Cricket Stafford spends her last dollar on a lottery ticket, knowing the furniture store she works for can’t stay in business much longer, and her family frowns on gambling. The next morning the town is buzzing with the news that someone in Hazlett won the lottery. After church, Cricket and her brother Bill get a newspaper and are stunned to see that she has the winning ticket.

Her first move is to go to the town’s best lawyer, instead she finds his son, also a lawyer recently home from a disappointing stint in Washington. Mark realizes that he’s found the opportunity to change the world in his hometown.

Cricket faces resistance in a community sharply divided by economics even more than by color.