“Wait until I see if I can find the violin.”

So Elnora went home in suspense, and that night she added to her prayers:  “Dear Lord, be merciful to my father, and oh, do help Aunt Margaret to get his violin.”

Wesley and Billy came in to supper tired and hungry.  Billy ate heartily, but his eyes often rested on a plate of tempting cookies, and when Wesley offered them to the boy he reached for one.  Margaret was compelled to explain that cookies were forbidden that night.

“What!” said Wesley.  “Wrong words been coming again.  Oh Billy, I do wish you could remember!  I can’t sit and eat cookies before a little boy who has none.  I’ll have to put mine back, too.”  Billy’s face twisted in despair.

“Aw go on!” he said gruffly, but his chin was jumping, for Wesley was his idol.

“Can’t do it,” said Wesley.  “It would choke me.”

Billy turned to Margaret.  “You make him,” he appealed.

“He can’t, Billy,” said Margaret.  “I know how he feels.  You see, I can’t myself.”

Then Billy slid from his chair, ran to the couch, buried his face in the pillow and cried heart-brokenly.  Wesley hurried to the barn, and Margaret to the kitchen.  When the dishes were washed Billy slipped from the back door.

Wesley piling hay into the mangers heard a sound behind him and inquired, “That you, Billy?”

“Yes,” answered Billy, “and it’s all so dark you can’t see me now, isn’t it?”

“Well, mighty near,” answered Wesley.

“Then you stoop down and open your mouth.”

Sinton had shared bites of apple and nuts for weeks, for Billy had not learned how to eat anything without dividing with Jimmy and Belle.  Since he had been separated from them, he shared with Wesley and Margaret.  So he bent over the boy and received an instalment of cooky that almost choked him.

“Now you can eat it!” shouted Billy in delight.  “It’s all dark!  I can’t see what you’re doing at all!”

Wesley picked up the small figure and set the boy on the back of a horse to bring his face level so that they could talk as men.  He never towered from his height above Billy, but always lifted the little soul when important matters were to be discussed.

“Now what a dandy scheme,” he commented.  “Did you and Aunt Margaret fix it up?”

“No.  She ain’t had hers yet.  But I got one for her.  Ist as soon as you eat yours, I am going to take hers, and feed her first time I find her in the dark.”

“But Billy, where did you get the cookies?  You know Aunt Margaret said you were not to have any.”

“I ist took them,” said Billy, “I didn’t take them for me.  I ist took them for you and her.”

Wesley thought fast.  In the warm darkness of the barn the horses crunched their corn, a rat gnawed at a corner of the granary, and among the rafters the white pigeon cooed a soft sleepy note to his dusky mate.