in my hand," he sniffled, with his knuckles at his eyes,
"an' I jest put it into the baby's mouth for keepin'."

By this time Mrs. Chitling had received the baby into her arms, and
turning with an unruffled manner, she bore him into the house, where she
stopped his mouth with a spoonful of blackberry jam. As she replaced the
jar on the shelf she looked down, and for the first time became aware of
my presence.

"He ain't swallowed anything of yours, has he?" she enquired. "If he has
you'll have to put the complaint in writing because the neighbours are
al'ays comin' to me for the things that are inside of him. I've never
been able to shake anything out of him," she added placidly, "except one
of Mrs. Haskin's bugle beads."

She delivered this with such perfect amiability that I was emboldened to
say in my politest manner, "If you please, ma'am, Mr. Chitling told me I
was to say that he said that I was hungry."

"So the baby really ain't took anything of yours?" she asked, relieved.
"Well, I al'ays said he didn't do half the damage they accused him of."

As I possessed nothing except the clothes in which I stood, and even
that elastic urchin could hardly have accommodated these, I hastened to
assure her that I was the bearer of no complaint. This appeared to win
her entirely, and her large motherly face beamed upon me beneath the
aureole of curl papers that radiated from her forehead. With a single
movement she cleared a space on the disorderly kitchen table and slapped
down a plate, with a piece missing, as if the baby had taken a bite out
of it.

"To think of yo' goin' hungry at yo' age an' without a mother," she
said, opening a safe, and whipping several slices of bacon and a couple
of eggs into a skillet. "Why, it would make me turn in my grave if I
thought of one of my eleven wantin' a bite of meat an' not havin' it."

As she switched about in her cheerful, slovenly way, I saw that her
skirt had sagged at the back into what appeared to be an habitual gap,
and from beneath it there showed a black calico petticoat of a dingy
shade. But when a little later she sat me at the table, with Samuel's
breakfast on the floor beside me, I forgot her slatternly dress, her
halo of curl papers, and her slipshod shoes, while I plied my fork and
my fingers under the motherly effulgence of her smile. Tied into a high
chair in one corner, the baby sat bolt upright, with his thumb in his
mouth, deriving apparently the greatest en