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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Complete
+by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
+
+
+Title: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Complete
+
+Author: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
+
+Release Date: August 20, 2006 [EBook #74]
+[Last updated: May 3, 2011]
+
+Language: English
+
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TOM SAWYER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger. The previous edition was updated by Jose
+Menendez.
+
+
+
+
+
+                   THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER
+                                BY
+                            MARK TWAIN
+                     (Samuel Langhorne Clemens)
+
+
+
+
+                           P R E F A C E
+
+MOST of the adventures recorded in this book really occurred; one or
+two were experiences of my own, the rest those of boys who were
+schoolmates of mine. Huck Finn is drawn from life; Tom Sawyer also, but
+not from an individual--he is a combination of the characteristics of
+three boys whom I knew, and therefore belongs to the composite order of
+architecture.
+
+The odd superstitions touched upon were all prevalent among children
+and slaves in the West at the period of this story--that is to say,
+thirty or forty years ago.
+
+Although my book is intended mainly for the entertainment of boys and
+girls, I hope it will not be shunned by men and women on that account,
+for part of my plan has been to try to pleasantly remind adults of what
+they once were themselves, and of how they felt and thought and talked,
+and what queer enterprises they sometimes engaged in.
+
+                                                            THE AUTHOR.
+
+HARTFORD, 1876.
+
+
+
+                          T O M   S A W Y E R
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+"TOM!"
+
+No answer.
+
+"TOM!"
+
+No answer.
+
+"What's gone with that boy,  I wonder? You TOM!"
+
+No answer.
+
+The old lady pulled her spectacles down and looked over them about the
+room; then she put them up and looked out under them. She seldom or
+never looked THROUGH them for so small a thing as a boy; they were her
+state pair, the pride of her heart, and were built for "style," not
+service--she could have seen through a pair of stove-lids just as well.
+She looked perplexed for a moment, and then said, not fiercely, but
+still loud enough for the furniture to hear:
+
+"Well, I lay if I get hold of you I'll--"
+
+She did not finish, for by this time she was bending down and punching
+under the bed with the broom, and so she needed breath to punctuate the
+punches with. She resurrected nothing but the cat.
+
+"I never did see the beat of that boy!"
+
+She went to the open door and stood in it and looked out among the
+tomato vines and "jimpson" weeds that constituted the garden. No Tom.
+So she lifted up her voice at an angle calculated for distance and
+shouted:
+
+"Y-o-u-u TOM!"
+
+There was a slight noise behind her and she turned just in time to
+seize a small boy by the slack of his roundabout and arrest his flight.
+
+"There! I might 'a' thought of that closet. What you been doing in
+there?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"Nothing! Look at your hands. And look at your mouth. What IS that
+truck?"
+
+"I don't know, aunt."
+
+"Well, I know. It's jam--that's what it is. Forty times I've said if
+you didn't let that jam alone I'd skin you. Hand me that switch."
+
+The switch hovered in the air--the peril was desperate--
+
+"My! Look behind you, aunt!"
+
+The old lady whirled round, and snatched her skirts out of danger. The
+lad fled on the instant, scrambled up the high board-fence, and
+disappeared over it.
+
+His aunt Polly stood surprised a moment, and then broke into a gentle
+laugh.
+
+"Hang the boy, can't I never learn anything? Ain't he played me tricks
+enough like that for me to be looking out for him by this time? But old
+fools is the biggest fools there is. Can't learn an old dog new tricks,
+as the saying is. But my goodness, he never plays them alike, two days,
+and how is a body to know what's coming? He 'pears to know just how
+long he can torment me before I get my dander up, and he knows if he
+can make out to put me off for a minute or make me laugh, it's all down
+again and I can't hit him a lick. I ain't doing my duty by that boy,
+and that's the Lord's truth, goodness knows. Spare the rod and spile
+the child, as the Good Book says. I'm a laying up sin and suffering for
+us both, I know. He's full of the Old Scratch, but laws-a-me! he's my
+own dead sister's boy, poor thing, and I ain't got the heart to lash
+him, somehow. Every time I let him off, my conscience does hurt me so,
+and every time I hit him my old heart most breaks. Well-a-well, man
+that is born of woman is of few days and full of trouble, as the
+Scripture says, and I reckon it's so. He'll play hookey this evening, *
+and [* Southwestern for "afternoon"] I'll just be obleeged to make him
+work, to-morrow, to punish him. It's mighty hard to make him work
+Saturdays, when all the boys is having holiday, but he hates work more
+than he hates anything else, and I've GOT to do some of my duty by him,
+or I'll be the ruination of the child."
+
+Tom did play hookey, and he had a very good time. He got back home
+barely in season to help Jim, the small colored boy, saw next-day's
+wood and split the kindlings before supper--at least he was there in
+time to tell his adventures to Jim while Jim did three-fourths of the
+work. Tom's younger brother (or rather half-brother) Sid was already
+through with his part of the work (picking up chips), for he was a
+quiet boy, and had no adventurous, troublesome ways.
+
+While Tom was eating his supper, and stealing sugar as opportunity
+offered, Aunt Polly asked him questions that were full of guile, and
+very deep--for she wanted to trap him into damaging revealments. Like
+many other simple-hearted souls, it was her pet vanity to believe she
+was endowed with a talent for dark and mysterious diplomacy, and she
+loved to contemplate her most transparent devices as marvels of low
+cunning. Said she:
+
+"Tom, it was middling warm in school, warn't it?"
+
+"Yes'm."
+
+"Powerful warm, warn't it?"
+
+"Yes'm."
+
+"Didn't you want to go in a-swimming, Tom?"
+
+A bit of a scare shot through Tom--a touch of uncomfortable suspicion.
+He searched Aunt Polly's face, but it told him nothing. So he said:
+
+"No'm--well, not very much."
+
+The old lady reached out her hand and felt Tom's shirt, and said:
+
+"But you ain't too warm now, though." And it flattered her to reflect
+that she had discovered that the shirt was dry without anybody knowing
+that that was what she had in her mind. But in spite of her, Tom knew
+where the wind lay, now. So he forestalled what might be the next move:
+
+"Some of us pumped on our heads--mine's damp yet. See?"
+
+Aunt Polly was vexed to think she had overlooked that bit of
+circumstantial evidence, and missed a trick. Then she had a new
+inspiration:
+
+"Tom, you didn't have to undo your shirt collar where I sewed it, to
+pump on your head, did you? Unbutton your jacket!"
+
+The trouble vanished out of Tom's face. He opened his jacket. His
+shirt collar was securely sewed.
+
+"Bother! Well, go 'long with you. I'd made sure you'd played hookey
+and been a-swimming. But I forgive ye, Tom. I reckon you're a kind of a
+singed cat, as the saying is--better'n you look. THIS time."
+
+She was half sorry her sagacity had miscarried, and half glad that Tom
+had stumbled into obedient conduct for once.
+
+But Sidney said:
+
+"Well, now, if I didn't think you sewed his collar with white thread,
+but it's black."
+
+"Why, I did sew it with white! Tom!"
+
+But Tom did not wait for the rest. As he went out at the door he said:
+
+"Siddy, I'll lick you for that."
+
+In a safe place Tom examined two large needles which were thrust into
+the lapels of his jacket, and had thread bound about them--one needle
+carried white thread and the other black. He said:
+
+"She'd never noticed if it hadn't been for Sid. Confound it! sometimes
+she sews it with white, and sometimes she sews it with black. I wish to
+geeminy she'd stick to one or t'other--I can't keep the run of 'em. But
+I bet you I'll lam Sid for that. I'll learn him!"
+
+He was not the Model Boy of the village. He knew the model boy very
+well though--and loathed him.
+
+Within two minutes, or even less, he had forgotten all his troubles.
+Not because his troubles were one whit less heavy and bitter to him
+than a man's are to a man, but because a new and powerful interest bore
+them down and drove them out of his mind for the time--just as men's
+misfortunes are forgotten in the excitement of new enterprises. This
+new interest was a valued novelty in whistling, which he had just
+acquired from a negro, and he was suffering to practise it undisturbed.
+It consisted in a peculiar bird-like turn, a sort of liquid warble,
+produced by touching the tongue to the roof of the mouth at short
+intervals in the midst of the music--the reader probably remembers how
+to do it, if he has ever been a boy. Diligence and attention soon gave
+him the knack of it, and he strode down the street with his mouth full
+of harmony and his soul full of gratitude. He felt much as an
+astronomer feels who has discovered a new planet--no doubt, as far as
+strong, deep, unalloyed pleasure is concerned, the advantage was with
+the boy, not the astronomer.
+
+The summer evenings were long. It was not dark, yet. Presently Tom
+checked his whistle. A stranger was before him--a boy a shade larger
+than himself. A new-comer of any age or either sex was an impressive
+curiosity in the poor little shabby village of St. Petersburg. This boy
+was well dressed, too--well dressed on a week-day. This was simply
+astounding. His cap was a dainty thing, his close-buttoned blue cloth
+roundabout was new and natty, and so were his pantaloons. He had shoes
+on--and it was only Friday. He even wore a necktie, a bright bit of
+ribbon. He had a citified air about him that ate into Tom's vitals. The
+more Tom stared at the splendid marvel, the higher he turned up his
+nose at his finery and the shabbier and shabbier his own outfit seemed
+to him to grow. Neither boy spoke. If one moved, the other moved--but
+only sidewise, in a circle; they kept face to face and eye to eye all
+the time. Finally Tom said:
+
+"I can lick you!"
+
+"I'd like to see you try it."
+
+"Well, I can do it."
+
+"No you can't, either."
+
+"Yes I can."
+
+"No you can't."
+
+"I can."
+
+"You can't."
+
+"Can!"
+
+"Can't!"
+
+An uncomfortable pause. Then Tom said:
+
+"What's your name?"
+
+"'Tisn't any of your business, maybe."
+
+"Well I 'low I'll MAKE it my business."
+
+"Well why don't you?"
+
+"If you say much, I will."
+
+"Much--much--MUCH. There now."
+
+"Oh, you think you're mighty smart, DON'T you? I could lick you with
+one hand tied behind me, if I wanted to."
+
+"Well why don't you DO it? You SAY you can do it."
+
+"Well I WILL, if you fool with me."
+
+"Oh yes--I've seen whole families in the same fix."
+
+"Smarty! You think you're SOME, now, DON'T you? Oh, what a hat!"
+
+"You can lump that hat if you don't like it. I dare you to knock it
+off--and anybody that'll take a dare will suck eggs."
+
+"You're a liar!"
+
+"You're another."
+
+"You're a fighting liar and dasn't take it up."
+
+"Aw--take a walk!"
+
+"Say--if you give me much more of your sass I'll take and bounce a
+rock off'n your head."
+
+"Oh, of COURSE you will."
+
+"Well I WILL."
+
+"Well why don't you DO it then? What do you keep SAYING you will for?
+Why don't you DO it? It's because you're afraid."
+
+"I AIN'T afraid."
+
+"You are."
+
+"I ain't."
+
+"You are."
+
+Another pause, and more eying and sidling around each other. Presently
+they were shoulder to shoulder. Tom said:
+
+"Get away from here!"
+
+"Go away yourself!"
+
+"I won't."
+
+"I won't either."
+
+So they stood, each with a foot placed at an angle as a brace, and
+both shoving with might and main, and glowering at each other with
+hate. But neither could get an advantage. After struggling till both
+were hot and flushed, each relaxed his strain with watchful caution,
+and Tom said:
+
+"You're a coward and a pup. I'll tell my big brother on you, and he
+can thrash you with his little finger, and I'll make him do it, too."
+
+"What do I care for your big brother? I've got a brother that's bigger
+than he is--and what's more, he can throw him over that fence, too."
+[Both brothers were imaginary.]
+
+"That's a lie."
+
+"YOUR saying so don't make it so."
+
+Tom drew a line in the dust with his big toe, and said:
+
+"I dare you to step over that, and I'll lick you till you can't stand
+up. Anybody that'll take a dare will steal sheep."
+
+The new boy stepped over promptly, and said:
+
+"Now you said you'd do it, now let's see you do it."
+
+"Don't you crowd me now; you better look out."
+
+"Well, you SAID you'd do it--why don't you do it?"
+
+"By jingo! for two cents I WILL do it."
+
+The new boy took two broad coppers out of his pocket and held them out
+with derision. Tom struck them to the ground. In an instant both boys
+were rolling and tumbling in the dirt, gripped together like cats; and
+for the space of a minute they tugged and tore at each other's hair and
+clothes, punched and scratched each other's nose, and covered
+themselves with dust and glory. Presently the confusion took form, and
+through the fog of battle Tom appeared, seated astride the new boy, and
+pounding him with his fists. "Holler 'nuff!" said he.
+
+The boy only struggled to free himself. He was crying--mainly from rage.
+
+"Holler 'nuff!"--and the pounding went on.
+
+At last the stranger got out a smothered "'Nuff!" and Tom let him up
+and said:
+
+"Now that'll learn you. Better look out who you're fooling with next
+time."
+
+The new boy went off brushing the dust from his clothes, sobbing,
+snuffling, and occasionally looking back and shaking his head and
+threatening what he would do to Tom the "next time he caught him out."
+To which Tom responded with jeers, and started off in high feather, and
+as soon as his back was turned the new boy snatched up a stone, threw
+it and hit him between the shoulders and then turned tail and ran like
+an antelope. Tom chased the traitor home, and thus found out where he
+lived. He then held a position at the gate for some time, daring the
+enemy to come outside, but the enemy only made faces at him through the
+window and declined. At last the enemy's mother appeared, and called
+Tom a bad, vicious, vulgar child, and ordered him away. So he went
+away; but he said he "'lowed" to "lay" for that boy.
+
+He got home pretty late that night, and when he climbed cautiously in
+at the window, he uncovered an ambuscade, in the person of his aunt;
+and when she saw the state his clothes were in her resolution to turn
+his Saturday holiday into captivity at hard labor became adamantine in
+its firmness.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+SATURDAY morning was come, and all the summer world was bright and
+fresh, and brimming with life. There was a song in every heart; and if
+the heart was young the music issued at the lips. There was cheer in
+every face and a spring in every step. The locust-trees were in bloom
+and the fragrance of the blossoms filled the air. Cardiff Hill, beyond
+the village and above it, was green with vegetation and it lay just far
+enough away to seem a Delectable Land, dreamy, reposeful, and inviting.
+
+Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a
+long-handled brush. He surveyed the fence, and all gladness left him and
+a deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit. Thirty yards of board
+fence nine feet high. Life to him seemed hollow, and existence but a
+burden. Sighing, he dipped his brush and passed it along the topmost
+plank; repeated the operation; did it again; compared the insignificant
+whitewashed streak with the far-reaching continent of unwhitewashed
+fence, and sat down on a tree-box discouraged. Jim came skipping out at
+the gate with a tin pail, and singing Buffalo Gals. Bringing water from
+the town pump had always been hateful work in Tom's eyes, before, but
+now it did not strike him so. He remembered that there was company at
+the pump. White, mulatto, and negro boys and girls were always there
+waiting their turns, resting, trading playthings, quarrelling,
+fighting, skylarking. And he remembered that although the pump was only
+a hundred and fifty yards off, Jim never got back with a bucket of
+water under an hour--and even then somebody generally had to go after
+him. Tom said:
+
+"Say, Jim, I'll fetch the water if you'll whitewash some."
+
+Jim shook his head and said:
+
+"Can't, Mars Tom. Ole missis, she tole me I got to go an' git dis
+water an' not stop foolin' roun' wid anybody. She say she spec' Mars
+Tom gwine to ax me to whitewash, an' so she tole me go 'long an' 'tend
+to my own business--she 'lowed SHE'D 'tend to de whitewashin'."
+
+"Oh, never you mind what she said, Jim. That's the way she always
+talks. Gimme the bucket--I won't be gone only a a minute. SHE won't
+ever know."
+
+"Oh, I dasn't, Mars Tom. Ole missis she'd take an' tar de head off'n
+me. 'Deed she would."
+
+"SHE! She never licks anybody--whacks 'em over the head with her
+thimble--and who cares for that, I'd like to know. She talks awful, but
+talk don't hurt--anyways it don't if she don't cry. Jim, I'll give you
+a marvel. I'll give you a white alley!"
+
+Jim began to waver.
+
+"White alley, Jim! And it's a bully taw."
+
+"My! Dat's a mighty gay marvel, I tell you! But Mars Tom I's powerful
+'fraid ole missis--"
+
+"And besides, if you will I'll show you my sore toe."
+
+Jim was only human--this attraction was too much for him. He put down
+his pail, took the white alley, and bent over the toe with absorbing
+interest while the bandage was being unwound. In another moment he was
+flying down the street with his pail and a tingling rear, Tom was
+whitewashing with vigor, and Aunt Polly was retiring from the field
+with a slipper in her hand and triumph in her eye.
+
+But Tom's energy did not last. He began to think of the fun he had
+planned for this day, and his sorrows multiplied. Soon the free boys
+would come tripping along on all sorts of delicious expeditions, and
+they would make a world of fun of him for having to work--the very
+thought of it burnt him like fire. He got out his worldly wealth and
+examined it--bits of toys, marbles, and trash; enough to buy an
+exchange of WORK, maybe, but not half enough to buy so much as half an
+hour of pure freedom. So he returned his straitened means to his
+pocket, and gave up the idea of trying to buy the boys. At this dark
+and hopeless moment an inspiration burst upon him! Nothing less than a
+great, magnificent inspiration.
+
+He took up his brush and went tranquilly to work. Ben Rogers hove in
+sight presently--the very boy, of all boys, whose ridicule he had been
+dreading. Ben's gait was the hop-skip-and-jump--proof enough that his
+heart was light and his anticipations high. He was eating an apple, and
+giving a long, melodious whoop, at intervals, followed by a deep-toned
+ding-dong-dong, ding-dong-dong, for he was personating a steamboat. As
+he drew near, he slackened speed, took the middle of the street, leaned
+far over to starboard and rounded to ponderously and with laborious
+pomp and circumstance--for he was personating the Big Missouri, and
+considered himself to be drawing nine feet of water. He was boat and
+captain and engine-bells combined, so he had to imagine himself
+standing on his own hurricane-deck giving the orders and executing them:
+
+"Stop her, sir! Ting-a-ling-ling!" The headway ran almost out, and he
+drew up slowly toward the sidewalk.
+
+"Ship up to back! Ting-a-ling-ling!" His arms straightened and
+stiffened down his sides.
+
+"Set her back on the stabboard! Ting-a-ling-ling! Chow! ch-chow-wow!
+Chow!" His right hand, meantime, describing stately circles--for it was
+representing a forty-foot wheel.
+
+"Let her go back on the labboard! Ting-a-lingling! Chow-ch-chow-chow!"
+The left hand began to describe circles.
+
+"Stop the stabboard! Ting-a-ling-ling! Stop the labboard! Come ahead
+on the stabboard! Stop her! Let your outside turn over slow!
+Ting-a-ling-ling! Chow-ow-ow! Get out that head-line! LIVELY now!
+Come--out with your spring-line--what're you about there! Take a turn
+round that stump with the bight of it! Stand by that stage, now--let her
+go! Done with the engines, sir! Ting-a-ling-ling! SH'T! S'H'T! SH'T!"
+(trying the gauge-cocks).
+
+Tom went on whitewashing--paid no attention to the steamboat. Ben
+stared a moment and then said: "Hi-YI! YOU'RE up a stump, ain't you!"
+
+No answer. Tom surveyed his last touch with the eye of an artist, then
+he gave his brush another gentle sweep and surveyed the result, as
+before. Ben ranged up alongside of him. Tom's mouth watered for the
+apple, but he stuck to his work. Ben said:
+
+"Hello, old chap, you got to work, hey?"
+
+Tom wheeled suddenly and said:
+
+"Why, it's you, Ben! I warn't noticing."
+
+"Say--I'm going in a-swimming, I am. Don't you wish you could? But of
+course you'd druther WORK--wouldn't you? Course you would!"
+
+Tom contemplated the boy a bit, and said:
+
+"What do you call work?"
+
+"Why, ain't THAT work?"
+
+Tom resumed his whitewashing, and answered carelessly:
+
+"Well, maybe it is, and maybe it ain't. All I know, is, it suits Tom
+Sawyer."
+
+"Oh come, now, you don't mean to let on that you LIKE it?"
+
+The brush continued to move.
+
+"Like it? Well, I don't see why I oughtn't to like it. Does a boy get
+a chance to whitewash a fence every day?"
+
+That put the thing in a new light. Ben stopped nibbling his apple. Tom
+swept his brush daintily back and forth--stepped back to note the
+effect--added a touch here and there--criticised the effect again--Ben
+watching every move and getting more and more interested, more and more
+absorbed. Presently he said:
+
+"Say, Tom, let ME whitewash a little."
+
+Tom considered, was about to consent; but he altered his mind:
+
+"No--no--I reckon it wouldn't hardly do, Ben. You see, Aunt Polly's
+awful particular about this fence--right here on the street, you know
+--but if it was the back fence I wouldn't mind and SHE wouldn't. Yes,
+she's awful particular about this fence; it's got to be done very
+careful; I reckon there ain't one boy in a thousand, maybe two
+thousand, that can do it the way it's got to be done."
+
+"No--is that so? Oh come, now--lemme just try. Only just a little--I'd
+let YOU, if you was me, Tom."
+
+"Ben, I'd like to, honest injun; but Aunt Polly--well, Jim wanted to
+do it, but she wouldn't let him; Sid wanted to do it, and she wouldn't
+let Sid. Now don't you see how I'm fixed? If you was to tackle this
+fence and anything was to happen to it--"
+
+"Oh, shucks, I'll be just as careful. Now lemme try. Say--I'll give
+you the core of my apple."
+
+"Well, here--No, Ben, now don't. I'm afeard--"
+
+"I'll give you ALL of it!"
+
+Tom gave up the brush with reluctance in his face, but alacrity in his
+heart. And while the late steamer Big Missouri worked and sweated in
+the sun, the retired artist sat on a barrel in the shade close by,
+dangled his legs, munched his apple, and planned the slaughter of more
+innocents. There was no lack of material; boys happened along every
+little while; they came to jeer, but remained to whitewash. By the time
+Ben was fagged out, Tom had traded the next chance to Billy Fisher for
+a kite, in good repair; and when he played out, Johnny Miller bought in
+for a dead rat and a string to swing it with--and so on, and so on,
+hour after hour. And when the middle of the afternoon came, from being
+a poor poverty-stricken boy in the morning, Tom was literally rolling
+in wealth. He had besides the things before mentioned, twelve marbles,
+part of a jews-harp, a piece of blue bottle-glass to look through, a
+spool cannon, a key that wouldn't unlock anything, a fragment of chalk,
+a glass stopper of a decanter, a tin soldier, a couple of tadpoles, six
+fire-crackers, a kitten with only one eye, a brass doorknob, a
+dog-collar--but no dog--the handle of a knife, four pieces of
+orange-peel, and a dilapidated old window sash.
+
+He had had a nice, good, idle time all the while--plenty of company
+--and the fence had three coats of whitewash on it! If he hadn't run out
+of whitewash he would have bankrupted every boy in the village.
+
+Tom said to himself that it was not such a hollow world, after all. He
+had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it--namely,
+that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only
+necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. If he had been a great
+and wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now have
+comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is OBLIGED to do,
+and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do. And
+this would help him to understand why constructing artificial flowers
+or performing on a tread-mill is work, while rolling ten-pins or
+climbing Mont Blanc is only amusement. There are wealthy gentlemen in
+England who drive four-horse passenger-coaches twenty or thirty miles
+on a daily line, in the summer, because the privilege costs them
+considerable money; but if they were offered wages for the service,
+that would turn it into work and then they would resign.
+
+The boy mused awhile over the substantial change which had taken place
+in his worldly circumstances, and then wended toward headquarters to
+report.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+TOM presented himself before Aunt Polly, who was sitting by an open
+window in a pleasant rearward apartment, which was bedroom,
+breakfast-room, dining-room, and library, combined. The balmy summer
+air, the restful quiet, the odor of the flowers, and the drowsing murmur
+of the bees had had their effect, and she was nodding over her knitting
+--for she had no company but the cat, and it was asleep in her lap. Her
+spectacles were propped up on her gray head for safety. She had thought
+that of course Tom had deserted long ago, and she wondered at seeing him
+place himself in her power again in this intrepid way. He said: "Mayn't
+I go and play now, aunt?"
