With the last morsel of bread, Tom King wiped his plate clean
of the last particle of flour gravy and chewed the resulting mouthful
in a slow meditative way. When he arose from the table,
he was oppressed by the feeling that he was distinctly hungry.
Yet he alone had eaten. The two children in the other room
had been sent early to bed in order that in sleep they might forget
that they had gone supperless.

His wife had touched nothing, and had sat silently and watched him
with solicitous eyes. She was a thin, worn woman of the working-class,
though signs of and earlier prettiness were not wanting in her face.
The flour for the gravy she had borrowed from the neighbor
across the hall. The last two ha'pennies had gone to buy the bread.