He did not care so much now about being Sherlock Nobody Holmes—he had had enough of that. And no matter what they thought of “Yankee Doodle Whitey,” he knew that he was loyal. Let them think that all his talk of Uncle Job and the flag and his father’s patriotism was just bluff—let Frenchy think he had been just deceiving him—he could stand anything, if only his brother would be like a brother to him now that they were alone together.
It was a strange, unreasonable feeling.
Once, only once, in the long night, he tried to make his brother understand.
“Maybe you won’t believe me, but I’m sorry,” he said; “if you ain’t asleep I wish you’d listen—Bill. Now that I told ’em I feel kind of different—I had to tell ’em. I had to decide quick—and I didn’t have nobody—anybody—to help me. Maybe you think I was crazy—— Are you listenin’?”
There was no response, but he knew his brother was not asleep.
“It ain’t because I wanted ’em to think I was smart—Bill—if you think it was that, you’re wrong. And anyway, it didn’t show I was so smart—you was smarter, anyway, if it comes to that. I got to admit it. ’Cause you thought about it first—about using the dish. It served me right for thinking I could deduce, and all like that, anyway. You ain’t asleep, are you?”
“Aw, shut up!” his brother grunted. “You could ’a’ kept me out o’ this by keepin’ yer mouth shut. But you had to jabber it out, you——. And they’ll plug me full of lead.”
A cold shudder ran through Tom.
“I got to admit I’m a kind of a (he was going to say traitor, but for his brother’s sake he avoided the word). I got to admit I wasn’t loyal, too. I wasn’t loyal to you, anyway. But I had to decide quick, Bill. And I saw I had to tell ’em. You got to be loyal to Uncle Sam first of all. But—but—— Are you listening, Bill? I ain’t mad, anyway. ’Cause Adolf Schmitt’s most to blame. It ain’t—it ain’t ’cause I want to get let off free either, it ain’t. I wouldn’t care so much now what they did to me, anyway. ’Cause everything is kind of spoiled now about all of us—our family—being so kind of patriotic——”
His brother, goaded out of his sullenness, turned upon him with a tirade of profane abuse, leaving the boy shamed and silent.