“I suppose he was,” my mother said dismally. “But I didn’t want two dozen apples today. The most I would have taken was a half a dozen. And I didn’t want to say it the other day with your Uncle Matt here, but he charges more than McRory’s.” McRory’s was the store around the corner where we bought our groceries. “Oh, well,” said my mother, “maybe they’re better apples.” But she left the bags unopened on the kitchen table.

“He was depending on us,” I said.

“Oh, I know that very well,” my mother said. “I was a fool in the first place, and now I’ll never get rid of him. If he turns up next Thursday, I’ll take a half a dozen and no more. I’ll have the exact money ready.”

This resolution cheered her, and she spilled the apples out on the table.

“They are very good apples,” she said. “I wonder where he gets them.”

“I wonder where he comes from,” I said.

“Oh, the poor old Christian,” she said. “And he probably has to walk all the way.”

“Unless he could find someone to carry him,” I said.

“Not with all those apples,” she said in surprise.

“He looks very tired,” I said, trying to remember if his fingers were talonlike.

“Why wouldn’t he look tired?” my mother said. “He’s a very old man.”

The next Thursday, she had the money ready in her hand when she answered the old man’s knock. She hardly had the door open before she spoke.

“I only want a half a dozen apples today,” she said clearly, smiling at him. I smiled, too, to show that we meant no harm. He already had the bags in his arms and was lifting them up to her. It was a step down from our front door to the path, so that, although she is a small woman, he appeared smaller than she. She gravely repeated what she had said and shook her head at the bags.

“Just give me a half a dozen,” she said, and I could not have told if she was still smiling, because I was staring at the old man. He seemed about to cry. My mother suddenly reached and took the two bags, and hurried away, calling to me to get the money and pay him.

“Now what’ll we do?” I asked her when he had gone.

“Oh, it isn’t that I mind the apples so much,” she said, “but I don’t like feeling I have to buy them.”

“Did you see that his basket is always full up, except for the apples we take?” I said.

“Oh, I suppose he only goes to the ones he’s sure of,” she said bitterly, “and you can’t blame him for that. He’s only trying to get along, like everybody else in the world.”