As Rose-Ellen let the front door slam behind her, she saw Daddy
coming slowly up the street. The way his broad shoulders drooped
and the way he took off his hat and pushed back his thick, dark
hair told her as plainly 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 arm as they
passed, saying, "Hi, Daddy, I'm after Grampa!" and hop-skipped on
toward the old cobbler shop. Before Rose-Ellen was born, when
Daddy was a boy, even, Grandpa had had his shop at that corner of
the city street.

There he was, standing behind the counter in the shadowy shop,
his shoulders drooping like Daddy's. He was a big, kind-looking
old man, his gray hair waving round a bald dome, his eyes bright
blue. He was looking at a newspaper. It was a crumpled old
paper that had been wrapped around someone's shoes; the Beechams
didn't spend pennies for newspapers nowadays.

The long brushes were quiet from their whirling. On the rack of
finished shoes two pairs awaited their owners; on the other rack
were a few that had evidently just come in. Yet Grandpa looked
as tired as if he had mended a hundred pairs.

He looked up when the bell tinkled. "Oh, Ellen-girl! Anything
wrong?"

"Only Gramma says please come to supper. Everything's getting
spoiled."