"Where is your husband?"
"Gone looking for work. 'Pears like he couldn't get none nowhere. 'Pears like nobody wants us. But we have got to be somewhere, though!" said the woman, in a melancholy, apologetic tone. "We can't die, as I see!—wish we could!"
Mr. Gordon's eye fell upon two or three cold potatoes in a piece of broken crock, over which the woman appeared keeping jealous guard.
"What you doing with those potatoes?"
"Saving them for the children's dinner."
"And is that all you've got to eat, I want to know?" said Mr. Gordon, in a high, sharp tone, as if he were getting angry very fast.
"Yes," said the woman.
"What did you have to eat yesterday?"
"Nothing!" said the woman.
"And what did you eat the day before?"