Little Meg's Friends in Need
These were hard times for little Meg. The weather was not severely cold yet, or the children would have been bitterly starved up in their cold attic, where Meg was obliged to be very careful of the coal. All her mother's clothes were in pledge now, as well as her own and Robin's; and it seemed as if it would soon come to pawning their poor bed and their scanty furniture. Yet Meg kept up a brave spirit, and, as often as the day was fine enough, took her children out into the streets, loitering about the cook-shops, where the heat from the cellar kitchens lent a soothing warmth to their shivering bodies.
About the middle of December the first sharp frost set in, and Meg felt herself driven back from this last relief. She had taken the children out as usual, but she had no shoes to put on their feet, and nothing but their thin old rags to clothe them with. Robin's feet were red and blue with cold, like her own; but Meg could not see her own, and did not feel the cold as much for them as for Robin's. His face had lost a little of its roundness and freshness, and his black eyes some of their brightness since his birthday; and poor Meg's heart bled at the sight of him as he trudged along the icy pavement of the streets at her side. There was one cook-shop from which warm air and pleasant odours came up through an iron grating, and Meg hurried on to it to feel its grateful warmth; but the shutters of the shop were not taken down, and the cellar window was unclosed. Little Meg turned away sadly, and bent her bare and aching feet homewards again, hushing baby, who wailed a pitiful low wail in her ears. Robin, too, dragged himself painfully along, for he had struck his numbed foot against a piece of iron, and the wound was bleeding a little. They had turned down a short street which they had often passed through before, at the end of which was a small shop, displaying in its window a few loaves of bread, and some bottles containing different kinds of sweetmeats, such as they had indulged in sometimes in the palmy days when father was at home. The door was divided in the middle, and the lower half was closed, while the upper stood open, giving a full view of the shop within. Meg's old brown bonnet just rose above the top of the closed half, and her wistful face turned for a moment towards the tempting sight of a whole shelf full of loaves; but she was going on slowly, when a kindly voice hailed her from the dark interior.
'Hollo, little woman!' it shouted, 'I haven't set eyes on you this many a day. How's Robbie and baby.'
'They're here, sir, thank you,' answered Meg, in a more womanly way than ever, for she felt very low to-day. 'We're only doing middling, thank you, sir.'
'Why, father's ship's come in,' said her good-natured friend from the docks, coming forward and wiping his lips, as if he had just finished a good meal. 'What makes you be doing only middling?'
'Father didn't come home in the ship,' replied Meg, her voice faltering a little.
'Come in and tell us all about it,' he said. 'Hollo, Mrs Blossom! just step this way, if you please.'
There was a little kitchen at the back of the shop, from which came a very savoury smell of cooking, as the door opened, and a round, fat, rosy-cheeked woman, of about fifty years of age, looked out inquiringly. She came a step or two nearer the door, as Meg's friend beckoned to her with a clasp-knife he held in his hand.
'These little 'uns look cold and hungry, don't they, Mrs Blossom?' he said. 'You smell something as smells uncommon good, don't you?' he asked of Meg, who had sniffed a little, unconsciously.