Set in depression era rural Texas, "Places in the Heart" tells the story of a woman trying to make it as the sole provider after fate deals her a blow. Edna Spaulding (Sally Field) is newly widowed after her sheriff husband is accidentally killed. Left alone with her kids on their farm, facing the threat of foreclosure by the bank, she finds help in unlikely places. With nowhere to turn, she takes in an itinerant black man, Moze (Danny Glover), who hits upon the idea of planting her 40 acres in cotton. Pitching in is Mr. Will (John Malkovich), the blind boarder she has taken in to help ends meet. Plagued by tornado, the KKK, and a failing cotton market, her last chance comes in the form of a contest to be the first to the mill with their cotton crop. The $100 prize is all that stands between losing and keeping the farm.