‘I’d quite forgotten,’ confessed Barbara, as they resumed their stroll. ‘I’m so bad at most things that I’d got out of the way of thinking I could do gymnastics. But, of course, the boys always said I wasn’t bad, for a girl; and once I got the prize at my class in London. There were only thirty of us, though,’ she added modestly.
They strolled on as far as the gate at the bottom of the field, and stood looking over it into the lane below. The lane was out of bounds, which lent it an added charm; and they liked nothing better than to come here on half-holidays and lean against the gate, and wonder where the grass-grown path led to and what it looked like when it got round the corner by the old elm tree. To-day, they had scarcely taken up their position there when they were startled by sounds of distress from below; and the next minute a small boy came slouching along the lane, crying bitterly.
‘Hullo!’ said Jean. ‘What’s the matter?’
The boy was so surprised that he stopped crying and looked up. He was a very pitiable little object, in corduroy garments that could not properly be called knickerbockers and yet were too short for trousers, with a small area of grey flannel shirt appearing above them, and a red worsted comforter twisted round his neck, making an unbecoming patch of colour against his pinched and tear-stained little face.
‘What is the matter?’ asked Angela, pityingly.
‘Have you hurt yourself?’ added Barbara, as the child only stared at them vacantly.
With a little more coaxing and the bribe of a piece of dusty chocolate that came from the depths of Barbara’s pocket, he was at last induced to mumble out a confused statement of his woes. Between the quaver in his voice and the broadness of his speech they had a hard matter to understand what he said; but Angela, who lived in another part of the same county, managed after a while to translate to the others that he was crying because his father was away looking for work, and his mother could not pay the rent, and they were all going into the ‘house’ to-morrow. To Bobby Hearne, who was smarting under the remarks of the neighbours’ children, it was the last part of his story that seemed the worst; but the triumvirate only grasped the fact that starvation and poverty really stood before them in the person of the small boy with the red comforter round his neck. They looked at one another breathlessly, for the same thought was in all their minds.
‘It’s the opportunity!’ said Jean, solemnly.
‘They’re really starving!’ cried Barbara, clapping her hands joyfully. ‘We must go and feed them––’
‘And give them clothes,’ added Angela, enthusiastically; ‘and pocket-money!’