"All right!" and back came Ben, ready for further negotiations.
"I'll promise not to plague you, if you'll promise not to tell on me. Is that what you want?"
"Now I come to think of it, there is one thing more. I like to make a good bargain when I begin," said Ben, with a shrewd air. "You must promise to keep Mose quiet, too. He follows your lead, and if you tell him to stop it he will. If I was big enough, I'd make you hold your tongues. I ain't, so we'll try this way."
"Yes, Yes, I'll see to Mose. Now, bring on a rail, there's a good fellow. I've got a horrid cramp in my legs," began Sam, thinking he had bought help dearly, yet admiring Ben's cleverness in making the most of his chance.
Ben brought the rail, but, just as he was about to lay it from the main-land to the nearest tussock, he stopped, saying, with the naughty twinkle in his black eyes again, "One more little thing must be settled first, and then I'll get you ashore. Promise you won't plague the girls either, 'specially Bab and Betty. You pull their hair, and they don't like it."
"Don't neither! Wouldn't touch that Bab for a dollar; she scratches and bites like a mad cat," was Sam's sulky reply.
"Glad of it; she can take care of herself. Betty can't; and if you touch one of her pig-tails I'll up and tell right out how I found you snivelling in the ma'sh like a great baby. So now!" and Ben emphasized his threat with a blow of the suspended rail which splashed the water over poor Sam, quenching his last spark of resistance.
"Stop! I will!—I will!"
"True as you live and breathe!" demanded Ben, sternly binding him by the most solemn oath he knew.
"True as I live and breathe," echoed Sam, dolefully relinquishing his favorite pastime of pulling Betty's braids and asking if she was at home.