Jerry entered the room slowly and took a seat on the chair without a back. He said nothing at all and finally Mother 'Larkey looked up at him.
"Why don't you ask for fifty cents, too?" she inquired. "Don't you want to see the circus?"
"Yes'm," replied Jerry, "but I ain't got no mother."
"What difference does that make?" she asked, in a voice sharper than she was accustomed to use in speaking to Jerry. "Haven't I done everything a mother could—"
"Yes'm," Jerry interrupted hastily, for he didn't want her to think he thought that. "But it said to ask your mother for fifty cents and I ain't got none to ask."
"Sure and you haven't, you blessed boy," said Mother 'Larkey. "If I had it to give, you wouldn't need a mother to ask it of. I wish I could send all of you to the circus and go myself."
"We never get to go no place," muttered Danny gloomily.
"It costs money to go to places," his mother explained, "and there's no money in the house. It's all I've been able to do to put enough food in your hungry mouths to keep soul and body together and to get enough clothes to keep you looking decent and respectable. I was counting on some money from Mrs. Green to-day, to buy a little meat for supper and get some more cough medicine for Kathleen, but she wasn't satisfied with the dress and I've got to do part of it over before she will pay me."
"Is Kathleen's cough medicine all gone?" Jerry asked, suddenly feeling hot and uncomfortable.
"Yes, and she ought to have some more right this minute. Summer coughs are bad things for babies."