"Pore little dear," said one, as she settled the bow more securely under her own boy's sailor collar,—"pore little dear, he's all alone in the world."
"I never did see in all my life sich a young child look so sad," said another.
"H'm!" put in a third; "in this world pore motherless childern has plenty o' reason to look sad, I tell you."
She brushed the tears off the cheek of her little son whom she had slapped a moment before. She was tender now.
One woman bent down and whispered into her child's ear as she pointed with one cotton-gloved finger, "See, Johnny, see little Freddie, there; he 'ain't got no mother no more. Pore little Freddie! ain't you sorry fur him?" The child nodded, and gazed with open-eyed wonder at "little Freddie" as if he were of a new species.
The curtains, stirred by the blast through the loose windows, flapped dismally, and the people drew their wraps about them, for the fireless room was cold. Steadily, insistently, the hive-like drone of conversation murmured on.
"I wonder who's a-goin' to preach the funeral," asked one.
