The story starts with Sam and Bill as youngsters back in the quaint days of the Forties. They are inseparable companions, and from the school days down to extreme old age their life journey together is shown. Each loves and afterwards marries a lass in the home town, and the two couple settle down as neighbors. Bill becomes the father of a girl, Sam the father of a boy. The life story of these two is then taken up and carried along with those of the old men. The children grow up to be the comforts of their fathers’ lives, especially after the good mothers are called by death. Kitty and Bill, Jr. plight their troth, but before the marriage is consummated the Civil War breaks out and Bill, Jr. marches away to the front. There he is killed in the explosion of an ammunition wagon. The news of the boy’s death almost prostrates poor old Sam, who finds consolation only in his old friend Bill. Kitty, agonized by the knowledge of her lover’s death, is last seen sitting in the old rowboat at the edge of the water, where so often she and Bill, Jr. sat, and their fathers before them. As Sam and Bill walk beside the shore that afternoon. Bill comforting Sam for the loss of his boy, the body of Kitty drifts to their feet. Then it is Bill who finds himself face to face with awful grief, and the two bereft old friends turn to each other with one impulse in their hour of mutual gloom.