Lizzy Glenn | Page 5

to make something for Ella. It won't be much,
Mrs. Grubb, and it will keep the little ones from being hungry all day
and till late to-morrow."

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 every thing at that rate. Is it
any wonder that 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 meantime, 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 shopkeeper. 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 had
brought in with her, ascertained in a moment its contents.
"Fish and taters! Fish and taters!" cried the youngest, a little girl,
clapping her hands, and dancing about the floor.
"Won't we have some dinner now?" said Henry, the oldest boy, looking
up into his mother's face with eager delight, as he laid his hands upon
her arm.
"Yes, my children, you shall have a good dinner, and that right
quickly," returned the mother in a voice half choked with emotion, as
she threw off her bonnet, and proceeded to cook the coarse provisions
she had obtained at the sacrifice of so much feeling. It did not take long
to boil the fish and potatoes, which were eaten with a keen relish by
two of the children, Emma and Harry. The gruel prepared for Ella, from
the flour obtained at Mrs. Grubb's, did not much tempt the sickly
appetite of the child. She sipped a few spoonfuls, and then turned from
the bowl which her mother held for her at the bedside.
"Eat more of it, dear," said Mrs. Gaston. "It will make you feel better."
"I'm not very hungry now, mother," answered Ella.
"Don't it taste good to you?"
"Not very good."
The child sighed as she turned her wan face toward the wall, and the
unhappy mother sighed responsive.
"I wish you would try to take a little more. It's so long since you have
eaten any thing; and you'll grow worse if you don't take nourishment.

Just two or three spoonfuls. Come, dear."
Ella, thus urged, raised herself in bed, and made an effort to eat more of
the gruel. At the third spoonful, her stomach heaved as the tasteless
fluid touched her lips.
"Indeed, mother, I can't swallow another mouthful," she said, again
sinking back on her pillow.
Slowly did Mrs. Gaston turn from the