e rough floor, they all burned their mouths in
tasting the mush too eagerly. Then there they sat, blowing into their
bowls, glaring into them, lifting their loaded iron spoons
occasionally to taste cautiously, till the mush had somewhat cooled.

Then, _gobble-de-gobble-de-gobble_, it was all gone! Though they had
neither sugar, nor milk, nor butter to it, they found it a remarkably
excellent sample of mush, and wished only that, in quantity, it had
been something more.

Peter McGrath sat close beside the cooking-stove, holding Number Ten,
a girl-baby, who was asleep, and rocking Number Eleven, who was trying
to wake up, in the low, unpainted cradle. He never took his eyes off
Number Eleven; he could not bear to look around and see the nine
devouring the corn-meal so hungrily. Perhaps McGrath could not, and
certainly he would not,--he was so obstinate,--have told why he felt
so reproached by the scene. He had felt very guilty for many weeks.

Twenty, yes, a hundred times a day he looked in a dazed way at his big
hands, and they reproached him, too, that they had no work.

"Where is our smooth, broad-axe handle?" asked the fingers, "and why
do not the wide chips fly?"

He was ashamed, too, every time he rose up, so tall and strong, with
nothing to do, and eleven children and his wife next door to
starvation; but if he had been asked to describe his feelings, he
would merely have growled out angrily something against old John
Pontiac.

"You'll take your sup now, Peter?" asked Mrs. McGrath, offering him
the biggest of the yellow bowls. He looked up then, first at her
forlorn face, then at the pot. Number Nine was diligently scraping off
some streaks of mush that had run down the outside; Numbers Eight,
Seven, Six, and Five were looking respectfully into the pot; Numbers
Four, Three, Two, and One were watching the pot, the steaming bowl,
and their father at the same time. Peter McGrath was very hungry.

"Yourself had better eat, Mary Ann," he said. "I'll be having mine
after it's cooler."

Mrs. McGrath dipped more than a third of the bowlful back into the
pot, and ate the rest with much satisfaction. The numerals watched her
anxiously but resignedly.

"Sure it'll be cold entirely, Peter dear," she said, "and the warmth
is so comforting. Give me little Norah now, the darlint! and be after
eating your supper."

She had ladled out the last spoonful of mush, and the pot was being
scraped inside earnestly by Nine, Ei