Peggy laughingly dipped up a cupful of water from the river and passed it to poor Florence, who was trying to wink back the tears from her eyes.
“If you drink that now you’ll smoke,” she warned delightedly. “Girls, girls,—fire!”
“I—don’t—care—” gulped Florence, waving the rest of her roll and bacon through the air to cool it. “Hot as that was, I guess old Mr. Huntington of Gloomy House, up there, would be glad to have it. If he can smell the smoke of this little feast—with that lovely amber coffee Dorothy is making—I guess he wishes he was a girl and could come down and get some. Just think,” she turned to Peggy, “in twenty years he’s never had any hot coffee—or more than enough to keep a bird alive.”
Peggy sat down on a stone and poised an olive half-way to her mouth.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“He’s very poor, you know,” said Florence.
“Too poor to buy coffee?—I should think somebody in the town—”
“Oh, my dear,” interrupted one of the other girls, “scared to death! Nobody’d think of offering to do anything for him. He’s the proudest man in the world. He used to own most of this town, but everything has drifted away from him. He never goes anywhere—nobody ever sees him. He wouldn’t want to see anyone. He telephones to the grocery for just a few things once in a while, and that’s how he gets along. Why, Peggy, you look so funny.”
“While we’re sitting here, having a party, do you mean to tell me the man that lives in Gloomy House is starving?” asked Peggy in a hushed voice.
“Well, sort of hungry, but don’t you worry about it, we can’t do anything about it, Peggy.” Florence handed Peggy a fresh roll with a crisp slice of bacon temptingly projecting from the ends. “He couldn’t have been starving for twenty years, you know—but it would be nearer that than I’d like to experience for myself.”