"'No, ma'am, I came for some things Mrs. Grover's got for us. She
told me to. I don't beg.' And up rose the sopping thing with great
dignity.

"So I asked her to sit down, and ran up to call Mrs. Grover. She was
busy with Grandpa just then, and when I went back to my lunch there
sat my lady with her arms folded, water dripping out of the toes of
her old boots as they hung down from the high chair, and the biggest
blue eyes I ever saw fixed upon the cake and oranges on the table. I
gave her a piece, and she sighed with rapture, but only picked at it
till I asked if she didn't like it.

"'Oh yes, 'm, it's elegant! Only I was wishin' I could take it to
Caddy and Tot, if you didn't mind. They never had frostin' in all
their lives, and I did once.'

"Of course I put up a little basket of cake and oranges and figs,
and while Lotty feasted, we talked. I found that their mother washed
dishes all day in a restaurant over by the Albany Station, leaving
the three children alone in the room they have on Berry Street.
Think of that poor thing going off before light these winter
mornings to stand over horrid dishes all day long, and those three
scraps of children alone till night! Sometimes they had a fire, and
when they hadn't they stayed in bed. Broken food and four dollars a
week was all the woman got, and on that they tried to live. Good
Mrs. Grover happened to be nursing a poor soul near Berry Street
last summer, and used to see the three little things trailing round
the streets with no one to look after them.