I reached into a trunk that stood just beside me and took out a box that I hadn’t looked into for years.  His letters were all there, and his photographs, that were very handsome.  I could hardly see them through my tears, but I knew that they were dim in places with being cried over when I had put them away years ago after Aunt Adeline decided that I was to be married.  I kissed the poor little-girl cry-spots; and with that a perfect flood of tears rose to my eyes—­but they didn’t fall, for there, right in front of me, stood a more woe-stricken human being than I could possibly be, if I judged by appearances.

“Molly, Molly,” gulped Billy, “I am so ill I’m going to die here on the floor,” and he sank into my arms.

“Oh, Billy, what is the matter?” I gasped and gave him a little terrified shake.

“Mamie Johnson did it—­poked her finger down her throat and mine, too,” he wailed against my breast.  “We was full of things people gived us to eat and couldn’t eat no more.  She said if we did that with our fingers it would make room for some more then.  She did it, and I’m going to die dead—­dead!

“No, no, pet; you’ll be all right in a second.  Stay quiet here in your Molly’s lap and you will be well in just a few minutes,” I said with a smile I hid in his yellow mop as I kissed the drake-tail kiss-spot.  “Where’s Mamie?” I thought to ask with the greatest apprehension.

“In the garden eating cup-cake Jane baked hot for both of us,” he answered, snuggling close and much comforted.

“Don’t ever, ever do that again, Billy,” I said, giving him both a hug and a shake.  “It’s piggy to eat more than is good for you and then still want more.  What would your father say?”

“Father isn’t no good, and I don’t care what he says,” answered Billy with spirit.  “He don’t play no more, and he don’t laugh no more, and he don’t eat no more hardly, too.  I’m not going to live in that house with him more’n two days longer.  I want to come over and sleep in your bed and have you to play with me, Molly.”

“Don’t say that, darling, ever again,” I said as I bent over him.  “Your father is the best man in the world, and you must never, never leave him.”

“I ’spect I will, when I get big enough to kill a bear,” answered Billy decidedly.  “I say, do you think Mamie saved even a little piece of that cake?  I ’spect I had better go see,” and he slipped out of my arms and was gone before I could hold him.

It is a lonely house across the garden with the big and the tiny man in it all by themselves!  And tears, from another corner of my heart entirely, rose to my eyes at the thought, but they, too, never fell, for I heard Mrs. Johnson calling, and I had to run down quick and see what new delicacy had arrived for my party.