“Sit ye, lad,” he said; “sit ye, an’ tell me aboot Tom, an’ aboot yoursel’, an’ a’ ye can remember.” Then they sat down on the rude bench together, with the roughly hewn pillar of coal at their backs, blind Bennie and Jack Rennie, the giant, and while one told the story of his blindness, and his blessings, and his hopes, the other listened with tender earnestness, almost with tears. Bennie told first about Tom, his brother, who was fourteen years old, two years older than himself. Tom was so good to him; and Tom could see, could see as well as anybody. “Why,” he exclaimed, “Tom can see _every thing_!” Then he told about his blindness; how he had been blind ever since he could remember. But there was a doctor, he said, who came up once from Philadelphia to visit Major Dryden, before the major died; and he had chanced to see Tom and Bennie up by the mines, and had looked at Bennie’s eyes, and said he thought, if the boy could go to Philadelphia and have treatment, that sight might be restored. Tom asked how much it would cost, and the doctor said, “Oh, maybe a hundred dollars;” and then some one came and called the doctor away, and they had never seen him since. But Tom resolved that Bennie should go to Philadelphia, if ever he could save money enough to send him. Tom was a driver-boy in Dryden Slope, and his meagre earnings went mostly to buy food and clothing for the little family. But the dollar or two that he had been accustomed to spend each month for himself he began now to lay aside for Bennie. Bennie knew about it, of course, and rejoiced greatly at the prospect in store for him, but expressed much discontent because he, himself, could not help to obtain the fund which was to cure him. Then Tom, with the aid of the kindhearted mine superintendent, found employment for his brother as a door-boy in Dryden Slope, and Bennie was happy. It wasn’t absolutely necessary that a door-boy should see; if he had good hearing he could get along very well. So every morning Bennie went down the slope with Tom, and climbed into an empty mine-car, and Tom’s mule drew them, rattling along the heading, till they reached, almost a mile from the foot of the slope, the doorway where Bennie staid. Then Tom went on, with the empty cars, up to the new tier of chambers, and brought the loaded cars back. Every day he passed through Bennie’s doorway on three round trips in the forenoon, and three round trips in the afternoon; and every day, when the noon-hour came, he stopped on the down-trip, and sat with Bennie on the bench by the door, and both ate from one pail the dinner prepared for them by their mother. When quitting time came, and Tom went down to the foot of the slope with his last trip for the day, Bennie climbed to the top of a load, and rode out, or else, with his hands on the last car of the trip, walked safely along behind.