"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.
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.
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