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Rose-Ellen and Julie shared twin doors and steps; and inside only a thin wall separated them. At the door Dick overtook Grandpa and Rose-Ellen. Dick was twelve. Sometimes Rose-Ellen considered him nothing but a nuisance, and sometimes she was proud of his tallness, his curly fair hair and bright blue eyes. He dashed in ahead when Grandpa turned the key, but Grandpa lingered.
Grandma looked at her from under the apron she had flung over her head. "Run and stretch out under the cottonwood awhile," she said. "No use for to get sunstroke." Rose-Ellen went silently, thankfully. It was cooler in the shade of the tree. She looked up through the fluttering green leaves at the floating clouds shining in the sun.
She was forever begging Grandpa to give up the shop, but Grandpa smashed his fist down on the table and said it was like giving up his life. . . . And day after day Daddy hunted work and was cross because he could find none. For Dick and Rose-Ellen the summer had not been very different from usual. Dick blacked boots on Saturdays to earn a few dimes; Rose-Ellen helped Grandma with the "chores."
"I do admire your Mexican friends," Grandma admitted grudgingly, "keeping so nice in such a hullabaloo." "They are admire-able in lots of ways," Rose-Ellen answered. "I never knew anyone I liked much better than Nico. And the Mexicans are the very best in all the art work at the vacation school. I think the Japanese learn quickest." "Do folks treat 'em nice?" asked Grandma.
Here in California the other children were supposed to pick only outside school hours; but the school was too far from the camp and there was no bus. So Dick and Rose-Ellen picked peas all day with their elders. "The more we earn," Dick said soberly, "the sooner we can get away from this place."
A heavy odor scented the darkness. Grandpa said, "They can't expect decent folks . . . !" Grandma said, "We've got to stretch out somewheres. Even under a tree. This baby. . . ." Sally was crying a miserable little cry, and an Italian woman who reminded Rose-Ellen of Mrs. Albi peered out of a patched tent and said, "Iss a bambina! Oooh, the little so-white bambina! Look you here, quick!
"Got here just in time, just in time!" chanted Dick and Rose-Ellen, as a sudden storm pounded the roof with rain and split the air with thunder and lightning. "My land!" cried Grandma. "S'pose this roof will leak on the baby and Seth Thomas?" For an hour the Beechams dashed around setting up campkeeping. For supper they finished the enormous lunch Grandma had brought. After that came bedtime.
"Why can't you eat oysters in months that don't have R in them?" asked Rose-Ellen. "You could, if there wasn't a law against selling them. It's only a notion, like not turning your dress if you put it on wrong side out. Summer's when oysters lay eggs. You don't stop eating hens because they lay eggs, do you? But now scram, kids. I got work to do."
Rose-Ellen had been picturing a village of huts like those at the bogs, or bright-papered shacks like the oystershuckers'. Though the featherbeds were gone, it would be delicious to lie on the floor, uncrowded, and sheltered from the night. But no such shelter awaited them. Instead, they were pointed to a sort of hobo camp with lights glimmering through torn canvas.
Grandpa and Rose-Ellen went through the clean, shabby hall to the kitchen, where Grandma was rocking in the old rocker, Sally whimpering on her lap. "Well, for the land's sakes," said Grandma, "did you make up your mind to come home at last? Mind Baby, Rose-Ellen, while I dish up."
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