+
+"What, a'ready? How much have you done?"
+
+"It's all done, aunt."
+
+"Tom, don't lie to me--I can't bear it."
+
+"I ain't, aunt; it IS all done."
+
+Aunt Polly placed small trust in such evidence. She went out to see
+for herself; and she would have been content to find twenty per cent.
+of Tom's statement true. When she found the entire fence whitewashed,
+and not only whitewashed but elaborately coated and recoated, and even
+a streak added to the ground, her astonishment was almost unspeakable.
+She said:
+
+"Well, I never! There's no getting round it, you can work when you're
+a mind to, Tom." And then she diluted the compliment by adding, "But
+it's powerful seldom you're a mind to, I'm bound to say. Well, go 'long
+and play; but mind you get back some time in a week, or I'll tan you."
+
+She was so overcome by the splendor of his achievement that she took
+him into the closet and selected a choice apple and delivered it to
+him, along with an improving lecture upon the added value and flavor a
+treat took to itself when it came without sin through virtuous effort.
+And while she closed with a happy Scriptural flourish, he "hooked" a
+doughnut.
+
+Then he skipped out, and saw Sid just starting up the outside stairway
+that led to the back rooms on the second floor. Clods were handy and
+the air was full of them in a twinkling. They raged around Sid like a
+hail-storm; and before Aunt Polly could collect her surprised faculties
+and sally to the rescue, six or seven clods had taken personal effect,
+and Tom was over the fence and gone. There was a gate, but as a general
+thing he was too crowded for time to make use of it. His soul was at
+peace, now that he had settled with Sid for calling attention to his
+black thread and getting him into trouble.
+
+Tom skirted the block, and came round into a muddy alley that led by
+the back of his aunt's cow-stable. He presently got safely beyond the
+reach of capture and punishment, and hastened toward the public square
+of the village, where two "military" companies of boys had met for
+conflict, according to previous appointment. Tom was General of one of
+these armies, Joe Harper (a bosom friend) General of the other. These
+two great commanders did not condescend to fight in person--that being
+better suited to the still smaller fry--but sat together on an eminence
+and conducted the field operations by orders delivered through
+aides-de-camp. Tom's army won a great victory, after a long and
+hard-fought battle. Then the dead were counted, prisoners exchanged,
+the terms of the next disagreement agreed upon, and the day for the
+necessary battle appointed; after which the armies fell into line and
+marched away, and Tom turned homeward alone.
+
+As he was passing by the house where Jeff Thatcher lived, he saw a new
+girl in the garden--a lovely little blue-eyed creature with yellow hair
+plaited into two long-tails, white summer frock and embroidered
+pantalettes. The fresh-crowned hero fell without firing a shot. A
+certain Amy Lawrence vanished out of his heart and left not even a
+memory of herself behind. He had thought he loved her to distraction;
+he had regarded his passion as adoration; and behold it was only a poor
+little evanescent partiality. He had been months winning her; she had
+confessed hardly a week ago; he had been the happiest and the proudest
+boy in the world only seven short days, and here in one instant of time
+she had gone out of his heart like a casual stranger whose visit is
+done.
+
+He worshipped this new angel with furtive eye, till he saw that she
+had discovered him; then he pretended he did not know she was present,
+and began to "show off" in all sorts of absurd boyish ways, in order to
+win her admiration. He kept up this grotesque foolishness for some
+time; but by-and-by, while he was in the midst of some dangerous
+gymnastic performances, he glanced aside and saw that the little girl
+was wending her way toward the house. Tom came up to the fence and
+leaned on it, grieving, and hoping she would tarry yet awhile longer.
+She halted a moment on the steps and then moved toward the door. Tom
+heaved a great sigh as she put her foot on the threshold. But his face
+lit up, right away, for she tossed a pansy over the fence a moment
+before she disappeared.
+
+The boy ran around and stopped within a foot or two of the flower, and
+then shaded his eyes with his hand and began to look down street as if
+he had discovered something of interest going on in that direction.
+Presently he picked up a straw and began trying to balance it on his
+nose, with his head tilted far back; and as he moved from side to side,
+in his efforts, he edged nearer and nearer toward the pansy; finally
+his bare foot rested upon it, his pliant toes closed upon it, and he
+hopped away with the treasure and disappeared round the corner. But
+only for a minute--only while he could button the flower inside his
+jacket, next his heart--or next his stomach, possibly, for he was not
+much posted in anatomy, and not hypercritical, anyway.
+
+He returned, now, and hung about the fence till nightfall, "showing
+off," as before; but the girl never exhibited herself again, though Tom
+comforted himself a little with the hope that she had been near some
+window, meantime, and been aware of his attentions. Finally he strode
+home reluctantly, with his poor head full of visions.
+
+All through supper his spirits were so high that his aunt wondered
+"what had got into the child." He took a good scolding about clodding
+Sid, and did not seem to mind it in the least. He tried to steal sugar
+under his aunt's very nose, and got his knuckles rapped for it. He said:
+
+"Aunt, you don't whack Sid when he takes it."
+
+"Well, Sid don't torment a body the way you do. You'd be always into
+that sugar if I warn't watching you."
+
+Presently she stepped into the kitchen, and Sid, happy in his
+immunity, reached for the sugar-bowl--a sort of glorying over Tom which
+was wellnigh unbearable. But Sid's fingers slipped and the bowl dropped
+and broke. Tom was in ecstasies. In such ecstasies that he even
+controlled his tongue and was silent. He said to himself that he would
+not speak a word, even when his aunt came in, but would sit perfectly
+still till she asked who did the mischief; and then he would tell, and
+there would be nothing so good in the world as to see that pet model
+"catch it." He was so brimful of exultation that he could hardly hold
+himself when the old lady came back and stood above the wreck
+discharging lightnings of wrath from over her spectacles. He said to
+himself, "Now it's coming!" And the next instant he was sprawling on
+the floor! The potent palm was uplifted to strike again when Tom cried
+out:
+
+"Hold on, now, what 'er you belting ME for?--Sid broke it!"
+
+Aunt Polly paused, perplexed, and Tom looked for healing pity. But
+when she got her tongue again, she only said:
+
+"Umf! Well, you didn't get a lick amiss, I reckon. You been into some
+other audacious mischief when I wasn't around, like enough."
+
+Then her conscience reproached her, and she yearned to say something
+kind and loving; but she judged that this would be construed into a
+confession that she had been in the wrong, and discipline forbade that.
+So she kept silence, and went about her affairs with a troubled heart.
+Tom sulked in a corner and exalted his woes. He knew that in her heart
+his aunt was on her knees to him, and he was morosely gratified by the
+consciousness of it. He would hang out no signals, he would take notice
+of none. He knew that a yearning glance fell upon him, now and then,
+through a film of tears, but he refused recognition of it. He pictured
+himself lying sick unto death and his aunt bending over him beseeching
+one little forgiving word, but he would turn his face to the wall, and
+die with that word unsaid. Ah, how would she feel then? And he pictured
+himself brought home from the river, dead, with his curls all wet, and
+his sore heart at rest. How she would throw herself upon him, and how
+her tears would fall like rain, and her lips pray God to give her back
+her boy and she would never, never abuse him any more! But he would lie
+there cold and white and make no sign--a poor little sufferer, whose
+griefs were at an end. He so worked upon his feelings with the pathos
+of these dreams, that he had to keep swallowing, he was so like to
+choke; and his eyes swam in a blur of water, which overflowed when he
+winked, and ran down and trickled from the end of his nose. And such a
+luxury to him was this petting of his sorrows, that he could not bear
+to have any worldly cheeriness or any grating delight intrude upon it;
+it was too sacred for such contact; and so, presently, when his cousin
+Mary danced in, all alive with the joy of seeing home again after an
+age-long visit of one week to the country, he got up and moved in
+clouds and darkness out at one door as she brought song and sunshine in
+at the other.
+
+He wandered far from the accustomed haunts of boys, and sought
+desolate places that were in harmony with his spirit. A log raft in the
+river invited him, and he seated himself on its outer edge and
+contemplated the dreary vastness of the stream, wishing, the while,
+that he could only be drowned, all at once and unconsciously, without
+undergoing the uncomfortable routine devised by nature. Then he thought
+of his flower. He got it out, rumpled and wilted, and it mightily
+increased his dismal felicity. He wondered if she would pity him if she
+knew? Would she cry, and wish that she had a right to put her arms
+around his neck and comfort him? Or would she turn coldly away like all
+the hollow world? This picture brought such an agony of pleasurable
+suffering that he worked it over and over again in his mind and set it
+up in new and varied lights, till he wore it threadbare. At last he
+rose up sighing and departed in the darkness.
+
+About half-past nine or ten o'clock he came along the deserted street
+to where the Adored Unknown lived; he paused a moment; no sound fell
+upon his listening ear; a candle was casting a dull glow upon the
+curtain of a second-story window. Was the sacred presence there? He
+climbed the fence, threaded his stealthy way through the plants, till
+he stood under that window; he looked up at it long, and with emotion;
+then he laid him down on the ground under it, disposing himself upon
+his back, with his hands clasped upon his breast and holding his poor
+wilted flower. And thus he would die--out in the cold world, with no
+shelter over his homeless head, no friendly hand to wipe the
+death-damps from his brow, no loving face to bend pityingly over him
+when the great agony came. And thus SHE would see him when she looked
+out upon the glad morning, and oh! would she drop one little tear upon
+his poor, lifeless form, would she heave one little sigh to see a bright
+young life so rudely blighted, so untimely cut down?
+
+The window went up, a maid-servant's discordant voice profaned the
+holy calm, and a deluge of water drenched the prone martyr's remains!
+
+The strangling hero sprang up with a relieving snort. There was a whiz
+as of a missile in the air, mingled with the murmur of a curse, a sound
+as of shivering glass followed, and a small, vague form went over the
+fence and shot away in the gloom.
+
+Not long after, as Tom, all undressed for bed, was surveying his
+drenched garments by the light of a tallow dip, Sid woke up; but if he
+had any dim idea of making any "references to allusions," he thought
+better of it and held his peace, for there was danger in Tom's eye.
+
+Tom turned in without the added vexation of prayers, and Sid made
+mental note of the omission.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE sun rose upon a tranquil world, and beamed down upon the peaceful
+village like a benediction. Breakfast over, Aunt Polly had family
+worship: it began with a prayer built from the ground up of solid
+courses of Scriptural quotations, welded together with a thin mortar of
+originality; and from the summit of this she delivered a grim chapter
+of the Mosaic Law, as from Sinai.
+
+Then Tom girded up his loins, so to speak, and went to work to "get
+his verses." Sid had learned his lesson days before. Tom bent all his
+energies to the memorizing of five verses, and he chose part of the
+Sermon on the Mount, because he could find no verses that were shorter.
+At the end of half an hour Tom had a vague general idea of his lesson,
+but no more, for his mind was traversing the whole field of human
+thought, and his hands were busy with distracting recreations. Mary
+took his book to hear him recite, and he tried to find his way through
+the fog:
+
+"Blessed are the--a--a--"
+
+"Poor"--
+
+"Yes--poor; blessed are the poor--a--a--"
+
+"In spirit--"
+
+"In spirit; blessed are the poor in spirit, for they--they--"
+
+"THEIRS--"
+
+"For THEIRS. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom
+of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn, for they--they--"
+
+"Sh--"
+
+"For they--a--"
+
+"S, H, A--"
+
+"For they S, H--Oh, I don't know what it is!"
+
+"SHALL!"
+
+"Oh, SHALL! for they shall--for they shall--a--a--shall mourn--a--a--
+blessed are they that shall--they that--a--they that shall mourn, for
+they shall--a--shall WHAT? Why don't you tell me, Mary?--what do you
+want to be so mean for?"
+
+"Oh, Tom, you poor thick-headed thing, I'm not teasing you. I wouldn't
+do that. You must go and learn it again. Don't you be discouraged, Tom,
+you'll manage it--and if you do, I'll give you something ever so nice.
+There, now, that's a good boy."
+
+"All right! What is it, Mary, tell me what it is."
+
+"Never you mind, Tom. You know if I say it's nice, it is nice."
+
+"You bet you that's so, Mary. All right, I'll tackle it again."
+
+And he did "tackle it again"--and under the double pressure of
+curiosity and prospective gain he did it with such spirit that he
+accomplished a shining success. Mary gave him a brand-new "Barlow"
+knife worth twelve and a half cents; and the convulsion of delight that
+swept his system shook him to his foundations. True, the knife would
+not cut anything, but it was a "sure-enough" Barlow, and there was
+inconceivable grandeur in that--though where the Western boys ever got
+the idea that such a weapon could possibly be counterfeited to its
+injury is an imposing mystery and will always remain so, perhaps. Tom
+contrived to scarify the cupboard with it, and was arranging to begin
+on the bureau, when he was called off to dress for Sunday-school.
+
+Mary gave him a tin basin of water and a piece of soap, and he went
+outside the door and set the basin on a little bench there; then he
+dipped the soap in the water and laid it down; turned up his sleeves;
+poured out the water on the ground, gently, and then entered the
+kitchen and began to wipe his face diligently on the towel behind the
+door. But Mary removed the towel and said:
+
+"Now ain't you ashamed, Tom. You mustn't be so bad. Water won't hurt
+you."
+
+Tom was a trifle disconcerted. The basin was refilled, and this time
+he stood over it a little while, gathering resolution; took in a big
+breath and began. When he entered the kitchen presently, with both eyes
+shut and groping for the towel with his hands, an honorable testimony
+of suds and water was dripping from his face. But when he emerged from
+the towel, he was not yet satisfactory, for the clean territory stopped
+short at his chin and his jaws, like a mask; below and beyond this line
+there was a dark expanse of unirrigated soil that spread downward in
+front and backward around his neck. Mary took him in hand, and when she
+was done with him he was a man and a brother, without distinction of
+color, and his saturated hair was neatly brushed, and its short curls
+wrought into a dainty and symmetrical general effect. [He privately
+smoothed out the curls, with labor and difficulty, and plastered his
+hair close down to his head; for he held curls to be effeminate, and
+his own filled his life with bitterness.] Then Mary got out a suit of
+his clothing that had been used only on Sundays during two years--they
+were simply called his "other clothes"--and so by that we know the
+size of his wardrobe. The girl "put him to rights" after he had dressed
+himself; she buttoned his neat roundabout up to his chin, turned his
+vast shirt collar down over his shoulders, brushed him off and crowned
+him with his speckled straw hat. He now looked exceedingly improved and
+uncomfortable. He was fully as uncomfortable as he looked; for there
+was a restraint about whole clothes and cleanliness that galled him. He
+hoped that Mary would forget his shoes, but the hope was blighted; she
+coated them thoroughly with tallow, as was the custom, and brought them
+out. He lost his temper and said he was always being made to do
+everything he didn't want to do. But Mary said, persuasively:
+
+"Please, Tom--that's a good boy."
+
+So he got into the shoes snarling. Mary was soon ready, and the three
+children set out for Sunday-school--a place that Tom hated with his
+whole heart; but Sid and Mary were fond of it.
+
+Sabbath-school hours were from nine to half-past ten; and then church
+service. Two of the children always remained for the sermon
+voluntarily, and the other always remained too--for stronger reasons.
+The church's high-backed, uncushioned pews would seat about three
+hundred persons; the edifice was but a small, plain affair, with a sort
+of pine board tree-box on top of it for a steeple. At the door Tom
+dropped back a step and accosted a Sunday-dressed comrade:
+
+"Say, Billy, got a yaller ticket?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What'll you take for her?"
+
+"What'll you give?"
+
+"Piece of lickrish and a fish-hook."
+
+"Less see 'em."
+
+Tom exhibited. They were satisfactory, and the property changed hands.
+Then Tom traded a couple of white alleys for three red tickets, and
+some small trifle or other for a couple of blue ones. He waylaid other
+boys as they came, and went on buying tickets of various colors ten or
+fifteen minutes longer. He entered the church, now, with a swarm of
+clean and noisy boys and girls, proceeded to his seat and started a
+quarrel with the first boy that came handy. The teacher, a grave,
+elderly man, interfered; then turned his back a moment and Tom pulled a
+boy's hair in the next bench, and was absorbed in his book when the boy
+turned around; stuck a pin in another boy, presently, in order to hear
+him say "Ouch!" and got a new reprimand from his teacher. Tom's whole
+class were of a pattern--restless, noisy, and troublesome. When they
+came to recite their lessons, not one of them knew his verses
+perfectly, but had to be prompted all along. However, they worried
+through, and each got his reward--in small blue tickets, each with a
+passage of Scripture on it; each blue ticket was pay for two verses of
+the recitation. Ten blue tickets equalled a red one, and could be
+exchanged for it; ten red tickets equalled a yellow one; for ten yellow
+tickets the superintendent gave a very plainly bound Bible (worth forty
+cents in those easy times) to the pupil. How many of my readers would
+have the industry and application to memorize two thousand verses, even
+for a Dore Bible? And yet Mary had acquired two Bibles in this way--it
+was the patient work of two years--and a boy of German parentage had
+won four or five. He once recited three thousand verses without
+stopping; but the strain upon his mental faculties was too great, and
+he was little better than an idiot from that day forth--a grievous
+misfortune for the school, for on great occasions, before company, the
+superintendent (as Tom expressed it) had always made this boy come out
+and "spread himself." Only the older pupils managed to keep their
+tickets and stick to their tedious work long enough to get a Bible, and
+so the delivery of one of these prizes was a rare and noteworthy
+circumstance; the successful pupil was so great and conspicuous for
+that day that on the spot every scholar's heart was fired with a fresh
+ambition that often lasted a couple of weeks. It is possible that Tom's
+mental stomach had never really hungered for one of those prizes, but
+unquestionably his entire being had for many a day longed for the glory
+and the eclat that came with it.
+
+In due course the superintendent stood up in front of the pulpit, with
+a closed hymn-book in his hand and his forefinger inserted between its
+leaves, and commanded attention. When a Sunday-school superintendent
+makes his customary little speech, a hymn-book in the hand is as
+necessary as is the inevitable sheet of music in the hand of a singer
+who stands forward on the platform and sings a solo at a concert
+--though why, is a mystery: for neither the hymn-book nor the sheet of
+music is ever referred to by the sufferer. This superintendent was a
+slim creature of thirty-five, with a sandy goatee and short sandy hair;
+he wore a stiff standing-collar whose upper edge almost reached his
+ears and whose sharp points curved forward abreast the corners of his
+mouth--a fence that compelled a straight lookout ahead, and a turning
+of the whole body when a side view was required; his chin was propped
+on a spreading cravat which was as broad and as long as a bank-note,
+and had fringed ends; his boot toes were turned sharply up, in the
+fashion of the day, like sleigh-runners--an effect patiently and
+laboriously produced by the young men by sitting with their toes
+pressed against a wall for hours together. Mr. Walters was very earnest
+of mien, and very sincere and honest at heart; and he held sacred
+things and places in such reverence, and so separated them from worldly
+matters, that unconsciously to himself his Sunday-school voice had
+acquired a peculiar intonation which was wholly absent on week-days. He
+began after this fashion:
+
+"Now, children, I want you all to sit up just as straight and pretty
+as you can and give me all your attention for a minute or two. There
+--that is it. That is the way good little boys and girls should do. I see
+one little girl who is looking out of the window--I am afraid she
+thinks I am out there somewhere--perhaps up in one of the trees making
+a speech to the little birds. [Applausive titter.] I want to tell you
+how good it makes me feel to see so many bright, clean little faces
+assembled in a place like this, learning to do right and be good." And
+so forth and so on. It is not necessary to set down the rest of the
+oration. It was of a pattern which does not vary, and so it is familiar
+to us all.
+
+The latter third of the speech was marred by the resumption of fights
+and other recreations among certain of the bad boys, and by fidgetings
+and whisperings that extended far and wide, washing even to the bases
+of isolated and incorruptible rocks like Sid and Mary. But now every
+sound ceased suddenly, with the subsidence of Mr. Walters' voice, and
+the conclusion of the speech was received with a burst of silent
+gratitude.
+
+A good part of the whispering had been occasioned by an event which
+was more or less rare--the entrance of visitors: lawyer Thatcher,
+accompanied by a very feeble and aged man; a fine, portly, middle-aged
+gentleman with iron-gray hair; and a dignified lady who was doubtless
+the latter's wife. The lady was leading a child. Tom had been restless
+and full of chafings and repinings; conscience-smitten, too--he could
+not meet Amy Lawrence's eye, he could not brook her loving gaze. But
+when he saw this small new-comer his soul was all ablaze with bliss in
+a moment. The next moment he was "showing off" with all his might
+--cuffing boys, pulling hair, making faces--in a word, using every art
+that seemed likely to fascinate a girl and win her applause. His
+exaltation had but one alloy--the memory of his humiliation in this
+angel's garden--and that record in sand was fast washing out, under
+the waves of happiness that were sweeping over it now.
+
+The visitors were given the highest seat of honor, and as soon as Mr.
+Walters' speech was finished, he introduced them to the school. The
+middle-aged man turned out to be a prodigious personage--no less a one
+than the county judge--altogether the most august creation these
+children had ever looked upon--and they wondered what kind of material
+he was made of--and they half wanted to hear him roar, and were half
+afraid he might, too. He was from Constantinople, twelve miles away--so
+he had travelled, and seen the world--these very eyes had looked upon
+the county court-house--which was said to have a tin roof. The awe
+which these reflections inspired was attested by the impressive silence
+and the ranks of staring eyes. This was the great Judge Thatcher,
+brother of their own lawyer. Jeff Thatcher immediately went forward, to
+be familiar with the great man and be envied by the school. It would
+have been music to his soul to hear the whisperings:
+
+"Look at him, Jim! He's a going up there. Say--look! he's a going to
+shake hands with him--he IS shaking hands with him! By jings, don't you
+wish you was Jeff?"
+
+Mr. Walters fell to "showing off," with all sorts of official
+bustlings and activities, giving orders, delivering judgments,
+discharging directions here, there, everywhere that he could find a
+target. The librarian "showed off"--running hither and thither with his
+arms full of books and making a deal of the splutter and fuss that
+insect authority delights in. The young lady teachers "showed off"
+--bending sweetly over pupils that were lately being boxed, lifting
+pretty warning fingers at bad little boys and patting good ones
+lovingly. The young gentlemen teachers "showed off" with small
+scoldings and other little displays of authority and fine attention to
+discipline--and most of the teachers, of both sexes, found business up
+at the library, by the pulpit; and it was business that frequently had
+to be done over again two or three times (with much seeming vexation).
+The little girls "showed off" in various ways, and the little boys
+"showed off" with such diligence that the air was thick with paper wads
+and the murmur of scufflings. And above it all the great man sat and
+beamed a majestic judicial smile upon all the house, and warmed himself
+in the sun of his own grandeur--for he was "showing off," too.
+
+There was only one thing wanting to make Mr. Walters' ecstasy
+complete, and that was a chance to deliver a Bible-prize and exhibit a
+prodigy. Several pupils had a few yellow tickets, but none had enough
+--he had been around among the star pupils inquiring. He would have given
+worlds, now, to have that German lad back again with a sound mind.
+
+And now at this moment, when hope was dead, Tom Sawyer came forward
+with nine yellow tickets, nine red tickets, and ten blue ones, and
+demanded a Bible. This was a thunderbolt out of a clear sky. Walters
+was not expecting an application from this source for the next ten
+years. But there was no getting around it--here were the certified
+checks, and they were good for their face. Tom was therefore elevated
+to a place with the Judge and the other elect, and the great news was
+announced from headquarters. It was the most stunning surprise of the
+decade, and so profound was the sensation that it lifted the new hero
+up to the judicial one's altitude, and the school had two marvels to
+gaze upon in place of one. The boys were all eaten up with envy--but
+those that suffered the bitterest pangs were those who perceived too
+late that they themselves had contributed to this hated splendor by
+trading tickets to Tom for the wealth he had amassed in selling
+whitewashing privileges. These despised themselves, as being the dupes
+of a wily fraud, a guileful snake in the grass.
