A poor farmer named Deschamps lives out a meagre existence with his wife, his sons and his daughter. Mâço gives to a second daughter nicknamed La Scouine because she is mean and clumsy and gossips.

One day, Schno and Tifa, the two idiots, take revenge on La Scouine for her gossiping but her father is furious and orders the boys to go and work in the fields. Schno collapses from sun stroke and dies.

Summer is the time for marriage and Caroline, La Scouine’s sister, marries Tit-Toine Saint-Onge, who immediately is interested in another girl. La Scouine tells her sister of her husband’s unfaithfulness.

Raclor and Tifa move away, leaving La Scouine and her brother Charlot to live alone in the house, to share their loneliness and distress. Charlot seeks consolation with the village drunkard. The approaching election divides the villagers into two opposing camps, the rouges and the bleus. But even with this, village life continues and the fête of St-Michel happens as usual. The villagers mock La Scouine and ask her to dance. But she realizes people are laughing at her, and retreats into herself.