"Don't you feel sorry for this little crumb of humanity?" I impulsively asked, forgetting too speedily my determination not to converse with him more than was really necessary.
"Did Madame Buhlman give you lessons in philanthropy along with drawing and music?"
"Oh no, indeed; but I hope God has. I don't want my heart to be a rock like"—and then I shut my mouth and with moist eyes and flushed face turned abruptly from him.
I swallowed down my tears, but my heart was too sore to play any longer with the baby, so I slipped it back into its mother's arms, who had got her basket filled and was ready to start for home; a neighbor's lad had come to carry it for her, and with quite a cheerful face she bade me good-bye. The rest of my crowd had got their baskets filled, and paused with longing eyes regarding the heaps that still remained. I made their faces grow suddenly much brighter as, with a slight elevation of voice, I said: "Thomas will carry the rest of these vegetables around for you with the horses. You will please stand at your doors, and, as he drives along, come out for it." There was a subdued murmur of thanks, and then they started homewards. Mrs. Blake waited a few moments behind them to look around the old place where she had spent so many days, and shook hands with Thomas who remembered her very distinctly.
"It's odd doings for Oaklands having yon crowd come with their baskets," he said, grimly; "the young miss be like to turn things topsy-turvey."
"It's high time somebody did; what kind of reckonins will folks have bime-by, of all their riches, and overplus, and so many of their own kind of flesh and blood going hungry and naked?"
"Their reckonins be none in my line. I sees to the roots and posies, that they thrive; and there my work ends."
"Yes, posies are fed and sheltered, and little human creeturs like the widow Larkum's there can starve for all the great folks cares. Deary me! it's a terble onjointed sort of world; seems to me I could regilate things better myself. Well, a good afternoon, Mr. Prime."
"Good afternoon," Mr. Prime coldly responded. Plainly he did not enjoy Mrs. Blake's freedom of speech. I felt my trespasses against Mr. Winthrop were already so great I could scarcely increase them by leaving Mrs. Blake abruptly, so I walked with her through the old gardens, where she had many a time, no doubt, dreamed her dreams long before my spirit got started on its long voyage through time and the eternities. I accompanied her all the way to the gate, listening sadly while she told me for the second time the sorrowful story of the widow Larkum, whose baby I had just been fondling. "Ever since her man fell on the circular saw and got killed, she's been crying more or less. Her eyes look as if they'd been bound in turkey red; and I tell her she'll be blind soon as well as her father; but, laws! when the tears is there, they might as well come. It's their natur, I s'pose, to be a droppin'."
"What is to support them?" I asked.