Their clothing was not so warm, however, but that their noses looked red
and pinched, and their small figures shrunken, as the boy walked up and
down, nursing and hushing the child with its head on his shoulder.
"Who has locked you up here alone?" we naturally asked.
"Charley," said the boy.
"Is Charley your brother?"
"No, she's my sister, Charlotte. Father called her Charley."
"Are there any more of you besides Charley?"
"Me," said the boy, "and Emma," patting the child he was nursing, "and
Charley."
"Where is Charley now?"
"Out a-washing," said the boy, beginning to walk up and down again, and
even as he spoke there came into the room a very little girl, childish
in figure, but shrewd and older looking in the face--pretty faced,
too--wearing a womanly sort of a bonnet, much too large for her, and
drying her bare arms on a womanly sort of apron. Her fingers were white
and wrinkled with washing, and the soap-suds were yet smoking, which she
wiped off her arms. But for this, she might have been a child, playing
at washing, and imitating a poor working woman with a quick observation
of the truth.
She had come running from some place in the neighborhood. Consequently,
though she was very light, she was out of breath, and could not speak at
first, as she stood panting and wiping her arms. "O, here's Charley!"
said the boy.
The child he was nursing stretched forward its arms and cried out to be
taken by Charley.
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