They were, indeed, very hungry. A diet of blueberries is not a filling one—especially when one has been without anything else to eat for so long as had the little Corner House girls. The woman with whom they had come into the camp sat down with them, having reported to the big man, and ate, too. They sat cross-legged on the grass, and had only spoons to eat with, and thick slices of very good ryebread to sop up the gravy of the stew. The woman said her name was Mira, and the children found her very pleasant and talkative.
“I wish our folks would come along in the automobile,” Tess said, longingly, when their hunger was partly appeased.
“Do you s’pose they will come this way?” asked Dot of Mira.
“We shall see. He will ’tend to that,” said the woman, coolly, nodding towards the big man in the chair.
Tess was very curious. “Who is he?” she asked, in a whisper. “Who is the man in the chair?”
“King David,” said Mira.
“Oh!” gasped Dot. “I’ve heard of him. Didn’t he play on a salt-cellar?”
“Oh, dear me!” cried Tess. “A ‘psalter,’ Dot—a ‘psalter’!”
“Well, what’s the difference?” asked the smallest Corner House girl, pouting.
“A good deal,” declared Tess, although she had no idea herself just what a psaltery was, and was unaware that she had made a mistake quite as inexcusable as Dot’s. “And, anyway,” pursued Tess, whose confidence swamped her ignorance of the subject and duly impressed Dot, “anyway, this can’t be the same King David.”