Short Stories
"Now, don't be hoggish, Johnny," was her comment. "You've
had your share. Your brothers an' sisters are smaller'n you."
He did not answer the rebuke. He was not much of a talker.
Also, he ceased his hungry glancing for more. He was uncom-
plaining, with a patience that was as terrible as the school in
which it had been learned. He finished his coffee, wiped his
mouth on the back of his hand, and started to rise.
"Wait a second," she said hastily. "I guess the loaf kin stand
you another slice—a thin un."
There was legerdemain in her actions. With all the seeming
of cutting a slice from the loaf for him, she put loaf and slice
back in the bread box and conveyed to him one of her own two
slices. She believed she had deceived him, but he had noted her
sleight-of-hand. Nevertheless, he took the bread shamelessly. He
had a philosophy that his mother, what of her chronic sickliness,
was not much of an eater anyway.
She saw that he was chewing the bread dry, and reached
over and emptied her coffee cup into his.
"Don't set good somehow on my stomach this morning," she
explained.
A distant whistle, prolonged and shrieking, brought both of
them to their feet. She glanced at the tin alarm-clock on the shelf.
The hands stood at half-past five. The rest of the factory world
was just arousing from sleep. She drew a shawl about her shoul-
ders, and on her head put a dingy hat, shapeless and ancient.
"We've got to run," she said, turning the wick of the lamp and
blowing down the chimney.
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