+
+The prize was delivered to Tom with as much effusion as the
+superintendent could pump up under the circumstances; but it lacked
+somewhat of the true gush, for the poor fellow's instinct taught him
+that there was a mystery here that could not well bear the light,
+perhaps; it was simply preposterous that this boy had warehoused two
+thousand sheaves of Scriptural wisdom on his premises--a dozen would
+strain his capacity, without a doubt.
+
+Amy Lawrence was proud and glad, and she tried to make Tom see it in
+her face--but he wouldn't look. She wondered; then she was just a grain
+troubled; next a dim suspicion came and went--came again; she watched;
+a furtive glance told her worlds--and then her heart broke, and she was
+jealous, and angry, and the tears came and she hated everybody. Tom
+most of all (she thought).
+
+Tom was introduced to the Judge; but his tongue was tied, his breath
+would hardly come, his heart quaked--partly because of the awful
+greatness of the man, but mainly because he was her parent. He would
+have liked to fall down and worship him, if it were in the dark. The
+Judge put his hand on Tom's head and called him a fine little man, and
+asked him what his name was. The boy stammered, gasped, and got it out:
+
+"Tom."
+
+"Oh, no, not Tom--it is--"
+
+"Thomas."
+
+"Ah, that's it. I thought there was more to it, maybe. That's very
+well. But you've another one I daresay, and you'll tell it to me, won't
+you?"
+
+"Tell the gentleman your other name, Thomas," said Walters, "and say
+sir. You mustn't forget your manners."
+
+"Thomas Sawyer--sir."
+
+"That's it! That's a good boy. Fine boy. Fine, manly little fellow.
+Two thousand verses is a great many--very, very great many. And you
+never can be sorry for the trouble you took to learn them; for
+knowledge is worth more than anything there is in the world; it's what
+makes great men and good men; you'll be a great man and a good man
+yourself, some day, Thomas, and then you'll look back and say, It's all
+owing to the precious Sunday-school privileges of my boyhood--it's all
+owing to my dear teachers that taught me to learn--it's all owing to
+the good superintendent, who encouraged me, and watched over me, and
+gave me a beautiful Bible--a splendid elegant Bible--to keep and have
+it all for my own, always--it's all owing to right bringing up! That is
+what you will say, Thomas--and you wouldn't take any money for those
+two thousand verses--no indeed you wouldn't. And now you wouldn't mind
+telling me and this lady some of the things you've learned--no, I know
+you wouldn't--for we are proud of little boys that learn. Now, no
+doubt you know the names of all the twelve disciples. Won't you tell us
+the names of the first two that were appointed?"
+
+Tom was tugging at a button-hole and looking sheepish. He blushed,
+now, and his eyes fell. Mr. Walters' heart sank within him. He said to
+himself, it is not possible that the boy can answer the simplest
+question--why DID the Judge ask him? Yet he felt obliged to speak up
+and say:
+
+"Answer the gentleman, Thomas--don't be afraid."
+
+Tom still hung fire.
+
+"Now I know you'll tell me," said the lady. "The names of the first
+two disciples were--"
+
+"DAVID AND GOLIAH!"
+
+Let us draw the curtain of charity over the rest of the scene.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+ABOUT half-past ten the cracked bell of the small church began to
+ring, and presently the people began to gather for the morning sermon.
+The Sunday-school children distributed themselves about the house and
+occupied pews with their parents, so as to be under supervision. Aunt
+Polly came, and Tom and Sid and Mary sat with her--Tom being placed
+next the aisle, in order that he might be as far away from the open
+window and the seductive outside summer scenes as possible. The crowd
+filed up the aisles: the aged and needy postmaster, who had seen better
+days; the mayor and his wife--for they had a mayor there, among other
+unnecessaries; the justice of the peace; the widow Douglass, fair,
+smart, and forty, a generous, good-hearted soul and well-to-do, her
+hill mansion the only palace in the town, and the most hospitable and
+much the most lavish in the matter of festivities that St. Petersburg
+could boast; the bent and venerable Major and Mrs. Ward; lawyer
+Riverson, the new notable from a distance; next the belle of the
+village, followed by a troop of lawn-clad and ribbon-decked young
+heart-breakers; then all the young clerks in town in a body--for they
+had stood in the vestibule sucking their cane-heads, a circling wall of
+oiled and simpering admirers, till the last girl had run their gantlet;
+and last of all came the Model Boy, Willie Mufferson, taking as heedful
+care of his mother as if she were cut glass. He always brought his
+mother to church, and was the pride of all the matrons. The boys all
+hated him, he was so good. And besides, he had been "thrown up to them"
+so much. His white handkerchief was hanging out of his pocket behind, as
+usual on Sundays--accidentally. Tom had no handkerchief, and he looked
+upon boys who had as snobs.
+
+The congregation being fully assembled, now, the bell rang once more,
+to warn laggards and stragglers, and then a solemn hush fell upon the
+church which was only broken by the tittering and whispering of the
+choir in the gallery. The choir always tittered and whispered all
+through service. There was once a church choir that was not ill-bred,
+but I have forgotten where it was, now. It was a great many years ago,
+and I can scarcely remember anything about it, but I think it was in
+some foreign country.
+
+The minister gave out the hymn, and read it through with a relish, in
+a peculiar style which was much admired in that part of the country.
+His voice began on a medium key and climbed steadily up till it reached
+a certain point, where it bore with strong emphasis upon the topmost
+word and then plunged down as if from a spring-board:
+
+  Shall I be car-ri-ed toe the skies, on flow'ry BEDS of ease,
+
+  Whilst others fight to win the prize, and sail thro' BLOODY seas?
+
+He was regarded as a wonderful reader. At church "sociables" he was
+always called upon to read poetry; and when he was through, the ladies
+would lift up their hands and let them fall helplessly in their laps,
+and "wall" their eyes, and shake their heads, as much as to say, "Words
+cannot express it; it is too beautiful, TOO beautiful for this mortal
+earth."
+
+After the hymn had been sung, the Rev. Mr. Sprague turned himself into
+a bulletin-board, and read off "notices" of meetings and societies and
+things till it seemed that the list would stretch out to the crack of
+doom--a queer custom which is still kept up in America, even in cities,
+away here in this age of abundant newspapers. Often, the less there is
+to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get rid of it.
+
+And now the minister prayed. A good, generous prayer it was, and went
+into details: it pleaded for the church, and the little children of the
+church; for the other churches of the village; for the village itself;
+for the county; for the State; for the State officers; for the United
+States; for the churches of the United States; for Congress; for the
+President; for the officers of the Government; for poor sailors, tossed
+by stormy seas; for the oppressed millions groaning under the heel of
+European monarchies and Oriental despotisms; for such as have the light
+and the good tidings, and yet have not eyes to see nor ears to hear
+withal; for the heathen in the far islands of the sea; and closed with
+a supplication that the words he was about to speak might find grace
+and favor, and be as seed sown in fertile ground, yielding in time a
+grateful harvest of good. Amen.
+
+There was a rustling of dresses, and the standing congregation sat
+down. The boy whose history this book relates did not enjoy the prayer,
+he only endured it--if he even did that much. He was restive all
+through it; he kept tally of the details of the prayer, unconsciously
+--for he was not listening, but he knew the ground of old, and the
+clergyman's regular route over it--and when a little trifle of new
+matter was interlarded, his ear detected it and his whole nature
+resented it; he considered additions unfair, and scoundrelly. In the
+midst of the prayer a fly had lit on the back of the pew in front of
+him and tortured his spirit by calmly rubbing its hands together,
+embracing its head with its arms, and polishing it so vigorously that
+it seemed to almost part company with the body, and the slender thread
+of a neck was exposed to view; scraping its wings with its hind legs
+and smoothing them to its body as if they had been coat-tails; going
+through its whole toilet as tranquilly as if it knew it was perfectly
+safe. As indeed it was; for as sorely as Tom's hands itched to grab for
+it they did not dare--he believed his soul would be instantly destroyed
+if he did such a thing while the prayer was going on. But with the
+closing sentence his hand began to curve and steal forward; and the
+instant the "Amen" was out the fly was a prisoner of war. His aunt
+detected the act and made him let it go.
+
+The minister gave out his text and droned along monotonously through
+an argument that was so prosy that many a head by and by began to nod
+--and yet it was an argument that dealt in limitless fire and brimstone
+and thinned the predestined elect down to a company so small as to be
+hardly worth the saving. Tom counted the pages of the sermon; after
+church he always knew how many pages there had been, but he seldom knew
+anything else about the discourse. However, this time he was really
+interested for a little while. The minister made a grand and moving
+picture of the assembling together of the world's hosts at the
+millennium when the lion and the lamb should lie down together and a
+little child should lead them. But the pathos, the lesson, the moral of
+the great spectacle were lost upon the boy; he only thought of the
+conspicuousness of the principal character before the on-looking
+nations; his face lit with the thought, and he said to himself that he
+wished he could be that child, if it was a tame lion.
+
+Now he lapsed into suffering again, as the dry argument was resumed.
+Presently he bethought him of a treasure he had and got it out. It was
+a large black beetle with formidable jaws--a "pinchbug," he called it.
+It was in a percussion-cap box. The first thing the beetle did was to
+take him by the finger. A natural fillip followed, the beetle went
+floundering into the aisle and lit on its back, and the hurt finger
+went into the boy's mouth. The beetle lay there working its helpless
+legs, unable to turn over. Tom eyed it, and longed for it; but it was
+safe out of his reach. Other people uninterested in the sermon found
+relief in the beetle, and they eyed it too. Presently a vagrant poodle
+dog came idling along, sad at heart, lazy with the summer softness and
+the quiet, weary of captivity, sighing for change. He spied the beetle;
+the drooping tail lifted and wagged. He surveyed the prize; walked
+around it; smelt at it from a safe distance; walked around it again;
+grew bolder, and took a closer smell; then lifted his lip and made a
+gingerly snatch at it, just missing it; made another, and another;
+began to enjoy the diversion; subsided to his stomach with the beetle
+between his paws, and continued his experiments; grew weary at last,
+and then indifferent and absent-minded. His head nodded, and little by
+little his chin descended and touched the enemy, who seized it. There
+was a sharp yelp, a flirt of the poodle's head, and the beetle fell a
+couple of yards away, and lit on its back once more. The neighboring
+spectators shook with a gentle inward joy, several faces went behind
+fans and handkerchiefs, and Tom was entirely happy. The dog looked
+foolish, and probably felt so; but there was resentment in his heart,
+too, and a craving for revenge. So he went to the beetle and began a
+wary attack on it again; jumping at it from every point of a circle,
+lighting with his fore-paws within an inch of the creature, making even
+closer snatches at it with his teeth, and jerking his head till his
+ears flapped again. But he grew tired once more, after a while; tried
+to amuse himself with a fly but found no relief; followed an ant
+around, with his nose close to the floor, and quickly wearied of that;
+yawned, sighed, forgot the beetle entirely, and sat down on it. Then
+there was a wild yelp of agony and the poodle went sailing up the
+aisle; the yelps continued, and so did the dog; he crossed the house in
+front of the altar; he flew down the other aisle; he crossed before the
+doors; he clamored up the home-stretch; his anguish grew with his
+progress, till presently he was but a woolly comet moving in its orbit
+with the gleam and the speed of light. At last the frantic sufferer
+sheered from its course, and sprang into its master's lap; he flung it
+out of the window, and the voice of distress quickly thinned away and
+died in the distance.
+
+By this time the whole church was red-faced and suffocating with
+suppressed laughter, and the sermon had come to a dead standstill. The
+discourse was resumed presently, but it went lame and halting, all
+possibility of impressiveness being at an end; for even the gravest
+sentiments were constantly being received with a smothered burst of
+unholy mirth, under cover of some remote pew-back, as if the poor
+parson had said a rarely facetious thing. It was a genuine relief to
+the whole congregation when the ordeal was over and the benediction
+pronounced.
+
+Tom Sawyer went home quite cheerful, thinking to himself that there
+was some satisfaction about divine service when there was a bit of
+variety in it. He had but one marring thought; he was willing that the
+dog should play with his pinchbug, but he did not think it was upright
+in him to carry it off.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+MONDAY morning found Tom Sawyer miserable. Monday morning always found
+him so--because it began another week's slow suffering in school. He
+generally began that day with wishing he had had no intervening
+holiday, it made the going into captivity and fetters again so much
+more odious.
+
+Tom lay thinking. Presently it occurred to him that he wished he was
+sick; then he could stay home from school. Here was a vague
+possibility. He canvassed his system. No ailment was found, and he
+investigated again. This time he thought he could detect colicky
+symptoms, and he began to encourage them with considerable hope. But
+they soon grew feeble, and presently died wholly away. He reflected
+further. Suddenly he discovered something. One of his upper front teeth
+was loose. This was lucky; he was about to begin to groan, as a
+"starter," as he called it, when it occurred to him that if he came
+into court with that argument, his aunt would pull it out, and that
+would hurt. So he thought he would hold the tooth in reserve for the
+present, and seek further. Nothing offered for some little time, and
+then he remembered hearing the doctor tell about a certain thing that
+laid up a patient for two or three weeks and threatened to make him
+lose a finger. So the boy eagerly drew his sore toe from under the
+sheet and held it up for inspection. But now he did not know the
+necessary symptoms. However, it seemed well worth while to chance it,
+so he fell to groaning with considerable spirit.
+
+But Sid slept on unconscious.
+
+Tom groaned louder, and fancied that he began to feel pain in the toe.
+
+No result from Sid.
+
+Tom was panting with his exertions by this time. He took a rest and
+then swelled himself up and fetched a succession of admirable groans.
+
+Sid snored on.
+
+Tom was aggravated. He said, "Sid, Sid!" and shook him. This course
+worked well, and Tom began to groan again. Sid yawned, stretched, then
+brought himself up on his elbow with a snort, and began to stare at
+Tom. Tom went on groaning. Sid said:
+
+"Tom! Say, Tom!" [No response.] "Here, Tom! TOM! What is the matter,
+Tom?" And he shook him and looked in his face anxiously.
+
+Tom moaned out:
+
+"Oh, don't, Sid. Don't joggle me."
+
+"Why, what's the matter, Tom? I must call auntie."
+
+"No--never mind. It'll be over by and by, maybe. Don't call anybody."
+
+"But I must! DON'T groan so, Tom, it's awful. How long you been this
+way?"
+
+"Hours. Ouch! Oh, don't stir so, Sid, you'll kill me."
+
+"Tom, why didn't you wake me sooner? Oh, Tom, DON'T! It makes my
+flesh crawl to hear you. Tom, what is the matter?"
+
+"I forgive you everything, Sid. [Groan.] Everything you've ever done
+to me. When I'm gone--"
+
+"Oh, Tom, you ain't dying, are you? Don't, Tom--oh, don't. Maybe--"
+
+"I forgive everybody, Sid. [Groan.] Tell 'em so, Sid. And Sid, you
+give my window-sash and my cat with one eye to that new girl that's
+come to town, and tell her--"
+
+But Sid had snatched his clothes and gone. Tom was suffering in
+reality, now, so handsomely was his imagination working, and so his
+groans had gathered quite a genuine tone.
+
+Sid flew down-stairs and said:
+
+"Oh, Aunt Polly, come! Tom's dying!"
+
+"Dying!"
+
+"Yes'm. Don't wait--come quick!"
+
+"Rubbage! I don't believe it!"
+
+But she fled up-stairs, nevertheless, with Sid and Mary at her heels.
+And her face grew white, too, and her lip trembled. When she reached
+the bedside she gasped out:
+
+"You, Tom! Tom, what's the matter with you?"
+
+"Oh, auntie, I'm--"
+
+"What's the matter with you--what is the matter with you, child?"
+
+"Oh, auntie, my sore toe's mortified!"
+
+The old lady sank down into a chair and laughed a little, then cried a
+little, then did both together. This restored her and she said:
+
+"Tom, what a turn you did give me. Now you shut up that nonsense and
+climb out of this."
+
+The groans ceased and the pain vanished from the toe. The boy felt a
+little foolish, and he said:
+
+"Aunt Polly, it SEEMED mortified, and it hurt so I never minded my
+tooth at all."
+
+"Your tooth, indeed! What's the matter with your tooth?"
+
+"One of them's loose, and it aches perfectly awful."
+
+"There, there, now, don't begin that groaning again. Open your mouth.
+Well--your tooth IS loose, but you're not going to die about that.
+Mary, get me a silk thread, and a chunk of fire out of the kitchen."
+
+Tom said:
+
+"Oh, please, auntie, don't pull it out. It don't hurt any more. I wish
+I may never stir if it does. Please don't, auntie. I don't want to stay
+home from school."
+
+"Oh, you don't, don't you? So all this row was because you thought
+you'd get to stay home from school and go a-fishing? Tom, Tom, I love
+you so, and you seem to try every way you can to break my old heart
+with your outrageousness." By this time the dental instruments were
+ready. The old lady made one end of the silk thread fast to Tom's tooth
+with a loop and tied the other to the bedpost. Then she seized the
+chunk of fire and suddenly thrust it almost into the boy's face. The
+tooth hung dangling by the bedpost, now.
+
+But all trials bring their compensations. As Tom wended to school
+after breakfast, he was the envy of every boy he met because the gap in
+his upper row of teeth enabled him to expectorate in a new and
+admirable way. He gathered quite a following of lads interested in the
+exhibition; and one that had cut his finger and had been a centre of
+fascination and homage up to this time, now found himself suddenly
+without an adherent, and shorn of his glory. His heart was heavy, and
+he said with a disdain which he did not feel that it wasn't anything to
+spit like Tom Sawyer; but another boy said, "Sour grapes!" and he
+wandered away a dismantled hero.
+
+Shortly Tom came upon the juvenile pariah of the village, Huckleberry
+Finn, son of the town drunkard. Huckleberry was cordially hated and
+dreaded by all the mothers of the town, because he was idle and lawless
+and vulgar and bad--and because all their children admired him so, and
+delighted in his forbidden society, and wished they dared to be like
+him. Tom was like the rest of the respectable boys, in that he envied
+Huckleberry his gaudy outcast condition, and was under strict orders
+not to play with him. So he played with him every time he got a chance.
+Huckleberry was always dressed in the cast-off clothes of full-grown
+men, and they were in perennial bloom and fluttering with rags. His hat
+was a vast ruin with a wide crescent lopped out of its brim; his coat,
+when he wore one, hung nearly to his heels and had the rearward buttons
+far down the back; but one suspender supported his trousers; the seat
+of the trousers bagged low and contained nothing, the fringed legs
+dragged in the dirt when not rolled up.
+
+Huckleberry came and went, at his own free will. He slept on doorsteps
+in fine weather and in empty hogsheads in wet; he did not have to go to
+school or to church, or call any being master or obey anybody; he could
+go fishing or swimming when and where he chose, and stay as long as it
+suited him; nobody forbade him to fight; he could sit up as late as he
+pleased; he was always the first boy that went barefoot in the spring
+and the last to resume leather in the fall; he never had to wash, nor
+put on clean clothes; he could swear wonderfully. In a word, everything
+that goes to make life precious that boy had. So thought every
+harassed, hampered, respectable boy in St. Petersburg.
+
+Tom hailed the romantic outcast:
+
+"Hello, Huckleberry!"
+
+"Hello yourself, and see how you like it."
+
+"What's that you got?"
+
+"Dead cat."
+
+"Lemme see him, Huck. My, he's pretty stiff. Where'd you get him?"
+
+"Bought him off'n a boy."
+
+"What did you give?"
+
+"I give a blue ticket and a bladder that I got at the slaughter-house."
+
+"Where'd you get the blue ticket?"
+
+"Bought it off'n Ben Rogers two weeks ago for a hoop-stick."
+
+"Say--what is dead cats good for, Huck?"
+
+"Good for? Cure warts with."
+
+"No! Is that so? I know something that's better."
+
+"I bet you don't. What is it?"
+
+"Why, spunk-water."
+
+"Spunk-water! I wouldn't give a dern for spunk-water."
+
+"You wouldn't, wouldn't you? D'you ever try it?"
+
+"No, I hain't. But Bob Tanner did."
+
+"Who told you so!"
+
+"Why, he told Jeff Thatcher, and Jeff told Johnny Baker, and Johnny
+told Jim Hollis, and Jim told Ben Rogers, and Ben told a nigger, and
+the nigger told me. There now!"
+
+"Well, what of it? They'll all lie. Leastways all but the nigger. I
+don't know HIM. But I never see a nigger that WOULDN'T lie. Shucks! Now
+you tell me how Bob Tanner done it, Huck."
+
+"Why, he took and dipped his hand in a rotten stump where the
+rain-water was."
+
+"In the daytime?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"With his face to the stump?"
+
+"Yes. Least I reckon so."
+
+"Did he say anything?"
+
+"I don't reckon he did. I don't know."
+
+"Aha! Talk about trying to cure warts with spunk-water such a blame
+fool way as that! Why, that ain't a-going to do any good. You got to go
+all by yourself, to the middle of the woods, where you know there's a
+spunk-water stump, and just as it's midnight you back up against the
+stump and jam your hand in and say:
+
+  'Barley-corn, barley-corn, injun-meal shorts,
+   Spunk-water, spunk-water, swaller these warts,'
+
+and then walk away quick, eleven steps, with your eyes shut, and then
+turn around three times and walk home without speaking to anybody.
+Because if you speak the charm's busted."
+
+"Well, that sounds like a good way; but that ain't the way Bob Tanner
+done."
+
+"No, sir, you can bet he didn't, becuz he's the wartiest boy in this
+town; and he wouldn't have a wart on him if he'd knowed how to work
+spunk-water. I've took off thousands of warts off of my hands that way,
+Huck. I play with frogs so much that I've always got considerable many
+warts. Sometimes I take 'em off with a bean."
+
+"Yes, bean's good. I've done that."
+
+"Have you? What's your way?"
+
+"You take and split the bean, and cut the wart so as to get some
+blood, and then you put the blood on one piece of the bean and take and
+dig a hole and bury it 'bout midnight at the crossroads in the dark of
+the moon, and then you burn up the rest of the bean. You see that piece
+that's got the blood on it will keep drawing and drawing, trying to
+fetch the other piece to it, and so that helps the blood to draw the
+wart, and pretty soon off she comes."
+
+"Yes, that's it, Huck--that's it; though when you're burying it if you
+say 'Down bean; off wart; come no more to bother me!' it's better.
+That's the way Joe Harper does, and he's been nearly to Coonville and
+most everywheres. But say--how do you cure 'em with dead cats?"
+
+"Why, you take your cat and go and get in the graveyard 'long about
+midnight when somebody that was wicked has been buried; and when it's
+midnight a devil will come, or maybe two or three, but you can't see
+'em, you can only hear something like the wind, or maybe hear 'em talk;
+and when they're taking that feller away, you heave your cat after 'em
+and say, 'Devil follow corpse, cat follow devil, warts follow cat, I'm
+done with ye!' That'll fetch ANY wart."
+
+"Sounds right. D'you ever try it, Huck?"
+
+"No, but old Mother Hopkins told me."
+
+"Well, I reckon it's so, then. Becuz they say she's a witch."
+
+"Say! Why, Tom, I KNOW she is. She witched pap. Pap says so his own
+self. He come along one day, and he see she was a-witching him, so he
+took up a rock, and if she hadn't dodged, he'd a got her. Well, that
+very night he rolled off'n a shed wher' he was a layin drunk, and broke
+his arm."
+
+"Why, that's awful. How did he know she was a-witching him?"
+
+"Lord, pap can tell, easy. Pap says when they keep looking at you
+right stiddy, they're a-witching you. Specially if they mumble. Becuz
+when they mumble they're saying the Lord's Prayer backards."
+
+"Say, Hucky, when you going to try the cat?"
+
+"To-night. I reckon they'll come after old Hoss Williams to-night."
+
+"But they buried him Saturday. Didn't they get him Saturday night?"
+
+"Why, how you talk! How could their charms work till midnight?--and
+THEN it's Sunday. Devils don't slosh around much of a Sunday, I don't
+reckon."
+
+"I never thought of that. That's so. Lemme go with you?"
+
+"Of course--if you ain't afeard."
+
+"Afeard! 'Tain't likely. Will you meow?"
