All there was to give the
tiny sufferer, was a little gruel made from snow water, containing a
slight sprinkling of coarse flour. This flour was simply ground wheat,
unbolted. Day after day the sweet little darling would lie helplessly
upon its grandmother's lap, and seem with its large, sad eyes to be
pleading for nourishment. Mrs. Murphy carefully kept the little handful
of flour concealed - there was only a handful at the very beginning -
lest some of the starving children might get possession of the treasure.
Each day she gave Catherine a few teaspoonfuls of the gruel. Strangely
enough, this poor little martyr did not often cry with hunger, but with
tremulous, quivering mouth, and a low, subdued sob or moan, would appear
to be begging for something to eat. The poor, dumb lips, if gifted with
speech, could not have uttered a prayer half so eloquent, so touching.
Could the mother, Mrs. Pike, have been present, it would have broken her
heart to see her patient babe dying slowly, little by little. Starvation
had dried the maternal breasts long before Mrs. Pike went away, so that
no one can censure her for leaving her baby. She could only have done as
Mrs. Murphy did, give it the plain, coarse gruel, and watch it die, day
by day, upon her lap.
Up to this time, but little has been said of Patrick Breen.
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