AcreSoft Story Classic: ???? Kids Educational and Bedtime Stories for Children to Adults, in English

Do the boys get out of the mine alive? Does Bennie receive his sight? Find out in this final episode of The Blind Brother. ✝️❣️????️ AcreSoft Story Classic acresoft.com cointr.ee/acresoft

“Why, lads!” exclaimed Rennie; “lads!” Then, flashing the light of his lamp into the boys’ faces, “What, Tom, is it you? you and the blind brither? Ah! but it’s main bad for ye, bairnies, main bad—an’ warse yet for the poor mither at hame.” When Tom first recognized Rennie, he could not speak for fear and amazement. The sudden thought that he and Bennie were alone, in the power of this giant whose liberty he had sworn away, overcame his courage...

It was true. Carolan’s quick eye had noticed the opportunity for Rennie to escape, and his fertile brain had been swift in planning an immediate rescue...

Pale and trembling, Tom passed out into the aisle and down around the jury-box, and stepped upon the little railed platform. In impressive tones, the clerk administered to him the oath, and he kissed the Holy Bible and swore to “tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” The whole truth! The words echoed and re-echoed through his mind, as he looked down upon the lawyers and jurors, and across the bar into the hundreds of expectant faces turned toward him...

Tom turned his head away, and covered his face with his hands. This was cruel. For the first time in his life, he was glad Bennie could not see him. But he felt that it was necessary for him to say something, so he stammered out,— “Well, I was only just s’posin’, you know. Course, no honest fellow’d do that; but if they’ll only get to work again, we won’t ask anybody for any hunderd dollars. We’ll earn it...

And when much people were gathered together, out of every city, Jesus spake by a parable: A sower went out to sow his seed: and as he sowed, some fell by the way- side; and it was trodden down, and the fowls of the air devoured it. And some fell upon a rock; and as soon as it was sprung up, it withered away, because it lacked moisture. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up with it, and choked it. And other fell on good ground, and sprang up.....

And Tom yielded. The whisperings of conscience were drowned in the anticipation of Bennie’s joy. The fear of personal violence would not have conquered him; neither would the fallacious argument of compensation by destruction have done so. But that vision of Bennie, with eyes that could look into his eyes, with eyes that could see the houses and the breakers, the trees and the birds and the flowers, that could even see the far-off stars in the sky at night,—that was the vision that.....

For a long time Bennie lay there, pitifully weeping. Then, away off somewhere in the mine, he heard a noise. He lifted his head. By degrees the noise grew louder; then it sounded almost like footsteps. Suppose it were some one coming; suppose it were Tom! The light of hope flashed up in Bennie’s breast with the thought. But the sound ceased, the stillness settled down more profoundly than before, and about the boy’s heart the fear and loneliness came creeping back...

The Dryden Mine, in the Susquehanna coal-fields of Pennsylvania, was worked out and abandoned long ago. To-day its headings and airways and chambers echo only to the occasional fall of loosened slate, or to the drip of water from the roof. Its pillars, robbed by retreating workmen, are crumbling and rusty, and those of its props which are still standing have become mouldy and rotten...

The next spring, when the country was covered with verdure and flowers, the Count, accompanied by his wife, and daughter, and Mary, went to his home at Eichbourg. Towards evening they approached the village, and when Mary saw in the light of the setting sun the familiar church steeple, the Castle, and the cottage where she had spent so many happy years with her father, she was so deeply touched that tears started to her eyes...