“Bless us—no,” she answered. “Did you find it?”
“In the gutter,” said Sara.
“Keep it, then,” said the woman. “It may have been there a week, and goodness knows who lost it. You could never find out.”
“I know that,” said Sara, “but I thought I’d ask you.”
“Not many would,” said the woman, looking puzzled and interested and good-natured all at once. “Do you want to buy something?” she added, as she saw Sara glance toward the buns.
“Four buns, if you please,” said Sara; “those at a penny each.”
The woman went to the window and put some in a paper bag. Sara noticed that she put in six.
“I said four, if you please,” she explained. “I have only the fourpence.”
“I’ll throw in two for make-weight,” said the woman, with her good-natured look. “I dare say you can eat them some time. Aren’t you hungry?”
A mist rose before Sara’s eyes.
“Yes,” she answered. “I am very hungry, and I am much obliged to you for your kindness, and,” she was going to add, “there is a child outside who is hungrier than I am.” But just at that moment two or three customers came in at once and each one seemed in a hurry, so she could only thank the woman again and go out.
The child was still huddled up on the corner of the steps. She looked frightful in her wet and dirty rags. She was staring with a stupid look of suffering straight before her, and Sara saw her suddenly draw the back of her roughened, black hand across her eyes to rub away the tears which seemed to have surprised her by forcing their way from under her lids. She was muttering to herself.
Sara opened the paper bag and took out one of the hot buns, which had already warmed her cold hands a little.
“See,” she said, putting the bun on the ragged lap, “that is nice and hot. Eat it, and you will not be so hungry.”
The child started and stared up at her; then she snatched up the bun and began to cram it into her mouth with great wolfish bites.
“Oh, my! Oh, my!” Sara heard her say hoarsely, in wild delight.
“Oh, my!”
Sara took out three more buns and put them down.
“She is hungrier than I am,” she said to herself. “She’s starving.” But her hand trembled when she put down the fourth bun. “I’m not starving,” she said—and she put down the fifth.
The little starving London savage was still snatching and devouring when she turned away. She was too ravenous to give any thanks, even if she had been taught politeness—which she had not. She was only a poor little wild animal.
“Good-bye,” said Sara.
When she reached the other side of the street she looked back. The child had a bun in both hands, and had stopped in the middle of a bite to watch her. Sara gave her a little nod, and the child, after another stare,—a curious, longing stare,—jerked her shaggy head in response, and until Sara was out of sight she did not take another bite or even finish the one she had begun.
At that moment the baker-woman glanced out of her shop-window.
“Well, I never!” she exclaimed. “If that young’un hasn’t given her buns to a beggar-child! It wasn’t because she didn’t want them, either— well, well, she looked hungry enough. I’d give something to know what she did it for.” She stood behind her window for a few moments and pondered. Then her curiosity got the better of her. She went to the door and spoke to the beggar-child.
“Who gave you those buns?” she asked her.
The child nodded her head toward Sara’s vanishing figure.
“What did she say?” inquired the woman.
“Axed me if I was ‘ungry,” replied the hoarse voice.
“What did you say?”
“Said I was jist!”
“And then she came in and got buns and came out and gave them to you, did she?”
The child nodded.
“How many?”
“Five.”
The woman thought it over. “Left just one for herself,” she said, in a low voice. “And she could have eaten the whole six—I saw it in her eyes.”
She looked after the little, draggled, far-away figure, and felt more disturbed in her usually comfortable mind than she had felt for many a day.
“I wish she hadn’t gone so quick,” she said. “I’m blest if she shouldn’t have had a dozen.”
Then she turned to the child.
“Are you hungry, yet?” she asked.
