After completing the task of unburdening the sack, Mrs. Barton delivered the youngest child unto Star to tend while she set about to cook a meal. Her bill of fare was meager and simple, withal. It consisted wholly of fried potatoes, dough-bread hurryingly mixed, and coffee. After the fare was spread upon the table, ten greedy youngsters and their mother sat down to dine, while Star stood off, waiting to take potluck with the leavings. Unselfish child, as she was, she deferred always first to the appeasement of the hunger of the others. The savory provender lay heaped in a lusterless dish in the center of the table, and the coffee stood hot in a tin pot on a corner of the stove, while the bread was broken into fragments, as per age of child and capacity, and laid by each place. As plates and cups and saucers, knives and forks, were not sufficient to go around, the younger children fought and scratched and pulled as to whose turn should come "next" in being served. Some being ferociously hungry, and impatient over delays, dipped into the platter with their hands, clapping the contents to their mouths, like monkeys, and ate their bread with such an eager determination to get filled up that they almost choked. Some drank the coffee out of the pot, and spluttered and cried and slobbered with such wild frenzy that they were called she-wolves by their mother sitting by eating sparingly but as contentedly and as heartily as if her young hopefuls were angels instead of brats. "Where's your pap?" asked the mother, directing her question to any, or all, of them, so indifferently was the question pronounced. "Went to the city," answered the eldest. "Naw he didn't," said the ten-year-old, after taking a swallow of the faintly discolored water called coffee. "When did he go?" again questioned the mother, after the lapse of a few minutes. "Soon after you left," answered the fourteen-year-old, indifferent as to where he went, "and took his overcoat with him." "To sell it, too, s'pose," said the mother unconcernedly. "Yep," replied the ten-year-old; "said he'd bring me a pair of shoes." "I see you gettin' a pair of shoes from him, Liz," retorted the mother, without the least concern whether the child had any or no, as she rolled the fried potatoes and dough-bread between her gums.