Page:Her Benny - Silas K Hocking (Warne, 1890).djvu/161

Rh "No," said the gentleman shortly, and hurried on.

"Oh, please, sir, do!" said Benny, his eyes filling with tears. "I's had no luck to-day."

But the gentleman did not heed his tears or his pleading voice. He had been annoyed at the delay of the boat, and he was in no mood to brook further delay. So he said sternly—

"Be off with you this moment!"

Benny turned away with a great sob, for since Nelly died rebuffs had become doubly hard to bear. He did not try to get another fare, but stood looking out on the storm-tossed river, trying to gulp down the great lumps that rose continually in his throat.

"I specks I'll have to starve," he thought bitterly, "for I can't get a copper to-day nohow."

Just then he felt a touch on his arm, and turning his brimming eyes, he saw the little girl he had noticed on the boat.

"What's the matter, little boy?" she said, in a voice that sounded like music to the sad-hearted child.

They were the first kind words that had been spoken to him for the day, and they completely broke him down.

At length he stammered out between his sobs—

"Oh, I's so hungry an' cold, an' little Nelly's dead; an' all the world is agin me."

"Have you no father?" she said.

"No: I's no father, nor mother, nor sister, nor nobody. Nelly was all I had in the world, an' now she's dead."