An unemployed man who lives with his wife and overbearing mother-in-law sees an opportunity to relieve himself of the old bat, which tangles him in a maze of deception.

Three bears come home from a bicycling trip through the woods to find a little girl "all nice and cozy and fast asleep" in Baby Bear's bed.

Mrs. Holroyd is married to a loutish miner, who drinks, patronizes prostitutes, and apparently brutalizes her. When a gentlemanly neighbor makes romantic advances to her, she wishes her husband dead. Sooner than she hoped, her wish comes true—when her husband dies in a mining accident. When Charles Holroyd's body is brought home from the mine, and his wife and mother must wash him and lay him out for his funeral, we see for the first time the other side of the relationship between Mr. and Mrs. Holroyd—now, when it's too late.

A college professor remembers the humor and sorrow of his youth in World War II Britain.