In this short story by Alice Munro, Rose lives with her father, her stepmother, Flo, and her half-brother, Brian, in a run-down store in the town of Hanratty, Ontario. Her mother has died, and Rose only recalls having lived with her stepmother, Flo. Her father works behind the store in a shed where he carries out furniture restoration. They live surrounded by dilapidated houses.

Flo amuses herself by gossiping with locals, such as the dwarf Becky Tyde, whose father, a butcher, is badly beaten by local men. Flo spends Saturday afternoons going downtown to shop and to have a sundae, and she comes home to tell the details of her outings to the children. On one spring Saturday when Flo seems restive, she does not go downtown but instead hangs out at home and begins to get into an argument with Rose, whom Flo considers saucy. Flo summons Rose's father, and he administers a rough beating to his daughter. Rose is sent upstairs, and Flo brings her some cream and a tray of food to comfort her. Years later, after Flo, seemingly senile, is placed in an old age home, a grown-up Rose hears an interview on the radio that features one of the men from Flo's stories of Hanratty—one of the men who beat old man Tyde.