Down below Henri opened the kitchen door and snapped his fingers to call
the dog. Looking out, Jules saw him set a plate of bones on the step.
For a moment he listened to the animal's contented crunching, and then
crept across the room to his cot, with a little moan. "O-o-oh--o-oh!" he
sobbed. "Even the dog has more than I have, and I'm _so_ hungry!" He hid
his head awhile in the old quilt; then he raised it again, and, with the
tears streaming down his thin little face, sobbed in a heartbroken
whisper: "Mother! Mother! Do you know how hungry I am?"
A clatter of knives and forks from the kitchen below was the only
answer, and he dropped despairingly down again.
"She's so far away she can't even hear me!" he moaned. "Oh, if I could
only be dead, too!"
He lay there, crying, till Henri had finished washing the supper dishes
and had put them clumsily away. The rank odor of tobacco, stealing up
the stairs, told him that Brossard had settled down to enjoy his evening
pipe. Through the casement window that was still ajar came the faint
notes of an accordeon from Monsieur Greville's garden, across the way.
Gabriel, the coachman, was walking up and down in the moonlight, playing
a wheezy accompaniment to the only song he knew. Jules did not notice it
at first, but after awhile, when he had cried himself quiet, the faint
melody began to steal soothingly into his consciousness.
Pages:
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45