+
+"Yes--and you meow back, if you get a chance. Last time, you kep' me
+a-meowing around till old Hays went to throwing rocks at me and says
+'Dern that cat!' and so I hove a brick through his window--but don't
+you tell."
+
+"I won't. I couldn't meow that night, becuz auntie was watching me,
+but I'll meow this time. Say--what's that?"
+
+"Nothing but a tick."
+
+"Where'd you get him?"
+
+"Out in the woods."
+
+"What'll you take for him?"
+
+"I don't know. I don't want to sell him."
+
+"All right. It's a mighty small tick, anyway."
+
+"Oh, anybody can run a tick down that don't belong to them. I'm
+satisfied with it. It's a good enough tick for me."
+
+"Sho, there's ticks a plenty. I could have a thousand of 'em if I
+wanted to."
+
+"Well, why don't you? Becuz you know mighty well you can't. This is a
+pretty early tick, I reckon. It's the first one I've seen this year."
+
+"Say, Huck--I'll give you my tooth for him."
+
+"Less see it."
+
+Tom got out a bit of paper and carefully unrolled it. Huckleberry
+viewed it wistfully. The temptation was very strong. At last he said:
+
+"Is it genuwyne?"
+
+Tom lifted his lip and showed the vacancy.
+
+"Well, all right," said Huckleberry, "it's a trade."
+
+Tom enclosed the tick in the percussion-cap box that had lately been
+the pinchbug's prison, and the boys separated, each feeling wealthier
+than before.
+
+When Tom reached the little isolated frame schoolhouse, he strode in
+briskly, with the manner of one who had come with all honest speed.
+He hung his hat on a peg and flung himself into his seat with
+business-like alacrity. The master, throned on high in his great
+splint-bottom arm-chair, was dozing, lulled by the drowsy hum of study.
+The interruption roused him.
+
+"Thomas Sawyer!"
+
+Tom knew that when his name was pronounced in full, it meant trouble.
+
+"Sir!"
+
+"Come up here. Now, sir, why are you late again, as usual?"
+
+Tom was about to take refuge in a lie, when he saw two long tails of
+yellow hair hanging down a back that he recognized by the electric
+sympathy of love; and by that form was THE ONLY VACANT PLACE on the
+girls' side of the schoolhouse. He instantly said:
+
+"I STOPPED TO TALK WITH HUCKLEBERRY FINN!"
+
+The master's pulse stood still, and he stared helplessly. The buzz of
+study ceased. The pupils wondered if this foolhardy boy had lost his
+mind. The master said:
+
+"You--you did what?"
+
+"Stopped to talk with Huckleberry Finn."
+
+There was no mistaking the words.
+
+"Thomas Sawyer, this is the most astounding confession I have ever
+listened to. No mere ferule will answer for this offence. Take off your
+jacket."
+
+The master's arm performed until it was tired and the stock of
+switches notably diminished. Then the order followed:
+
+"Now, sir, go and sit with the girls! And let this be a warning to you."
+
+The titter that rippled around the room appeared to abash the boy, but
+in reality that result was caused rather more by his worshipful awe of
+his unknown idol and the dread pleasure that lay in his high good
+fortune. He sat down upon the end of the pine bench and the girl
+hitched herself away from him with a toss of her head. Nudges and winks
+and whispers traversed the room, but Tom sat still, with his arms upon
+the long, low desk before him, and seemed to study his book.
+
+By and by attention ceased from him, and the accustomed school murmur
+rose upon the dull air once more. Presently the boy began to steal
+furtive glances at the girl. She observed it, "made a mouth" at him and
+gave him the back of her head for the space of a minute. When she
+cautiously faced around again, a peach lay before her. She thrust it
+away. Tom gently put it back. She thrust it away again, but with less
+animosity. Tom patiently returned it to its place. Then she let it
+remain. Tom scrawled on his slate, "Please take it--I got more." The
+girl glanced at the words, but made no sign. Now the boy began to draw
+something on the slate, hiding his work with his left hand. For a time
+the girl refused to notice; but her human curiosity presently began to
+manifest itself by hardly perceptible signs. The boy worked on,
+apparently unconscious. The girl made a sort of noncommittal attempt to
+see, but the boy did not betray that he was aware of it. At last she
+gave in and hesitatingly whispered:
+
+"Let me see it."
+
+Tom partly uncovered a dismal caricature of a house with two gable
+ends to it and a corkscrew of smoke issuing from the chimney. Then the
+girl's interest began to fasten itself upon the work and she forgot
+everything else. When it was finished, she gazed a moment, then
+whispered:
+
+"It's nice--make a man."
+
+The artist erected a man in the front yard, that resembled a derrick.
+He could have stepped over the house; but the girl was not
+hypercritical; she was satisfied with the monster, and whispered:
+
+"It's a beautiful man--now make me coming along."
+
+Tom drew an hour-glass with a full moon and straw limbs to it and
+armed the spreading fingers with a portentous fan. The girl said:
+
+"It's ever so nice--I wish I could draw."
+
+"It's easy," whispered Tom, "I'll learn you."
+
+"Oh, will you? When?"
+
+"At noon. Do you go home to dinner?"
+
+"I'll stay if you will."
+
+"Good--that's a whack. What's your name?"
+
+"Becky Thatcher. What's yours? Oh, I know. It's Thomas Sawyer."
+
+"That's the name they lick me by. I'm Tom when I'm good. You call me
+Tom, will you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Now Tom began to scrawl something on the slate, hiding the words from
+the girl. But she was not backward this time. She begged to see. Tom
+said:
+
+"Oh, it ain't anything."
+
+"Yes it is."
+
+"No it ain't. You don't want to see."
+
+"Yes I do, indeed I do. Please let me."
+
+"You'll tell."
+
+"No I won't--deed and deed and double deed won't."
+
+"You won't tell anybody at all? Ever, as long as you live?"
+
+"No, I won't ever tell ANYbody. Now let me."
+
+"Oh, YOU don't want to see!"
+
+"Now that you treat me so, I WILL see." And she put her small hand
+upon his and a little scuffle ensued, Tom pretending to resist in
+earnest but letting his hand slip by degrees till these words were
+revealed: "I LOVE YOU."
+
+"Oh, you bad thing!" And she hit his hand a smart rap, but reddened
+and looked pleased, nevertheless.
+
+Just at this juncture the boy felt a slow, fateful grip closing on his
+ear, and a steady lifting impulse. In that wise he was borne across the
+house and deposited in his own seat, under a peppering fire of giggles
+from the whole school. Then the master stood over him during a few
+awful moments, and finally moved away to his throne without saying a
+word. But although Tom's ear tingled, his heart was jubilant.
+
+As the school quieted down Tom made an honest effort to study, but the
+turmoil within him was too great. In turn he took his place in the
+reading class and made a botch of it; then in the geography class and
+turned lakes into mountains, mountains into rivers, and rivers into
+continents, till chaos was come again; then in the spelling class, and
+got "turned down," by a succession of mere baby words, till he brought
+up at the foot and yielded up the pewter medal which he had worn with
+ostentation for months.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE harder Tom tried to fasten his mind on his book, the more his
+ideas wandered. So at last, with a sigh and a yawn, he gave it up. It
+seemed to him that the noon recess would never come. The air was
+utterly dead. There was not a breath stirring. It was the sleepiest of
+sleepy days. The drowsing murmur of the five and twenty studying
+scholars soothed the soul like the spell that is in the murmur of bees.
+Away off in the flaming sunshine, Cardiff Hill lifted its soft green
+sides through a shimmering veil of heat, tinted with the purple of
+distance; a few birds floated on lazy wing high in the air; no other
+living thing was visible but some cows, and they were asleep. Tom's
+heart ached to be free, or else to have something of interest to do to
+pass the dreary time. His hand wandered into his pocket and his face
+lit up with a glow of gratitude that was prayer, though he did not know
+it. Then furtively the percussion-cap box came out. He released the
+tick and put him on the long flat desk. The creature probably glowed
+with a gratitude that amounted to prayer, too, at this moment, but it
+was premature: for when he started thankfully to travel off, Tom turned
+him aside with a pin and made him take a new direction.
+
+Tom's bosom friend sat next him, suffering just as Tom had been, and
+now he was deeply and gratefully interested in this entertainment in an
+instant. This bosom friend was Joe Harper. The two boys were sworn
+friends all the week, and embattled enemies on Saturdays. Joe took a
+pin out of his lapel and began to assist in exercising the prisoner.
+The sport grew in interest momently. Soon Tom said that they were
+interfering with each other, and neither getting the fullest benefit of
+the tick. So he put Joe's slate on the desk and drew a line down the
+middle of it from top to bottom.
+
+"Now," said he, "as long as he is on your side you can stir him up and
+I'll let him alone; but if you let him get away and get on my side,
+you're to leave him alone as long as I can keep him from crossing over."
+
+"All right, go ahead; start him up."
+
+The tick escaped from Tom, presently, and crossed the equator. Joe
+harassed him awhile, and then he got away and crossed back again. This
+change of base occurred often. While one boy was worrying the tick with
+absorbing interest, the other would look on with interest as strong,
+the two heads bowed together over the slate, and the two souls dead to
+all things else. At last luck seemed to settle and abide with Joe. The
+tick tried this, that, and the other course, and got as excited and as
+anxious as the boys themselves, but time and again just as he would
+have victory in his very grasp, so to speak, and Tom's fingers would be
+twitching to begin, Joe's pin would deftly head him off, and keep
+possession. At last Tom could stand it no longer. The temptation was
+too strong. So he reached out and lent a hand with his pin. Joe was
+angry in a moment. Said he:
+
+"Tom, you let him alone."
+
+"I only just want to stir him up a little, Joe."
+
+"No, sir, it ain't fair; you just let him alone."
+
+"Blame it, I ain't going to stir him much."
+
+"Let him alone, I tell you."
+
+"I won't!"
+
+"You shall--he's on my side of the line."
+
+"Look here, Joe Harper, whose is that tick?"
+
+"I don't care whose tick he is--he's on my side of the line, and you
+sha'n't touch him."
+
+"Well, I'll just bet I will, though. He's my tick and I'll do what I
+blame please with him, or die!"
+
+A tremendous whack came down on Tom's shoulders, and its duplicate on
+Joe's; and for the space of two minutes the dust continued to fly from
+the two jackets and the whole school to enjoy it. The boys had been too
+absorbed to notice the hush that had stolen upon the school awhile
+before when the master came tiptoeing down the room and stood over
+them. He had contemplated a good part of the performance before he
+contributed his bit of variety to it.
+
+When school broke up at noon, Tom flew to Becky Thatcher, and
+whispered in her ear:
+
+"Put on your bonnet and let on you're going home; and when you get to
+the corner, give the rest of 'em the slip, and turn down through the
+lane and come back. I'll go the other way and come it over 'em the same
+way."
+
+So the one went off with one group of scholars, and the other with
+another. In a little while the two met at the bottom of the lane, and
+when they reached the school they had it all to themselves. Then they
+sat together, with a slate before them, and Tom gave Becky the pencil
+and held her hand in his, guiding it, and so created another surprising
+house. When the interest in art began to wane, the two fell to talking.
+Tom was swimming in bliss. He said:
+
+"Do you love rats?"
+
+"No! I hate them!"
+
+"Well, I do, too--LIVE ones. But I mean dead ones, to swing round your
+head with a string."
+
+"No, I don't care for rats much, anyway. What I like is chewing-gum."
+
+"Oh, I should say so! I wish I had some now."
+
+"Do you? I've got some. I'll let you chew it awhile, but you must give
+it back to me."
+
+That was agreeable, so they chewed it turn about, and dangled their
+legs against the bench in excess of contentment.
+
+"Was you ever at a circus?" said Tom.
+
+"Yes, and my pa's going to take me again some time, if I'm good."
+
+"I been to the circus three or four times--lots of times. Church ain't
+shucks to a circus. There's things going on at a circus all the time.
+I'm going to be a clown in a circus when I grow up."
+
+"Oh, are you! That will be nice. They're so lovely, all spotted up."
+
+"Yes, that's so. And they get slathers of money--most a dollar a day,
+Ben Rogers says. Say, Becky, was you ever engaged?"
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"Why, engaged to be married."
+
+"No."
+
+"Would you like to?"
+
+"I reckon so. I don't know. What is it like?"
+
+"Like? Why it ain't like anything. You only just tell a boy you won't
+ever have anybody but him, ever ever ever, and then you kiss and that's
+all. Anybody can do it."
+
+"Kiss? What do you kiss for?"
+
+"Why, that, you know, is to--well, they always do that."
+
+"Everybody?"
+
+"Why, yes, everybody that's in love with each other. Do you remember
+what I wrote on the slate?"
+
+"Ye--yes."
+
+"What was it?"
+
+"I sha'n't tell you."
+
+"Shall I tell YOU?"
+
+"Ye--yes--but some other time."
+
+"No, now."
+
+"No, not now--to-morrow."
+
+"Oh, no, NOW. Please, Becky--I'll whisper it, I'll whisper it ever so
+easy."
+
+Becky hesitating, Tom took silence for consent, and passed his arm
+about her waist and whispered the tale ever so softly, with his mouth
+close to her ear. And then he added:
+
+"Now you whisper it to me--just the same."
+
+She resisted, for a while, and then said:
+
+"You turn your face away so you can't see, and then I will. But you
+mustn't ever tell anybody--WILL you, Tom? Now you won't, WILL you?"
+
+"No, indeed, indeed I won't. Now, Becky."
+
+He turned his face away. She bent timidly around till her breath
+stirred his curls and whispered, "I--love--you!"
+
+Then she sprang away and ran around and around the desks and benches,
+with Tom after her, and took refuge in a corner at last, with her
+little white apron to her face. Tom clasped her about her neck and
+pleaded:
+
+"Now, Becky, it's all done--all over but the kiss. Don't you be afraid
+of that--it ain't anything at all. Please, Becky." And he tugged at her
+apron and the hands.
+
+By and by she gave up, and let her hands drop; her face, all glowing
+with the struggle, came up and submitted. Tom kissed the red lips and
+said:
+
+"Now it's all done, Becky. And always after this, you know, you ain't
+ever to love anybody but me, and you ain't ever to marry anybody but
+me, ever never and forever. Will you?"
+
+"No, I'll never love anybody but you, Tom, and I'll never marry
+anybody but you--and you ain't to ever marry anybody but me, either."
+
+"Certainly. Of course. That's PART of it. And always coming to school
+or when we're going home, you're to walk with me, when there ain't
+anybody looking--and you choose me and I choose you at parties, because
+that's the way you do when you're engaged."
+
+"It's so nice. I never heard of it before."
+
+"Oh, it's ever so gay! Why, me and Amy Lawrence--"
+
+The big eyes told Tom his blunder and he stopped, confused.
+
+"Oh, Tom! Then I ain't the first you've ever been engaged to!"
+
+The child began to cry. Tom said:
+
+"Oh, don't cry, Becky, I don't care for her any more."
+
+"Yes, you do, Tom--you know you do."
+
+Tom tried to put his arm about her neck, but she pushed him away and
+turned her face to the wall, and went on crying. Tom tried again, with
+soothing words in his mouth, and was repulsed again. Then his pride was
+up, and he strode away and went outside. He stood about, restless and
+uneasy, for a while, glancing at the door, every now and then, hoping
+she would repent and come to find him. But she did not. Then he began
+to feel badly and fear that he was in the wrong. It was a hard struggle
+with him to make new advances, now, but he nerved himself to it and
+entered. She was still standing back there in the corner, sobbing, with
+her face to the wall. Tom's heart smote him. He went to her and stood a
+moment, not knowing exactly how to proceed. Then he said hesitatingly:
+
+"Becky, I--I don't care for anybody but you."
+
+No reply--but sobs.
+
+"Becky"--pleadingly. "Becky, won't you say something?"
+
+More sobs.
+
+Tom got out his chiefest jewel, a brass knob from the top of an
+andiron, and passed it around her so that she could see it, and said:
+
+"Please, Becky, won't you take it?"
+
+She struck it to the floor. Then Tom marched out of the house and over
+the hills and far away, to return to school no more that day. Presently
+Becky began to suspect. She ran to the door; he was not in sight; she
+flew around to the play-yard; he was not there. Then she called:
+
+"Tom! Come back, Tom!"
+
+She listened intently, but there was no answer. She had no companions
+but silence and loneliness. So she sat down to cry again and upbraid
+herself; and by this time the scholars began to gather again, and she
+had to hide her griefs and still her broken heart and take up the cross
+of a long, dreary, aching afternoon, with none among the strangers
+about her to exchange sorrows with.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+TOM dodged hither and thither through lanes until he was well out of
+the track of returning scholars, and then fell into a moody jog. He
+crossed a small "branch" two or three times, because of a prevailing
+juvenile superstition that to cross water baffled pursuit. Half an hour
+later he was disappearing behind the Douglas mansion on the summit of
+Cardiff Hill, and the schoolhouse was hardly distinguishable away off
+in the valley behind him. He entered a dense wood, picked his pathless
+way to the centre of it, and sat down on a mossy spot under a spreading
+oak. There was not even a zephyr stirring; the dead noonday heat had
+even stilled the songs of the birds; nature lay in a trance that was
+broken by no sound but the occasional far-off hammering of a
+woodpecker, and this seemed to render the pervading silence and sense
+of loneliness the more profound. The boy's soul was steeped in
+melancholy; his feelings were in happy accord with his surroundings. He
+sat long with his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands,
+meditating. It seemed to him that life was but a trouble, at best, and
+he more than half envied Jimmy Hodges, so lately released; it must be
+very peaceful, he thought, to lie and slumber and dream forever and
+ever, with the wind whispering through the trees and caressing the
+grass and the flowers over the grave, and nothing to bother and grieve
+about, ever any more. If he only had a clean Sunday-school record he
+could be willing to go, and be done with it all. Now as to this girl.
+What had he done? Nothing. He had meant the best in the world, and been
+treated like a dog--like a very dog. She would be sorry some day--maybe
+when it was too late. Ah, if he could only die TEMPORARILY!
+
+But the elastic heart of youth cannot be compressed into one
+constrained shape long at a time. Tom presently began to drift
+insensibly back into the concerns of this life again. What if he turned
+his back, now, and disappeared mysteriously? What if he went away--ever
+so far away, into unknown countries beyond the seas--and never came
+back any more! How would she feel then! The idea of being a clown
+recurred to him now, only to fill him with disgust. For frivolity and
+jokes and spotted tights were an offense, when they intruded themselves
+upon a spirit that was exalted into the vague august realm of the
+romantic. No, he would be a soldier, and return after long years, all
+war-worn and illustrious. No--better still, he would join the Indians,
+and hunt buffaloes and go on the warpath in the mountain ranges and the
+trackless great plains of the Far West, and away in the future come
+back a great chief, bristling with feathers, hideous with paint, and
+prance into Sunday-school, some drowsy summer morning, with a
+bloodcurdling war-whoop, and sear the eyeballs of all his companions
+with unappeasable envy. But no, there was something gaudier even than
+this. He would be a pirate! That was it! NOW his future lay plain
+before him, and glowing with unimaginable splendor. How his name would
+fill the world, and make people shudder! How gloriously he would go
+plowing the dancing seas, in his long, low, black-hulled racer, the
+Spirit of the Storm, with his grisly flag flying at the fore! And at
+the zenith of his fame, how he would suddenly appear at the old village
+and stalk into church, brown and weather-beaten, in his black velvet
+doublet and trunks, his great jack-boots, his crimson sash, his belt
+bristling with horse-pistols, his crime-rusted cutlass at his side, his
+slouch hat with waving plumes, his black flag unfurled, with the skull
+and crossbones on it, and hear with swelling ecstasy the whisperings,
+"It's Tom Sawyer the Pirate!--the Black Avenger of the Spanish Main!"
+
+Yes, it was settled; his career was determined. He would run away from
+home and enter upon it. He would start the very next morning. Therefore
+he must now begin to get ready. He would collect his resources
+together. He went to a rotten log near at hand and began to dig under
+one end of it with his Barlow knife. He soon struck wood that sounded
+hollow. He put his hand there and uttered this incantation impressively:
+
+"What hasn't come here, come! What's here, stay here!"
+
+Then he scraped away the dirt, and exposed a pine shingle. He took it
+up and disclosed a shapely little treasure-house whose bottom and sides
+were of shingles. In it lay a marble. Tom's astonishment was boundless!
+He scratched his head with a perplexed air, and said:
+
+"Well, that beats anything!"
+
+Then he tossed the marble away pettishly, and stood cogitating. The
+truth was, that a superstition of his had failed, here, which he and
+all his comrades had always looked upon as infallible. If you buried a
+marble with certain necessary incantations, and left it alone a
+fortnight, and then opened the place with the incantation he had just
+used, you would find that all the marbles you had ever lost had
+gathered themselves together there, meantime, no matter how widely they
+had been separated. But now, this thing had actually and unquestionably
+failed. Tom's whole structure of faith was shaken to its foundations.
+He had many a time heard of this thing succeeding but never of its
+failing before. It did not occur to him that he had tried it several
+times before, himself, but could never find the hiding-places
+afterward. He puzzled over the matter some time, and finally decided
+that some witch had interfered and broken the charm. He thought he
+would satisfy himself on that point; so he searched around till he
+found a small sandy spot with a little funnel-shaped depression in it.
+He laid himself down and put his mouth close to this depression and
+called--
+
+"Doodle-bug, doodle-bug, tell me what I want to know! Doodle-bug,
+doodle-bug, tell me what I want to know!"
+
+The sand began to work, and presently a small black bug appeared for a
+second and then darted under again in a fright.
+
+"He dasn't tell! So it WAS a witch that done it. I just knowed it."
+
+He well knew the futility of trying to contend against witches, so he
+gave up discouraged. But it occurred to him that he might as well have
+the marble he had just thrown away, and therefore he went and made a
+patient search for it. But he could not find it. Now he went back to
+his treasure-house and carefully placed himself just as he had been
+standing when he tossed the marble away; then he took another marble
+from his pocket and tossed it in the same way, saying:
+
+"Brother, go find your brother!"
+
+He watched where it stopped, and went there and looked. But it must
+have fallen short or gone too far; so he tried twice more. The last
+repetition was successful. The two marbles lay within a foot of each
+other.
+
+Just here the blast of a toy tin trumpet came faintly down the green
+aisles of the forest. Tom flung off his jacket and trousers, turned a
+suspender into a belt, raked away some brush behind the rotten log,
+disclosing a rude bow and arrow, a lath sword and a tin trumpet, and in
+a moment had seized these things and bounded away, barelegged, with
+fluttering shirt. He presently halted under a great elm, blew an
+answering blast, and then began to tiptoe and look warily out, this way
+and that. He said cautiously--to an imaginary company:
+
+"Hold, my merry men! Keep hid till I blow."
+
+Now appeared Joe Harper, as airily clad and elaborately armed as Tom.
+Tom called:
+
+"Hold! Who comes here into Sherwood Forest without my pass?"
+
+"Guy of Guisborne wants no man's pass. Who art thou that--that--"
+
+"Dares to hold such language," said Tom, prompting--for they talked
+"by the book," from memory.
+
+"Who art thou that dares to hold such language?"
+
+"I, indeed! I am Robin Hood, as thy caitiff carcase soon shall know."
+
+"Then art thou indeed that famous outlaw? Right gladly will I dispute
+with thee the passes of the merry wood. Have at thee!"
+
+They took their lath swords, dumped their other traps on the ground,
+struck a fencing attitude, foot to foot, and began a grave, careful
+combat, "two up and two down." Presently Tom said:
+
+"Now, if you've got the hang, go it lively!"
+
+So they "went it lively," panting and perspiring with the work. By and
+by Tom shouted:
+
+"Fall! fall! Why don't you fall?"
+
+"I sha'n't! Why don't you fall yourself? You're getting the worst of
+it."
+
+"Why, that ain't anything. I can't fall; that ain't the way it is in
+the book. The book says, 'Then with one back-handed stroke he slew poor
+Guy of Guisborne.' You're to turn around and let me hit you in the
+back."
+
+There was no getting around the authorities, so Joe turned, received
+the whack and fell.
+
+"Now," said Joe, getting up, "you got to let me kill YOU. That's fair."
+
+"Why, I can't do that, it ain't in the book."
+
+"Well, it's blamed mean--that's all."
