He told her and she went to them, to look down at them and say, “If you and their father hadn’t helped each other that day they wouldn’t be here, nor you, nor I, nor Johnny⁠—none of us in this room.”

“They won’t live out the day,” he said. “They have to have milk⁠—and there isn’t any.”

She reached down to touch them and they seemed to sense that she was someone different. They stirred, making tiny whimpering sounds and trying to move their heads to nuzzle at her fingers.

Compassion came to her face, like a soft light.

“They’re so young,” she said. “So terribly young to have to die.⁠ ⁠…”

She looked at Johnny and at the little bottle that held his too-small morning ration of milk.

“Johnny⁠—Johnny⁠—” Her words were almost a whisper. “You’re hungry⁠—but we can’t let them die. And someday, for this, they will fight for your life.”

She sat on the bed and placed the pups in her lap beside Johnny. She lifted a little black head with gentle fingers and a little pink mouth ceased whimpering as it found the nipple of Johnny’s bottle.

Johnny’s gray eyes darkened with the storm of approaching protest. Then the other pup touched his hand, crying in its hunger, and the protest faded as surprise and something like sudden understanding came into his eyes.

Julia withdrew the bottle from the first pup and transferred it to the second one. Its crying ceased and Johnny leaned forward to touch it again, and the one beside it.

He made his decision with an approving sound and leaned back against his mother’s shoulder, patiently awaiting his own turn and their presence accepted as though they had been born his brother and sister.

The golden light of the new day shone on them, on his daughter and grandson and the prowler pups, and in it he saw the bright omen for the future.