Billie colored at this. It was the first time anyone had ever called him Bill and he felt two feet taller all at once. “In the little bedroom over the east ell, sir.”
“Change your belongings to the room next to this. It faces the south and has two bookcases filled with my books that I had at college. You will enjoy them.”
Billie went out softly, down the circular staircase to the lower hall and, once outdoors, on a dead run for the barn. Ben was husking corn on the barn floor, sitting on a milking stool with the corn rising around him in billows, whistling and singing alternately.
Billie poured out his news breathlessly, and Ben took it all calmly.
“Well, I’m glad for you. I always believed the Judge would come out of his trance some day and do the proper thing. That Miss Becky’s a sightly woman. Knows just how to take hold. Guess she could marry the Judge tomorrow if she wanted to. Mrs. Craig is a fine woman too. I’ve never seen her before.”
Somehow this didn’t seem to fit in with Billie’s mood and he left the barn. All the world looked different to him. He was wanted, really wanted, now. He wasn’t just somebody the Judge had taken in because they were related and he had to out of pride. He was to have the big south chamber right next to the Judge’s own room and study all he wanted. Best of all, since he had grasped that bony hand in his, he knew that he could go to him with anything and that he really was going to be a grandfather to him.
It was nearly two miles over to Woodhow if he went cross lots, but he started. When he arrived he found Doris stoning cherries for pies. “Hi, Billie,” she called. “Come over here and help.”
Billie climbed the stone wall and came, flushed and triumphant. Throwing himself down on the grass beside Doris, he told what had happened, and she made up for all that Ben had lacked in enthusiasm and imagination.
“Isn’t that wonderful?” she cried, setting down the pan of cherries. “Why, you can be anything at all now you want to be.”
Billie looked at her peacefully. “I knew you’d take it like that,” he said. “I just wanted to tell somebody who would almost feel the way I did about it. You’re a swell pal, know it?”