"But all the same, I want for you young-ones
to keep away from them. I saw a baby that looked as if it had
measles."
"If only there was a Center," Rose-Ellen complained, "or if they
even had room for us in school. I feel as if I'd scream, staying
in this horrid tent so much."
"I didn't know," said Daddy, "that there was a place in our whole
country where you couldn't live decent and send your kids to
school if you wanted to."
It was pleasant in the grapefruit grove, where the rich green
trees made good-smelling aisles of clean earth, and the men
picked the pale round fruit ever so carefully, clipping it gently
so as not to bruise the skin and cause decay. It hardly seemed
to belong to the same world as the ill-smelling pickers' camp of
rags, boards, and tin.
Dick lost his job after the first few days. He had been hired
because he was so tall and strong; but the foreman said he was
bruising too much fruit. At first Grandma said she was glad he
was fired, for he had been making himself sick eating fruit. But
she was soon sorry that he had nothing to do.
"And them young rapscallions you run with teach you words and
ways I never thought to see in a Beecham," Grandma scolded.
But if camp was hard for them all, it was hardest for Grandma and
Jimmie and Sally, who seemed always ailing.
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