refilled his cup with coffee. As he was finishing the bread, he began to
watch if more was forthcoming. She intercepted his questioning glance.

"Now, don't be hoggish, Johnny," was her comment. "You've had your share.
Your brothers an' sisters are smaller'n you."

He did not answer the rebuke. He was not much of a talker. Also, he
ceased his hungry glancing for more. He was uncomplaining, with a patience
that was as terrible as the school in which it had been learned. He
finished his coffee, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, and started
to rise.

"Wait a second," she said hastily. "I guess the loaf kin stand you another
slice--a thin un."

There was legerdemain in her actions. With all the seeming of cutting a
slice from the loaf for him, she put loaf and slice back in the bread box
and conveyed to him one of her own two slices. She believed she had
deceived him, but he had noted her sleight-of-hand. Nevertheless, he took
the bread shamelessly. He had a philosophy that his mother, because of her
chronic sickliness, was not much of an eater anyway.

She saw that he was chewing the bread dry, and reached over and emptied her
coffee cup into his.

"Don't set good somehow on my stomach this morning," she explained.

A distant whistle, prolonged and shrieking, brought both of them to their
feet. She glanced at the tin alarm-clock on the shelf. The hands stood at
half-past five. The rest of the factory world was just arousing from