Munro writes about a poor family. This is never specifically spelled out; rather, she constantly hints at the family's situation through the narrator's descriptions of family doings and their relationships with the outside world. In the first paragraph, the reader learns that a new school year is about to begin, and that the narrator's mother "has ripped up for this purpose an old suit and an old plaid wool dress of hers, and she has to cut and match very cleverly and also make me stand for endless fittings, sweaty, itching from the hot wool, ungrateful." The young girl is unhappy with the state of things, and is just aware enough of the state of affairs to describe it in disdainful terms that lets the reader know that their lack of money is a source of some soreness.

As the narrator and her father walk into...