Page:Anna Chapin--Half a dozen boys.djvu/175

Rh “Sure,” remarked Bridget sagely, “we’d better be ’atin’ a lot of it, thin, for it needs all  the brains we can get to know how to get three  meals a day, wid nothin’ to make ’em of. And all the clo’es layin’ wet in the tubs, miss! What in the world will we do wid ’em?”

The second day was longer than the first. Mr. Carter, they knew, was safe in his office, while a restaurant on the ground floor of the building would supply him with food; but they  trembled to think of the suffering among the  poor about them, suffering that they were  powerless to relieve. The time dragged slowly along. Late in the day the wind ceased, and after their dinner Fred threw himself on the  sofa, and at once dropped to sleep from sheer  exhaustion. Bess covered him gently, and then followed her mother into the parlor, where she dropped into a chair.

“At last,” she whispered, with a backward glance at the brown head on the pillow, “I can  draw a long breath. That child hasn’t slept a moment since yesterday morning. It is strange how nervous he has been.”

“It has been a fearful storm for all of us,”