“Oh, you poor child!” exclaimed Betty, and as he held out a grimy little paw, as if for coin, she offered him the box.
“You’re just the boy I’m looking for. Here is a quantity of nice food for you and your brothers and sisters.”
Quickly the grimy little paw was withdrawn, and with both hands behind him, the boy winked rudely at Betty and said:
“Aw, g’wan! Quit yer kiddin’.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” said Betty, who couldn’t help laughing at the impudent little fellow. “I’m offering you some good food.”
“Good food nothin’!” said the strange child. “Take yer box away, lady; I wouldn’t swap yer me college pin fer it!”
Betty had to laugh at this, but since the boy was so indifferent, she didn’t care to give him the lunch anyhow; so she went on to find some one else.
“It does seem queer,” she thought, “that there’s nobody about who is just the right one to give this to. There are men working at the road, but I don’t like to offer it to them, they look so—so untidy.”
But at last she spied a little girl. Though somewhat gaudily dressed, the child was evidently poor, for her frock was faded and torn. She wore a string of bright beads round her neck, and a big bow on her black hair, and she walked with a mincing step.
But she was thin and looked ill nourished, so Betty thought that at last she had found just the right beneficiary.