forget her. Even the little children stayed away since she had no longer
the heart to tell them the tales she had once told her sons; and she must
no longer bake the little cakes since every day saw her small hoard of
money diminishing.

At last, when the winter tempests were raging, and the sleet was beating
upon the thatch, there came a day when no food remained in the cottage;
and Mother Huldah felt too weak and sick to go out in quest of it. Nor
did she wish to tell her neighbors that no food remained in the cottage.

So full of weary dreams and old sad thoughts she sat down in one of the
armchairs before the fire, and whether she nodded from drowsiness, or
whether Tommie nodded at her she never knew, but he moved his black head
and opened his pink mouth, and said he, "Suppose I fetch you a bird just
this once."

She was much surprised, for Tommie had never talked to her before, but
she did not show how astonished she was because she was always very
polite to him. So she replied, "Bless your whiskers! Tommie! but we won't
break through our rule. Maybe some neighbor will fetch me a loaf!"

"Maybe they will and perhaps they won't," said Tommie, "they're an
ungrateful lot."

"They think I am still rich, my dear," she answered.

"So you are, but not in the way they mean," Tommie said. "And,
Mother Huldah, if they neglect you a day longer it won't be your
Tommie's fault."