Her voice failed her as she uttered the last sentence. But she restrained herself after the first sob that heaved her overladen bosom, and stood calmly awaiting the answer to her urgent petition.
Mrs. Grubb was a woman, and a mother into the bargain. She had, too, the remains of a woman's heart, where lingered a few maternal sympathies. These were quick to prompt her to duty. Turning away without a reply, she weighed out two pounds of fish, measured a peck of potatoes, poured out some milk in a cup, and filled a small paper with flour. These she handed to Mrs. Gaston without uttering a word.
"To-morrow you shall be paid for these, and something on the old account," said the recipient, as she took them and hurried from the shop.
"Why not give up at once, instead of trying to keep soul and body together by working for the slop-shops?" muttered Mrs. Grubb, as her customer withdrew. "She'd a great sight better go with her children to the poor-house than keep them half starving under people's noses at this rate, and compelling us, who have a little feeling left, to keep them from dying outright with hunger! It's too bad! There's that Berlaps, who grinds the poor seamstresses, who work for him to death, and makes them one-half of their time beggars at our stores for something for their children to eat. He is building two houses in Roxbury at this very moment; and out of what? Out of the money of which he has robbed these poor women. Fifteen cents for a pair of trowsers with pockets in them! Ten cents for shirts and drawers; and everything at that rate! Is it any wonder they are starving, and he growing rich? Curse him, and all like him! I could see them hung!"
And the woman set her teeth and clenched her hand in momentary, but impotent rage.
In the mean time, Mrs. Gaston hurried home with the food she had obtained. She occupied the upper room of a narrow frame house near the river, for which she paid a rent of three dollars a month. It was small and comfortless; but the best her slender means could provide. Two children were playing on the floor when she entered, the one about four, and the other a boy who looked as if he might be nearly ten years of age. On the bed lay Ella, the sick child to whom the mother had alluded both to the tailor and the shop-keeper. She turned wishfully upon her mother her young bright eyes as she entered, but did not move or utter a word. The children, who had been amusing themselves upon the floor, sprang to their feet, and, catching hold of the basket she brought in with her, ascertained in a moment its contents.