“Brewster.  I remember you well.”  She looked past him to the small boy.

“Jeremy,” the small boy said.  She guessed he was six.

“I saw you around the side of the wagon that day.”

“When you made the bread.”

“Yes, and your feet were black.  Are they still black?”  She bent down and picked up one of his small feet.  “Oh my gosh they are.  Imagine that.”

“Will there be more bread?”

“So much more bread.”  She bent to the smallest child, a girl.

“This is Grace,” Ada said.  Charlotte turned to Ada, a question in her eyes.  The child’s face was puffy and her eyes swollen as if she’d been crying for days.  “I don’t know what to do anymore.”

“I have to let go of your hand,” Charlotte said.  “Not forever, just for now.”

Charlotte leaned down and picked up Grace.  She balanced the little girl on her hip, one arm around her tiny waist.  With her other hand, Charlotte reached down for the hem of her own petticoat and used it to blow the girl’s nose.

“Grace, this is where you’re going to stay.  I’m not putting you down for quite some time.  Is that okay with you?”  For no reason that Charlotte could understand, the child shook her head yes.

“Let’s see where we are,” Charlotte said, sitting down in one of the rocking chairs with Grace in her lap.  “What do you do for food?”

“They bring it,” Ada said.

“Have you eaten yet tonight?”

“Not yet,” Ada said carefully.

“Does it not always come?”

“No, it comes.”

“But what?”

“But it’s not always good,” Brewster said.  “Sometimes you’re not even sure what it is.”  Charlotte gritted her teeth.

“That can be fixed.”  There was a knock.

“Here it is,” Brewster said.

Ada got up and answered the door.  It was Joseph Beacham.  He had a large hunk of bread in one hand and a pot in the other.

“Ma’am,” he said, nodding to Charlotte.  She resisted the temptation one more time.

“What have you brought us?”

He frowned.  “I’m not sure.  Some kind of meat.”

“Is it horse?”  He looked horrified.

“We don’t eat the horses.  That I know of.”

“Badger then maybe?”

“I don’t know,” he said.  She realized she was being unfair.  He put the bread and the pot on the table and fled.

Charlotte stood up and adjusted Grace on her hip.  “I’ll be back.  Unless you all want to come with me.”  They did.