This is one of the best examples of the aesthetic of real-life drama in Bulgarian feature films. A road-building team is forced to stay idle a couple of days since asphalt has not been delivered. Provided they are willing, the members of the team can help clean the dusty square in a near-by village, but the boys are openly hostile to the idea of their team leader. The old man, nicknamed The American, the best person in the group, decides to do the job himself. Gradually, all the rest, for various personal reasons, join in the work. Through a sequence of small everyday happenings revealed with a fine sense of the flow of life, the individual characters arrive at the idea that one's personal qualities exist only in the eyes of other, and that one's genuine values are shown in collective work.