it and dashed down the darkening street toward the little cottage near
the willows belonging to his Aunt Saxon. He was whistling as he went,
for he was happy. He had found a way to keep his cake and eat it too.
It would not have been Billy if he had not found a way out.

Aunt Saxon turned a drawn and anxious face away from the window at his
approach and drew a sigh of momentary relief. This bringing up boys was
a terrible ordeal. But thanks be this immediate terror was past and her
sister's orphaned child still lived! She hurried to the stove where the
waiting supper gave forth a pleasant odor.

"Been down to the game at M'nop'ly," he explained happily as he flung
breezily into the kitchen and dashed his cap on a chair, "Gee! That ham
smells good! Say, Saxy, whad-ya do with that can of black paint I left
on the door step last Saturday?"

"It's in a wooden box in the corner of the shed, Willie," answered his
Aunt, "Come to supper now. It'll all get cold. I've been waiting most
an hour."

"Oh, hang it! I don't s'pose you know where the brush is--Yes, I'm
coming. Oh, here 'tis!"

He ate ravenously and briefly. His aunt watched him with a kind of
breathless terror waiting for the inevitable remark at the close:
"Well, I gotta beat it! I gotta date with the fellas!"

She had ceased to argue. She merely looked distressed. It seemed a part
of his masculinity that was inevitable.