+
+"Well, say, Joe, you can be Friar Tuck or Much the miller's son, and
+lam me with a quarter-staff; or I'll be the Sheriff of Nottingham and
+you be Robin Hood a little while and kill me."
+
+This was satisfactory, and so these adventures were carried out. Then
+Tom became Robin Hood again, and was allowed by the treacherous nun to
+bleed his strength away through his neglected wound. And at last Joe,
+representing a whole tribe of weeping outlaws, dragged him sadly forth,
+gave his bow into his feeble hands, and Tom said, "Where this arrow
+falls, there bury poor Robin Hood under the greenwood tree." Then he
+shot the arrow and fell back and would have died, but he lit on a
+nettle and sprang up too gaily for a corpse.
+
+The boys dressed themselves, hid their accoutrements, and went off
+grieving that there were no outlaws any more, and wondering what modern
+civilization could claim to have done to compensate for their loss.
+They said they would rather be outlaws a year in Sherwood Forest than
+President of the United States forever.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+AT half-past nine, that night, Tom and Sid were sent to bed, as usual.
+They said their prayers, and Sid was soon asleep. Tom lay awake and
+waited, in restless impatience. When it seemed to him that it must be
+nearly daylight, he heard the clock strike ten! This was despair. He
+would have tossed and fidgeted, as his nerves demanded, but he was
+afraid he might wake Sid. So he lay still, and stared up into the dark.
+Everything was dismally still. By and by, out of the stillness, little,
+scarcely perceptible noises began to emphasize themselves. The ticking
+of the clock began to bring itself into notice. Old beams began to
+crack mysteriously. The stairs creaked faintly. Evidently spirits were
+abroad. A measured, muffled snore issued from Aunt Polly's chamber. And
+now the tiresome chirping of a cricket that no human ingenuity could
+locate, began. Next the ghastly ticking of a deathwatch in the wall at
+the bed's head made Tom shudder--it meant that somebody's days were
+numbered. Then the howl of a far-off dog rose on the night air, and was
+answered by a fainter howl from a remoter distance. Tom was in an
+agony. At last he was satisfied that time had ceased and eternity
+begun; he began to doze, in spite of himself; the clock chimed eleven,
+but he did not hear it. And then there came, mingling with his
+half-formed dreams, a most melancholy caterwauling. The raising of a
+neighboring window disturbed him. A cry of "Scat! you devil!" and the
+crash of an empty bottle against the back of his aunt's woodshed
+brought him wide awake, and a single minute later he was dressed and
+out of the window and creeping along the roof of the "ell" on all
+fours. He "meow'd" with caution once or twice, as he went; then jumped
+to the roof of the woodshed and thence to the ground. Huckleberry Finn
+was there, with his dead cat. The boys moved off and disappeared in the
+gloom. At the end of half an hour they were wading through the tall
+grass of the graveyard.
+
+It was a graveyard of the old-fashioned Western kind. It was on a
+hill, about a mile and a half from the village. It had a crazy board
+fence around it, which leaned inward in places, and outward the rest of
+the time, but stood upright nowhere. Grass and weeds grew rank over the
+whole cemetery. All the old graves were sunken in, there was not a
+tombstone on the place; round-topped, worm-eaten boards staggered over
+the graves, leaning for support and finding none. "Sacred to the memory
+of" So-and-So had been painted on them once, but it could no longer
+have been read, on the most of them, now, even if there had been light.
+
+A faint wind moaned through the trees, and Tom feared it might be the
+spirits of the dead, complaining at being disturbed. The boys talked
+little, and only under their breath, for the time and the place and the
+pervading solemnity and silence oppressed their spirits. They found the
+sharp new heap they were seeking, and ensconced themselves within the
+protection of three great elms that grew in a bunch within a few feet
+of the grave.
+
+Then they waited in silence for what seemed a long time. The hooting
+of a distant owl was all the sound that troubled the dead stillness.
+Tom's reflections grew oppressive. He must force some talk. So he said
+in a whisper:
+
+"Hucky, do you believe the dead people like it for us to be here?"
+
+Huckleberry whispered:
+
+"I wisht I knowed. It's awful solemn like, AIN'T it?"
+
+"I bet it is."
+
+There was a considerable pause, while the boys canvassed this matter
+inwardly. Then Tom whispered:
+
+"Say, Hucky--do you reckon Hoss Williams hears us talking?"
+
+"O' course he does. Least his sperrit does."
+
+Tom, after a pause:
+
+"I wish I'd said Mister Williams. But I never meant any harm.
+Everybody calls him Hoss."
+
+"A body can't be too partic'lar how they talk 'bout these-yer dead
+people, Tom."
+
+This was a damper, and conversation died again.
+
+Presently Tom seized his comrade's arm and said:
+
+"Sh!"
+
+"What is it, Tom?" And the two clung together with beating hearts.
+
+"Sh! There 'tis again! Didn't you hear it?"
+
+"I--"
+
+"There! Now you hear it."
+
+"Lord, Tom, they're coming! They're coming, sure. What'll we do?"
+
+"I dono. Think they'll see us?"
+
+"Oh, Tom, they can see in the dark, same as cats. I wisht I hadn't
+come."
+
+"Oh, don't be afeard. I don't believe they'll bother us. We ain't
+doing any harm. If we keep perfectly still, maybe they won't notice us
+at all."
+
+"I'll try to, Tom, but, Lord, I'm all of a shiver."
+
+"Listen!"
+
+The boys bent their heads together and scarcely breathed. A muffled
+sound of voices floated up from the far end of the graveyard.
+
+"Look! See there!" whispered Tom. "What is it?"
+
+"It's devil-fire. Oh, Tom, this is awful."
+
+Some vague figures approached through the gloom, swinging an
+old-fashioned tin lantern that freckled the ground with innumerable
+little spangles of light. Presently Huckleberry whispered with a
+shudder:
+
+"It's the devils sure enough. Three of 'em! Lordy, Tom, we're goners!
+Can you pray?"
+
+"I'll try, but don't you be afeard. They ain't going to hurt us. 'Now
+I lay me down to sleep, I--'"
+
+"Sh!"
+
+"What is it, Huck?"
+
+"They're HUMANS! One of 'em is, anyway. One of 'em's old Muff Potter's
+voice."
+
+"No--'tain't so, is it?"
+
+"I bet I know it. Don't you stir nor budge. He ain't sharp enough to
+notice us. Drunk, the same as usual, likely--blamed old rip!"
+
+"All right, I'll keep still. Now they're stuck. Can't find it. Here
+they come again. Now they're hot. Cold again. Hot again. Red hot!
+They're p'inted right, this time. Say, Huck, I know another o' them
+voices; it's Injun Joe."
+
+"That's so--that murderin' half-breed! I'd druther they was devils a
+dern sight. What kin they be up to?"
+
+The whisper died wholly out, now, for the three men had reached the
+grave and stood within a few feet of the boys' hiding-place.
+
+"Here it is," said the third voice; and the owner of it held the
+lantern up and revealed the face of young Doctor Robinson.
+
+Potter and Injun Joe were carrying a handbarrow with a rope and a
+couple of shovels on it. They cast down their load and began to open
+the grave. The doctor put the lantern at the head of the grave and came
+and sat down with his back against one of the elm trees. He was so
+close the boys could have touched him.
+
+"Hurry, men!" he said, in a low voice; "the moon might come out at any
+moment."
+
+They growled a response and went on digging. For some time there was
+no noise but the grating sound of the spades discharging their freight
+of mould and gravel. It was very monotonous. Finally a spade struck
+upon the coffin with a dull woody accent, and within another minute or
+two the men had hoisted it out on the ground. They pried off the lid
+with their shovels, got out the body and dumped it rudely on the
+ground. The moon drifted from behind the clouds and exposed the pallid
+face. The barrow was got ready and the corpse placed on it, covered
+with a blanket, and bound to its place with the rope. Potter took out a
+large spring-knife and cut off the dangling end of the rope and then
+said:
+
+"Now the cussed thing's ready, Sawbones, and you'll just out with
+another five, or here she stays."
+
+"That's the talk!" said Injun Joe.
+
+"Look here, what does this mean?" said the doctor. "You required your
+pay in advance, and I've paid you."
+
+"Yes, and you done more than that," said Injun Joe, approaching the
+doctor, who was now standing. "Five years ago you drove me away from
+your father's kitchen one night, when I come to ask for something to
+eat, and you said I warn't there for any good; and when I swore I'd get
+even with you if it took a hundred years, your father had me jailed for
+a vagrant. Did you think I'd forget? The Injun blood ain't in me for
+nothing. And now I've GOT you, and you got to SETTLE, you know!"
+
+He was threatening the doctor, with his fist in his face, by this
+time. The doctor struck out suddenly and stretched the ruffian on the
+ground. Potter dropped his knife, and exclaimed:
+
+"Here, now, don't you hit my pard!" and the next moment he had
+grappled with the doctor and the two were struggling with might and
+main, trampling the grass and tearing the ground with their heels.
+Injun Joe sprang to his feet, his eyes flaming with passion, snatched
+up Potter's knife, and went creeping, catlike and stooping, round and
+round about the combatants, seeking an opportunity. All at once the
+doctor flung himself free, seized the heavy headboard of Williams'
+grave and felled Potter to the earth with it--and in the same instant
+the half-breed saw his chance and drove the knife to the hilt in the
+young man's breast. He reeled and fell partly upon Potter, flooding him
+with his blood, and in the same moment the clouds blotted out the
+dreadful spectacle and the two frightened boys went speeding away in
+the dark.
+
+Presently, when the moon emerged again, Injun Joe was standing over
+the two forms, contemplating them. The doctor murmured inarticulately,
+gave a long gasp or two and was still. The half-breed muttered:
+
+"THAT score is settled--damn you."
+
+Then he robbed the body. After which he put the fatal knife in
+Potter's open right hand, and sat down on the dismantled coffin. Three
+--four--five minutes passed, and then Potter began to stir and moan. His
+hand closed upon the knife; he raised it, glanced at it, and let it
+fall, with a shudder. Then he sat up, pushing the body from him, and
+gazed at it, and then around him, confusedly. His eyes met Joe's.
+
+"Lord, how is this, Joe?" he said.
+
+"It's a dirty business," said Joe, without moving.
+
+"What did you do it for?"
+
+"I! I never done it!"
+
+"Look here! That kind of talk won't wash."
+
+Potter trembled and grew white.
+
+"I thought I'd got sober. I'd no business to drink to-night. But it's
+in my head yet--worse'n when we started here. I'm all in a muddle;
+can't recollect anything of it, hardly. Tell me, Joe--HONEST, now, old
+feller--did I do it? Joe, I never meant to--'pon my soul and honor, I
+never meant to, Joe. Tell me how it was, Joe. Oh, it's awful--and him
+so young and promising."
+
+"Why, you two was scuffling, and he fetched you one with the headboard
+and you fell flat; and then up you come, all reeling and staggering
+like, and snatched the knife and jammed it into him, just as he fetched
+you another awful clip--and here you've laid, as dead as a wedge til
+now."
+
+"Oh, I didn't know what I was a-doing. I wish I may die this minute if
+I did. It was all on account of the whiskey and the excitement, I
+reckon. I never used a weepon in my life before, Joe. I've fought, but
+never with weepons. They'll all say that. Joe, don't tell! Say you
+won't tell, Joe--that's a good feller. I always liked you, Joe, and
+stood up for you, too. Don't you remember? You WON'T tell, WILL you,
+Joe?" And the poor creature dropped on his knees before the stolid
+murderer, and clasped his appealing hands.
+
+"No, you've always been fair and square with me, Muff Potter, and I
+won't go back on you. There, now, that's as fair as a man can say."
+
+"Oh, Joe, you're an angel. I'll bless you for this the longest day I
+live." And Potter began to cry.
+
+"Come, now, that's enough of that. This ain't any time for blubbering.
+You be off yonder way and I'll go this. Move, now, and don't leave any
+tracks behind you."
+
+Potter started on a trot that quickly increased to a run. The
+half-breed stood looking after him. He muttered:
+
+"If he's as much stunned with the lick and fuddled with the rum as he
+had the look of being, he won't think of the knife till he's gone so
+far he'll be afraid to come back after it to such a place by himself
+--chicken-heart!"
+
+Two or three minutes later the murdered man, the blanketed corpse, the
+lidless coffin, and the open grave were under no inspection but the
+moon's. The stillness was complete again, too.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE two boys flew on and on, toward the village, speechless with
+horror. They glanced backward over their shoulders from time to time,
+apprehensively, as if they feared they might be followed. Every stump
+that started up in their path seemed a man and an enemy, and made them
+catch their breath; and as they sped by some outlying cottages that lay
+near the village, the barking of the aroused watch-dogs seemed to give
+wings to their feet.
+
+"If we can only get to the old tannery before we break down!"
+whispered Tom, in short catches between breaths. "I can't stand it much
+longer."
+
+Huckleberry's hard pantings were his only reply, and the boys fixed
+their eyes on the goal of their hopes and bent to their work to win it.
+They gained steadily on it, and at last, breast to breast, they burst
+through the open door and fell grateful and exhausted in the sheltering
+shadows beyond. By and by their pulses slowed down, and Tom whispered:
+
+"Huckleberry, what do you reckon'll come of this?"
+
+"If Doctor Robinson dies, I reckon hanging'll come of it."
+
+"Do you though?"
+
+"Why, I KNOW it, Tom."
+
+Tom thought a while, then he said:
+
+"Who'll tell? We?"
+
+"What are you talking about? S'pose something happened and Injun Joe
+DIDN'T hang? Why, he'd kill us some time or other, just as dead sure as
+we're a laying here."
+
+"That's just what I was thinking to myself, Huck."
+
+"If anybody tells, let Muff Potter do it, if he's fool enough. He's
+generally drunk enough."
+
+Tom said nothing--went on thinking. Presently he whispered:
+
+"Huck, Muff Potter don't know it. How can he tell?"
+
+"What's the reason he don't know it?"
+
+"Because he'd just got that whack when Injun Joe done it. D'you reckon
+he could see anything? D'you reckon he knowed anything?"
+
+"By hokey, that's so, Tom!"
+
+"And besides, look-a-here--maybe that whack done for HIM!"
+
+"No, 'taint likely, Tom. He had liquor in him; I could see that; and
+besides, he always has. Well, when pap's full, you might take and belt
+him over the head with a church and you couldn't phase him. He says so,
+his own self. So it's the same with Muff Potter, of course. But if a
+man was dead sober, I reckon maybe that whack might fetch him; I dono."
+
+After another reflective silence, Tom said:
+
+"Hucky, you sure you can keep mum?"
+
+"Tom, we GOT to keep mum. You know that. That Injun devil wouldn't
+make any more of drownding us than a couple of cats, if we was to
+squeak 'bout this and they didn't hang him. Now, look-a-here, Tom, less
+take and swear to one another--that's what we got to do--swear to keep
+mum."
+
+"I'm agreed. It's the best thing. Would you just hold hands and swear
+that we--"
+
+"Oh no, that wouldn't do for this. That's good enough for little
+rubbishy common things--specially with gals, cuz THEY go back on you
+anyway, and blab if they get in a huff--but there orter be writing
+'bout a big thing like this. And blood."
+
+Tom's whole being applauded this idea. It was deep, and dark, and
+awful; the hour, the circumstances, the surroundings, were in keeping
+with it. He picked up a clean pine shingle that lay in the moonlight,
+took a little fragment of "red keel" out of his pocket, got the moon on
+his work, and painfully scrawled these lines, emphasizing each slow
+down-stroke by clamping his tongue between his teeth, and letting up
+the pressure on the up-strokes. [See next page.]
+
+   "Huck Finn and
+    Tom Sawyer swears
+    they will keep mum
+    about This and They
+    wish They may Drop
+    down dead in Their
+    Tracks if They ever
+    Tell and Rot."
+
+Huckleberry was filled with admiration of Tom's facility in writing,
+and the sublimity of his language. He at once took a pin from his lapel
+and was going to prick his flesh, but Tom said:
+
+"Hold on! Don't do that. A pin's brass. It might have verdigrease on
+it."
+
+"What's verdigrease?"
+
+"It's p'ison. That's what it is. You just swaller some of it once
+--you'll see."
+
+So Tom unwound the thread from one of his needles, and each boy
+pricked the ball of his thumb and squeezed out a drop of blood. In
+time, after many squeezes, Tom managed to sign his initials, using the
+ball of his little finger for a pen. Then he showed Huckleberry how to
+make an H and an F, and the oath was complete. They buried the shingle
+close to the wall, with some dismal ceremonies and incantations, and
+the fetters that bound their tongues were considered to be locked and
+the key thrown away.
+
+A figure crept stealthily through a break in the other end of the
+ruined building, now, but they did not notice it.
+
+"Tom," whispered Huckleberry, "does this keep us from EVER telling
+--ALWAYS?"
+
+"Of course it does. It don't make any difference WHAT happens, we got
+to keep mum. We'd drop down dead--don't YOU know that?"
+
+"Yes, I reckon that's so."
+
+They continued to whisper for some little time. Presently a dog set up
+a long, lugubrious howl just outside--within ten feet of them. The boys
+clasped each other suddenly, in an agony of fright.
+
+"Which of us does he mean?" gasped Huckleberry.
+
+"I dono--peep through the crack. Quick!"
+
+"No, YOU, Tom!"
+
+"I can't--I can't DO it, Huck!"
+
+"Please, Tom. There 'tis again!"
+
+"Oh, lordy, I'm thankful!" whispered Tom. "I know his voice. It's Bull
+Harbison." *
+
+[* If Mr. Harbison owned a slave named Bull, Tom would have spoken of
+him as "Harbison's Bull," but a son or a dog of that name was "Bull
+Harbison."]
+
+"Oh, that's good--I tell you, Tom, I was most scared to death; I'd a
+bet anything it was a STRAY dog."
+
+The dog howled again. The boys' hearts sank once more.
+
+"Oh, my! that ain't no Bull Harbison!" whispered Huckleberry. "DO, Tom!"
+
+Tom, quaking with fear, yielded, and put his eye to the crack. His
+whisper was hardly audible when he said:
+
+"Oh, Huck, IT S A STRAY DOG!"
+
+"Quick, Tom, quick! Who does he mean?"
+
+"Huck, he must mean us both--we're right together."
+
+"Oh, Tom, I reckon we're goners. I reckon there ain't no mistake 'bout
+where I'LL go to. I been so wicked."
+
+"Dad fetch it! This comes of playing hookey and doing everything a
+feller's told NOT to do. I might a been good, like Sid, if I'd a tried
+--but no, I wouldn't, of course. But if ever I get off this time, I lay
+I'll just WALLER in Sunday-schools!" And Tom began to snuffle a little.
+
+"YOU bad!" and Huckleberry began to snuffle too. "Consound it, Tom
+Sawyer, you're just old pie, 'longside o' what I am. Oh, LORDY, lordy,
+lordy, I wisht I only had half your chance."
+
+Tom choked off and whispered:
+
+"Look, Hucky, look! He's got his BACK to us!"
+
+Hucky looked, with joy in his heart.
+
+"Well, he has, by jingoes! Did he before?"
+
+"Yes, he did. But I, like a fool, never thought. Oh, this is bully,
+you know. NOW who can he mean?"
+
+The howling stopped. Tom pricked up his ears.
+
+"Sh! What's that?" he whispered.
+
+"Sounds like--like hogs grunting. No--it's somebody snoring, Tom."
+
+"That IS it! Where 'bouts is it, Huck?"
+
+"I bleeve it's down at 'tother end. Sounds so, anyway. Pap used to
+sleep there, sometimes, 'long with the hogs, but laws bless you, he
+just lifts things when HE snores. Besides, I reckon he ain't ever
+coming back to this town any more."
+
+The spirit of adventure rose in the boys' souls once more.
+
+"Hucky, do you das't to go if I lead?"
+
+"I don't like to, much. Tom, s'pose it's Injun Joe!"
+
+Tom quailed. But presently the temptation rose up strong again and the
+boys agreed to try, with the understanding that they would take to
+their heels if the snoring stopped. So they went tiptoeing stealthily
+down, the one behind the other. When they had got to within five steps
+of the snorer, Tom stepped on a stick, and it broke with a sharp snap.
+The man moaned, writhed a little, and his face came into the moonlight.
+It was Muff Potter. The boys' hearts had stood still, and their hopes
+too, when the man moved, but their fears passed away now. They tiptoed
+out, through the broken weather-boarding, and stopped at a little
+distance to exchange a parting word. That long, lugubrious howl rose on
+the night air again! They turned and saw the strange dog standing
+within a few feet of where Potter was lying, and FACING Potter, with
+his nose pointing heavenward.
+
+"Oh, geeminy, it's HIM!" exclaimed both boys, in a breath.
+
+"Say, Tom--they say a stray dog come howling around Johnny Miller's
+house, 'bout midnight, as much as two weeks ago; and a whippoorwill
+come in and lit on the banisters and sung, the very same evening; and
+there ain't anybody dead there yet."
+
+"Well, I know that. And suppose there ain't. Didn't Gracie Miller fall
+in the kitchen fire and burn herself terrible the very next Saturday?"
+
+"Yes, but she ain't DEAD. And what's more, she's getting better, too."
+
+"All right, you wait and see. She's a goner, just as dead sure as Muff
+Potter's a goner. That's what the niggers say, and they know all about
+these kind of things, Huck."
+
+Then they separated, cogitating. When Tom crept in at his bedroom
+window the night was almost spent. He undressed with excessive caution,
+and fell asleep congratulating himself that nobody knew of his
+escapade. He was not aware that the gently-snoring Sid was awake, and
+had been so for an hour.
+
+When Tom awoke, Sid was dressed and gone. There was a late look in the
+light, a late sense in the atmosphere. He was startled. Why had he not
+been called--persecuted till he was up, as usual? The thought filled
+him with bodings. Within five minutes he was dressed and down-stairs,
+feeling sore and drowsy. The family were still at table, but they had
+finished breakfast. There was no voice of rebuke; but there were
+averted eyes; there was a silence and an air of solemnity that struck a
+chill to the culprit's heart. He sat down and tried to seem gay, but it
+was up-hill work; it roused no smile, no response, and he lapsed into
+silence and let his heart sink down to the depths.
+
+After breakfast his aunt took him aside, and Tom almost brightened in
+the hope that he was going to be flogged; but it was not so. His aunt
+wept over him and asked him how he could go and break her old heart so;
+and finally told him to go on, and ruin himself and bring her gray
+hairs with sorrow to the grave, for it was no use for her to try any
+more. This was worse than a thousand whippings, and Tom's heart was
+sorer now than his body. He cried, he pleaded for forgiveness, promised
+to reform over and over again, and then received his dismissal, feeling
+that he had won but an imperfect forgiveness and established but a
+feeble confidence.
+
+He left the presence too miserable to even feel revengeful toward Sid;
+and so the latter's prompt retreat through the back gate was
+unnecessary. He moped to school gloomy and sad, and took his flogging,
+along with Joe Harper, for playing hookey the day before, with the air
+of one whose heart was busy with heavier woes and wholly dead to
+trifles. Then he betook himself to his seat, rested his elbows on his
+desk and his jaws in his hands, and stared at the wall with the stony
+stare of suffering that has reached the limit and can no further go.
+His elbow was pressing against some hard substance. After a long time
+he slowly and sadly changed his position, and took up this object with
+a sigh. It was in a paper. He unrolled it. A long, lingering, colossal
+sigh followed, and his heart broke. It was his brass andiron knob!
+
+This final feather broke the camel's back.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+CLOSE upon the hour of noon the whole village was suddenly electrified
+with the ghastly news. No need of the as yet undreamed-of telegraph;
+the tale flew from man to man, from group to group, from house to
+house, with little less than telegraphic speed. Of course the
+schoolmaster gave holiday for that afternoon; the town would have
+thought strangely of him if he had not.
+
+A gory knife had been found close to the murdered man, and it had been
+recognized by somebody as belonging to Muff Potter--so the story ran.
+And it was said that a belated citizen had come upon Potter washing
+himself in the "branch" about one or two o'clock in the morning, and
+that Potter had at once sneaked off--suspicious circumstances,
+especially the washing which was not a habit with Potter. It was also
+said that the town had been ransacked for this "murderer" (the public
+are not slow in the matter of sifting evidence and arriving at a
+verdict), but that he could not be found. Horsemen had departed down
+all the roads in every direction, and the Sheriff "was confident" that
+he would be captured before night.
