Mrs. Green had taken up her baby and was feeding it, and the other
women, with sullen faces, had resumed their neglected duties.
"Oh dear! Must you go?" Tommy exclaimed as Theo got off the cot on
which he had been sitting. "But you was real good to come,
anyhow. When'll ye come again an' tell me some more letters?"
"I'll show ye one ev'ry day if I can get time. Then in three weeks
you'll know all the big ones an' some o' the little ones that are just
like the big ones. Now don't ye forget them three."
"You bet I won't. I shall say 'em a hundred times 'fore to-morrow,"
rejoined the little fellow, and his eyes followed his new friend
eagerly until the door closed behind him.
As for Theodore himself, half the weight seemed to have been lifted
from his own heart as he went down the stairs again.
"I'll run outside a minute 'fore I go to supper," he said to
himself. "The air was awful thick in that room. Reckon that's one
thing makes Tommy feel so bad."
He walked briskly around two or three squares, and as he came back to
the house he noticed that the girl and the baby still sat where he had
seen them an hour before. The baby's cry had ceased, but it began
again as Theo was passing the two. He stopped and looked at them. The
girl's eyes rested on his face with a dull, indifferent glance.
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