"Father," said Nettie, in a very low voice, "couldn't you let the man keep the fifty cents, on the account, and that would be a beginning?"
But this was too much.
"No," said Mr. Decker; "I will pay my bills when I get ready and not before; and it is none of your business when I do it. You must not meddle with what does not belong to you."
"No, sir;" said Nettie, though it was hard work to speak just then; there was a queer little lump in her throat. She was not in the habit of being spoken to in this way. The butter was ready, and the man handed back the change.
Mr. Decker pocketed it, saying as he did so, "I'll have some money for you next week, I guess." And then they went away.
"If it hadn't been for the girl I'd have kept the fifty cents and got so much out of the old drunkard; but someway I couldn't bring myself to doing it with her looking on." This was what the grocer muttered as they walked away. But they did not hear him. Nettie was bent now on tolling her father down the cross street to go home.
"Father," she said, "we are going to have milk toast for supper. Mother said she would have it ready, and toast spoils, you know, if it stands long. Couldn't we go home this way and make it shorter?"
He was a good deal astonished that he did it. He was still very thirsty, but there really came to him no decent excuse for deserting his little girl and going back to the saloon. And they walked into the house together, so astonishing Mrs. Decker that she almost dropped the teapot which she was filling with hot water. Whatever other night, Mr. Decker contrived to get home to supper, he was always late on Saturday, and in a worse condition than at any other time.
That was really a nice little suppertime. Mrs. Decker had done her part well, not for the husband whom she did not expect, but in gratitude to the little girl who had worked so hard all the week for herself and her neglected babies. The toast was well made, and the tea was good. Besides, there was a treat; not ten minutes before, Mrs. Job Smith had sent in a plate of ginger cookies; "for the children," she said, and the children each had one. So did the father and mother.