I went on to the house, but I went, looking back.
“Mother,” I said, “who is she? The little girl out there.”
While she put up my lunch in the Indian basket, Mother told me how Mary Elizabeth had come that morning asking for something to do. She had set her to work, and meanwhile she was finding out who she was. “I gave her something to eat,” Mother said. “And I have never seen even you so hungry.” Hungry and having no food. I had never heard of such a thing at first hand—not nearer than in books and in Sunday school. But {. . . hungry that way, and in our yard!
It was chiefly this that accounted for my invitation to her—this, and the fact that, as she came to the door to tell my Mother good-bye and to take what she had earned, she gave me again that slow, understanding-me smile. Anyway, as we walked toward the gate, I overtook her with my Indian basket.
“Don’t you want to come to the picnic with us?” I said.
She stared at me. “What do you do?” she asked.
