“They sent you up here with only that bag?” Mr. Stagg said with some exasperation. “Haven’t you got any clothes but those you stand in?”
“Mrs. Price said—said they weren’t suitable,” explained the little girl. “You see, they aren’t black.”
“Oh!” exploded her uncle.
“You greatly lack tact, Joseph Stagg,” said Aunty Rose, and the hardware dealer cleared his throat loudly as he went to the sink to perform his pre-supper ablutions. Carolyn May did not understand just what the woman meant.
“Ahem!” said Uncle Joe gruffly. “S’pose I ought t’ve read that letter before. What’s come of it, Car’lyn May?”
But just then the little girl was so deeply interested in what Aunty Rose was doing that she failed to hear him. Mrs. Kennedy brought out of the pantry a tin pie plate, on which were scraps of meat and bread, besides a goodly marrow bone.
“If you think the dog is hungry, Car’lyn May,” she said, “you would better give him this before we break our fast.”
“Oh, Aunty Rose!” gasped the little girl, her sober face all a-smile. “He’ll be de-light-ed.”
She carried the pan out to Prince. But first, seeing the immaculate condition of the porch floor, she laid a sack down before the hungry dog and put the pan upon it.
“For, you see,” she told Aunty Rose, who stood in the kitchen doorway watching her, “when he has a bone, he just will get grease all around. He really can’t help it.”