And still no Lizzie.
“Tommy,” demanded Mabel, sitting up in bed, “when does your mother get home? Who cooks your breakfast every day?”
“My muvver does. Where is my muvver?”
“Well, that’s what I’d like to know. I suppose I could take you all over to the school—no, I couldn’t carry that heavy baby all that way even if the twins could manage to walk so far. If it was just you, Tommy, I know we could do it. And I don’t like that baby’s looks.”
“He’s getting another toof,” said Tommy, wisely.
The baby was sick, there was no doubt about that. There was barely enough food for breakfast, there was no doubt about that, either. To be sure there were potatoes, turnips and cabbages in the cellar. Thanks to her play-housekeeping in Dandelion Cottage, Mabel knew how to boil potatoes but she also knew that potatoes were hardly a proper food for a sick infant.
By noon the children were hungry so Mabel fed them potatoes and gave the baby a drink of water; but the supply of wood was getting low and Mabel could see no way of replenishing it.
“I suppose,” said she, bitterly, “that woman just wanted to get rid of all these children; and here I am! Four of them on my hands and nothing to eat. One of them sick and getting teeth! It’s just my luck. I’ll keep away from strange houses after this. I don’t believe there ever was a Lizzie. But we must have a fire—perhaps there’s something in that shed that will fit that stove.”
There wasn’t, but there was a large and clumsy baby carriage.
Mabel examined it hopefully.