Aunt Mary herself liked to do things for Uncle John, so she smiled back, at least she thought she did; but she didn’t know so much about smiles as Billy did. He had been used to the kind that go all over a face and end in wrinkles everywhere.
Billy’s smile lasted till Aunt Mary said, “Now hurry, William Wallace.”
That stopped his smile, but he settled the bundle a little more carefully under his arm and started on his way.
The day was warm, even for June. Part of the way there wasn’t any pavement, and, where there was, it was very rough; so, while he was walking along, Billy had plenty of time to think. He had a great many things to think about, too, for his birthday was coming the very next day, and then he would be thirteen years old.
The thing that was most on his mind was what he could do to earn some money. He was thinking especially about that, because, the night before, when they had supposed that he was asleep in the little corner room, he had heard Aunt Mary say that the money in the bank was getting very low. Then Uncle John had said, “Sh! sh! Billy may hear.”
June made Billy want to be out in the country. Things were so mixed up that he couldn’t seem to straighten them out at all, but he trudged steadily on, because the William Wallace part of him always kept at things. Finally he gave up thinking and whistled hard, just to help his legs along.
At last he turned the corner, and there was the great mill with the square tower almost in the middle; and, at the right, the long, low building with the tall smoke-stack. That was the foundry where Uncle John worked.
Billy went through the wide gate just as the whistle blew; and, in a minute, he could see Uncle John come to the door. He didn’t look as if he had been working all the morning in damp, black sand. The men in the foundry said that dirt never stuck to John Bradford. “Clean John Bradford,” they called him. Clean and good he looked to Billy, as he stood there in his bright blue overalls and the gray cap that was almost the color of his hair.
“Hot soup, sir,” said Billy, handing him the bundle.
“Sure to be hot, if you bring it,” said Uncle John, his blue eyes smiling down at Billy. “Might burn a boy, if he fell and broke the bottle, eh, Billy, my lad?”