This was strange conduct for his usually undemonstrative mother; but it
was nice to be hugged like that, even though she did cry.

"What made you greet, mother?" he queried, for he had never before, in
all his four years, seen his mother cry. For answer she merely caught
him closer to her breast, her hair falling soft and warm all over him as
she did so.

"Was you hungry, mither?" he tried again.

"No' very," she answered, choking back her sobs.

"Are you often hungry, too, mither?" he persisted, feeling encouraged at
getting an answer at last.

"Sometimes," she replied. "But dinna bother me, Rob," she continued.
"Gang away to your bed like a man."

He was silent for a time at this repulse, and lay upon her knee puzzling
over the matter.

"Do you greet when you are hungry?" he enquired, with: wide-eyed
earnestness and surprise.

"There noo," she answered, "don't ask so many questions, Daddy'll not be
long till he is better again, and when he is at work there'll be plenty
of pieces to keep us all from being hungry."

"And will there be jeely for the pieces?" pursued the boy, for it seemed
to him that there had never been a time when there was plenty to eat.