Dizzy Joe, a tramp, is walking along a dusty road and rests by the way behind a stone wall. While Joe is asleep, a negro wagon driver from a hospital drives up and deposits on the ground a good suit of clothes from the body of a man who died of smallpox, intending to burn them. Having no match he goes away to procure one, and leaves the clothes in a heap on the ground. While he has gone, Joe awakes and sees the good clothes on the ground. It doesn’t take him long to change. Dressing behind the fence he throws his ragged old duds over and leaves them in a pile in place of the others. The negro returns and exclaims in surprise at the rags lying there: “Mah goodness, but smallpox made dem clothes fall apart mighty fast.” Joe hears this and can’t get those new clothes off his person fast enough to suit him. He rushes into a lake, shedding clothes at every jump, and there he stays overnight. In the morning he ventures out and makes himself a garment out of cornstalks. He is discovered in the thicket by a circus freak manager and hired as a wild man. At the circus his advent causes a sensation, he being the only man there, and he falls in love with the bearded lady, finally winning her away from the manager and marrying her. A year later the couple are presented with a bearded baby daughter.