"There is lots of folks as goes without breakfast allers, from choice,"
informed Amarilly. "Miss Vail, the teacher at the Guild, says it's
hygeniack."
"It won't hurt us and the boys," said Mrs. Jenkins, "but Iry and Co is
too young to go hungry even if it be hygeniack."
"They ain't agoin' hungry," declared Amarilly. "I'll pervide fer them."
With a small pitcher under her cape she started bravely forth on a
foraging expedition. After walking a few blocks she came to a white
house whose woodhouse joined the alley. Hiding behind a barrel she
watched and waited until a woman opened the back door and set a soup
plate of milk on the lowest step.
"Come a kits! Come a kits!" she called shrilly, and then went back into
the house.
The "kits" came on the run; so did Amarilly. She arrived first, and
hastily emptied the contents of the soup plate into her pitcher. Then
she fled, leaving two dismayed maltese kittens disconsolately lapping an
empty dish.
"Here's milk for Iry," she announced, handing the pitcher to her mother.
"Now I'll go and get some breakfast for Co."
She returned presently with a sugared doughnut.
"Where did you borry the milk and nut-cake?" asked her mother
wonderingly.
"I didn't borry them," replied Amarilly stoically. "I stole them."
"Stole them! Am-a-ril-ly Jenk-ins!"
"Twan't exackly stealin'," argued Amarilly cheerfully. "I took the milk
from two little cats what git stuffed with milk every morning and night.
The doughnut had jest been stuck in a parrot's cage. He hedn't tetched
it. My! he swore fierce! I'd ruther steal, anyway, than let Iry and Co
go hungry."
"What would the preacher say!" demanded her mother solemnly. "He would
say it was wrong."
"He don't know nothin' about bein' hungry!" replied Amarilly defiantly.
"If he was ever as hungry as Iry, I bet he'd steal from a cat."
The season was now summer. Some time ago John Meredith had gone to the
seashore and the King family to their summer home in the mountains,
unaware that the fever had spread over so wide an area in the Jenkins
domain. The theatre and St. Mark's were closed for the rest of the
summer. The little boys found that their positions had been filled
during the period of quarantine. None of these catastrophes, however,
could be compared to the calamity of the realization that Bud alone of
all the patients had not convalesced completely. He was a delicate
little fellow, and he grew paler and thinner each day. In desperation
Amarilly went to the doctor.