tone was tart. "No, sir, I ain't going to stay, tied
in bowknots with rheumatiz, and these poor young-ones. . . ."

Grandpa made a last effort, though he knew it was of little use
when Grandma was set. "I bet we could go to work on one of these
truck farms, come summer."

Grandma only rocked her straight chair, jerking one foot up and
down.

"One of these _padrones_," Daddy said slowly, "is trying to get
families to work in Florida. In winter fruits."

Grandma brightened. "Floridy might do us a sight of good, and I
always did hanker after palm trees. But how could we get there?"

"They send you down in a truck," said Daddy. "Charge you so much
a head and feed and lodge you into the bargain. I figure we've
got just about enough to make it."

South into summer!

"That really would be a peekaneeka!" crowed Rose-Ellen.

4: PEEKANEEKA?

That trip to Florida surprised the Beechams, but not happily.

First, the driver shook his head at featherbeds, dishes, trunk.
"I take three grown folks, three kids, one baby, twenty-eight
dollars," he growled. "No furniture."

Argument did no good. Hastily the family sorted out their most
needed clothing and made it into small bundles. The driver
scowled at even those.

"My featherbeds!" cried Grandma, weeping for once.

Hurriedly she sold the beds for a dollar to her next-door
neighbor. The clock she would not leave and it took turns with
the baby sitting on grown-up laps.

At each stop the springless truck seats were crowded tighter with
people, till there was hardly room for the passengers' feet. The
crowding did help warm the unheated truck; but Grandma's face
grew gray with pain as cold and cramp made her "rheumatiz tune
up."

And there was no place at all to take care of a baby.

When they had traveled two hours they wondered how they could
bear thirteen hundred miles, cold, aching, wedged motionless.
All they could look forward to was lunchtime, when they could
stretch themselves and ease their gnawing stomachs; but the sun
climbed high and the truck still banged along without stopping.

The children could hear a man in front angrily asking the driver,
"When we get-it--the dinner?"

The driver faced ahead as if he were deaf.

"When we get-it--the grub?" roared the man, pounding the driver's
shoulder.

"If we stop once an hour, we don't get there in time for your
jobs," the driver growled, and drove on.

Not till dark did they stop to eat.