Question

Based on this excerpt from “The Ransom of Red Chief,” what can the reader tell about the narrator? I got the knife away from the kid and made him lie down again. But, from that moment, Bill's spirit was broken. He laid down on his side of the bed, but he never closed an eye again in sleep as long as that boy was with us. I dozed off for a while, but along toward sun-up I remembered that Red Chief had said I was to be burned at the stake at the rising of the sun. I wasn't nervous or afraid, but I sat up and lit my pipe and leaned against a rock. "What you getting up so soon for, Sam?" asked Bill. "Me?" says I. "Oh, I got a kind of a pain in my shoulder. I thought sitting up would rest it." "You're a liar!" says Bill. "You're afraid. You was to be burned at sunrise, and you was afraid he'd do it. And he would, too, if he could find a match. Ain't it awful, Sam? Do you think anybody will pay out money to get a little imp like that back home?"

A. The narrator has a physical condition that causes him pain. B. The narrator doesn’t like people to see his cowardly side.
C. The narrator likes to protect his friend from harm. D. The narrator is concerned for the kid's well-being.

Answer 1

B. The narrator doesn’t like people to see his cowardly side.

Step-by-step explanation:

O. Henry's short story "The Ransom of Red Chief," tells the story of how a kidnapped boy turned the tables on his kidnappers with his frustrating and terrorizing behavior. The two criminals looking for an easy way to get money had to give up and flee for their lives while they still can.

In the given excerpt from the story, the narrator, Sam, and his friend Bill Driscoll had kidnapped and taken the child Johnny Dorset to their cave hideout. But with the kid constantly terrorizing them, especially Bill made them exasperated. The narrator even had to lie to conceal his hidden cowardly side when Bill asked why he was up so early. His response that he was unable to sleep due to "pain in [his] shoulder" was a blatant lie to hide his real dread of being "burned at sunrise", as according to their make-believe characters of acting out an Indian theme story.