Abner Peabody, Norris Goff, runs the Jot ’Em Down general store in Pine Ridge, Arkansas with a steady pride that masks a string of small-town struggles. When he unexpectedly inherits railroad stock from his Uncle Ernest, he suddenly becomes the sole owner of what he believes to be the Chicago and Ohio Railroad, a prospect that fills him with cautious optimism. His enthusiastic store partner, Lum Edwards, Chester Lauck, leaps at the chance to turn this windfall into something bigger. Lum hatches a bold plan: sell off chunks of the stock to the town’s residents to raise capital, enough to claim the land where the railway sits and to secure control of the surrounding area. The idea excites the community and the two men gather almost ten thousand dollars from gullible investors, a sum they believe will buy them real property and real power.
They head to Chicago to meet Uncle Ernest’s lawyer, Herbert Rawlinson as J. J. Stark Sr. They discover, to their shock, that the railroad they’ve bought is nothing more than a broken-down local line, with assets barely topping two hundred dollars. The iron rails and worn cars reveal a fragile dream, not a thriving empire. A telegram is sent back to Pine Ridge advising them to abandon the land purchase, but by the time the message arrives, the land has already been bought. The setback lands like a punch, and the two partners stagger from the attorney’s office in despair. In a comic twist of fate, Abner slips on the stairs and tumbles to the ground, triggering worry about his health. After a visit to a doctor, a case of mistaken identity, and a note that he is dying with only two weeks left to live, Abner’s world tilts toward a new kind of urgency—the urgency of quickly turning a fortune before time runs out.
Back at the hotel, a window-washer named Gimpel, Irving Bacon and his imaginary dog drift into their room, offering outlandish schemes to make money fast. With Abner’s health in jeopardy, Gimpel suggests taking on high-risk, high-reward jobs, arguing there’s no future if the two weeks are all they have left. The first proposed gig is to test a new drug that supposedly alters personality, a second is to perform as a death-defying gorilla dancer, and a third—an offer to spend a night in a haunted house for a handsome payday. There’s also a nerve-wracking daredevil stunt, swinging from one airplane to another while they are midflight, which would bring in thousands. Each failed attempt leaves them poorer and more desperate, especially after the mysterious contractor disappears with the initial five thousand dollars. With little left, Gimpel and the duo flirt with another plan: sue the building for unsafe stairs, appointing Lum as Abner’s lawyer. Lum misreads a settlement offer and lands only a pittance, sixty-five dollars, in a moment that shows the limits of luck and the quirks of small-town justice.
A stock buyer named Elmer Keaton arrives at the hotel to press for refunds, revealing that the stock is practically worthless. Lum coercively pushes Abner toward a final, money-minded opportunity, convincing him to spend the night in the haunted house for a chance at a substantial payoff. But Mrs. Carmen, the schemer behind the plan, intends to blow the place up and claim a life-insurance payout on her husband. She slides Abner a violin case and a good luck charm, carefully concealing a bomb in the case and a corresponding name on the charm to help the coroner identify a body as hers if things go wrong. Abner, unaware of the danger, travels to the wrong house, and the scene becomes a farcical tragedy when the home is occupied by Nazi spies. He flees in a panic, the bomb detonates, and the attempted attack destroys the house and the spies inside.
As the two-week mark nears, a lucrative offer surfaces: a chance to ride a rocket to Mars for ten thousand dollars. Abner, still convinced his days may be numbered, hesitates to commit, while Lum also teeters on the brink of a life-changing leap. Then a cold, cruel twist of fate arrives in the form of a phone call. Gimpel answers the line in their room and learns that Stark has sold the Pine Ridge land for twenty thousand dollars. With the news, Stark heads toward the launch pad, while Lum takes his place at the rocket’s controls. Abner, upon hearing the good news, collapses—he sits down precisely on the launch button, sending Lum off into space. The rocket falters and crashes back to Earth, landing in Mars, Iowa, in a spectacular comic reversal that leaves the two improbable dreamers to pick up the pieces of a plan that was almost a fortune, almost a lifetime, and almost certain to go off without a hitch.
