"Sometimes," she replied. "But dinna bother me, Rob," she continued. "Gang away to your bed like a man."
He was silent for a time at this repulse, and lay upon her knee puzzling over the matter.
"Do you greet when you are hungry?" he enquired, with: wide-eyed earnestness and surprise.
"There noo," she answered, "don't ask so many questions, Daddy'll not be long till he is better again, and when he is at work there'll be plenty of pieces to keep us all from being hungry."
"And will there be jeely for the pieces?" pursued the boy, for it seemed to him that there had never been a time when there was plenty to eat.
"Yes, we'll get plenty o' jeely too," she replied, drying the remaining tears from her eyes, and hugging him again to her breast.
"Oh, my," he said, with a deep sigh. "I wish my father was better!" and the little lips were moistened by his tongue, as if in anticipation of the coming feast.
Another silence; and then came the query—"What way do we not get plenty o' pieces when my daddy's no' working? Does folk no' get them then?"
"No, Robin," she answered, "but dinna fash your wee noddle with that. You'll find out all about it when you get big. Shut your eyes and mother'll sing, an' you'll go to sleep." And he snuggled in and shut his eyes, while Mrs. Sinclair gathered him softly to her breast and began to croon an old ballad.
As she sang it seemed to the boy that there were no such things as "jelly-pieces" to bother about. He liked his mother to sing to him, for he seemed to get rolled up in her soft, warm voice, and become restful and happy. Gradually the low crooning song grew fainter in his ears, the flicker of the fire danced further and further away, until long streaks of golden thready light seemed to reach out, straight from his eyes to the fireplace, and all the comfort that it was possible to have flowed through his soul, and at last he slept. Mrs. Sinclair placed him beside his brothers and sisters in the bed and went back to finish her knitting. The night was far gone before she accomplished her task, and she stood and surveyed her humble home with weariness in her heart.