The protagonist of the work is twenty-year-old girl Frosia, the daughter of a railway worker. Her husband went far and long. Frosya is very sad about him, life loses all meaning for her, she even throws courses in railway communications and signaling. Frosy's father, Nefed Stepanovich, retired by age, but continues to miss work. Every day he walks on a hill in the exclusion zone, with crying eyes he watches the locomotives, which are running hard at the head of trains. Sometimes Nefed Stepanovich from his high place shouts to the drivers, pointing out their mistakes in managing trains. In the evenings, the old man returns tired and asks his daughter to petroleum jelly to rub his tired hands. The old man’s daily campaigns on the hill end with the fact that he is again hired to work in the depot. Only now he comes to work less often than before retirement, only when it is necessary to replace the sick person. Frosya, as a rule, is angry at his father, at his constant working readiness. Very often she goes onto the platform, thinking about the train that took her husband to the Far East.

One of the boring and gray evenings, walking along the platform, Frosya sees the railway workers, four women and a man who carry shovels. Frosya volunteers to help them, for some time to forget his longing for her husband. Working in a slag pit, she meets Natalya Bukova. Together with her, she gets the money she earned, goes to the club to dance. There Frosya is often invited to dance, because she is one of the few who are not shy and knows how to do it. Dancing with the dispatcher, Frosya often puts his head on his chest, which causes him to be bewildered. When the dispatcher is interested in her name, Frosya claims that she is a foreigner named Fro, and then begins to cry and runs away. At home, Frosya again begins to remember the husband of Fedor and cannot find a place for himself from longing for him. An attempt to return to railway communication courses is unsuccessful: microfarads, iron cores and current harmonics are meaningless without Fedor. Frosya always expects a letter from him, but he does not write to her. She settles down as a letter-carrier, wanting to be the first to receive all letters, but again there is not a line from Fedor.

One day, nevertheless, the day comes that she had long dreamed of: a message from Fedya with the address of his residence comes from Fedya. That night Frosya does not sleep, but composes a response telegram for him. In the morning, she asks her father to deliver the telegram to the post office without reading it. The old man, not listening to his daughter, reads a telegram. It refers to an unexpectedly developed pneumonia and a possible imminent death of Frosi. A week later, Fedor arrives. He tells Frosa that he still realized on the train that the telegram was false, but because of longing and love for Frosa he nevertheless arrived. Frosya is very happy, she cleans the apartment, and asks her father to go to the depot and find out if they are going to send him on a flight. Nefed Stepanovich leaves. Frosya has not parted with Fedor for twelve days. On the twelfth day, she wakes up and sees that Fedor and things are gone.

On the twelfth day, she wakes up and sees that Fedor and things are gone. Father comes and says that he was not called on the flight, all these days he lived at the station, afraid to interfere with them. Father also adds that he saw Fedor at the station, he left for the Far East and promised, having done all his work, to return, or to take Frosya to his place.