The drama begins as the Stage Manager and actors arrange chairs
to represent berths and compartments in a sleeping car of a train
bound from New York to Chicago.
During the confusion of settling down for the night, the characters reveal that they are two engineers, an insane woman with two attendants, a doctor, a maiden lady, an amiable older woman, and a young married couple, Philip and Harriet.
In the middle of the night Harriet calls a porter to fetch the doctor, who arrives to find her dead of a heart attack. The train plunges on through the night, passing towns that come forward to describe themselves, as do a Tramp, a Workman, a Mechanic, and a Field, all employing snatches of poetry in their accounts. The Hours appear next, reciting passages from eminent philosophers; the Planets follow, sneezing and belching. Simultaneously the passengers murmur their private thoughts. Then Gabriel and Michael, the archangels, arrive to claim Harriet.
She, like Emily in Our Town,
recalls the poignant moments of her life as she takes leave of
earth. Finally, in the morning, the train arrives in Chicago.