And her case was worse, even, than people in better circumstances might imagine, for the family lived so literally from hand to mouth that there was no time even to think when a difficulty arose or disaster befell. They rented their room from a man who styled it a furnished apartment, in virtue of a rickety table, a broken chair, a worn-out sheet or two, a dilapidated counterpane, four ragged blankets, and the infirm saucepan before mentioned, besides a few articles of cracked or broken crockery. For this accommodation the landlord charged ninepence per day, which sum had to be paid every night before the family was allowed to retire to rest! In the event of failure to pay they would have been turned out into the street at once, and the door padlocked. Thus the necessity for a constant, though small, supply of cash became urgent, and the consequent instability of “home” very depressing.
To preserve his goods from the pawnbroker, and prevent a moonlight flitting, this landlord had printed on his sheets the words “stolen from —” and on the blankets and counterpane were stamped the words “stop thief!”
Mrs Frog made no reply to her husband’s gruff question, which induced the man to seize an empty bottle, as being the best way of rousing her attention.
“Come, you let mother alone, dad,” suggested Bobby, “she ain’t a-aggrawatin’ of you just now.”
“Why, mother,” exclaimed Hetty, who was so busy with Bobby’s supper, and, withal, so accustomed to the woman’s looks of hopeless misery that she had failed to observe anything unusual until her attention was thus called to her, “what ever have you done with the baby?”
“Ah—you may well ask that,” growled Ned.
Even the boy seemed to forget his pain for a moment as he now observed, anxiously, that his mother had not the usual bundle on her breast.
“The baby’s gone!” she said, bitterly, still keeping her eyes on the blank wall.
“Gone!—how?—lost? killed? speak, mother,” burst from Hetty and the boy.
“No, only gone to where it will be better cared for than here.”