Grandma murmured. "But an old body'd rather settle down in her
own place. Who'd ever've thought I'd leave my solid oak dining
set after I was sixty! But I'd like the country fine if we had a
real house to live in."

"I'm learning to do spatter prints--for Christmas," said
Rose-Ellen, brushing her hair before going to bed.

"Jimmie, why on earth don't you take this chance to learn
reading?" Daddy coaxed.

"Daddy, you won't tell Her I can't read?" Jimmie begged.

Yet, as October passed, something happened to change Jimmie's
mind.

As October passed, too, the Beechams grew skillful at picking.
They couldn't earn much, for it took a lot of cranberries to fill
a peck measure-two gallons-especially this year, when the berries
were small; and the pickers got only fifteen cents a peck. The
bogs had to be flooded every night to keep the fruit from
freezing; so every morning the mud was icy and so were the
shower-baths from the wet bushes. But except for Grandma, they
didn't find it hard work now.

"It's sure bad on the rheumatiz," said Grandma one morning, as
she bent stiffly to wash clothes in the tub that had been filled
and heated with such effort. "If we was home, we'd be lighting
little kindling fires in the furnace night and morning. And hot
water just by lighting the gas! Land, I never knew my own luck."