the beets.

She had never seen such a big field, its green and brown stripes
waving up and down to the skyline. It made her ache to think
that five Beechams must take out these extra thousands of
three-inch plants; and after that, hoe them; and after that. . . .

Her knees were so sore that night that Grandpa bought her
overalls. He got her and Dick big straw hats, too, though it was
too late to keep their faces from blistering. All the Beechams
but Grandma wore overalls. She couldn't bring herself to it. That
night she made herself a sunbonnet out of an old shirt, sitting
close to a candle stuck in a pop bottle.

[Illustration: Rose-Ellen and Dick]

"I clean forgot to look over the beans and put them to soak," she
said wearily, from her bed.

Rose-Ellen scooped herself farther into her layer of straw. She
ought to offer to get up and look over those beans, but she
simply couldn't make herself.

"It seems like I can't stay up another ten minutes," Grandma
excused herself, "after the field work and redding up and such.
But we're getting like all the rest of them, buying the groceries
that we can fix easiest, even though they cost twice as much and
ain't half as nourishing. And when you can't trade at but one
place it's always dearer. . . ."

Mr. Lukes had guaranteed their account at the store, because of
the pay due them at the end of the season. So they went on
buying there, even though its prices were high and its goods of
poor quality, because they did not have money to spend anywhere
else.

When the thinning was done, they must begin all over again,
working with the short-handled hoes, cutting out any extra
plants, loosening the ground. By that time they were more used to
the work; and in July came a rest time, when all they needed to
do was to turn the waters of the big ditch into the little
ditches that crinkled between the rows. It was lucky there was
irrigation water, or the growing plants would have died in the
heat, since there had been little rain.

Rose-Ellen loved to watch the water moving through the fields as
if it were alive, catching the rosy gold of sunset in its zigzag
mirrors. She missed the Eastern fireflies at night; otherwise
the evenings were a delight. Colorado sunsets covered the west
with glory, and then came quick coolness. Dry as it was, the
cottonwood leaves made a sound like refreshing rain, and the
cicadas hummed comfortably. All the Beechams stayed outside til