“Got any mother?” twisting one of Sally’s curls.
“Naw.”
“Nor father, either, I s’pose?”
“Naw.”
“My land! Wal, you hev somethin’ ter eat, an’ then I’ll see.” And Sally had a breakfast that made her think of these people as one thinks of those in kings’ palaces—only Sally had never heard of kings’ palaces.
While she was “topping off,” as the good woman called it, with pancakes and maple-syrup, her new friend fed the baby, and then brought a basin of warm water and soap with soft towels, and washed him carefully and rubbed his back, while he stretched and kicked and laughed. She got a little cotton nightgown that she had laid away in camphor, and put it on him. “Oh!” she said, “he’s good enough to eat!” She took him out to show him to her husband. “Father!” she said. “He’s jest the image of our little John!”
“Can’t help it ef he is,” said the man, who evidently knew what she wished. “We can’t afford ter be a-keepin’ of tramps. She said she was goin’ on. You jes’ let her go on!”
The woman knew it was no use to say more. She came in with tears on her face. But she had Sally make herself decent, and she gave her a cotton gown that had once been pink and was now a rosy white. In it, though it was a little too long, Sally looked quite quaint. It had been the gown of the poor woman’s dear and only daughter, who had died before the little John had died. And then this good, kind soul did up Sally’s scratched and blistered feet in some ointment, with bandages, and dressed them up in a pair of little old shoes she had always kept. After that she put up a luncheon of fried bread and a piece of pie for Sally, and filled the milk-bottle, and Sally shouldered the baby and made off.
But turning for a look at the place where she had met so much kindness, Sally saw the woman crying, and she went back.