'Please, sir,' he stammered, 'I'm goin' to take it 'ome to mother. She's ill and can't eat nothink, and I thought as she might manage cake, sir.'
In the train that brought those youngsters down came one white-faced child, who looked faint and ill with the walk to the station.
The head teacher, who has the history of each child at her fingers' ends, saw what was the matter.
'Had no breakfast to-day, Annie?'
'No, ma'am,' was the faltering reply.
There was a crowd of poor mothers at the station, come to see the children off. One went ont and presently returned with a penny, which she pressed into the child's hand—to buy herself something with. The woman had pawned her shawl for a copper or two in sheer womanly sympathy. Had she had the money about her, she needn't have left the station.
There was a good deal of pawning that morning, I know, from an eye-witness, and all to give the little children a copper or two to spend.
And what a struggle there had been to get them something decent to wear for that grand day out! If all the stories were written that could be told of the privations and sacrifices endured by mothers, that Sally and Jane and Will might look respectable at the treat, your heart would ache. As I don't wish it to, we will not go into the matter.