Weenie began to cry again dismally—hunger always reduced her to tears more speedily than anything else.
[150]
]“I wants some ben an’ milk,” she said, lapsing into the phrase of her babyhood.
Clif stirred uneasily.
“I could get a loaf and some milk out of our kitchen in a minute,” he whispered to Ted, “but p’raps they wouldn’t take it if they thought we’d been peeping.”
“Let’s drop them through the window, and run away,” Ted suggested.
“You stop there,” Clif said, squeezing himself stealthily out of the hiding-place. He crept along close to the house lest one of the little girls should glance out the window and see him, and he climbed the fence and reached his own kitchen in safety. He took the jug of milk that had been set aside for tea and one of the two loaves of bread, and went back, carefully slipping the jug through a broken paling and dropping the loaf over in advance of himself.
Teddie reported that the lady was nearly crying again and the littlest girl had hardly stopped a minute. They had gone into the kitchen to see about a fire, and found it worse than any place in the house. And next, they had hunted all over the house for the water-tap, and at last the biggest little girl had gone outside and had noticed the tank. But, when they tried it, it was quite empty.
“They almost saw me, too,” wound up Ted, “I couldn’t help breathing once, and the middlest girl said, ‘Oh, come away quickly, I’m sure there’s a frog there.’”
[151]
]“Are they in this room yet?” asked Clif.
The little boy nodded.