Sixten Svensson is work-shy. He avoids employments and he doesn't want to work at home either. Because of this his family sinks into poverty, and his wife has to beg her parents for money and their neighbors for food. Their daughter Märta is well aware that baron Urse is highly interested in her. She dreams of getting married to the baron and to live a fashionable life with him, but his wife forms an obstacle to this. When the baron offers her an appointment as a housemaid, she declines the offer because of his wife. Outside the village shop some of the villagers are ...