Aunt Bee, Sam and Mike stop at a spot in Grover's woods that she is quite fond of. Sam tells her that the county is putting a road through there to make a shortcut from the highway to Mayberry. Aunt Bee and the garden club decide to send Sam to the County Seat to protest. Sam at first turns her down as he believes the road will be a good thing. But he reluctantly agrees to go to Mt. Pilot. Sam, Clara and Aunt Bee go to see Commissioner Osborne. Osborne tells them the road has to be built. The day that construction is to start, the ladies arrive to protest and block the tractors from going through. Osborne tells the ladies the project will be temporarily postponed while he looks into the matter. Osborne comes up with a plan to put the road in without cutting down a tree. Howard figures out that will make the shortcut a half mile longer than the current road.

Millie receives a letter from Rex Alexander, a famous sculptor she met while modeling in New York. After Rex arrives, Millie throws a tea party to have some of the towns people meet him. Rex has been in town for a week and has grown quite fond of the place. He tells Sam and Millie he would like to create a sculpture for the town as a gift. The piece is called "The Struggle" and the crowd looks at it in awkward silence. After the crowd disperses, Rex is worried the people don't like it. Sam and Millie try to reassure him that everyone loves it. It's decided that Howard would subtly try to find out from Rex what the piece represents. Rex says that it represents man against machine. Aunt Bee introduces Anthony Harper, a curator from the Raleigh Art Museum. The plan is that the sculpture will be permanently loaned to the museum so that many more people will be able to enjoy it.

Emmett's wife joins a women's lib group.

Sam gets his friend at NASA to bring the moon rock to Mayberry so Howard can have a private showing.