During the colonial period, a man buys a small piece of land in Mendoza and marries a slave woman. The dry and arid climate harms the yield of the land from it. In need of money to buy the freedom of his spouse, he decides to undertake the task of building with his own hands a kilometric ditch that carries water from the river to his fields.
Widow meets her husband's family for the first time after his death; her mother-in-law hates her and her husband's son from earlier marriage falls in love with her.
In the 1944 San Juan earthquake, the parents of a child died who had to go live with an evil aunt but who, finally, succeeded as an actor.
