They had long been shrilling themselves hoarse with their cries of “Sun’ ’Eral’Jour’Wor–rul’! Pape’s!” before Glory woke and found herself alone. By the light in the room and the hunger she felt, she knew that it must again be very late; and a feeling that her grandfather would be displeased with her indolence sent her to her feet with such speed that she awoke Bo’sn, till then slumbering soundly.
Bo’sn was no longer young and, stiff from an all day’s tramp–for he had faithfully followed the little girl’s tireless search of yesterday–he rose slowly and stretched himself painfully, with a growl at his own aching joints. Then he sniffed suspiciously at the floor where the newsboys had slept and, nosing his master’s hammock, howled dismally.
Having slept without undressing, Glory’s toilet was soon made and though a dash of cold water banished drowsiness from her eyes it made them see more clearly how empty and desolate the “littlest house” had now become, so desolate that she could not stay in it and running to Meg-Laundress’s crowded apartment, she burst in, demanding, “Has he come? Has anybody in the Lane seen my grandpa?”
Meg desisted from spanking the “baddest o’ them twins” and set the small miscreant upon the sudsy floor before she answered, cheerfully, “Not yet, honey. ’Tain’t scurce time to be lookin’ fer him, I reckon. When them old sailors gets swappin’ yarns needn’t—”
“But, Meg dear, he ain’t at any one of their houses. I’ve been to the hull lot–two er three times to each one, a-yest’day–an’ he wasn’t. An’ they think–I dastn’t think what they think! An’ I thought maybe–he always liked you, Meg-Laundress, an’ said you done his shirts to beat. Oh, Meg, Meg, what shall I do? Whatever shall I do?”
The warm-hearted washerwoman thrilled with pity for the forsaken child yet she put on her most brilliant surface-smile and answered promptly:
“Do? Why, do jest what Jane an’ me laid out to have ye do. An’ that is, eat a grand breakfast. We ain’t such old friends o’ the cap’n’s an’ yet go let his folks starve. Me an’ Jane, we done it together, an’ the grocer-man threw in the rolls. There’s a cunnin’ little piece o’ porterhouse’s ever ye see, an’ ’taties–biled to the queen’s taste with their brown jackets on. Two of ’em, an’ no scantin’, nuther. No, you small rapscallions, ye clear out! ’Tain’t none your breakfasts, ye hear? It’s Goober Glory’s an’–you all, the half-dozen on ye, best clear out way beyant th’ Elbow an’ watch out fer the banan’ man! If he comes to the Lane, ma’s got a good wash on hand, an’–who knows?”
Away scampered Meg’s brood of children, assorted sizes, yet one and all with a longing for “banan’ cheap!” and sure that no amount of coaxing would give them a share in the savory breakfast which the two toiling women had provided for Glory.
Left comfortably free from crowding, Meg bustled about, removing from the small oven the belated “steak an’ ’taties” which had long been drying there. In this removal, she clumsily tilted the boiler in which her “wash” was bubbling and flavored the meal with a dash of soapsuds, but Glory was more hungry than critical, and far more grateful than either. Smiles and tears both came as she caught Meg’s wet hand and kissed it ecstatically, which action brought a suspicious moisture to Meg’s own eyes and caused her to exclaim, with playful reproof:
“If you ain’t the beatin’est one fer huggin’ an’ kissin’! Well, then, set to; an’ hear me tell: this is what me an’ Jane has settled, how the very minute the cap’n heaves in sight down the Lane, on I claps the very pattron o’ that same stuff ye’re eatin’ for him, an’ calls it breakfast, dinner, er supper, as the case is. When folks have been off visitin’, like he has, they can’t ’spect to find things ready to hand to their own houses, same’s if they’d been round all the time. Now, eat, an’ ‘let your victuals stop yer mouth’!”