A shout from above next attracted Bird, and looking up she saw her uncle leaning out of the window and calling to them to come up for breakfast. Billy could hop downstairs quite easily, but in going up he was obliged to crawl, baby fashion, on his hands and knees, so Bird followed, slowly carrying his crutch.
Her uncle and cousins were already seated at the table when the pair came up, both rather out of breath. Of the two boys, Larry made no attempt to rise and shake hands, but stared hard at Bird’s pale, clear-cut face and neatly brushed almost blue-black hair and lashes that made her violet-black eyes darker yet, then gave a quick nod in which recognition and approval were combined, and continued his meal; while Jack got up, came forward pleasantly, if with the very flourishy sort of manner that somehow always reminds one of the pigeon wings and squirrels in old fashioned writing-books, and waved her to a seat between himself and his father and began to collect the dishes about her plate.
“Go on with yer eatin’,” said Mrs. O’More, rather sharply, as if resenting the attention. “Bird can wait on herself,—she’s got all day to do it in and it’s time you were off. Come round this side by Billy’s chair so’s you can spread his bread; he’s always cuttin’ himself,” she added.
The food was plentiful enough, if rather coarse in quality,—a dish of oatmeal, slices of head-cheese and corn-beef on the same dish, potatoes sliced cold with pickled cabbage, a bowl of hard-boiled eggs, a huge plate of bread with a big pot of coffee, still further heating the close room from its perch on the gas range. But the table-cloth was soiled and tumbled, and Bird saw with horror that her uncle wiped his mouth on the edge of it, using it as a napkin, while the dishes seemed to have been thrown on without any sort of arrangement.
Not feeling hungry herself, she began to cut up some meat for Billy, who fed himself awkwardly using his knife instead of a fork; but Bird did not dare say anything, and in a few minutes his appetite failed and he sat picking holes in a piece of bread, while Bird looked at the heaped-up plate her uncle pushed toward her with dismay, yet forced herself to eat from inbred politeness.
Larry and Jack, having finished, pushed back their chairs, and hastily filling their lunch-boxes with bread, meat, and eggs, took their coats from the rack in the narrow hall and went out, Larry calling, “So long,” as he went downstairs, but Jack turned back and said pleasantly to Bird, “Good-by till night, and don’t get homesick, Ladybird!”
“Ladybird, indeed,” snapped Mrs. O’More, “you needn’t bother; she can’t well sicken long over what she ain’t got,” at which unnecessarily cruel remark, that made Bird stoop lower over her plate and swallow some coffee so quickly that coughing hid her tears, O’More looked up and said: “What’s wrong with yer to-day, Rosy? You’ve no call to hit out when nobody’s touchin’ yer.”
“What’s wrong? What’s right, I’d like you to tell me?” she flashed; “me with a lot uv sewin’ to do, and to get Billy up-town to the doctor’s by ten.”