“Oh, dear! Just bread and cake and eggs isn’t enough,” she thought. “I must get him some meat,” and she left the closet and ran across the kitchen to the door that opened on the cellar stairway.
A cool air came up from the dark cellar as Roxy groped her way down the broad stone steps, and keeping close to the wall felt her way to the deep closet where many household supplies were kept.
It was hard work for the little girl to pull open the heavy door, but at last she succeeded, and stepped in. Dulcie always brought a lighted candle to the cellar, but Roxy had no light, and could only grope about.
“I’ll take whatever I find,” she resolved, clutching at something resting in a tin pan. “I’m sure this is the chicken Dulcie roasted this morning to have sliced up cold for supper,” she thought delightedly, thrusting it in with the bread and cakes. “That will be splendid; and maybe it will be enough. I guess I won’t wait to get milk,” and Roxie left the cellar cupboard, the door swinging to behind her with a sudden bang that made the little girl jump with the fear that it might bring someone hurrying down the cellar stairs.
But no other sound was heard in the house; and now Roxie could see a dim square of light at the far end of the cellar, and remembered that there was a cellar door leading into the yard.
“I’ll go out that way,” she decided, and made her careful way among barrels and boxes to where another flight of broad stone steps led directly up to the back yard, and in a moment she was again in the open air.
The negro farm-hands were all in the fields attending to their work; the young colored woman who helped Dulcie in the work of the house had, as Roxy knew, gone for an afternoon’s visit to a neighboring farm; Dulcie was taking her usual afternoon nap in her cabin, and Grandma Miller and Mrs. Delfield were resting in their own rooms. Roxy felt sure that no one would see her as she now ran across the yard and down the rough slope.
She slipped through the narrow opening, and now walked more slowly, and looked anxiously toward the road, fearful that some passer-by might see her; and as she drew near the thicket behind which she knew the hungry man lay hidden, she began to listen for some sound. Perhaps he would call out to her, she thought.
But there was now no movement among the blossoming branches of the dogwood; and with a little sigh of disappointment Roxy set the basket down where the man had told her to leave whatever she brought him. But she stood close beside it until a long brown arm reached through the underbrush and seized it.
“Bless you, little girl,” came a whispered voice.