Across the Fruited Plain

llen!" Gran

to nests of wilting lettuce, and wiped her dripping face with the hem of her clean gingham apron. The kitchen was even hotter than the half-dar

wn to the shop and tell Grandpa supper's spoiling. Why he's got to hang round that shop till supper's spoilt when he could

any more about the shop. Day after day she had heard about it. Grandma talked to her, though she was

as words that he hadn't found work that day. Even though you were a child, you got so tired--so tired--of the grown folks' worrying about where the next quart of milk would come from. So Rose-Ellen patted him on the ar

ooking old man, his gray hair waving round a bald dome, his eyes bright blue. He was looking at a newspaper. It was a cr

two pairs awaited their owners; on the other rack were a few that had evidently

ell tinkled. "Oh, Ellen

e come to supper. Every

half-past five. "I keep tinkering with i

x, leather and dye, where he had worked so long. Its walls were papered with his favorite calendars: country scenes that reminded him of his farm boyhood; roly-poly babies in bathtubs; a pretty girl w

ong and didn't mind. She held her head straight to make her thick brown curls hit against her backbone. She knew she was pretty, with her round face and dark-lashed hazel eyes; and that nobody would think her starchy short pink

bi, who lived next door. "C'

th many pairs of twin front doors, each pair with two scrubbed stone steps down to the sidewalk, and two bay windows bulging out upstairs, so that they

ered him nothing but a nuisance, and sometimes she was proud of his tallness, his curly fair h

thinking that their dear old house was no longer theirs. Something strange had happene

d had them mended many times. Then came days when many people were poor. They had to buy shoes too cheap to be mended; so when the soles wore out, the people threw the shoes away and bought more cheap ones. No longer were Grandpa's shoe ra

e children home to live with Grandpa and Grandma. There Baby Sally was born; and there, befor

begging Grandpa to give up the shop, but Grandpa smashed his fist down on the table and said it was lik

sual. Dick blacked boots on Saturdays to earn a few dimes; Rose-Ellen

aked ground. Since Jimmie's infantile paralysis, three years before, he had been able to walk very lit

abby hall to the kitchen, where Grandma was rocki

"did you make up your mind to come home at l

, borrowed from the Albis. Jimmie looked at the funnies, and Grandma and Rose-Ellen did the

ore an embroidered flour-sack cover. Grandpa pottered with a loose door-latch until Grandma wrung the suds from her hands and cried fiercely, "What'

to see you, too?"

Us?" gasped

Grandma, and his bright dark eyes looked almost as unbelieving as they had when

mouth open; and Jimmie hobbled in, bent almost double,

t day and had advised Grandma to put the children into a Home. When Grandm

and smoothing back Rose-Ellen's curls with the other. "Saying Jimmie'd ought to be where he'd get sunshine wit

t takes money to give the kids

from my own house

was one thing to scrap a little and quite an

ake . . . Sally?" R

odded, li

!" Rose-Elle

r and Rose-Ellen's. "It's better for families to stick together, even if

, as if he were a boy again, and before they knew it the whole fami

here, a comfortable brown woman with shining black hair and gold earrings, the youngest Albi enthroned on her

big voice. "All will be well, praise Go

ell?" Grandma protested. "

hey go white and skinny, and they come home, like you see it, brown and fat." Her voice rose and she waved the baby dramatically. "Not so good the houses, I would not

Albi?" Grandma asked flatly. "It's cl

ople asking who will pick the cranberry. And that Jersey air, it will bring the fat and the re

rms to pick berries and beans. The Beechams had never thought of doing

?" Daddy fired the ques

ked Rose-Ellen,

rn palm. "You smart, Rosi

claimed, yanking his sister's curl

Mrs. Albi's Michael was the same age, but he would have made two of Sally. Above Sally's small

if Grandpa would give up his shop--just for the

the shop's give me up alread

hooped Dick. "And

ed. "Beechams don't run off nobody knows

hey could, going to the cranberry bogs was the best answer they could fi

dy said. "And without my kids"--he spread his big hand

s house we've got to pay rent, and I'm not making enough for

decided that

d dower chest, full of treasures, and Grandpa's tall desk and Rose-Ellen's dearest doll. Next they chose the things they must

her beloved furniture around and glanced contemptuously at the clean old sewing m

the few boxes and pieces of furniture they were leaving be

mmered; "almost as if that was

grabbed the old Seth Thomas clock and hugged it to her

feather beds, a trunk, pots, pans, dishes and the Beechams were piled into the space left by some twen

shifted Jimmie around to make his lame leg more comfortable, just as they passe

uty chrysanthemums so they won't all die off,"