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A Late Supper
by
“I’m really sorry,” said Miss Spring; “but you see, I’m thinking about shutting my house up this summer.” She would not allow to herself that it was for any longer. “But you keep up a good heart. I know a good many folks, and perhaps I can hear of a place for you. I suppose you could mind a baby, couldn’t you? No: you sit still a minute!” as the child thanked her, and rose to go away; and she went out to her dining-room closet to a deep jar, and took out two of her best pound-cakes, which she made so seldom now, and saved with great care. She put these on a pretty pink-and-white china plate, and filled a mug with milk. “Here,” said she, as she came back, “I want you to eat these cakes. You have walked a long ways, and it’ll do you good. Sit right up to the table, and I’ll spread a newspaper over the cloth.”
Katy looked at her with surprise and gratitude. “I’m very much obliged,” said she; and her first bite of the cake seemed the most delicious thing she had ever tasted.
Yes, I suppose bread and butter would have been quite as good for her, and much less extravagant on Miss Catherine’s part; but of all the people who had praised her pound-cakes, nobody had so delighted in their goodness as this hungry little girl, who had hardly ever eaten any thing but bread all her days, and not very good bread at that.
“Don’t hurry,” said Miss Spring kindly, “you’re a good girl, and I wish I could take you,–I declare I do.” And, with a little sigh, she sat down by the window again, and took up the much-neglected sewing, looking up now and then at her happy guest. When she saw the mug was empty, and that Katy looked at it wistfully as she put it down, she took it without a word, and went to the shelf in the cellar-way where the cream-pitcher stood, and poured out every drop that was in it, afterward filling the mug to the brim with milk, for her little pitcher did not hold much. “I’ll get along one night without cream in my tea,” said she to herself. “That was only skim-milk she had first, and she looks hungry.”
“It’s real pleasant here,” said Katy, “you’re so good! Aunt said I could tell you, if you wanted to take me, that I don’t tear my clothes, and I’m careful about the dishes. She thought I wouldn’t be a bother. Would you tell the other people? I should be real glad to get a place.”
“I’ll tell ’em you’re a good girl,” said Miss Catherine; “and I’ll get you a good home if I can.” For she thought of her niece in Lowell, and how much trouble there was when she was there about getting a careful young girl to take care of the smallest child. Then it occurred to her that Katy was very small herself, and did not look very strong, and Mary might not hear to it; so, after Katy had gone, she began to be sorrowful again, and to wish she had promised less, and need not disappoint the little thing.
Another hour had gone, and it was four o’clock now, and in a few minutes she heard a carriage stop at the gate. She heard several voices, and was discouraged for a minute. Three people were coming in; and she was so glad when she saw it was a nephew and his wife from a town a dozen miles away, and a friend with them whom she had often seen at their house. They came in with good-natured chatter and much laughing. They had started out for a drive early after dinner, and had found the weather so pleasant that they had kept on to Brookton.
“I don’t know what the folks will think,” said they: “we meant to be back right away.”–“Well,” said the niece, “I’m so glad we found you at home; and how well you do look, Aunt Catherine! I declare, you’re smarter than any of us.”