“Say, son,” he said.  “How would you like to be washed clean, and have all the supper your skin could hold, and sleep in a good bed?”

“Aw, gee!” said Billy.  “I ain’t dead yet!  Them things is in heaven!  Poor folks can’t have them.  Pa said so.”

“Well, you can have them if you want to go with me and get them,” promised Sinton.

“Honest?”

“Yes, honest.”

“Crost yer heart?”

“Yes,” said Sinton.

“Kin I take some to Jimmy and Belle?”

“If you’ll come with me and be my boy, I’ll see that they have plenty.”

“What will pa say?”

“Your pa is in that kind of sleep now where he won’t wake up, Billy,” said Sinton.  “I am pretty sure the law will give you to me, if you want to come.”

“When people don’t ever wake up they’re dead,” announced Billy.  “Is my pa dead?”

“Yes, he is,” answered Sinton.

“And you’ll take care of Jimmy and Belle, too?”

“I can’t adopt all three of you,” said Sinton.  “I’ll take you, and see that they are well provided for.  Will you come?”

“Yep, I’ll come,” said Billy.  “Let’s eat, first thing we do.”

“All right,” agreed Sinton.  “Come into this restaurant.”  He lifted Billy to the lunch counter and ordered the clerk to give him as many glasses of milk as he wanted, and a biscuit.  “I think there’s going to be fried chicken when we get home, Billy,” he said, “so you just take the edge off now, and fill up later.”

While Billy lunched Sinton called up the different departments and notified the proper authorities ending with the Women’s Relief Association.  He sent a basket of food to Belle and Jimmy, bought Billy a pair of trousers, and a shirt, and went to bring Elnora.

“Why, Uncle Wesley!” cried the girl.  “Where did you find Billy?”

“I’ve adopted him for the time being, if not longer,” replied Wesley Sinton.

“Where did you get him?”

“Well, young woman,” said Wesley Sinton, “Mr. Brownlee told me the history of your lunch box.  It didn’t seem so funny to me as it does to the rest of them; so I went to look up the father of Billy’s family, and make him take care of them, or allow the law to do it for him.  It will have to be the law.”

“He’s deader than anything!” broke in Billy.  “He can’t ever take all the meat any more.”

“Billy!” gasped Elnora.

“Never you mind!” said Sinton.  “A child doesn’t say such things about a father who loved and raised him right.  When it happens, the father alone is to blame.  You won’t hear Billy talk like that about me when I cross over.”

“You don’t mean you are going to take him to keep!”

“I’ll soon need help,” said Wesley.  “Billy will come in just about right ten years from now, and if I raise him I’ll have him the way I want him.”

“But Aunt Margaret doesn’t like boys,” objected Elnora.