“No.”

“How much money did you go to get?”

“Two hunderd dollars.”

“Did you get it?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know what money it was?”

“Church-organ money.  He told me.”

“Why did he give it to you?”

“I made him.”

“How?”

“Lemme tell it my own way—­if I got to tell it....  He’d took my girl, and I never liked him, anyhow....  There’d been rumors his old man was bootleggin’.  Nothin’ to it, of course, and I knowed that.  And I needed some money.  Bought a beef critter off’n Marvin Preston next day.  So I went to Mavin and says I was goin’ to arrest his old man because I’d ketched him sellin’ liquor, and Mavin he begged me I shouldn’t.  I told him the old man would git ten year, anyhow.”

“What did Mavin say to that?”

“He jest bowed his head and kind of leaned against the stall.”

“Then what?”

“I let on I needed money, and told him if he’d gimme two hunderd dollars I’d destroy the evidence and let the old man go.  He says he didn’t have the money, and I says he had the organ money.  He didn’t say nothin’ for a spell, and then he says, kind of low, and wonderin’, ’Which ’u’d be the worst?  Which ‘u’d be the worst?’ Then I says, ‘Worst what?’ And he says for his father to be ketched for a bootlegger or for him to be a thief....  I jest let him think about it, and didn’t say nothin’, because I knowed how he looked up to his old man.

“Pretty soon he says:  ’I’d be a thief, ’cause I couldn’t explain.  I’d have to run off—­and leave Mattie, that I’m a-goin’ to marry to-morrer....  I could pay it back, but that wouldn’t do no good....  But for father to be arrested, him an elder, and all, would kill him.  I couldn’t bear for father to be shamed ’fore all the world or to be thought guilty of sich a thing....  He’s wuth a heap more ’n I be, and he won’t never do it ag’in.’  Then he asks if I’ll give a letter to his old man, and I says yes.  He walked up and down for maybe a quarter of an hour, talkin’ to himself, and kind of fightin’ it out, but I knowed what he’d do, right along.  At the end he come over and says:  ’This here means ruinin’ my life and breakin’ Mattie’s heart ... but I calc’late that’s better ‘n holdin’ father up to scorn and seein’ him in jail....  If they was only some other way!’ His voice was stiddylike, but he was right pale and his eyes was a-shinin’.  I remember how they was a-shinin’.  ’I calc’late,’ he says, ‘that I kin bear it fer father’s sake.’  Then he says to me, kind of fierce, ’If ever you let on to anybody why I done this, if it’s in a hunderd years, I’ll come back and kill you.’  For a while he kept still again, and then he went in the house and got the money, and wrote a letter to his old man, and I promised to give it to him—­but I tore it up.”

“What did the letter say?”

“It just said somethin’ to the effect that he was willin’ to do what he done if his old man would give over breakin’ the law and go to livin’ upright like he always done, and that he hoped maybe God seen a difference in stealin’ on account of the reasons folks had for doin’ it—­but if God didn’t make no difference, why, he’d rather bear it than have it fall on his old man.”