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for the full family of us.” Though the dishes on the newspaper were all broken, she lifted them with care, carrying them to the end shelf in one of those queer cupboard rooms as if they were treasures.
    â€œThey’re all broken,” Judy commented frankly.
    â€œâ€™Deed they are—that’s why they ended up here.” Grandma made a sweeping gesture to indicate the crammed small space between the wooden partitions. “But there’s things which can be done for ’em. An’ me, I do a right good job with a piece, if I do say so myself. All these things, they’re salvage, you see. It’s pure amazin’ to see what people want to dump—pure amazin’! What’s one folks’ trash can be another man’s treasure. Luther, he has fixin’ hands—that’s truly what you can call ’em—an’ he puts together a smart lot of what comes in.”
    She swept around the table swiftly as she spoke, folding the newspapers on a pile by one of the cupboards, then going to a tall hutch against the wall and collecting more dishes, this time unbroken ones.
    â€œHere, Holly.” She summoned her elder granddaughter with one of those jerks of the head which unsettled her glasses again so they had to be thumped back into place. “You an’ Judy can set table. Bowls for soup, the rest—”
    Without question Holly found herself busy. Not one of the bowls she set around matched the other. But they were not broken, and one or two were very pretty, with flowers and birds on them. The plates did not match either, nor did the forks and spoons and knives that Judy laid out with care. It was an odd-looking collection of china and flatware. Momcame over to watch them and took up one of the bowls, turned it over to look at the marking on the underside, and made a little gasping sound.
    â€œMoth—Mercy—this is Minton!”
    Grandma laughed. She was busy at the stove, pulling lids off pots bubbling there and sniffing the steam which arose from them as if she could tell from that alone whether the contents were ready to serve.
    â€œThat was one which came out just fine from my jigglin’ around bits an’ pieces. Can’t tell with your eyes now, can you, that that came in broke near clean in half. Takes a lot of time an’ patience. But, laws, I got time enough, an’ patience is somethin’ I need to learn, so I try my best. Here’s Luther, now we can get down to eatin’. Which is something a body can do without any patience, just a good appetite.”
    While they ate Grandma’s stew (she called it soup but it was far more like stew, Holly thought) and her newly baked bread (Injun bread, she told Mom—corn and rye baked all night in the old hearth oven with “just a taste” of molasses and such to give it flavor) with the herb jelly or honey to slop over it generously—while they ate, Grandma talked and they learned a lot about Dimsdale.
    Grandma always called it that, and she didn’t mention a junkyard. Instead she told about what lay outside, what was stored within the building which had once been a barn and was now their home, as if she and Grandpa were indeed keepers of a treasure house. Everything that was brought in to the dump was carefully sorted. Scrap metal went to adealer in the city, who drove out three times a year. But the rest was Grandpa and Grandma’s concern. All those things now jammed tightly into what had once been the stable stalls were things they were sure could be repaired.
    â€œLem Granger, he came back from Korea without his legs. But Lem was never one to let the bad luck get him down, no sirree!” Grandma slapped another plate of bread down to take the place of one which had been so quickly emptied. “He went to some school the veterans run an’ learned how to repair electric things. When he gets a mite ahead of his repair work for other people, he comes