Tommy's blue eyes filled. "So do I," he cried.

Totty took up the wail; and the little four-year-old girl on Nell's lap
promptly followed suit.

"What shall we do?" Nell asked, imploringly.

But at that moment Sarah appeared. She took Tommy up in her strong,
motherly arms, soothing him in practised fashion. "There, there, honey!
Yo's goin' have yo' mother pretty soon. What yo' wants now's yo' supper,
ain't it, honey? I reckon ain't no one had de sense ter gib yo' chillens
a mite ter eat."

Tommy tucked his head down on Sarah's broad shoulder with a pathetic
little sigh of comfort. In the home which at this moment seemed very far
away to Tommy was an old colored mammy. He refused to let Sarah put him
down, so she took him with her while she got ready the five bowls of
warm bread and milk, which she declared the best possible supper for all
the children under the circumstances.

"But whatever put such a notion in yo' head, Miss P'tricia, is more'n
I kin figger out," she declared a few moments later, guiding the sleepy
Tommy's spoon in its journey from bowl to mouth. "What yo' reckon yo'
pa's goin' say?"

"I think," Patricia glanced about the table, "that just at present Daddy
would say--bed."

"H'm," Sarah grunted, "yo' knows what I means. Well, it's sure got ter
be a bath for them all 'fore it kin be bed; so we'd best get started."