“Here, you poor darling, take mine! And don’t be afraid--you’ll find your mother before long.” Edith’s words were brave, but her own eyes were moist.
“First you must eat, and rest, so that you can tell us about your mother; then we’ll see what can be done.” Mrs. Bennett took the child into the pleasant living-room where Billy had put a fourth place at the table next his own.
“Say, little kid, what’s your name?” he asked, merrily, as he routed a great white cat from his own chair and placed it before the fire for the child.
“Mary Ellen Smith; but my mama calls me May Nell; and she says--she says ‘kid’ is vulgar.” The last words were very shy.
“The child may eclipse you in refining Billy’s language,” Mrs. Bennett said, with a smile, aside to Edith; and went into the kitchen to “dish up” the dinner.
Edith finished her music lesson, dismissed her pupil, and made the little girl tidy if comical, in one of her own frocks. And when the four sat to eat, Billy’s voice rang above the rest in the little song they sang in lieu of grace.
The place Billy called the Fo’castle was a tiny room in the sloping windmill tower. It was level with the second floor of the house, and a narrow, railed bridge connected it with a door in his mother’s room. Under it was the above-ground cellar, overhead the big tank. Still higher whirled the great white wings that pumped the beauty-giving water to lawn and gardens.
The little room was rude and bare, but Billy loved it. He thought the massive beams like the ribs of a ship, and planned to hang between them all his ship pictures. Anything relating to the sea fired his imagination. It gave him a sense of manliness to sleep there alone; and when the heavier gusts of night wind rocked the tower, and each revolution of the big wheel splashed the water against the tank, as waves lap a ship’s side, he dreamed himself on the ocean, called himself “Captain.”
He woke early the next morning. This was rare for him; he usually slept like a bear in midwinter. Perhaps the creaking of the windmill all through the night made his slumber light. Another noise had disturbed him, the sewing machine. Its whirr had come up to him from the open window of the living-room. He knew mother and sister were sewing hard, that on the morrow the poor little stranger might be suitably clad. _He_ had brought upon them this extra work! And this was only the beginning. If the child’s mother was not found they must buy clothes as well as food; and this would take a lot of his sister’s money.