This story is about John Duncan (forty-five-year-old man). He was a honest man and he was very poor, too. He and his two children were living in the small, miserable flat. The furniture was 20 years old, the wallpaper and carpets were cheap and dirty. He was a windower, because his wife, Rachel, drowned in the storm. When she had been alive, they used to live in big house in the country, with a large garden. They had everything that they needed. Then they (John and Rachel) had started the boat-building company, but after Rachel died he couldn't work, so the company had closed and he lost everything.
John Duncan had to move to a small flat, because he lost his job and he couldn't afford the payments on his big house. His daughter was going to have a baby soon, so he bought meny toys and baby-clothes. But he didn't give those her, because she didn't want to talk with him. Every morning he rang a hospital, to ask if she was there. When the nurse told him that his daughter is there and the baby is coming, he went out to the shop with flowers. Then he bought some and went to the hospital.