WHEREIN MRS. COMSTOCK MANIPULATES MARGARET AND BILLY ACQUIRES A
RESIDENCE
Saturday morning Elnora helped her mother with the
work. When she had finished Mrs. Comstock told
her to go to Sintons’ and wash her Indian relics,
so that she would be ready to accompany Wesley to town
in the afternoon. Elnora hurried down the road
and was soon at the cistern with a tub busily washing
arrow points, stone axes, tubes, pipes, and skin-cleaning
implements.
Then she went home, dressed and was waiting when the
carriage reached the gate. She stopped at the
bank with the box, and Sinton went to do his marketing
and some shopping for his wife.
At the dry goods store Mr. Brownlee called to him,
“Hello, Sinton! How do you like the fate
of your lunch box?” Then he began to laugh—
“I always hate to see a man laughing alone,”
said Sinton. “It looks so selfish!
Tell me the fun, and let me help you.”
Mr. Brownlee wiped his eyes.
“I supposed you knew, but I see she hasn’t
told.”
Then the three days’ history of the lunch box
was repeated with particulars which included the dog.
“Now laugh!” concluded Mr. Brownlee.
“Blest if I see anything funny!” replied
Wesley Sinton. “And if you had bought that
box and furnished one of those lunches yourself, you
wouldn’t either. I call such a work a shame!
I’ll have it stopped.”
“Some one must see to that, all right.
They are little leeches. Their father earns enough
to support them, but they have no mother, and they
run wild. I suppose they are crazy for cooked
food. But it is funny, and when you think it
over you will see it, if you don’t now.”
“About where would a body find that father?”
inquired Wesley Sinton grimly. Mr. Brownlee told
him and he started, locating the house with little
difficulty. House was the proper word, for of
home there was no sign. Just a small empty house
with three unkept little children racing through and
around it. The girl and the elder boy hung back,
but dirty little Billy greeted Sinton with: “What
you want here?”
“I want to see your father,” said Sinton.
“Well, he’s asleep,” said Billy.
“Where?” asked Sinton.
“In the house,” answered Billy, “and
you can’t wake him.”
“Well, I’ll try,” said Wesley.
Billy led the way. “There he is!”
he said. “He is drunk again.”
On a dirty mattress in a corner lay a man who appeared
to be strong and well. Billy was right.
You could not awake him. He had gone the limit,
and a little beyond.
He was now facing eternity. Sinton went out and
closed the door.
“Your father is sick and needs help,”
he said. “You stay here, and I will send
a man to see him.”
“If you just let him ’lone, he’ll
sleep it off,” volunteered Billy. “He’s
that way all the time, but he wakes up and gets us
something to eat after awhile. Only waitin’
twists you up inside pretty bad.”
