaper, and concludes he is losing his mind. Urna invites him to dinner, and he accepts, surprising himself.

A stranger interrupts: Cleo Allfrey, a young Black woman photographer working for the Resettlement Administration, sets up her camera in the hall. The Grangers stare uneasily; Grayson makes a racist remark about the country growing "browner." Harp senses brewing hostility. A child's innocent chatter defuses the tension. Cleo asks to photograph the new Grange Master, and remarks that Harp looks familiar—a comment that unsettles him. The flashbulb captures Harp's portrait as the chapter closes.