“What made you so late?” she asked. “And why did you have to go back to the store? You never did that before.”
“Oh, I had some business to look after,” Mr. Blackford answered. “It was important, but it’s all settled now. I won’t have to do it again.”
He began to eat his supper, and then he happened to think of Joe. Perhaps the sight of the vacant chair on the opposite side of the table brought the boy to his mind.
“Did you take him up anything?” he asked his wife, nodding his head toward Joe’s upper room.
“I gave him some bread, just as you told me to.”
“Anything else?” asked the old man sharply.
“Well—er—I had plenty of milk so I thought he might as well have a glass of that instead of water.”
“Um!” grunted the deacon, but that was all he said just then. Mrs. Blackford did not add that she had buttered the bread, and that the slices were unusually thick, and that she had put one extra on the plate she handed into Joe’s room. Mrs. Blackford was a little afraid of the deacon, but Joe had, on this occasion, profited by her slight kindness to him.
She had taken Joe’s simple meal up to him at the usual supper time, and he had unlocked his door while taking in the plate of bread and butter and the glass of milk. He did not speak, nor did Mrs. Blackford. It was the regular form of procedure on such unpleasant occasions as this.
Joe was glad when he saw the milk and the extra slice of bread.