“Well!” she exclaimed. “Well, indeed! A nice sort of boy I have had boosted onto me. A nice sort of boy you put into pawn, Harvey Redding! A thief, and he admits it, and brags about it! A nice sort of boy—going off with a lot of hoodlums and leading them to steal and rob! And I suppose,” she said, turning on Lemuel, “you went right to your saintly father and sold that lead to him!”
“Yes, mam,” said Lem, swallowing a lump in his throat. “I—I sold it to him for three dollars.”
“And you and the other young rascals divided the money amongst you!”
“No, mam. Or—yes, mam. Or—we did n't divide it. I got one half an' Swatty an' Bony got one half. I got a dollar an' a half an' they only got a dollar an' a half for both of them. Because I was the one that thought of gettin' it back from Moses, an' I was the one that sold it to pop. So I got half.”
“And you went and planned that all out beforehand, in cold blood—like—like criminals?”
“No, mam,” said Lem faintly. “The' was n't nothin' planned out about dividin'; not beforehand. I had to fight 'em for it, afterward. I licked 'em, an' they let me have half.”
Henrietta Bates, had it not been for the way in which Miss Susan was taking all this, might have laughed, although her own situation and her morning talk with Freeman Todder had left her little inclination to laughter. Miss Susan, however, was taking the affair with deadly seriousness, and it was not an occasion when a laugh could lessen the tension. Miss Susan stood motionless, looking toward the street, her fingers wrinkling the hem of her apron. When she spoke her voice was hard.
“Take him along,” she said, not looking at Lem. “I'm through with him. I don't want to have aught to do with a thief.”
“Oh! Miss Susan!” Lorna exclaimed. “He's only a boy!”
“He's a thief; I'm through with him,” Miss Susan repeated, and turned to enter the house. Schulig stepped forward.