Rose-Ellen tried to change the subject. "Apples!" she said. "I love oranges and ripe figs, and those big persimmons that you sort of drown in-but apples are homiest. I'd like to get my teeth into a hard red one and work right around." That wasn't a good subject, either. "I'm hungry!" Jimmie bellowed. And just then another tire blew out. The old Reo had bumped along on its rim for an hour when Grandma said in a thin voice, "Next time we come to any likely shade, I guess we best stop. I'm . . . I'm just beat out." With an anxious backward glance at her, Daddy stopped the car under a tree. "I reckon some of you better go on to that town and get some bread and maybe weenies and potatoes," Grandma said faintly. Grandpa and Daddy pulled out the tent and set it up under the tree, so that Grandma could lie down in its shelter. Then they bumped away, leaving the children to mind Sally and lead Carrie along the edge of the highway to graze, while Grandma slept. [Illustration: Waiting at the roadside] "I never was so hungry in all my days," Jimmie kept saying. All the children watched that strip of pavement with the hot air quivering above it, but still the car did not come. Suddenly Rose-Ellen clutched Dick's arm. "Those two men look like . . . look like. . . . They _are_ Grampa and Daddy. But what have they done with the car?" "Where's the car?" Dick shouted, as the men came up. "W'ere tar?" Sally echoed, patting her hands against the bulging gunnysack her father carried. "Here's the car," Daddy answered, pointing to the sack. "You . . . sold it, Dad?" Dick demanded. "How much?" "Five dollars." Daddy's jaw tightened. "They called it junk. Well, the grub will last a little while. . . ." "And when Gramma's rested, we can pull the trailer and kind of hike along toward them apples," Grandpa said stoutly. But Grandma looked as if she'd never be rested. She lay quite still except for the breath that blew out her gray lips and drew them in again, and her closed eyes were hollow. The other six stood around and gazed at her in terror. Anyone else could be sick and the earth went on turning, but . . . Grandma! They were too intent to notice the car stopping beside them until a man's voice said, "Sorry, folks, but you'll have to move on. Against regulations, this is." "We're Americans, ain't we?" Grandpa blustered, shaken with anxiety and anger. "You can't shove us off the earth." "Be on your way in twenty-four hours," the man said, pushing back his coat to show the star on his vest. "I'm sorry, but that's the way it is." "Americans?" Daddy said harshly, watching the sheriff go. "We're folks without a country." "May as well give the young-ones some of the grub we bought," Grandpa said patiently. It was while they were hungrily munching the dry bread and cheese that another car came upon them and with it another swift change in their changing life.