“Perhaps he is busy at school,” I answered. “I’d be glad to think Geof was really studying in earnest.”
“Oh, it isn’t that,” returned Ernie. “He has extra tutoring, I know; but he shirks it whenever he gets the chance, and slips off to keep some appointment with that horrid Jim Hollister and Sam Jacobs. They are not the kind of fellows he ought to go with.” Then, with a swift return to the more immediate and poignant woe,—“Dear Rosebud! dear pussy! It’s too ridiculous,—being so poor one can’t afford to keep a kitten!”
That was the part we found next to impossible to explain to Robin.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he sobbed, after the first outburst of violent grief was over. “I like Rosebud to drink my milk, Elizabeth. It’s good for him.”
“But it’s good for you, too, Bobsie dear,” I said. “And you are sick, and Rosebud isn’t. Mother can’t afford to buy more than one quart a day,—you know that.”
“What’s ‘afford’?” questioned Robin.
“It means that we haven’t the money. We are poor, dear.”
Robin looked at me out of wondering tear-wet eyes. “Poor?” he echoed;—“like the people in stories? Oh, Ellie!”
Then he sighed, and soothed my hand, and was very sweet and patient all the rest of the afternoon. He even bade good-bye to Rosebud with fond stoical precision, patting the kitten on the head, and remarking: “It is best that we should part!” Dear, loving, little fellow! I really believe the information came to him as quite a shock. But fancy his having to be told!