If you are the kind of person that has dumb love for your friends, you
see more about them than folks who can express themselves on the
sacred subject. That lunch party with those five jolly girls out in
the side yard of the Byrd Academy gave me a funny, uneasy feeling, and
I now know the reason. Roxanne Byrd brought one small apple, two very
thin biscuits, and some cracked hickory nuts. She carefully ate less
than she brought. Something took my appetite when I saw her eat so
little, and there was a quantity of food left for somebody to consume,
and _she_ hungry. I was afraid we'd have to send for a doctor for
Mamie Sue after she had cleared my large napkin we spread to put it
all on. The Jamison biscuits are cut on the same plump pattern that
Mamie Sue is and all my sandwiches were good and thick.

But when Roxanne didn't eat I suffered. One of the most awful
situations in life is to have one of your friends be the sort of girl
that has a town named after her and wonderful family portraits and
such dainty hands and feet that shabby shoes don't even count, and
then to know that she is hungry most of the time from being too poor
to get enough food. For two days I have had to keep my mind off
Roxanne Byrd to make myself swallow one single morsel of anything to
eat. I suspected it at the school lunch but I was certain of it from
the way Lovelace Peyton consumed the first cooky I offered him over
the fence. Thank goodness, he has no family pride located in his
stomach, and when my feelings overcome me he is the outlet. I can feed
him anything at all hours and he is always ready for more. It may be
wrong to keep it from his sister when I know how she feels about it,
but I can't help that. I have to fill him up. His legs look too empty
for me.