“It’s me, Missis Wilkin. ’Ave you forgotten Howlet?”
With an exclamation of surprise and joy the woman flung the door wide, seized Owlet, dragged him into the room, and embraced him with as much affection as if he had been her own child. Instantly there arose a shout of juvenile joy, and Stumpy could see, in the semi-darkness, that four little creatures were helping their mother to overwhelm his friend, while a fifth—a biggish girl—was prevented from joining them by the necessity that lay on her to take care of the baby.
When the greetings were over, the sad condition of the family was soon explained, and a single glance round sufficed to show that they had reached the lowest state of destitution. It was a back room rather than a cellar, but the dirty pane of thick glass near the roof admitted only enough of light to make its wretchedness visible. A rickety table, two broken chairs, and a bedstead without a bottom was all the furniture left, and the grate was empty.
“We’ve been obleeged to pawn everything,” said Mrs Wilkin, with difficulty suppressing a sob, “and I need hardly tell you why,” she added, with a glance at the children, who were living skeletons.
The baby was perhaps the saddest object there, for it was so thin and weak that it had not strength to cry—though the faces which it frequently made were obviously the result of an effort to do so.
Much interested in the scene, young Stumpy stood admiring it patronisingly for a little, but when he heard the poor woman tell of their desperate struggle to merely keep themselves alive, his feelings were touched, and when he learned that not a bite of food had passed their lips since the previous morning, a sudden impulse swelled his little breast. He clutched his four pennies tightly; glanced quickly round; observed an empty basket in a corner; caught it up, and left the place hurriedly.
He had scarcely gone when the father of the family entered. The expression of his face and his whole bearing and aspect told eloquently of disappointment as he sat down with a heavy sigh.
“Stumped again,” he said; “only a few hands took on.”
The words sounded as a death-knell to the famishing family, and the man himself was too much cut up to take notice of the return of his friend Owlet, except by a slight nod of recognition.
Meanwhile Stumpy ran along several streets in quest of food. He had not far to run in such a locality. At a very small grocer’s shop he purchased one halfpenny worth of tea and put it in his basket. To this he added one farthing’s worth of milk, which the amiable milkman let him have in a small phial, on promise of its being returned. Two farthings more procured a small supply of coal, which he wrapped in two cabbage leaves. Then he looked about for a baker. One penny farthing of his fund having been spent, it behoved him to consider that the staff of life must be secured in preference to luxuries.