Eddy looked up. “I'm going to dinner with Mr. Anderson,” said he.
“Aunt Anna said I might.”
“You said Amy said you might,” said Charlotte. “Eddy Carroll, don't you say another word. Come right home with me.”
Then suddenly the boy broke down. All his bravado vanished. He looked from her to Anderson and back again with a white, convulsed little face. Eddy was a slight little fellow, and his poor shoulders in their linen blouse heaved. Then he wept like a baby.
“I—want to—go,” he wailed. “Charlotte, I want to—g-o. He is going to have—roast beef for dinner, and I—am hungry.”
Charlotte turned whiter than Eddy. She marched up to her brother. She did not look at Anderson. “Begging!” said she. “Begging! What if you are hungry? What of it? What is that? Hunger is nothing. And then you have no reason to be hungry. There is plenty in the house to eat—plenty!” She glanced with angry pride at Anderson, as if he were to blame for having heard all this. “Plenty!” she repeated, defiantly.
“Plenty of old cake left over from Ina's wedding, and dry old crackers, and not enough eggs to go round,” returned Eddy. “I am hungry. I am, Charlotte. All I have had since yesterday noon is five crackers and three pickles and one egg and a piece of chocolate cake as hard as a brick, besides one little, round, dry cake with one almond on top in the middle. I'm real hungry, Charlotte. Please let me go!”
Anderson quietly went out of the office. He passed through the store door, and stood there when presently Charlotte and Eddy passed him.
“Good-morning,” said Charlotte, in a choked voice.
Eddy looked at him and sniffled, then he flung out, angrily, “What you going to take to our house?” he demanded of the consumptive man gathering up the reins of the delivery-wagon.