+
+All the town was drifting toward the graveyard. Tom's heartbreak
+vanished and he joined the procession, not because he would not a
+thousand times rather go anywhere else, but because an awful,
+unaccountable fascination drew him on. Arrived at the dreadful place,
+he wormed his small body through the crowd and saw the dismal
+spectacle. It seemed to him an age since he was there before. Somebody
+pinched his arm. He turned, and his eyes met Huckleberry's. Then both
+looked elsewhere at once, and wondered if anybody had noticed anything
+in their mutual glance. But everybody was talking, and intent upon the
+grisly spectacle before them.
+
+"Poor fellow!" "Poor young fellow!" "This ought to be a lesson to
+grave robbers!" "Muff Potter'll hang for this if they catch him!" This
+was the drift of remark; and the minister said, "It was a judgment; His
+hand is here."
+
+Now Tom shivered from head to heel; for his eye fell upon the stolid
+face of Injun Joe. At this moment the crowd began to sway and struggle,
+and voices shouted, "It's him! it's him! he's coming himself!"
+
+"Who? Who?" from twenty voices.
+
+"Muff Potter!"
+
+"Hallo, he's stopped!--Look out, he's turning! Don't let him get away!"
+
+People in the branches of the trees over Tom's head said he wasn't
+trying to get away--he only looked doubtful and perplexed.
+
+"Infernal impudence!" said a bystander; "wanted to come and take a
+quiet look at his work, I reckon--didn't expect any company."
+
+The crowd fell apart, now, and the Sheriff came through,
+ostentatiously leading Potter by the arm. The poor fellow's face was
+haggard, and his eyes showed the fear that was upon him. When he stood
+before the murdered man, he shook as with a palsy, and he put his face
+in his hands and burst into tears.
+
+"I didn't do it, friends," he sobbed; "'pon my word and honor I never
+done it."
+
+"Who's accused you?" shouted a voice.
+
+This shot seemed to carry home. Potter lifted his face and looked
+around him with a pathetic hopelessness in his eyes. He saw Injun Joe,
+and exclaimed:
+
+"Oh, Injun Joe, you promised me you'd never--"
+
+"Is that your knife?" and it was thrust before him by the Sheriff.
+
+Potter would have fallen if they had not caught him and eased him to
+the ground. Then he said:
+
+"Something told me 't if I didn't come back and get--" He shuddered;
+then waved his nerveless hand with a vanquished gesture and said, "Tell
+'em, Joe, tell 'em--it ain't any use any more."
+
+Then Huckleberry and Tom stood dumb and staring, and heard the
+stony-hearted liar reel off his serene statement, they expecting every
+moment that the clear sky would deliver God's lightnings upon his head,
+and wondering to see how long the stroke was delayed. And when he had
+finished and still stood alive and whole, their wavering impulse to
+break their oath and save the poor betrayed prisoner's life faded and
+vanished away, for plainly this miscreant had sold himself to Satan and
+it would be fatal to meddle with the property of such a power as that.
+
+"Why didn't you leave? What did you want to come here for?" somebody
+said.
+
+"I couldn't help it--I couldn't help it," Potter moaned. "I wanted to
+run away, but I couldn't seem to come anywhere but here." And he fell
+to sobbing again.
+
+Injun Joe repeated his statement, just as calmly, a few minutes
+afterward on the inquest, under oath; and the boys, seeing that the
+lightnings were still withheld, were confirmed in their belief that Joe
+had sold himself to the devil. He was now become, to them, the most
+balefully interesting object they had ever looked upon, and they could
+not take their fascinated eyes from his face.
+
+They inwardly resolved to watch him nights, when opportunity should
+offer, in the hope of getting a glimpse of his dread master.
+
+Injun Joe helped to raise the body of the murdered man and put it in a
+wagon for removal; and it was whispered through the shuddering crowd
+that the wound bled a little! The boys thought that this happy
+circumstance would turn suspicion in the right direction; but they were
+disappointed, for more than one villager remarked:
+
+"It was within three feet of Muff Potter when it done it."
+
+Tom's fearful secret and gnawing conscience disturbed his sleep for as
+much as a week after this; and at breakfast one morning Sid said:
+
+"Tom, you pitch around and talk in your sleep so much that you keep me
+awake half the time."
+
+Tom blanched and dropped his eyes.
+
+"It's a bad sign," said Aunt Polly, gravely. "What you got on your
+mind, Tom?"
+
+"Nothing. Nothing 't I know of." But the boy's hand shook so that he
+spilled his coffee.
+
+"And you do talk such stuff," Sid said. "Last night you said, 'It's
+blood, it's blood, that's what it is!' You said that over and over. And
+you said, 'Don't torment me so--I'll tell!' Tell WHAT? What is it
+you'll tell?"
+
+Everything was swimming before Tom. There is no telling what might
+have happened, now, but luckily the concern passed out of Aunt Polly's
+face and she came to Tom's relief without knowing it. She said:
+
+"Sho! It's that dreadful murder. I dream about it most every night
+myself. Sometimes I dream it's me that done it."
+
+Mary said she had been affected much the same way. Sid seemed
+satisfied. Tom got out of the presence as quick as he plausibly could,
+and after that he complained of toothache for a week, and tied up his
+jaws every night. He never knew that Sid lay nightly watching, and
+frequently slipped the bandage free and then leaned on his elbow
+listening a good while at a time, and afterward slipped the bandage
+back to its place again. Tom's distress of mind wore off gradually and
+the toothache grew irksome and was discarded. If Sid really managed to
+make anything out of Tom's disjointed mutterings, he kept it to himself.
+
+It seemed to Tom that his schoolmates never would get done holding
+inquests on dead cats, and thus keeping his trouble present to his
+mind. Sid noticed that Tom never was coroner at one of these inquiries,
+though it had been his habit to take the lead in all new enterprises;
+he noticed, too, that Tom never acted as a witness--and that was
+strange; and Sid did not overlook the fact that Tom even showed a
+marked aversion to these inquests, and always avoided them when he
+could. Sid marvelled, but said nothing. However, even inquests went out
+of vogue at last, and ceased to torture Tom's conscience.
+
+Every day or two, during this time of sorrow, Tom watched his
+opportunity and went to the little grated jail-window and smuggled such
+small comforts through to the "murderer" as he could get hold of. The
+jail was a trifling little brick den that stood in a marsh at the edge
+of the village, and no guards were afforded for it; indeed, it was
+seldom occupied. These offerings greatly helped to ease Tom's
+conscience.
+
+The villagers had a strong desire to tar-and-feather Injun Joe and
+ride him on a rail, for body-snatching, but so formidable was his
+character that nobody could be found who was willing to take the lead
+in the matter, so it was dropped. He had been careful to begin both of
+his inquest-statements with the fight, without confessing the
+grave-robbery that preceded it; therefore it was deemed wisest not
+to try the case in the courts at present.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+ONE of the reasons why Tom's mind had drifted away from its secret
+troubles was, that it had found a new and weighty matter to interest
+itself about. Becky Thatcher had stopped coming to school. Tom had
+struggled with his pride a few days, and tried to "whistle her down the
+wind," but failed. He began to find himself hanging around her father's
+house, nights, and feeling very miserable. She was ill. What if she
+should die! There was distraction in the thought. He no longer took an
+interest in war, nor even in piracy. The charm of life was gone; there
+was nothing but dreariness left. He put his hoop away, and his bat;
+there was no joy in them any more. His aunt was concerned. She began to
+try all manner of remedies on him. She was one of those people who are
+infatuated with patent medicines and all new-fangled methods of
+producing health or mending it. She was an inveterate experimenter in
+these things. When something fresh in this line came out she was in a
+fever, right away, to try it; not on herself, for she was never ailing,
+but on anybody else that came handy. She was a subscriber for all the
+"Health" periodicals and phrenological frauds; and the solemn ignorance
+they were inflated with was breath to her nostrils. All the "rot" they
+contained about ventilation, and how to go to bed, and how to get up,
+and what to eat, and what to drink, and how much exercise to take, and
+what frame of mind to keep one's self in, and what sort of clothing to
+wear, was all gospel to her, and she never observed that her
+health-journals of the current month customarily upset everything they
+had recommended the month before. She was as simple-hearted and honest
+as the day was long, and so she was an easy victim. She gathered
+together her quack periodicals and her quack medicines, and thus armed
+with death, went about on her pale horse, metaphorically speaking, with
+"hell following after." But she never suspected that she was not an
+angel of healing and the balm of Gilead in disguise, to the suffering
+neighbors.
+
+The water treatment was new, now, and Tom's low condition was a
+windfall to her. She had him out at daylight every morning, stood him
+up in the woodshed and drowned him with a deluge of cold water; then
+she scrubbed him down with a towel like a file, and so brought him to;
+then she rolled him up in a wet sheet and put him away under blankets
+till she sweated his soul clean and "the yellow stains of it came
+through his pores"--as Tom said.
+
+Yet notwithstanding all this, the boy grew more and more melancholy
+and pale and dejected. She added hot baths, sitz baths, shower baths,
+and plunges. The boy remained as dismal as a hearse. She began to
+assist the water with a slim oatmeal diet and blister-plasters. She
+calculated his capacity as she would a jug's, and filled him up every
+day with quack cure-alls.
+
+Tom had become indifferent to persecution by this time. This phase
+filled the old lady's heart with consternation. This indifference must
+be broken up at any cost. Now she heard of Pain-killer for the first
+time. She ordered a lot at once. She tasted it and was filled with
+gratitude. It was simply fire in a liquid form. She dropped the water
+treatment and everything else, and pinned her faith to Pain-killer. She
+gave Tom a teaspoonful and watched with the deepest anxiety for the
+result. Her troubles were instantly at rest, her soul at peace again;
+for the "indifference" was broken up. The boy could not have shown a
+wilder, heartier interest, if she had built a fire under him.
+
+Tom felt that it was time to wake up; this sort of life might be
+romantic enough, in his blighted condition, but it was getting to have
+too little sentiment and too much distracting variety about it. So he
+thought over various plans for relief, and finally hit pon that of
+professing to be fond of Pain-killer. He asked for it so often that he
+became a nuisance, and his aunt ended by telling him to help himself
+and quit bothering her. If it had been Sid, she would have had no
+misgivings to alloy her delight; but since it was Tom, she watched the
+bottle clandestinely. She found that the medicine did really diminish,
+but it did not occur to her that the boy was mending the health of a
+crack in the sitting-room floor with it.
+
+One day Tom was in the act of dosing the crack when his aunt's yellow
+cat came along, purring, eying the teaspoon avariciously, and begging
+for a taste. Tom said:
+
+"Don't ask for it unless you want it, Peter."
+
+But Peter signified that he did want it.
+
+"You better make sure."
+
+Peter was sure.
+
+"Now you've asked for it, and I'll give it to you, because there ain't
+anything mean about me; but if you find you don't like it, you mustn't
+blame anybody but your own self."
+
+Peter was agreeable. So Tom pried his mouth open and poured down the
+Pain-killer. Peter sprang a couple of yards in the air, and then
+delivered a war-whoop and set off round and round the room, banging
+against furniture, upsetting flower-pots, and making general havoc.
+Next he rose on his hind feet and pranced around, in a frenzy of
+enjoyment, with his head over his shoulder and his voice proclaiming
+his unappeasable happiness. Then he went tearing around the house again
+spreading chaos and destruction in his path. Aunt Polly entered in time
+to see him throw a few double summersets, deliver a final mighty
+hurrah, and sail through the open window, carrying the rest of the
+flower-pots with him. The old lady stood petrified with astonishment,
+peering over her glasses; Tom lay on the floor expiring with laughter.
+
+"Tom, what on earth ails that cat?"
+
+"I don't know, aunt," gasped the boy.
+
+"Why, I never see anything like it. What did make him act so?"
+
+"Deed I don't know, Aunt Polly; cats always act so when they're having
+a good time."
+
+"They do, do they?" There was something in the tone that made Tom
+apprehensive.
+
+"Yes'm. That is, I believe they do."
+
+"You DO?"
+
+"Yes'm."
+
+The old lady was bending down, Tom watching, with interest emphasized
+by anxiety. Too late he divined her "drift." The handle of the telltale
+teaspoon was visible under the bed-valance. Aunt Polly took it, held it
+up. Tom winced, and dropped his eyes. Aunt Polly raised him by the
+usual handle--his ear--and cracked his head soundly with her thimble.
+
+"Now, sir, what did you want to treat that poor dumb beast so, for?"
+
+"I done it out of pity for him--because he hadn't any aunt."
+
+"Hadn't any aunt!--you numskull. What has that got to do with it?"
+
+"Heaps. Because if he'd had one she'd a burnt him out herself! She'd a
+roasted his bowels out of him 'thout any more feeling than if he was a
+human!"
+
+Aunt Polly felt a sudden pang of remorse. This was putting the thing
+in a new light; what was cruelty to a cat MIGHT be cruelty to a boy,
+too. She began to soften; she felt sorry. Her eyes watered a little,
+and she put her hand on Tom's head and said gently:
+
+"I was meaning for the best, Tom. And, Tom, it DID do you good."
+
+Tom looked up in her face with just a perceptible twinkle peeping
+through his gravity.
+
+"I know you was meaning for the best, aunty, and so was I with Peter.
+It done HIM good, too. I never see him get around so since--"
+
+"Oh, go 'long with you, Tom, before you aggravate me again. And you
+try and see if you can't be a good boy, for once, and you needn't take
+any more medicine."
+
+Tom reached school ahead of time. It was noticed that this strange
+thing had been occurring every day latterly. And now, as usual of late,
+he hung about the gate of the schoolyard instead of playing with his
+comrades. He was sick, he said, and he looked it. He tried to seem to
+be looking everywhere but whither he really was looking--down the road.
+Presently Jeff Thatcher hove in sight, and Tom's face lighted; he gazed
+a moment, and then turned sorrowfully away. When Jeff arrived, Tom
+accosted him; and "led up" warily to opportunities for remark about
+Becky, but the giddy lad never could see the bait. Tom watched and
+watched, hoping whenever a frisking frock came in sight, and hating the
+owner of it as soon as he saw she was not the right one. At last frocks
+ceased to appear, and he dropped hopelessly into the dumps; he entered
+the empty schoolhouse and sat down to suffer. Then one more frock
+passed in at the gate, and Tom's heart gave a great bound. The next
+instant he was out, and "going on" like an Indian; yelling, laughing,
+chasing boys, jumping over the fence at risk of life and limb, throwing
+handsprings, standing on his head--doing all the heroic things he could
+conceive of, and keeping a furtive eye out, all the while, to see if
+Becky Thatcher was noticing. But she seemed to be unconscious of it
+all; she never looked. Could it be possible that she was not aware that
+he was there? He carried his exploits to her immediate vicinity; came
+war-whooping around, snatched a boy's cap, hurled it to the roof of the
+schoolhouse, broke through a group of boys, tumbling them in every
+direction, and fell sprawling, himself, under Becky's nose, almost
+upsetting her--and she turned, with her nose in the air, and he heard
+her say: "Mf! some people think they're mighty smart--always showing
+off!"
+
+Tom's cheeks burned. He gathered himself up and sneaked off, crushed
+and crestfallen.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+TOM'S mind was made up now. He was gloomy and desperate. He was a
+forsaken, friendless boy, he said; nobody loved him; when they found
+out what they had driven him to, perhaps they would be sorry; he had
+tried to do right and get along, but they would not let him; since
+nothing would do them but to be rid of him, let it be so; and let them
+blame HIM for the consequences--why shouldn't they? What right had the
+friendless to complain? Yes, they had forced him to it at last: he
+would lead a life of crime. There was no choice.
+
+By this time he was far down Meadow Lane, and the bell for school to
+"take up" tinkled faintly upon his ear. He sobbed, now, to think he
+should never, never hear that old familiar sound any more--it was very
+hard, but it was forced on him; since he was driven out into the cold
+world, he must submit--but he forgave them. Then the sobs came thick
+and fast.
+
+Just at this point he met his soul's sworn comrade, Joe Harper
+--hard-eyed, and with evidently a great and dismal purpose in his heart.
+Plainly here were "two souls with but a single thought." Tom, wiping
+his eyes with his sleeve, began to blubber out something about a
+resolution to escape from hard usage and lack of sympathy at home by
+roaming abroad into the great world never to return; and ended by
+hoping that Joe would not forget him.
+
+But it transpired that this was a request which Joe had just been
+going to make of Tom, and had come to hunt him up for that purpose. His
+mother had whipped him for drinking some cream which he had never
+tasted and knew nothing about; it was plain that she was tired of him
+and wished him to go; if she felt that way, there was nothing for him
+to do but succumb; he hoped she would be happy, and never regret having
+driven her poor boy out into the unfeeling world to suffer and die.
+
+As the two boys walked sorrowing along, they made a new compact to
+stand by each other and be brothers and never separate till death
+relieved them of their troubles. Then they began to lay their plans.
+Joe was for being a hermit, and living on crusts in a remote cave, and
+dying, some time, of cold and want and grief; but after listening to
+Tom, he conceded that there were some conspicuous advantages about a
+life of crime, and so he consented to be a pirate.
+
+Three miles below St. Petersburg, at a point where the Mississippi
+River was a trifle over a mile wide, there was a long, narrow, wooded
+island, with a shallow bar at the head of it, and this offered well as
+a rendezvous. It was not inhabited; it lay far over toward the further
+shore, abreast a dense and almost wholly unpeopled forest. So Jackson's
+Island was chosen. Who were to be the subjects of their piracies was a
+matter that did not occur to them. Then they hunted up Huckleberry
+Finn, and he joined them promptly, for all careers were one to him; he
+was indifferent. They presently separated to meet at a lonely spot on
+the river-bank two miles above the village at the favorite hour--which
+was midnight. There was a small log raft there which they meant to
+capture. Each would bring hooks and lines, and such provision as he
+could steal in the most dark and mysterious way--as became outlaws. And
+before the afternoon was done, they had all managed to enjoy the sweet
+glory of spreading the fact that pretty soon the town would "hear
+something." All who got this vague hint were cautioned to "be mum and
+wait."
+
+About midnight Tom arrived with a boiled ham and a few trifles,
+and stopped in a dense undergrowth on a small bluff overlooking the
+meeting-place. It was starlight, and very still. The mighty river lay
+like an ocean at rest. Tom listened a moment, but no sound disturbed the
+quiet. Then he gave a low, distinct whistle. It was answered from under
+the bluff. Tom whistled twice more; these signals were answered in the
+same way. Then a guarded voice said:
+
+"Who goes there?"
+
+"Tom Sawyer, the Black Avenger of the Spanish Main. Name your names."
+
+"Huck Finn the Red-Handed, and Joe Harper the Terror of the Seas." Tom
+had furnished these titles, from his favorite literature.
+
+"'Tis well. Give the countersign."
+
+Two hoarse whispers delivered the same awful word simultaneously to
+the brooding night:
+
+"BLOOD!"
+
+Then Tom tumbled his ham over the bluff and let himself down after it,
+tearing both skin and clothes to some extent in the effort. There was
+an easy, comfortable path along the shore under the bluff, but it
+lacked the advantages of difficulty and danger so valued by a pirate.
+
+The Terror of the Seas had brought a side of bacon, and had about worn
+himself out with getting it there. Finn the Red-Handed had stolen a
+skillet and a quantity of half-cured leaf tobacco, and had also brought
+a few corn-cobs to make pipes with. But none of the pirates smoked or
+"chewed" but himself. The Black Avenger of the Spanish Main said it
+would never do to start without some fire. That was a wise thought;
+matches were hardly known there in that day. They saw a fire
+smouldering upon a great raft a hundred yards above, and they went
+stealthily thither and helped themselves to a chunk. They made an
+imposing adventure of it, saying, "Hist!" every now and then, and
+suddenly halting with finger on lip; moving with hands on imaginary
+dagger-hilts; and giving orders in dismal whispers that if "the foe"
+stirred, to "let him have it to the hilt," because "dead men tell no
+tales." They knew well enough that the raftsmen were all down at the
+village laying in stores or having a spree, but still that was no
+excuse for their conducting this thing in an unpiratical way.
+
+They shoved off, presently, Tom in command, Huck at the after oar and
+Joe at the forward. Tom stood amidships, gloomy-browed, and with folded
+arms, and gave his orders in a low, stern whisper:
+
+"Luff, and bring her to the wind!"
+
+"Aye-aye, sir!"
+
+"Steady, steady-y-y-y!"
+
+"Steady it is, sir!"
+
+"Let her go off a point!"
+
+"Point it is, sir!"
+
+As the boys steadily and monotonously drove the raft toward mid-stream
+it was no doubt understood that these orders were given only for
+"style," and were not intended to mean anything in particular.
+
+"What sail's she carrying?"
+
+"Courses, tops'ls, and flying-jib, sir."
+
+"Send the r'yals up! Lay out aloft, there, half a dozen of ye
+--foretopmaststuns'l! Lively, now!"
+
+"Aye-aye, sir!"
+
+"Shake out that maintogalans'l! Sheets and braces! NOW my hearties!"
+
+"Aye-aye, sir!"
+
+"Hellum-a-lee--hard a port! Stand by to meet her when she comes! Port,
+port! NOW, men! With a will! Stead-y-y-y!"
+
+"Steady it is, sir!"
+
+The raft drew beyond the middle of the river; the boys pointed her
+head right, and then lay on their oars. The river was not high, so
+there was not more than a two or three mile current. Hardly a word was
+said during the next three-quarters of an hour. Now the raft was
+passing before the distant town. Two or three glimmering lights showed
+where it lay, peacefully sleeping, beyond the vague vast sweep of
+star-gemmed water, unconscious of the tremendous event that was happening.
+The Black Avenger stood still with folded arms, "looking his last" upon
+the scene of his former joys and his later sufferings, and wishing
+"she" could see him now, abroad on the wild sea, facing peril and death
+with dauntless heart, going to his doom with a grim smile on his lips.
+It was but a small strain on his imagination to remove Jackson's Island
+beyond eyeshot of the village, and so he "looked his last" with a
+broken and satisfied heart. The other pirates were looking their last,
+too; and they all looked so long that they came near letting the
+current drift them out of the range of the island. But they discovered
+the danger in time, and made shift to avert it. About two o'clock in
+the morning the raft grounded on the bar two hundred yards above the
+head of the island, and they waded back and forth until they had landed
+their freight. Part of the little raft's belongings consisted of an old
+sail, and this they spread over a nook in the bushes for a tent to
+shelter their provisions; but they themselves would sleep in the open
+air in good weather, as became outlaws.
+
+They built a fire against the side of a great log twenty or thirty
+steps within the sombre depths of the forest, and then cooked some
+bacon in the frying-pan for supper, and used up half of the corn "pone"
+stock they had brought. It seemed glorious sport to be feasting in that
+wild, free way in the virgin forest of an unexplored and uninhabited
+island, far from the haunts of men, and they said they never would
+return to civilization. The climbing fire lit up their faces and threw
+its ruddy glare upon the pillared tree-trunks of their forest temple,
+and upon the varnished foliage and festooning vines.
+
+When the last crisp slice of bacon was gone, and the last allowance of
+corn pone devoured, the boys stretched themselves out on the grass,
+filled with contentment. They could have found a cooler place, but they
+would not deny themselves such a romantic feature as the roasting
+camp-fire.
+
+"AIN'T it gay?" said Joe.
+
+"It's NUTS!" said Tom. "What would the boys say if they could see us?"
+
+"Say? Well, they'd just die to be here--hey, Hucky!"
+
+"I reckon so," said Huckleberry; "anyways, I'm suited. I don't want
+nothing better'n this. I don't ever get enough to eat, gen'ally--and
+here they can't come and pick at a feller and bullyrag him so."
+
+"It's just the life for me," said Tom. "You don't have to get up,
+mornings, and you don't have to go to school, and wash, and all that
+blame foolishness. You see a pirate don't have to do ANYTHING, Joe,
+when he's ashore, but a hermit HE has to be praying considerable, and
+then he don't have any fun, anyway, all by himself that way."
