“The children always stopped for milk at night, when they were going home; the grown people, for the most part, came in the morning. After I had been on the cupboard shelf awhile however, and got to know the faces, I saw there was one little boy who came morning and evening too. In the morning he fetched a halfpennyworth and in the evening a pennyworth of milk, in a stout little brown jug; always the same brown jug; and always in the morning he wanted a halfpennyworth and in the evening a pennyworth. He was a small fellow, with a shock of red hair, and his face all marked with the small-pox. He was one of the poorest-looking that came. There was never a hat on his head; his trowsers were fringed with tags; his feet bare of shoes or stockings. His jacket was always fastened close up; either to keep him warm or to hide how very little there was under it. Poor little Norman Finch! That was his name.
“He had come a good many mornings. One day early, just as Mrs. Meadow and Silky were getting breakfast, his little red head poked itself in again at the door with his little brown jug, and ‘Please, ma’am,—a ha’penn’orth.’
“‘Why don’t you get all you want at once, Norman?’ said Silky, when she brought the milk.
“‘I don’t want only a ha’penn’orth,’ said Norman.
“‘But you’ll want a pennyworth to-night again, won’t you?’
“‘I’ll stop for it,’ said Norman, casting his eyes down into the brown jug, and looking more dull than usual.
“‘Why don’t you take it all at once, then?’
“‘Have you got to go back home with this before you go work?’
“‘No——I must go,’ said Norman, taking hold of the door.
“‘But not this, Norman. What do you want this for?’
“‘I want it—She don’t want it,’ said the boy, looking troubled,—‘I must go.’
“‘Do you take it to drink at the factory?’
“‘No—It’s to drink at the factory—She don’t want it,’ said Norman.
“He went off. But as Silky set the breakfast on the table she said,—
“‘Mother, I don’t understand; I am afraid there is something wrong about this morning milk.’
“‘There’s nothing wrong about it, honey,’ said Mrs. Meadow, who had been out of the room; ‘it’s as sweet as a clover-head. What’s the matter?’
“‘O, not the milk, mother; but Norman Finch’s coming after it in the morning. He won’t tell me what it’s for; and they never used to take but a pennyworth a day, and his jug’s always empty now at night; and he said it wasn’t and it _was_ to drink at the factory; and that his mother didn’t want it; and I don’t know what to think.’