"

"Aw," Dick jeered. "If the church folks got together and put
their foot down they could clear up the whole business in a
jiffy."

"We always been church folks ourselves," Grandma snapped. "It
isn't so easy to get a hold."

"Hush up, Dick," Grandpa ordered with unusual sharpness. "Can't
you see Gramma's clean done out?"

Grandma looked "done out," but Rose-Ellen, glancing soberly from
one to the other, was sorry for Dick, too-his blue eyes frowned
so unhappily.

Rose-Ellen tried to change the subject. "Apples!" she said. "I
love oranges and ripe figs, and those big persimmons that you
sort of drown in-but apples are homiest. I'd like to get my
teeth into a hard red one and work right around."

That wasn't a good subject, either. "I'm hungry!" Jimmie
bellowed.

And just then another tire blew out.

The old Reo had bumped along on its rim for an hour when Grandma
said in a thin voice, "Next time we come to any likely shade, I
guess we best stop. I'm . . . I'm just beat out."

With an anxious backward glance at her, Daddy stopped the car
under a tree.

"I reckon some of you better go on to that town and get some
bread and maybe weenies and potatoes," Grandma said faintly.

Grandpa and Daddy pulled out the tent and set it up under the
tree, so that Grandma could lie down in its shelter. Then they
bumped away, leaving the children to mind Sally and lead Carrie
along the edge of the highway to graze, while Grandma slept.

[Illustration: Waiting at the roadside]

"I never was so hungry in all my days," Jimmie kept saying.

All the children watched that strip of pavement with the hot air
quivering above it, but still the car did not come.

Suddenly Rose-Ellen clutched Dick's arm. "Those two men look
like . . . look like. . . . They _are_ Grampa and Daddy. But what
have they done with the car?"

"Where's the car?" Dick shouted, as the men came up.

"W'ere tar?" Sally echoed, patting her hands against the bulging
gunnysack her father carried.

"Here's the car," Daddy answered, pointing to the sack.

"You . . . sold it, Dad?" Dick demanded. "How much?"

"Five dollars." Daddy's jaw tightened. "They called it junk.
Well, the grub will last a little while. . . ."

"And when Gramma's rested, we can pull the trailer and kind of
hike along toward them apples," Grandpa said stoutly.

But Grandma looked as if she'd never be rested. She lay quite
still except for the breath that blew out her gray