“‘They aren’t anybody’s yet.’
“‘Whose are they going to be?’
“‘I don’t know.—The first pair of feet that come along that will fit ’em. If I sell these I’ll get some leather and make more.’
“‘Is that the last of your leather, father?’
“‘Ay—the last big enough; the rest is all pieces.’
“She stood a little while longer, laying her head on his shoulder; then came a knocking up stairs, and she ran away. The cobbler wrought at his shoe for a space, when turning his head, he dropped everything to go and see after the porridge; and he squatted over the fire, stirring it, till such time as he thought it was done, and he drew back the skillet. He went to the foot of the stairs, and looked up and listened for a minute, and then left it and came back without calling anybody. It was plain he must eat his dinner alone.
“His dinner was nothing but porridge and salt, eaten with what would have been a good appetite if it had had good thoughts to back it. And the cobbler did not seem uncheerful; only once or twice he stopped and looked a good while with a grave face into the fire or on the hearth. But a porridge dinner after all could not last long. Mr. Peg set away his plate and spoon, placed the skillet carefully in the corner of the fire-place, took off his leather apron, and put on his coat; and, taking his hat from the counter, he went out.
“There were no more stitches set in the shoe that afternoon, for Mr. Peg did not get home till dark. The first thing that happened after he went away, a gust of wind blew round the house and came down the chimney, bringing with it a shower of soot, which must have sprinkled pretty thick upon the open skillet. Then the wind seemed to go up chimney again, and could be heard whistling off among the neighbouring housetops. A while after, little Susie came down, and made for her skillet. She pulled it out, and fetched her plate and spoon, and began to skim out the soot. But I suppose she found it pretty bad, or else that it would lose her a good deal of the porridge; for one time she set her plate and spoon down on the hearth beside her, and laid her face in her apron. She soon took it up again; but she didn’t make a large meal of the porridge.
“She went up-stairs then immediately, and when she came down the second time it was near evening. She stood and looked about to see that her father was not come in; then she built up the fire, and when it was burning stood and looked into it, just in the same way that she had stood and looked out of the window. Suddenly she wheeled about, and coming behind the counter took her father’s Bible from a heap of bits of leather where it lay, and went and sat down on the hearth with it; and as long as there was light to see, she was bending over it. Then, when the light faded, she clasped her hands upon the shut Bible, and leaning back against the jamb fell fast asleep in an instant, with her head against the stone.