Page:Augusta Seaman--Jacqueline of the carrier pigeons.djvu/114

90 “I brought down the rabbit with a stone, here on the Hill early this morning. Then I skinned him, dressed him, built a fire and  roasted him before it, and hid him away in a  cool place for our treat this afternoon. Thou must eat exactly half of it now, or I will tell Jan all about thy deception.”

“But Vrouw Voorhaas!” said the girl, doubtfully. “We ought to take some of it to her.”

“Nay,” he answered. “I have watched her, and I know what she does, also. She would thank us and put it aside, only to  present it to us at another meal, saying she  could not eat it herself. And what is more, she never would eat it, if we left it till it  rotted away, so we might just as well finish it  now.”

Together they divided the doubtful dainty, and devoured it as though it were the perfection of epicurean cookery; never did a  meal taste sweeter to these half-famished  children, as they sat nibbling the last vestige