Louise held the veal loaf poised in air on her fork. “Will your mother let you eat this?” she asked.
[Illustration: THE CHILD BEGAN TO EAT EVERYTHING AT ONCE]
The bedraggled small child sat down on the grass, as if the words were an invitation. She was a pretty, dirty child of perhaps five, dressed only in a soiled and ragged underwaist and petticoat, and with a mane of very long and heavy hair, all tangles and elf-locks. Her hair was yellow and her eyes big and blue, and she would have been pretty had she been cared-for looking.
“Ain’t got any mother,” she said, “just Vicky. She lets me.”
“Poor little thing!” said Louise again, and handed her the veal loaf. The child began to eat everything at once, with an eagerness which made it certain she had told the truth, at least, about being hungry.
“What’s your name, kiddie? You’ll tell me, won’t you?” asked Billy, when she seemed to have taken the edge off her appetite. He bent down to her with a sympathetic expression which he possessed at times, and which—or something about him—won the hearts of most small children he had dealings with.
“Sandy,” she said through large mouthfuls.
As she had had two large slices, it was thought best not to give her any more.
“Mercy, no!” said Winona, as Louise was cutting it, in spite of prudence. “Not another bit. We don’t want her to die on our hands. You’d better come over here by the spring, dear, and let me wash your hands.”
Sandy got up immediately, with the placid remark, “It might-a given me a pain, anyway,” and allowed her hands to be washed, and dried on a fresh paper napkin.
“Poor little cowed thing!” exclaimed Louise at this instant obedience. “Sandy, dear, won’t your people be worried about you?”
“Way, way off,” she said. “We just comed. I’ll show you to-morrow.”
“Poor little dear thing!” said Louise. “How pretty she is! Winnie, I’ve a good mind to adopt her.”
“Having only five at home,” murmured Tom.
“From the way she talks her people wouldn’t care,” said Louise. “Maybe Camp Karonya could take care of her. We will till we go back, anyway.”
“She must belong to one of those poor families along the west branch,” said Tom. “Three miles away, and we can’t possibly get there by canoeing, because we’d have to paddle back seven miles before we could paddle over the three. Who’s going to walk three miles and a half by the thermometer to take the lady home? Don’t all speak at once.”