ACROSS THE FRUITED PLAIN


[Illustration: Beechams in Reo]


1: THE HOUSE OF BEECHAM

"Oh, Rose-Ellen!" Grandma called.

Rose-Ellen slowly put down her library book and skipped into the
kitchen. Grandma peppered the fried potatoes, sliced some
wrinkled tomatoes into 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-darkened sitting room where
crippled Jimmie sprawled on the floor listlessly wheeling a toy
automobile, the pale little baby on a quilt beside him.

Grandma squinted through the door at the old Seth Thomas dock in
the sitting room. "Half after six! Rose-Ellen, you run down 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 fix up all the
shoes he's got in two-three hours, I don't understand. 'Twould be
different if he had anything to do. . . ."

Rose-Ellen said, "O.K., Gramma!" and ran through the hall. She'd
rather get away before Grandma talked any more about the shop.
Day after day she had heard about it. Grandma talked to her,
though she was only ten, because she and Grandma were the only
women in the family, since last winter when Mother died.