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.

Two young women stepped out of the chirpy Ford sedan. Neither of
them looked like Her, nor even Her No. II--yet Jimmie whispered
excitedly to Rose-Ellen, "I bet you a nickel they're Christian
Centerers!"

And they were. Sent by the churches, like the Center workers in
the cranberries, in the peas and in Cissy's onions, they went out
through the country to help the people who needed them. The
sheriff, it seemed, had told them about the Beechams when he met
them a few minutes ago.

First they looked in at Grandma, still asleep with the Seth
Thomas ticking beside her. "Why, I've heard of you from Miss
Pinkerton," said one young woman. "She said you were the kind of
people who deserved a better chance. Maybe I can help you get
one." Then they talked long and earnestly with Grandpa and
Daddy.

Grandpa had flapped his hands at the children and said,
"Skedaddle, young-ones!" So the children could hear nothing of
the talk except that it was all questions and answers that grew
more and more brisk and eager. It ended in hooking the trailer,
which carried the tent and Carrie, to the sedan, into which was
helped a dazed Grandma. The rest of the family was packed in and
off they all rattled to town.

There the "Centerers" left the Beechams in a restaurant, but only
to come back in a few minutes, beaming.

"We got them on long distance, and it's all right!" they told
Grandpa and Daddy.

"What's all right?" asked Grandma, beginning to be more like her
old self once