Later in the evening Billy was awakened by a voice. Ben was reading to his grandmother. She had her cap off, and her hair was as white as snow. She was warming her feet over the last coals, while Ben held a candle in one hand, and bent over an old book.
"'He shall call upon me, and I will answer him,'" read the boy, in his awkward, stuttering tones. "'I will be with him in trouble. I will deliver him, and honor him. With long life will I satisfy him, and show him my salvation.'"
Billy did not catch the last word, for the child could scarcely pronounce it, but he asked, abruptly, "Who will do it?"
The old grandmother heard the boy's voice, and answered: "God will do it all for those who love Him."
"Folks like you, old and good, I suppose," added Billy, as she tottered away to bed.
Once she would have stopped to teach him some holy lesson, but now she had crept in her feebleness so close to the door of heaven that she was forgetful of all darkness that might be behind her for younger travellers. Billy fell asleep again, then waked up blinking. The outer door was open, and Ben was pulling, bracing, and otherwise guiding his father into the house.
When the tailor was safely dumped into a wooden chair, he began to jabber about the "b'loon, you know—scientif'—experiment. If I got a chance—like to own b'loon myself—always was scientific."
"Humph! that's it, is it?" said Billy, stretching out again for the night. He had seen too much of life to be either shocked or surprised. Doubtless Ben could get his drunken father to bed alone; and the child did indeed do it, as he often had done it before.