Otane, a widow who operates a store, begins taking care of an abandoned boy named Kohei - though not completely of her own free will. She makes it clear to him that he is a burden, but he doesn´t let himself be scared away. During the next several days this quiet boy wins the elderly woman over and she begins to adore him. After Otane learns how to express her feelings, Kohei´s father comes to take charge of the boy. As compensation, the lonely widow decides to adopt a child orphaned by the war. This story of a miraculous change of heart is drawn from post-war Japanese reality, but also evinces clear nostalgia for the world that existed before the outbreak of war. To paraphrase film scholar David Bordwell, even if Ozu had shot only this seventy-two-minute film, he would have been considered one of the greatest directors of all time.