And then she told him the story of the bun-shop, and the fourpence, and the child who was hungrier than herself; and somehow as she told it, though she told it very simply indeed, the Indian Gentleman found it necessary to shade his eyes with his hand and look down at the floor.
“And I was `supposing’ a kind of plan,” said Sara, when she had finished; “I was thinking I would like to do something.”
“What is it?” said her guardian in a low tone. “You may do anything you like to do, Princess.”
“I was wondering,” said Sara,—”you know you say I have a great deal of money—and I was wondering if I could go and see the bun-woman and tell her that if, when hungry children— particularly on those dreadful days— come and sit on the steps or look in at the window, she would just call them in and give them something to eat, she might send the bills to me and I would pay them—could I do that?”
“You shall do it to-morrow morning,” said the Indian Gentleman.
“Thank you,” said Sara; “you see I know what it is to be hungry, and it is very hard when one can’t even pretend it away.”
“Yes, yes, my dear,” said the Indian Gentleman. “Yes, it must be. Try to forget it. Come and sit on this footstool near my knee, and only remember you are a princess.”
“Yes,” said Sara, “and I can give buns and bread to the Populace.” And she went and sat on the stool, and the Indian Gentleman (he used to like her to call him that, too, sometimes, —in fact very often) drew her small, dark head down upon his knee and stroked her hair.
The next morning a carriage drew up before the door of the baker’s shop, and a gentleman and a little girl got out,—oddly enough, just as the bun-woman was putting a tray of smoking hotbuns into the window. When Sara entered the shop the woman turned and looked at her and, leaving the buns, came and stood behind the counter. For a moment she looked at Sara very hard indeed, and then her good-natured face lighted up.
“I’m that sure I remember you, miss,” she said. “And yet—”
“Yes,” said Sara, “once you gave me six buns for fourpence, and—”
“And you gave five of ‘em to a beggar-child,” said the woman. “I’ve always remembered it. I couldn’t make it out at first. I beg pardon, sir, but there’s not many young people that notices a hungry face in that way, and I’ve thought of it many a time. Excuse the liberty, miss, but you look rosier and better than you did that day.”
“I am better, thank you,” said Sara, “and—and I am happier, and I have come to ask you to do something for me.”
“Me, miss!” exclaimed the woman, “why, bless you, yes, miss! What can I do?”
And then Sara made her little proposal, and the woman listened to it with an astonished face.
“Why, bless me!” she said, when she had heard it all. “Yes, miss, it’ll be a pleasure to me to do it. I am a working woman, myself, and can’t afford to do much on my own account, and there’s sights of trouble on every side; but if you’ll excuse me, I’m bound to say I’ve given many a bit of bread away since that wet afternoon, just along o’ thinkin’ of you. An’ how wet an’ cold you was, an’ how you looked,—an’ yet you give away your hot buns as if you was a princess.”
The Indian Gentleman smiled involuntarily, and Sara smiled a little too. “She looked so hungry,” she said. “She was hungrier than I was.”
“She was starving,” said the woman. “Many’s the time she’s told me of it since—how she sat there in the wet, and felt as if a wolf was a-tearing at her poor young insides.”
“Oh, have you seen her since then?” exclaimed Sara. “Do you know where she is?”
“I know!” said the woman. “Why, she’s in that there back room now, miss, an’ has been for a month, an’ a decent, well-meaning girl she’s going to turn out, an’ such a help to me in the day shop, an’ in the kitchen, as you’d scarce believe, knowing how she’s lived.”
She stepped to the door of the little back parlor and spoke; and the next minute a girl came out and followed her behind the counter. And actually it was the beggar-child, clean and neatly clothed, and looking as if she had not been hungry for a long time. She looked shy, but she had a nice face, now that she was no longer a savage; and the wild look had gone from her eyes. And she knew Sara in an instant, and stood and looked at her as if she could never look enough.
“You see,” said the woman, “I told her to come here when she was hungry, and when she’d come I’d give her odd jobs to do, an’ I found she was willing, an’ somehow I got to like her; an’ the end of it was I’ve given her a place an’ a home, an’ she helps me, an’ behaves as well, an’ is as thankful as a girl can be. Her name’s Anne—she has no other.”
The two children stood and looked at each other a few moments. In Sara’s eyes a new thought was growing.
“I’m glad you have such a good home,” she said. “Perhaps Mrs. Brown will let you give the buns and bread to the children—perhaps you would like to do it—because you know what it is to be hungry, too.”
“Yes, miss,” said the girl.
And somehow Sara felt as if she understood her, though the girl said nothing more, and only stood still and looked, and looked after her as she went out of the shop and got into the carriage and drove away.
