“But you see, ma’am, I was afraid you would not let me go if I told you.”
“And why did you want to go? Were you not comfortable?”
“Yes, ma’am—that was the worst of it.”
“Why the worst of it? Have you any especial objection to be comfortable?”
Suddenly the blue eyes filled with tears, like a girl’s; and there was a pitiful sob in the voice which answered me.
“Oh, it hurt me so, when I was warm, and had a good supper, and everybody’s kind word, to think of poor Mag there at home, cold and hungry, and with old Meg beating her. I never should have come and left her but for the learning to read. She wanted me to come for that.”
“So you could read to her?”
“So I could teach her, ma’am. You never in all your life saw anybody so hungry to learn to read as Mag; and when I went home that first day and told her all you said, and told her that after all I couldn’t go and leave her there to take all the hard fare and hard words, she just began to cry, and to tease me to go and learn to read, so I could teach her, until I couldn’t stand it any longer, and I came.”
“And how did she know she would ever see you again?” I asked. “It would have been most natural, having learned what comfort was, to stay on here and enjoy it.”