Miss King didn’t usually say very much. It was a surprise to Billy to have her keep on talking.
“How nice the office looks, William! We never had a boy before that knew how to dust in anything but streaks.”
“My Aunt Mary,” said Billy, speaking at last, “is very particular. She showed me how to dust.”
Then Miss King sorted the orders, and Billy started out with them.
It was still very hot. The latest thing that Mr. Prescott had done to try to make the office a little cooler was to move a pile of boxes and to open an old door at the other end of the corridor opposite the door with the great key.
That door hadn’t been opened for a long time. Hardly anybody had realized that there was a door on that side. It opened over the end of an old canal that had been used in his grandfather’s day. Filling up that “old ditch,” as Mr. Prescott called it, was one of the things that he was planning to do.
When he had the door opened, he put up a danger notice, and left in place, across the door, an old beam that had once been used as a safety guard.
Billy stood in the corridor a moment, and looked back through the old door. If it ever rained, that would be a pretty view.
But the old willow beyond the ditch was green on one side, even if it was dead on the other where its branches stuck out like—like——
Billy, trying to decide what they did look like, began, almost unconsciously, to walk toward the door.