Dirk Colson! It is bad enough as it is,--a drunkard for a father, and we
nothing more than beggars! But I'd behave myself half-way decent when I
went among folks that wanted to be good to me, or else I'd stay away."

"Look here, you keep your preaching for them that wants to hear it; I
don't. A fellow can't come home without having a row; if it isn't of one
kind, it's another. I wonder I ever come home at all."

Dirk was angry now, and his dark, thin face looked fierce with passion.
His sister kept the curiously composed tone and manner with which she
had said all her exasperating things.

"I wonder you do," she said. "I suppose you get starved, and can't help
it, now and then. There's some dinner I saved for you. If you want it,
eat it, and then take yourself to some place that suits you better."

As she spoke, she jerked open the door of a little cupboard near which
she stood, and brought therefrom a much-cracked plate, on which lay a
baked potato, with one end broken or bitten off, then carefully
replaced, as if the owner might have had a second thought as to its
disposal; there was also a bit of corn-bread, somewhat burned, and half
of a roasted apple.

Meagre as the fare was for a hungry boy, there was more variety than he
had expected, and something in the simple preparation touched him, and
quieted his anger.

"Where did this come from?" he asked, taking in the unaccustomed morsel
of apple with two eager bites. "I tell you, that is good!"