Poor Ben! his face grew more mournful than ever. It was no longer any fun for him, but he patiently consented, and arranged the stage "properties." He tied on his own and Billy's black masks and their stiff paper collars, wishing much that his own did not so savagely cut his poor little ears. He then sat meekly down at the end of the semicircle of seats, and solemnly got off all the laboriously learned jokes that his stammering tongue could compass. He surrendered himself to Billy in a waltz that made every lock of his lint-white hair fly out straight, and which finally left him breathless under the table legs.
Well, after Ben had been, with some changes of costume, a giraffe, a Zulu, a Broadway belle, and a propounder of conundrums, he became so incapable of being anything else but a tired little boy that Billy relented, and let him lie on the ragged old lounge. In the quiet that followed, the older boy's brain began to work upon a question that worried him much. Should he go on a farm, or should he follow his own fascinating plan? He waked up Ben, and told, in a most engaging way, of the wonderful minstrel career which opened before him, and he reported Squire Ellery's offer, but not his words of disapproval. Now Ben, who was but eight years old, had his own thoughts, and all the more of them that he gave so few away in words.
"If it was me," said little Ben, promptly, if somewhat sleepily, "I would rather be out in the sunlight making th-th-things gr-gr-grow. Wheat fields are so pretty, and I like ca-ca-cattle. They always seem to know me if I co-co-come near them. I never would dance until I got dizzy if I could help it. I think it is si-si-silly; it ain't being a man."
Billy gazed at Ben, somewhat surprised. Here were words almost like Squire Ellery's coming as if they were quoted from out of this Hop-o'-my-Thumb.
"Ben," he said, "you don't really know anything about minstrel shows. Some day I will take you to the regular thing."
"I would rather stay here and read to granny. I should be afraid."
"Stay, then, you little coward!" said Billy, roughly.
Granny dozed and snored softly; the lean cat sprang into Ben's arms, and they slept peacefully together; while Billy walked the room, and peered out of the window-panes. He half decided that he would go to the farmer in the morning. Then he half decided he never would go. At last granny awoke, and said, "Bring the Book and read good words; we have had enough of this day."
Ben would not wake up. He really could not do so after his hard evening exercises; and when Billy shook him, the cat took Ben's part, and scratched Billy resentfully.
"Well, I would as soon read as to hear him stutter over it," said the older boy, getting the Bible, the cover of which had been bright and fresh when granny had been so herself. Now it was as nearly out of its binding as was her soul.