“Night before last. That’s what—what I came for—I couldn’t stand it any longer.”
“Ant also you freeze.”
“No. Three nights I have slept in your greenhouse. It’s warm there and——”
“Yes, yes! Too warm and too wet for coughing. No longer you will sleep so. Seedney, get him that one coat you don’t wear any more, and other warm clo’es you have. I buy you more. Ant yourself dress; pretty soon you also will be coughing.”
Sydney added some light wood to his fire and hurried to do her bidding, coming again in no time, it seemed to him; yet in those few minutes Mrs. Schmitz had hot milk ready and savory food steaming on the stove.
Still obeying her, Sydney untied the boy’s hands and then puttered about the room, bringing the kitchen dishes to the table, keeping busy that the other chap might not feel himself watched. Yet Sydney did not let his eyes wander far; his street training had made him wary.
“Put on more dishes, ant also the good ones with knifes from the dining room. We also shall eat mit the company. It iss now already past two o’clock ant I myself am hungry.”
Neither Sydney nor Mrs. Schmitz appeared to think it strange that they should be calmly supping with one they had just caught and thrown—one who still sat tied to his chair.
She coaxed the stranger to tell his story. It was little different from the many; untrained, without friends, and consequently the first to be set adrift in slack times.
“It is only work I need,” he finished.