The town’s parade is delayed when the Empire Fire Company’s hook-and-ladder truck breaks down and the Revolutionary-era costumes are in disrepair. Parade director Hal Leopold berates marshals Gus Plitzka and Doc Roberts for wearing red British coats instead of Continental blue, revealing that local Jews usually maintain the uniforms and band equipment for free but are absent this year.

As Gus searches for a blue coat, a Russian-accented enforcer threatens him over unpaid debts to Nig Rosen and ominously asks about the town’s drinking water. Gus panics, secures a blue coat for himself, and offers it to Doc, but Doc abruptly decides to stay in the red British outfit, dismissing the importance of the choice.

Meanwhile, Fatty and Big Soap scout the Chicken Hill lot with the outdoor faucet and the capped well, hiding tools for a nighttime job. After the late-running parade and fireworks, they pry open the well cover and descend, discovering the old well is dry and that the dairy has been rerouted to city reservoir water. They drill into the reservoir pipe under dangerous pressure, then connect the shul’s line to the reservoir feed, giving the synagogue fresh, free water.

With the well now open and broken, Fatty and Big Soap scramble to cover it again and split up to fetch mortar and a wheelbarrow, hoping Rusty will arrive. At the pig roast, Doc drinks heavily, rants bitterly about America and immigrants, and fixates on Chona Malachi; carrying a mezuzah pendant, Doc staggers up Chicken Hill and cuts through the same dark lot.

Henry Lit, Rosen’s collector, sees the red coat and mistakenly assumes the drunken man is Gus Plitzka. Lit sneaks up, punches the man with brass knuckles, and the victim falls with a splash into the open well—releasing the mezuzah as he goes. Unaware of the body below, Fatty and Big Soap return, pour a new concrete manhole cover, and sit in the field afterward, “waiting for the future.”