Lem looked up into his aunt's face. “Yes, mam,” he said.
“Well, maybe you do,” said Miss Susan. “I dare say that Swatty boy and Bony boy fetched the lead to your pa's junkyard. It's like enough they did. But you never knew it was stole, did you, Lem?”
“Yes, mam, I did know,” Lem said. “I knew it.”
“But you did not help them steal it,” said Miss Susan sharply.
“Yes, mam,” said Lem again. “Or, anyway, I did n't help them. They were the ones that helped me.”
There was no bravado in the boy's voice. He was frightened. His face was so white with fear that the freckles stood out as if they floated above the skin and were not on it. Miss Susan was almost as white, but with shame, indignation, and anger, and her eyes were hard now.
“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.