Summary

Tom, Ren, Brom, and Ichy use pieces of the broken furniture and the stuffing from the sofa to build a fire. The kitchen is destroyed, with furniture and dishes broken up. Food is splattered on the ceiling, and the hearth is smeared with soot and ashes. Ren finds his bag beneath a shattered chamber pot and discovers that the jar of pickles had broken in the fight, and the lard was spread over the cloth. He begins peeling the remaining potatoes while Brom brings in water to boil. They add in lard with the potatoes, along with some dried parsley they found hanging on the ceiling. They solemnly talk about what happened to them as they pull little pieces of glass from the sour pickles that Ren had salvaged from his bag.

Tom remarks that Benjamin “has nine lives” when Ren finishes telling him what happened in the mousetrap factory. Ren asks if Benjamin will come back, but Tom shakes his head. Ren asks about what will happen to him, Brom, and Ichy, and Tom announces that he will be returning them to the orphanage because he “can’t feed and clothe three boys” when he “can’t provide for myself even.” Ren refuses to return to Saint Anthony’s, but Tom asks him if he really wants to live his life as a beggar or a thief on the streets. Ren realizes that he is already a thief and a beggar, but says nothing. Tom points out that Dolly was killed because he lived this way, but Ren says that Dolly was protecting him. Tom objects, saying that Dolly “was a killer” and that “he was made to die that way,” but Ren is not meant to have the same fate. Ren looks into the fire, looks around the kitchen, and thinks that the boarding house looks like it might collapse. They are “sitting in a pile of wreckage,” like “a sinking ship.”

Tom says that returning the boys to Saint Anthony’s will be “the one good thing I’ve ever done.” Ren does not respond. He thinks about how, after everything that he has gone through, he will end up back where he started. He pulls out Benjamin’s will and hands it to Tom, who reads it several times before breaking out in laughter. He hands the paper to Ren to read. The will says nothing about Benjamin, but it promises McGinty’s entire estate—other than the “payment of just debts and funeral charges”—to Ren. The will is signed by “Silas McGinty.” Ren asks Tom what the will means, and Tom responds that Ren now owns the mousetrap factory. Ren is puzzled and asks what he is supposed to do with a mousetrap factory. Ichy suggests that he make mousetraps.

Tom considers what Benjamin has done, concluding that he “must have planned it from the very beginning.” Ren thinks about Benjamin’s injuries, his teeth and his broken arm, and how he had easily written the will as though he had been thinking of the words for a long time. He held it out to McGinty, asking for a witness, but knew that McGinty would not bother to read the will. Ren remembers how Benjamin knew without being told that Father John had beaten Ren and how the farmer would not pursue them after they stole his horse. Tom remarks that the factory is probably worth a lot of money, but Ren still seems unconvinced that Benjamin planned it. He says that Benjamin will not get any of the money because he took off, but Tom says that Benjamin...