+
+"Oh yes, that's so," said Joe, "but I hadn't thought much about it,
+you know. I'd a good deal rather be a pirate, now that I've tried it."
+
+"You see," said Tom, "people don't go much on hermits, nowadays, like
+they used to in old times, but a pirate's always respected. And a
+hermit's got to sleep on the hardest place he can find, and put
+sackcloth and ashes on his head, and stand out in the rain, and--"
+
+"What does he put sackcloth and ashes on his head for?" inquired Huck.
+
+"I dono. But they've GOT to do it. Hermits always do. You'd have to do
+that if you was a hermit."
+
+"Dern'd if I would," said Huck.
+
+"Well, what would you do?"
+
+"I dono. But I wouldn't do that."
+
+"Why, Huck, you'd HAVE to. How'd you get around it?"
+
+"Why, I just wouldn't stand it. I'd run away."
+
+"Run away! Well, you WOULD be a nice old slouch of a hermit. You'd be
+a disgrace."
+
+The Red-Handed made no response, being better employed. He had
+finished gouging out a cob, and now he fitted a weed stem to it, loaded
+it with tobacco, and was pressing a coal to the charge and blowing a
+cloud of fragrant smoke--he was in the full bloom of luxurious
+contentment. The other pirates envied him this majestic vice, and
+secretly resolved to acquire it shortly. Presently Huck said:
+
+"What does pirates have to do?"
+
+Tom said:
+
+"Oh, they have just a bully time--take ships and burn them, and get
+the money and bury it in awful places in their island where there's
+ghosts and things to watch it, and kill everybody in the ships--make
+'em walk a plank."
+
+"And they carry the women to the island," said Joe; "they don't kill
+the women."
+
+"No," assented Tom, "they don't kill the women--they're too noble. And
+the women's always beautiful, too.
+
+"And don't they wear the bulliest clothes! Oh no! All gold and silver
+and di'monds," said Joe, with enthusiasm.
+
+"Who?" said Huck.
+
+"Why, the pirates."
+
+Huck scanned his own clothing forlornly.
+
+"I reckon I ain't dressed fitten for a pirate," said he, with a
+regretful pathos in his voice; "but I ain't got none but these."
+
+But the other boys told him the fine clothes would come fast enough,
+after they should have begun their adventures. They made him understand
+that his poor rags would do to begin with, though it was customary for
+wealthy pirates to start with a proper wardrobe.
+
+Gradually their talk died out and drowsiness began to steal upon the
+eyelids of the little waifs. The pipe dropped from the fingers of the
+Red-Handed, and he slept the sleep of the conscience-free and the
+weary. The Terror of the Seas and the Black Avenger of the Spanish Main
+had more difficulty in getting to sleep. They said their prayers
+inwardly, and lying down, since there was nobody there with authority
+to make them kneel and recite aloud; in truth, they had a mind not to
+say them at all, but they were afraid to proceed to such lengths as
+that, lest they might call down a sudden and special thunderbolt from
+heaven. Then at once they reached and hovered upon the imminent verge
+of sleep--but an intruder came, now, that would not "down." It was
+conscience. They began to feel a vague fear that they had been doing
+wrong to run away; and next they thought of the stolen meat, and then
+the real torture came. They tried to argue it away by reminding
+conscience that they had purloined sweetmeats and apples scores of
+times; but conscience was not to be appeased by such thin
+plausibilities; it seemed to them, in the end, that there was no
+getting around the stubborn fact that taking sweetmeats was only
+"hooking," while taking bacon and hams and such valuables was plain
+simple stealing--and there was a command against that in the Bible. So
+they inwardly resolved that so long as they remained in the business,
+their piracies should not again be sullied with the crime of stealing.
+Then conscience granted a truce, and these curiously inconsistent
+pirates fell peacefully to sleep.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+WHEN Tom awoke in the morning, he wondered where he was. He sat up and
+rubbed his eyes and looked around. Then he comprehended. It was the
+cool gray dawn, and there was a delicious sense of repose and peace in
+the deep pervading calm and silence of the woods. Not a leaf stirred;
+not a sound obtruded upon great Nature's meditation. Beaded dewdrops
+stood upon the leaves and grasses. A white layer of ashes covered the
+fire, and a thin blue breath of smoke rose straight into the air. Joe
+and Huck still slept.
+
+Now, far away in the woods a bird called; another answered; presently
+the hammering of a woodpecker was heard. Gradually the cool dim gray of
+the morning whitened, and as gradually sounds multiplied and life
+manifested itself. The marvel of Nature shaking off sleep and going to
+work unfolded itself to the musing boy. A little green worm came
+crawling over a dewy leaf, lifting two-thirds of his body into the air
+from time to time and "sniffing around," then proceeding again--for he
+was measuring, Tom said; and when the worm approached him, of its own
+accord, he sat as still as a stone, with his hopes rising and falling,
+by turns, as the creature still came toward him or seemed inclined to
+go elsewhere; and when at last it considered a painful moment with its
+curved body in the air and then came decisively down upon Tom's leg and
+began a journey over him, his whole heart was glad--for that meant that
+he was going to have a new suit of clothes--without the shadow of a
+doubt a gaudy piratical uniform. Now a procession of ants appeared,
+from nowhere in particular, and went about their labors; one struggled
+manfully by with a dead spider five times as big as itself in its arms,
+and lugged it straight up a tree-trunk. A brown spotted lady-bug
+climbed the dizzy height of a grass blade, and Tom bent down close to
+it and said, "Lady-bug, lady-bug, fly away home, your house is on fire,
+your children's alone," and she took wing and went off to see about it
+--which did not surprise the boy, for he knew of old that this insect was
+credulous about conflagrations, and he had practised upon its
+simplicity more than once. A tumblebug came next, heaving sturdily at
+its ball, and Tom touched the creature, to see it shut its legs against
+its body and pretend to be dead. The birds were fairly rioting by this
+time. A catbird, the Northern mocker, lit in a tree over Tom's head,
+and trilled out her imitations of her neighbors in a rapture of
+enjoyment; then a shrill jay swept down, a flash of blue flame, and
+stopped on a twig almost within the boy's reach, cocked his head to one
+side and eyed the strangers with a consuming curiosity; a gray squirrel
+and a big fellow of the "fox" kind came skurrying along, sitting up at
+intervals to inspect and chatter at the boys, for the wild things had
+probably never seen a human being before and scarcely knew whether to
+be afraid or not. All Nature was wide awake and stirring, now; long
+lances of sunlight pierced down through the dense foliage far and near,
+and a few butterflies came fluttering upon the scene.
+
+Tom stirred up the other pirates and they all clattered away with a
+shout, and in a minute or two were stripped and chasing after and
+tumbling over each other in the shallow limpid water of the white
+sandbar. They felt no longing for the little village sleeping in the
+distance beyond the majestic waste of water. A vagrant current or a
+slight rise in the river had carried off their raft, but this only
+gratified them, since its going was something like burning the bridge
+between them and civilization.
+
+They came back to camp wonderfully refreshed, glad-hearted, and
+ravenous; and they soon had the camp-fire blazing up again. Huck found
+a spring of clear cold water close by, and the boys made cups of broad
+oak or hickory leaves, and felt that water, sweetened with such a
+wildwood charm as that, would be a good enough substitute for coffee.
+While Joe was slicing bacon for breakfast, Tom and Huck asked him to
+hold on a minute; they stepped to a promising nook in the river-bank
+and threw in their lines; almost immediately they had reward. Joe had
+not had time to get impatient before they were back again with some
+handsome bass, a couple of sun-perch and a small catfish--provisions
+enough for quite a family. They fried the fish with the bacon, and were
+astonished; for no fish had ever seemed so delicious before. They did
+not know that the quicker a fresh-water fish is on the fire after he is
+caught the better he is; and they reflected little upon what a sauce
+open-air sleeping, open-air exercise, bathing, and a large ingredient
+of hunger make, too.
+
+They lay around in the shade, after breakfast, while Huck had a smoke,
+and then went off through the woods on an exploring expedition. They
+tramped gayly along, over decaying logs, through tangled underbrush,
+among solemn monarchs of the forest, hung from their crowns to the
+ground with a drooping regalia of grape-vines. Now and then they came
+upon snug nooks carpeted with grass and jeweled with flowers.
+
+They found plenty of things to be delighted with, but nothing to be
+astonished at. They discovered that the island was about three miles
+long and a quarter of a mile wide, and that the shore it lay closest to
+was only separated from it by a narrow channel hardly two hundred yards
+wide. They took a swim about every hour, so it was close upon the
+middle of the afternoon when they got back to camp. They were too
+hungry to stop to fish, but they fared sumptuously upon cold ham, and
+then threw themselves down in the shade to talk. But the talk soon
+began to drag, and then died. The stillness, the solemnity that brooded
+in the woods, and the sense of loneliness, began to tell upon the
+spirits of the boys. They fell to thinking. A sort of undefined longing
+crept upon them. This took dim shape, presently--it was budding
+homesickness. Even Finn the Red-Handed was dreaming of his doorsteps
+and empty hogsheads. But they were all ashamed of their weakness, and
+none was brave enough to speak his thought.
+
+For some time, now, the boys had been dully conscious of a peculiar
+sound in the distance, just as one sometimes is of the ticking of a
+clock which he takes no distinct note of. But now this mysterious sound
+became more pronounced, and forced a recognition. The boys started,
+glanced at each other, and then each assumed a listening attitude.
+There was a long silence, profound and unbroken; then a deep, sullen
+boom came floating down out of the distance.
+
+"What is it!" exclaimed Joe, under his breath.
+
+"I wonder," said Tom in a whisper.
+
+"'Tain't thunder," said Huckleberry, in an awed tone, "becuz thunder--"
+
+"Hark!" said Tom. "Listen--don't talk."
+
+They waited a time that seemed an age, and then the same muffled boom
+troubled the solemn hush.
+
+"Let's go and see."
+
+They sprang to their feet and hurried to the shore toward the town.
+They parted the bushes on the bank and peered out over the water. The
+little steam ferryboat was about a mile below the village, drifting
+with the current. Her broad deck seemed crowded with people. There were
+a great many skiffs rowing about or floating with the stream in the
+neighborhood of the ferryboat, but the boys could not determine what
+the men in them were doing. Presently a great jet of white smoke burst
+from the ferryboat's side, and as it expanded and rose in a lazy cloud,
+that same dull throb of sound was borne to the listeners again.
+
+"I know now!" exclaimed Tom; "somebody's drownded!"
+
+"That's it!" said Huck; "they done that last summer, when Bill Turner
+got drownded; they shoot a cannon over the water, and that makes him
+come up to the top. Yes, and they take loaves of bread and put
+quicksilver in 'em and set 'em afloat, and wherever there's anybody
+that's drownded, they'll float right there and stop."
+
+"Yes, I've heard about that," said Joe. "I wonder what makes the bread
+do that."
+
+"Oh, it ain't the bread, so much," said Tom; "I reckon it's mostly
+what they SAY over it before they start it out."
+
+"But they don't say anything over it," said Huck. "I've seen 'em and
+they don't."
+
+"Well, that's funny," said Tom. "But maybe they say it to themselves.
+Of COURSE they do. Anybody might know that."
+
+The other boys agreed that there was reason in what Tom said, because
+an ignorant lump of bread, uninstructed by an incantation, could not be
+expected to act very intelligently when set upon an errand of such
+gravity.
+
+"By jings, I wish I was over there, now," said Joe.
+
+"I do too" said Huck "I'd give heaps to know who it is."
+
+The boys still listened and watched. Presently a revealing thought
+flashed through Tom's mind, and he exclaimed:
+
+"Boys, I know who's drownded--it's us!"
+
+They felt like heroes in an instant. Here was a gorgeous triumph; they
+were missed; they were mourned; hearts were breaking on their account;
+tears were being shed; accusing memories of unkindness to these poor
+lost lads were rising up, and unavailing regrets and remorse were being
+indulged; and best of all, the departed were the talk of the whole
+town, and the envy of all the boys, as far as this dazzling notoriety
+was concerned. This was fine. It was worth while to be a pirate, after
+all.
+
+As twilight drew on, the ferryboat went back to her accustomed
+business and the skiffs disappeared. The pirates returned to camp. They
+were jubilant with vanity over their new grandeur and the illustrious
+trouble they were making. They caught fish, cooked supper and ate it,
+and then fell to guessing at what the village was thinking and saying
+about them; and the pictures they drew of the public distress on their
+account were gratifying to look upon--from their point of view. But
+when the shadows of night closed them in, they gradually ceased to
+talk, and sat gazing into the fire, with their minds evidently
+wandering elsewhere. The excitement was gone, now, and Tom and Joe
+could not keep back thoughts of certain persons at home who were not
+enjoying this fine frolic as much as they were. Misgivings came; they
+grew troubled and unhappy; a sigh or two escaped, unawares. By and by
+Joe timidly ventured upon a roundabout "feeler" as to how the others
+might look upon a return to civilization--not right now, but--
+
+Tom withered him with derision! Huck, being uncommitted as yet, joined
+in with Tom, and the waverer quickly "explained," and was glad to get
+out of the scrape with as little taint of chicken-hearted homesickness
+clinging to his garments as he could. Mutiny was effectually laid to
+rest for the moment.
+
+As the night deepened, Huck began to nod, and presently to snore. Joe
+followed next. Tom lay upon his elbow motionless, for some time,
+watching the two intently. At last he got up cautiously, on his knees,
+and went searching among the grass and the flickering reflections flung
+by the camp-fire. He picked up and inspected several large
+semi-cylinders of the thin white bark of a sycamore, and finally chose
+two which seemed to suit him. Then he knelt by the fire and painfully
+wrote something upon each of these with his "red keel"; one he rolled up
+and put in his jacket pocket, and the other he put in Joe's hat and
+removed it to a little distance from the owner. And he also put into the
+hat certain schoolboy treasures of almost inestimable value--among them
+a lump of chalk, an India-rubber ball, three fishhooks, and one of that
+kind of marbles known as a "sure 'nough crystal." Then he tiptoed his
+way cautiously among the trees till he felt that he was out of hearing,
+and straightway broke into a keen run in the direction of the sandbar.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+A FEW minutes later Tom was in the shoal water of the bar, wading
+toward the Illinois shore. Before the depth reached his middle he was
+half-way over; the current would permit no more wading, now, so he
+struck out confidently to swim the remaining hundred yards. He swam
+quartering upstream, but still was swept downward rather faster than he
+had expected. However, he reached the shore finally, and drifted along
+till he found a low place and drew himself out. He put his hand on his
+jacket pocket, found his piece of bark safe, and then struck through
+the woods, following the shore, with streaming garments. Shortly before
+ten o'clock he came out into an open place opposite the village, and
+saw the ferryboat lying in the shadow of the trees and the high bank.
+Everything was quiet under the blinking stars. He crept down the bank,
+watching with all his eyes, slipped into the water, swam three or four
+strokes and climbed into the skiff that did "yawl" duty at the boat's
+stern. He laid himself down under the thwarts and waited, panting.
+
+Presently the cracked bell tapped and a voice gave the order to "cast
+off." A minute or two later the skiff's head was standing high up,
+against the boat's swell, and the voyage was begun. Tom felt happy in
+his success, for he knew it was the boat's last trip for the night. At
+the end of a long twelve or fifteen minutes the wheels stopped, and Tom
+slipped overboard and swam ashore in the dusk, landing fifty yards
+downstream, out of danger of possible stragglers.
+
+He flew along unfrequented alleys, and shortly found himself at his
+aunt's back fence. He climbed over, approached the "ell," and looked in
+at the sitting-room window, for a light was burning there. There sat
+Aunt Polly, Sid, Mary, and Joe Harper's mother, grouped together,
+talking. They were by the bed, and the bed was between them and the
+door. Tom went to the door and began to softly lift the latch; then he
+pressed gently and the door yielded a crack; he continued pushing
+cautiously, and quaking every time it creaked, till he judged he might
+squeeze through on his knees; so he put his head through and began,
+warily.
+
+"What makes the candle blow so?" said Aunt Polly. Tom hurried up.
+"Why, that door's open, I believe. Why, of course it is. No end of
+strange things now. Go 'long and shut it, Sid."
+
+Tom disappeared under the bed just in time. He lay and "breathed"
+himself for a time, and then crept to where he could almost touch his
+aunt's foot.
+
+"But as I was saying," said Aunt Polly, "he warn't BAD, so to say
+--only mischEEvous. Only just giddy, and harum-scarum, you know. He
+warn't any more responsible than a colt. HE never meant any harm, and
+he was the best-hearted boy that ever was"--and she began to cry.
+
+"It was just so with my Joe--always full of his devilment, and up to
+every kind of mischief, but he was just as unselfish and kind as he
+could be--and laws bless me, to think I went and whipped him for taking
+that cream, never once recollecting that I throwed it out myself
+because it was sour, and I never to see him again in this world, never,
+never, never, poor abused boy!" And Mrs. Harper sobbed as if her heart
+would break.
+
+"I hope Tom's better off where he is," said Sid, "but if he'd been
+better in some ways--"
+
+"SID!" Tom felt the glare of the old lady's eye, though he could not
+see it. "Not a word against my Tom, now that he's gone! God'll take
+care of HIM--never you trouble YOURself, sir! Oh, Mrs. Harper, I don't
+know how to give him up! I don't know how to give him up! He was such a
+comfort to me, although he tormented my old heart out of me, 'most."
+
+"The Lord giveth and the Lord hath taken away--Blessed be the name of
+the Lord! But it's so hard--Oh, it's so hard! Only last Saturday my
+Joe busted a firecracker right under my nose and I knocked him
+sprawling. Little did I know then, how soon--Oh, if it was to do over
+again I'd hug him and bless him for it."
+
+"Yes, yes, yes, I know just how you feel, Mrs. Harper, I know just
+exactly how you feel. No longer ago than yesterday noon, my Tom took
+and filled the cat full of Pain-killer, and I did think the cretur
+would tear the house down. And God forgive me, I cracked Tom's head
+with my thimble, poor boy, poor dead boy. But he's out of all his
+troubles now. And the last words I ever heard him say was to reproach--"
+
+But this memory was too much for the old lady, and she broke entirely
+down. Tom was snuffling, now, himself--and more in pity of himself than
+anybody else. He could hear Mary crying, and putting in a kindly word
+for him from time to time. He began to have a nobler opinion of himself
+than ever before. Still, he was sufficiently touched by his aunt's
+grief to long to rush out from under the bed and overwhelm her with
+joy--and the theatrical gorgeousness of the thing appealed strongly to
+his nature, too, but he resisted and lay still.
+
+He went on listening, and gathered by odds and ends that it was
+conjectured at first that the boys had got drowned while taking a swim;
+then the small raft had been missed; next, certain boys said the
+missing lads had promised that the village should "hear something"
+soon; the wise-heads had "put this and that together" and decided that
+the lads had gone off on that raft and would turn up at the next town
+below, presently; but toward noon the raft had been found, lodged
+against the Missouri shore some five or six miles below the village
+--and then hope perished; they must be drowned, else hunger would have
+driven them home by nightfall if not sooner. It was believed that the
+search for the bodies had been a fruitless effort merely because the
+drowning must have occurred in mid-channel, since the boys, being good
+swimmers, would otherwise have escaped to shore. This was Wednesday
+night. If the bodies continued missing until Sunday, all hope would be
+given over, and the funerals would be preached on that morning. Tom
+shuddered.
+
+Mrs. Harper gave a sobbing good-night and turned to go. Then with a
+mutual impulse the two bereaved women flung themselves into each
+other's arms and had a good, consoling cry, and then parted. Aunt Polly
+was tender far beyond her wont, in her good-night to Sid and Mary. Sid
+snuffled a bit and Mary went off crying with all her heart.
+
+Aunt Polly knelt down and prayed for Tom so touchingly, so
+appealingly, and with such measureless love in her words and her old
+trembling voice, that he was weltering in tears again, long before she
+was through.
+
+He had to keep still long after she went to bed, for she kept making
+broken-hearted ejaculations from time to time, tossing unrestfully, and
+turning over. But at last she was still, only moaning a little in her
+sleep. Now the boy stole out, rose gradually by the bedside, shaded the
+candle-light with his hand, and stood regarding her. His heart was full
+of pity for her. He took out his sycamore scroll and placed it by the
+candle. But something occurred to him, and he lingered considering. His
+face lighted with a happy solution of his thought; he put the bark
+hastily in his pocket. Then he bent over and kissed the faded lips, and
+straightway made his stealthy exit, latching the door behind him.
+
+He threaded his way back to the ferry landing, found nobody at large
+there, and walked boldly on board the boat, for he knew she was
+tenantless except that there was a watchman, who always turned in and
+slept like a graven image. He untied the skiff at the stern, slipped
+into it, and was soon rowing cautiously upstream. When he had pulled a
+mile above the village, he started quartering across and bent himself
+stoutly to his work. He hit the landing on the other side neatly, for
+this was a familiar bit of work to him. He was moved to capture the
+skiff, arguing that it might be considered a ship and therefore
+legitimate prey for a pirate, but he knew a thorough search would be
+made for it and that might end in revelations. So he stepped ashore and
+entered the woods.
+
+He sat down and took a long rest, torturing himself meanwhile to keep
+awake, and then started warily down the home-stretch. The night was far
+spent. It was broad daylight before he found himself fairly abreast the
+island bar. He rested again until the sun was well up and gilding the
+great river with its splendor, and then he plunged into the stream. A
+little later he paused, dripping, upon the threshold of the camp, and
+heard Joe say:
+
+"No, Tom's true-blue, Huck, and he'll come back. He won't desert. He
+knows that would be a disgrace to a pirate, and Tom's too proud for
+that sort of thing. He's up to something or other. Now I wonder what?"
+
+"Well, the things is ours, anyway, ain't they?"
+
+"Pretty near, but not yet, Huck. The writing says they are if he ain't
+back here to breakfast."
+
+"Which he is!" exclaimed Tom, with fine dramatic effect, stepping
+grandly into camp.
+
+A sumptuous breakfast of bacon and fish was shortly provided, and as
+the boys set to work upon it, Tom recounted (and adorned) his
+adventures. They were a vain and boastful company of heroes when the
+tale was done. Then Tom hid himself away in a shady nook to sleep till
+noon, and the other pirates got ready to fish and explore.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+AFTER dinner all the gang turned out to hunt for turtle eggs on the
+bar. They went about poking sticks into the sand, and when they found a
+soft place they went down on their knees and dug with their hands.
+Sometimes they would take fifty or sixty eggs out of one hole. They
+were perfectly round white things a trifle smaller than an English
+walnut. They had a famous fried-egg feast that night, and another on
+Friday morning.
+
+After breakfast they went whooping and prancing out on the bar, and
+chased each other round and round, shedding clothes as they went, until
+they were naked, and then continued the frolic far away up the shoal
+water of the bar, against the stiff current, which latter tripped their
+legs from under them from time to time and greatly increased the fun.
+And now and then they stooped in a group and splashed water in each
+other's faces with their palms, gradually approaching each other, with
+averted faces to avoid the strangling sprays, and finally gripping and
+struggling till the best man ducked his neighbor, and then they all
+went under in a tangle of white legs and arms and came up blowing,
+sputtering, laughing, and gasping for breath at one and the same time.
+
+When they were well exhausted, they would run out and sprawl on the
+dry, hot sand, and lie there and cover themselves up with it, and by
+and by break for the water again and go through the original
+performance once more. Finally it occurred to them that their naked
+skin represented flesh-colored "tights" very fairly; so they drew a
+ring in the sand and had a circus--with three clowns in it, for none
+would yield this proudest post to his neighbor.
+
+Next they got their marbles and played "knucks" and "ring-taw" and
+"keeps" till that amusement grew stale. Then Joe and Huck had another
+swim, but Tom would not venture, because he found that in kicking off
+his trousers he had kicked his string of rattlesnake rattles off his
+ankle, and he wondered how he had escaped cramp so long without the
+protection of this mysterious charm. He did not venture again until he
+had found it, and by that time the other boys were tired and ready to
+rest. They gradually wandered apart, dropped into the "dumps," and fell
+to gazing longingly across the wide river to where the village lay
+drowsing in the sun. Tom found himself writing "BECKY" in the sand with
+his big toe; he scratched it out, and was angry with himself for his
+weakness. But he wrote it again, nevertheless; he could not help it. He
+erased it once more and then took himself out of temptation by driving
+the other boys together and joining them.
