He waited another moment before he finished:
“But my father gave me to my Uncle John.”
Mr. Prescott sat still so long that Billy began to wonder whether he was ever going to say anything more.
At last he said:
“You do belong to your Uncle John. He has the first right. But I have a right of my own. You’ve come into my life, and you’re not going out of it.”
Then Mr. Prescott sat silent so long that Billy wondered, again, whether he ever would say anything more.
Just as Billy had decided that that was the end, Mr. Prescott began slowly, in a sort of far-away tone, as though he hadn’t quite come back from a place where he had been off to think:
“I’m going to be your brother, Billy Bradford.”
Then he added, in a tone that men like Mr. Prescott use only when they mean things hard:
“Just as long as I live.”