Maria was always up at five. In the early winter, mornings are dark and it takes courage to get up in a cold room and light the lamp and make the fire and cook breakfast. Maria was but twelve. She took her mother’s place as best she could. She helped her father. She tended Louisa and Angelina and if it had not been that the aunts took the two babies, she would have cared for them gladly too.
Angelina and Louisa were, for the time, Maria’s “babies.” She let them play and she did the work herself. She had little time for amusement; it was always either school or housekeeping for her. There was breakfast and clearing up in the morning; washing and cleaning after school; dinner-getting and cleaning again at night, beside a hundred and one little things that a mother must see to, mending, tidying, straightening all things. At seven, the father came home tired. Then there was bed in the cold rooms and a new day of responsibility. Louisa and Angelina wore washed and ironed hair-ribbons and well done-up gingham dresses, mended as best Maria could. They took off their shoes and stockings when at home, to save the wear, and did in general as Maria told them except for the little brown bird. They would save their crusts for him in spite of Maria’s scoldings.
He came first on one of the lonely mornings before school time, when Maria was busy with housework and Louisa and Angelina were thawing the frosted window pane with their warm breath to look out at the chilly snow-bound road that led past the old brown house. Louisa had thrown out a crust because she had not wanted to eat it and there—why, there was a little brown bird tugging at it in the snow!
“What’re you two laughing at so?” demanded Maria, looking up from dishwashing. “Take a-hold somebody and help here! I can’t take time to stand by the window an’ laugh at nothing when there’s work to be done!” But, dish-rag in hand, curiosity got the better of scolding and she peeped over Louisa’s shoulder and saw the little brown bird and his breakfast.
At first she smiled, too, then she frowned. “Louisa,” said she, “you are bad. It is you who threw out the crust of bread!”
There was no denial.
“And when bread costs money—and we cannot get enough to buy Angelina new shoes!”
“I would rather the bird had the crust,” defended Angelina. “The holes are not yet very big.”
But even as mother would have done, Maria watched the family purse, and Louisa ate crusts under her elder sister’s vigilant eye each meal time. But there were always very big crumbs at Angelina’s plate and medium sized ones at Louisa’s. When it came time to clear the table, Louisa and Angelina, with a glance at each other, picked these up quickly and threw them out on the snow. It was exciting. Nobody knew when Maria would call either little sister to account: “Louisa, give me those crumbs. I will save them and make a pudding.” Always there seemed to be breakfast for the little brown bird in spite of this. He came regularly. Sometimes Louisa and Angelina had to pick the crumbs from the coal-hod where Maria’s over hasty housekeeping threw little ones; but always, always, always, they kept watch for the little brown bird. And the mornings before school time were less lonely because of his cheer. Indeed, as the days went by, he became very tame—tame enough to hop close to the pane as Louisa and Angelina breathlessly watched.
The mornings gradually grew lighter and the days passed on to the latter part of February. Louisa and Angelina talked much of their pet. Where did the little brown bird live? Could they make him so tame he would come upon their hands? Would he learn to eat from their fingers? Perhaps there might be a nest with little bits of brown birds somewhere near the house next spring! Then, Angelina and Louisa might tame these perhaps! Maria, busy with housework, had no time to answer such questions. She merely sniffed.