“Well, Bennie, s’pose you’d ’a’ seen him start that fire, an’ he’d ’a’ knowed it, an’ he’d ’a’ said to you, ‘Ben Taylor, if you ever tell on me, I’ll burn your Mommie’s house down, an’ I’ll most kill your brother Tom!’ then what’d you do?”
Bennie hesitated. This was more of a poser.
“Well,” he answered, at last, “if I’d ’a’ b’lieved he’d ’a’ done what he said—I don’t know—I guess I’d—well, maybe, if I didn’t have to tell any lie, I just wouldn’t say any thing.”
Tom’s spirits rose; he felt that a great point was gained. Here was a matter in which Bennie would have been even less firm than he himself had been. Now was the time to come directly to the issue, to ask the final question.
Tom braced himself to the task. He tried to speak naturally and carelessly, but there was a strange shortness of breath, and a huskiness in his voice which he could not control; he could only hope that Bennie would not notice it.
“Well, then, s’pose—just s’pose, you know—that I’d seen Jack Rennie set fire to the breaker, an’ ’at he knew I was goin’ to tell on him, an’ ’at he’d ’a’ said to me, ‘Tom, you got a blind brother Bennie, ain’t you?’ an’ I’d ’a’ said, ‘Yes,’ an’ he’d ’a’ said, ‘What’ll it cost to get Bennie’s sight for him?’ an’ I’d ’a’ said, ‘Oh, maybe a hundred dollars,’ an’ he’d ’a’ said, ‘Here, Tom, here’s a hundred dollars; you go an’ get Bennie’s eyes cured; an’ don’t you say any thin’ about my settin’ that fire.’ What—what’d you ’a’ done if you’d ’a’ been me?”
Tom raised himself to a sitting posture, and leaned toward Bennie, with flushed face and painful expectancy in his eyes.
He knew that for him Bennie’s answer meant either a return to a measure of the old happiness, or a plunging into deeper misery.
The blind boy rose to his feet and stood for a moment as if lost in thought. Then he turned his sightless eyes to Tom, and said, very slowly and distinctly,—