+
+But Joe's spirits had gone down almost beyond resurrection. He was so
+homesick that he could hardly endure the misery of it. The tears lay
+very near the surface. Huck was melancholy, too. Tom was downhearted,
+but tried hard not to show it. He had a secret which he was not ready
+to tell, yet, but if this mutinous depression was not broken up soon,
+he would have to bring it out. He said, with a great show of
+cheerfulness:
+
+"I bet there's been pirates on this island before, boys. We'll explore
+it again. They've hid treasures here somewhere. How'd you feel to light
+on a rotten chest full of gold and silver--hey?"
+
+But it roused only faint enthusiasm, which faded out, with no reply.
+Tom tried one or two other seductions; but they failed, too. It was
+discouraging work. Joe sat poking up the sand with a stick and looking
+very gloomy. Finally he said:
+
+"Oh, boys, let's give it up. I want to go home. It's so lonesome."
+
+"Oh no, Joe, you'll feel better by and by," said Tom. "Just think of
+the fishing that's here."
+
+"I don't care for fishing. I want to go home."
+
+"But, Joe, there ain't such another swimming-place anywhere."
+
+"Swimming's no good. I don't seem to care for it, somehow, when there
+ain't anybody to say I sha'n't go in. I mean to go home."
+
+"Oh, shucks! Baby! You want to see your mother, I reckon."
+
+"Yes, I DO want to see my mother--and you would, too, if you had one.
+I ain't any more baby than you are." And Joe snuffled a little.
+
+"Well, we'll let the cry-baby go home to his mother, won't we, Huck?
+Poor thing--does it want to see its mother? And so it shall. You like
+it here, don't you, Huck? We'll stay, won't we?"
+
+Huck said, "Y-e-s"--without any heart in it.
+
+"I'll never speak to you again as long as I live," said Joe, rising.
+"There now!" And he moved moodily away and began to dress himself.
+
+"Who cares!" said Tom. "Nobody wants you to. Go 'long home and get
+laughed at. Oh, you're a nice pirate. Huck and me ain't cry-babies.
+We'll stay, won't we, Huck? Let him go if he wants to. I reckon we can
+get along without him, per'aps."
+
+But Tom was uneasy, nevertheless, and was alarmed to see Joe go
+sullenly on with his dressing. And then it was discomforting to see
+Huck eying Joe's preparations so wistfully, and keeping up such an
+ominous silence. Presently, without a parting word, Joe began to wade
+off toward the Illinois shore. Tom's heart began to sink. He glanced at
+Huck. Huck could not bear the look, and dropped his eyes. Then he said:
+
+"I want to go, too, Tom. It was getting so lonesome anyway, and now
+it'll be worse. Let's us go, too, Tom."
+
+"I won't! You can all go, if you want to. I mean to stay."
+
+"Tom, I better go."
+
+"Well, go 'long--who's hendering you."
+
+Huck began to pick up his scattered clothes. He said:
+
+"Tom, I wisht you'd come, too. Now you think it over. We'll wait for
+you when we get to shore."
+
+"Well, you'll wait a blame long time, that's all."
+
+Huck started sorrowfully away, and Tom stood looking after him, with a
+strong desire tugging at his heart to yield his pride and go along too.
+He hoped the boys would stop, but they still waded slowly on. It
+suddenly dawned on Tom that it was become very lonely and still. He
+made one final struggle with his pride, and then darted after his
+comrades, yelling:
+
+"Wait! Wait! I want to tell you something!"
+
+They presently stopped and turned around. When he got to where they
+were, he began unfolding his secret, and they listened moodily till at
+last they saw the "point" he was driving at, and then they set up a
+war-whoop of applause and said it was "splendid!" and said if he had
+told them at first, they wouldn't have started away. He made a plausible
+excuse; but his real reason had been the fear that not even the secret
+would keep them with him any very great length of time, and so he had
+meant to hold it in reserve as a last seduction.
+
+The lads came gayly back and went at their sports again with a will,
+chattering all the time about Tom's stupendous plan and admiring the
+genius of it. After a dainty egg and fish dinner, Tom said he wanted to
+learn to smoke, now. Joe caught at the idea and said he would like to
+try, too. So Huck made pipes and filled them. These novices had never
+smoked anything before but cigars made of grape-vine, and they "bit"
+the tongue, and were not considered manly anyway.
+
+Now they stretched themselves out on their elbows and began to puff,
+charily, and with slender confidence. The smoke had an unpleasant
+taste, and they gagged a little, but Tom said:
+
+"Why, it's just as easy! If I'd a knowed this was all, I'd a learnt
+long ago."
+
+"So would I," said Joe. "It's just nothing."
+
+"Why, many a time I've looked at people smoking, and thought well I
+wish I could do that; but I never thought I could," said Tom.
+
+"That's just the way with me, hain't it, Huck? You've heard me talk
+just that way--haven't you, Huck? I'll leave it to Huck if I haven't."
+
+"Yes--heaps of times," said Huck.
+
+"Well, I have too," said Tom; "oh, hundreds of times. Once down by the
+slaughter-house. Don't you remember, Huck? Bob Tanner was there, and
+Johnny Miller, and Jeff Thatcher, when I said it. Don't you remember,
+Huck, 'bout me saying that?"
+
+"Yes, that's so," said Huck. "That was the day after I lost a white
+alley. No, 'twas the day before."
+
+"There--I told you so," said Tom. "Huck recollects it."
+
+"I bleeve I could smoke this pipe all day," said Joe. "I don't feel
+sick."
+
+"Neither do I," said Tom. "I could smoke it all day. But I bet you
+Jeff Thatcher couldn't."
+
+"Jeff Thatcher! Why, he'd keel over just with two draws. Just let him
+try it once. HE'D see!"
+
+"I bet he would. And Johnny Miller--I wish could see Johnny Miller
+tackle it once."
+
+"Oh, don't I!" said Joe. "Why, I bet you Johnny Miller couldn't any
+more do this than nothing. Just one little snifter would fetch HIM."
+
+"'Deed it would, Joe. Say--I wish the boys could see us now."
+
+"So do I."
+
+"Say--boys, don't say anything about it, and some time when they're
+around, I'll come up to you and say, 'Joe, got a pipe? I want a smoke.'
+And you'll say, kind of careless like, as if it warn't anything, you'll
+say, 'Yes, I got my OLD pipe, and another one, but my tobacker ain't
+very good.' And I'll say, 'Oh, that's all right, if it's STRONG
+enough.' And then you'll out with the pipes, and we'll light up just as
+ca'm, and then just see 'em look!"
+
+"By jings, that'll be gay, Tom! I wish it was NOW!"
+
+"So do I! And when we tell 'em we learned when we was off pirating,
+won't they wish they'd been along?"
+
+"Oh, I reckon not! I'll just BET they will!"
+
+So the talk ran on. But presently it began to flag a trifle, and grow
+disjointed. The silences widened; the expectoration marvellously
+increased. Every pore inside the boys' cheeks became a spouting
+fountain; they could scarcely bail out the cellars under their tongues
+fast enough to prevent an inundation; little overflowings down their
+throats occurred in spite of all they could do, and sudden retchings
+followed every time. Both boys were looking very pale and miserable,
+now. Joe's pipe dropped from his nerveless fingers. Tom's followed.
+Both fountains were going furiously and both pumps bailing with might
+and main. Joe said feebly:
+
+"I've lost my knife. I reckon I better go and find it."
+
+Tom said, with quivering lips and halting utterance:
+
+"I'll help you. You go over that way and I'll hunt around by the
+spring. No, you needn't come, Huck--we can find it."
+
+So Huck sat down again, and waited an hour. Then he found it lonesome,
+and went to find his comrades. They were wide apart in the woods, both
+very pale, both fast asleep. But something informed him that if they
+had had any trouble they had got rid of it.
+
+They were not talkative at supper that night. They had a humble look,
+and when Huck prepared his pipe after the meal and was going to prepare
+theirs, they said no, they were not feeling very well--something they
+ate at dinner had disagreed with them.
+
+About midnight Joe awoke, and called the boys. There was a brooding
+oppressiveness in the air that seemed to bode something. The boys
+huddled themselves together and sought the friendly companionship of
+the fire, though the dull dead heat of the breathless atmosphere was
+stifling. They sat still, intent and waiting. The solemn hush
+continued. Beyond the light of the fire everything was swallowed up in
+the blackness of darkness. Presently there came a quivering glow that
+vaguely revealed the foliage for a moment and then vanished. By and by
+another came, a little stronger. Then another. Then a faint moan came
+sighing through the branches of the forest and the boys felt a fleeting
+breath upon their cheeks, and shuddered with the fancy that the Spirit
+of the Night had gone by. There was a pause. Now a weird flash turned
+night into day and showed every little grass-blade, separate and
+distinct, that grew about their feet. And it showed three white,
+startled faces, too. A deep peal of thunder went rolling and tumbling
+down the heavens and lost itself in sullen rumblings in the distance. A
+sweep of chilly air passed by, rustling all the leaves and snowing the
+flaky ashes broadcast about the fire. Another fierce glare lit up the
+forest and an instant crash followed that seemed to rend the tree-tops
+right over the boys' heads. They clung together in terror, in the thick
+gloom that followed. A few big rain-drops fell pattering upon the
+leaves.
+
+"Quick! boys, go for the tent!" exclaimed Tom.
+
+They sprang away, stumbling over roots and among vines in the dark, no
+two plunging in the same direction. A furious blast roared through the
+trees, making everything sing as it went. One blinding flash after
+another came, and peal on peal of deafening thunder. And now a
+drenching rain poured down and the rising hurricane drove it in sheets
+along the ground. The boys cried out to each other, but the roaring
+wind and the booming thunder-blasts drowned their voices utterly.
+However, one by one they straggled in at last and took shelter under
+the tent, cold, scared, and streaming with water; but to have company
+in misery seemed something to be grateful for. They could not talk, the
+old sail flapped so furiously, even if the other noises would have
+allowed them. The tempest rose higher and higher, and presently the
+sail tore loose from its fastenings and went winging away on the blast.
+The boys seized each others' hands and fled, with many tumblings and
+bruises, to the shelter of a great oak that stood upon the river-bank.
+Now the battle was at its highest. Under the ceaseless conflagration of
+lightning that flamed in the skies, everything below stood out in
+clean-cut and shadowless distinctness: the bending trees, the billowy
+river, white with foam, the driving spray of spume-flakes, the dim
+outlines of the high bluffs on the other side, glimpsed through the
+drifting cloud-rack and the slanting veil of rain. Every little while
+some giant tree yielded the fight and fell crashing through the younger
+growth; and the unflagging thunder-peals came now in ear-splitting
+explosive bursts, keen and sharp, and unspeakably appalling. The storm
+culminated in one matchless effort that seemed likely to tear the island
+to pieces, burn it up, drown it to the tree-tops, blow it away, and
+deafen every creature in it, all at one and the same moment. It was a
+wild night for homeless young heads to be out in.
+
+But at last the battle was done, and the forces retired with weaker
+and weaker threatenings and grumblings, and peace resumed her sway. The
+boys went back to camp, a good deal awed; but they found there was
+still something to be thankful for, because the great sycamore, the
+shelter of their beds, was a ruin, now, blasted by the lightnings, and
+they were not under it when the catastrophe happened.
+
+Everything in camp was drenched, the camp-fire as well; for they were
+but heedless lads, like their generation, and had made no provision
+against rain. Here was matter for dismay, for they were soaked through
+and chilled. They were eloquent in their distress; but they presently
+discovered that the fire had eaten so far up under the great log it had
+been built against (where it curved upward and separated itself from
+the ground), that a handbreadth or so of it had escaped wetting; so
+they patiently wrought until, with shreds and bark gathered from the
+under sides of sheltered logs, they coaxed the fire to burn again. Then
+they piled on great dead boughs till they had a roaring furnace, and
+were glad-hearted once more. They dried their boiled ham and had a
+feast, and after that they sat by the fire and expanded and glorified
+their midnight adventure until morning, for there was not a dry spot to
+sleep on, anywhere around.
+
+As the sun began to steal in upon the boys, drowsiness came over them,
+and they went out on the sandbar and lay down to sleep. They got
+scorched out by and by, and drearily set about getting breakfast. After
+the meal they felt rusty, and stiff-jointed, and a little homesick once
+more. Tom saw the signs, and fell to cheering up the pirates as well as
+he could. But they cared nothing for marbles, or circus, or swimming,
+or anything. He reminded them of the imposing secret, and raised a ray
+of cheer. While it lasted, he got them interested in a new device. This
+was to knock off being pirates, for a while, and be Indians for a
+change. They were attracted by this idea; so it was not long before
+they were stripped, and striped from head to heel with black mud, like
+so many zebras--all of them chiefs, of course--and then they went
+tearing through the woods to attack an English settlement.
+
+By and by they separated into three hostile tribes, and darted upon
+each other from ambush with dreadful war-whoops, and killed and scalped
+each other by thousands. It was a gory day. Consequently it was an
+extremely satisfactory one.
+
+They assembled in camp toward supper-time, hungry and happy; but now a
+difficulty arose--hostile Indians could not break the bread of
+hospitality together without first making peace, and this was a simple
+impossibility without smoking a pipe of peace. There was no other
+process that ever they had heard of. Two of the savages almost wished
+they had remained pirates. However, there was no other way; so with
+such show of cheerfulness as they could muster they called for the pipe
+and took their whiff as it passed, in due form.
+
+And behold, they were glad they had gone into savagery, for they had
+gained something; they found that they could now smoke a little without
+having to go and hunt for a lost knife; they did not get sick enough to
+be seriously uncomfortable. They were not likely to fool away this high
+promise for lack of effort. No, they practised cautiously, after
+supper, with right fair success, and so they spent a jubilant evening.
+They were prouder and happier in their new acquirement than they would
+have been in the scalping and skinning of the Six Nations. We will
+leave them to smoke and chatter and brag, since we have no further use
+for them at present.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+BUT there was no hilarity in the little town that same tranquil
+Saturday afternoon. The Harpers, and Aunt Polly's family, were being
+put into mourning, with great grief and many tears. An unusual quiet
+possessed the village, although it was ordinarily quiet enough, in all
+conscience. The villagers conducted their concerns with an absent air,
+and talked little; but they sighed often. The Saturday holiday seemed a
+burden to the children. They had no heart in their sports, and
+gradually gave them up.
+
+In the afternoon Becky Thatcher found herself moping about the
+deserted schoolhouse yard, and feeling very melancholy. But she found
+nothing there to comfort her. She soliloquized:
+
+"Oh, if I only had a brass andiron-knob again! But I haven't got
+anything now to remember him by." And she choked back a little sob.
+
+Presently she stopped, and said to herself:
+
+"It was right here. Oh, if it was to do over again, I wouldn't say
+that--I wouldn't say it for the whole world. But he's gone now; I'll
+never, never, never see him any more."
+
+This thought broke her down, and she wandered away, with tears rolling
+down her cheeks. Then quite a group of boys and girls--playmates of
+Tom's and Joe's--came by, and stood looking over the paling fence and
+talking in reverent tones of how Tom did so-and-so the last time they
+saw him, and how Joe said this and that small trifle (pregnant with
+awful prophecy, as they could easily see now!)--and each speaker
+pointed out the exact spot where the lost lads stood at the time, and
+then added something like "and I was a-standing just so--just as I am
+now, and as if you was him--I was as close as that--and he smiled, just
+this way--and then something seemed to go all over me, like--awful, you
+know--and I never thought what it meant, of course, but I can see now!"
+
+Then there was a dispute about who saw the dead boys last in life, and
+many claimed that dismal distinction, and offered evidences, more or
+less tampered with by the witness; and when it was ultimately decided
+who DID see the departed last, and exchanged the last words with them,
+the lucky parties took upon themselves a sort of sacred importance, and
+were gaped at and envied by all the rest. One poor chap, who had no
+other grandeur to offer, said with tolerably manifest pride in the
+remembrance:
+
+"Well, Tom Sawyer he licked me once."
+
+But that bid for glory was a failure. Most of the boys could say that,
+and so that cheapened the distinction too much. The group loitered
+away, still recalling memories of the lost heroes, in awed voices.
+
+When the Sunday-school hour was finished, the next morning, the bell
+began to toll, instead of ringing in the usual way. It was a very still
+Sabbath, and the mournful sound seemed in keeping with the musing hush
+that lay upon nature. The villagers began to gather, loitering a moment
+in the vestibule to converse in whispers about the sad event. But there
+was no whispering in the house; only the funereal rustling of dresses
+as the women gathered to their seats disturbed the silence there. None
+could remember when the little church had been so full before. There
+was finally a waiting pause, an expectant dumbness, and then Aunt Polly
+entered, followed by Sid and Mary, and they by the Harper family, all
+in deep black, and the whole congregation, the old minister as well,
+rose reverently and stood until the mourners were seated in the front
+pew. There was another communing silence, broken at intervals by
+muffled sobs, and then the minister spread his hands abroad and prayed.
+A moving hymn was sung, and the text followed: "I am the Resurrection
+and the Life."
+
+As the service proceeded, the clergyman drew such pictures of the
+graces, the winning ways, and the rare promise of the lost lads that
+every soul there, thinking he recognized these pictures, felt a pang in
+remembering that he had persistently blinded himself to them always
+before, and had as persistently seen only faults and flaws in the poor
+boys. The minister related many a touching incident in the lives of the
+departed, too, which illustrated their sweet, generous natures, and the
+people could easily see, now, how noble and beautiful those episodes
+were, and remembered with grief that at the time they occurred they had
+seemed rank rascalities, well deserving of the cowhide. The
+congregation became more and more moved, as the pathetic tale went on,
+till at last the whole company broke down and joined the weeping
+mourners in a chorus of anguished sobs, the preacher himself giving way
+to his feelings, and crying in the pulpit.
+
+There was a rustle in the gallery, which nobody noticed; a moment
+later the church door creaked; the minister raised his streaming eyes
+above his handkerchief, and stood transfixed! First one and then
+another pair of eyes followed the minister's, and then almost with one
+impulse the congregation rose and stared while the three dead boys came
+marching up the aisle, Tom in the lead, Joe next, and Huck, a ruin of
+drooping rags, sneaking sheepishly in the rear! They had been hid in
+the unused gallery listening to their own funeral sermon!
+
+Aunt Polly, Mary, and the Harpers threw themselves upon their restored
+ones, smothered them with kisses and poured out thanksgivings, while
+poor Huck stood abashed and uncomfortable, not knowing exactly what to
+do or where to hide from so many unwelcoming eyes. He wavered, and
+started to slink away, but Tom seized him and said:
+
+"Aunt Polly, it ain't fair. Somebody's got to be glad to see Huck."
+
+"And so they shall. I'm glad to see him, poor motherless thing!" And
+the loving attentions Aunt Polly lavished upon him were the one thing
+capable of making him more uncomfortable than he was before.
+
+Suddenly the minister shouted at the top of his voice: "Praise God
+from whom all blessings flow--SING!--and put your hearts in it!"
+
+And they did. Old Hundred swelled up with a triumphant burst, and
+while it shook the rafters Tom Sawyer the Pirate looked around upon the
+envying juveniles about him and confessed in his heart that this was
+the proudest moment of his life.
+
+As the "sold" congregation trooped out they said they would almost be
+willing to be made ridiculous again to hear Old Hundred sung like that
+once more.
+
+Tom got more cuffs and kisses that day--according to Aunt Polly's
+varying moods--than he had earned before in a year; and he hardly knew
+which expressed the most gratefulness to God and affection for himself.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THAT was Tom's great secret--the scheme to return home with his
+brother pirates and attend their own funerals. They had paddled over to
+the Missouri shore on a log, at dusk on Saturday, landing five or six
+miles below the village; they had slept in the woods at the edge of the
+town till nearly daylight, and had then crept through back lanes and
+alleys and finished their sleep in the gallery of the church among a
+chaos of invalided benches.
+
+At breakfast, Monday morning, Aunt Polly and Mary were very loving to
+Tom, and very attentive to his wants. There was an unusual amount of
+talk. In the course of it Aunt Polly said:
+
+"Well, I don't say it wasn't a fine joke, Tom, to keep everybody
+suffering 'most a week so you boys had a good time, but it is a pity
+you could be so hard-hearted as to let me suffer so. If you could come
+over on a log to go to your funeral, you could have come over and give
+me a hint some way that you warn't dead, but only run off."
+
+"Yes, you could have done that, Tom," said Mary; "and I believe you
+would if you had thought of it."
+
+"Would you, Tom?" said Aunt Polly, her face lighting wistfully. "Say,
+now, would you, if you'd thought of it?"
+
+"I--well, I don't know. 'Twould 'a' spoiled everything."
+
+"Tom, I hoped you loved me that much," said Aunt Polly, with a grieved
+tone that discomforted the boy. "It would have been something if you'd
+cared enough to THINK of it, even if you didn't DO it."
+
+"Now, auntie, that ain't any harm," pleaded Mary; "it's only Tom's
+giddy way--he is always in such a rush that he never thinks of
+anything."
+
+"More's the pity. Sid would have thought. And Sid would have come and
+DONE it, too. Tom, you'll look back, some day, when it's too late, and
+wish you'd cared a little more for me when it would have cost you so
+little."
+
+"Now, auntie, you know I do care for you," said Tom.
+
+"I'd know it better if you acted more like it."
+
+"I wish now I'd thought," said Tom, with a repentant tone; "but I
+dreamt about you, anyway. That's something, ain't it?"
+
+"It ain't much--a cat does that much--but it's better than nothing.
+What did you dream?"
+
+"Why, Wednesday night I dreamt that you was sitting over there by the
+bed, and Sid was sitting by the woodbox, and Mary next to him."
+
+"Well, so we did. So we always do. I'm glad your dreams could take
+even that much trouble about us."
+
+"And I dreamt that Joe Harper's mother was here."
+
+"Why, she was here! Did you dream any more?"
+
+"Oh, lots. But it's so dim, now."
+
+"Well, try to recollect--can't you?"
+
+"Somehow it seems to me that the wind--the wind blowed the--the--"
+
+"Try harder, Tom! The wind did blow something. Come!"
+
+Tom pressed his fingers on his forehead an anxious minute, and then
+said:
+
+"I've got it now! I've got it now! It blowed the candle!"
+
+"Mercy on us! Go on, Tom--go on!"
+
+"And it seems to me that you said, 'Why, I believe that that door--'"
+
+"Go ON, Tom!"
+
+"Just let me study a moment--just a moment. Oh, yes--you said you
+believed the door was open."
+
+"As I'm sitting here, I did! Didn't I, Mary! Go on!"
+
+"And then--and then--well I won't be certain, but it seems like as if
+you made Sid go and--and--"
+
+"Well? Well? What did I make him do, Tom? What did I make him do?"
+
+"You made him--you--Oh, you made him shut it."
+
+"Well, for the land's sake! I never heard the beat of that in all my
+days! Don't tell ME there ain't anything in dreams, any more. Sereny
+Harper shall know of this before I'm an hour older. I'd like to see her
+get around THIS with her rubbage 'bout superstition. Go on, Tom!"
+
+"Oh, it's all getting just as bright as day, now. Next you said I
+warn't BAD, only mischeevous and harum-scarum, and not any more
+responsible than--than--I think it was a colt, or something."
+
+"And so it was! Well, goodness gracious! Go on, Tom!"
+
+"And then you began to cry."
+
+"So I did. So I did. Not the first time, neither. And then--"
+
+"Then Mrs. Harper she began to cry, and said Joe was just the same,
+and she wished she hadn't whipped him for taking cream when she'd
+throwed it out her own self--"
+
+"Tom! The sperrit was upon you! You was a prophesying--that's what you
+was doing! Land alive, go on, Tom!"
+
+"Then Sid he said--he said--"
+
+"I don't think I said anything," said Sid.
+
+"Yes you did, Sid," said Mary.
+
+"Shut your heads and let Tom go on! What did he say, Tom?"
+
+"He said--I THINK he said he hoped I was better off where I was gone
+to, but if I'd been better sometimes--"
+
+"THERE, d'you hear that! It was his very words!"
+
+"And you shut him up sharp."
+
+"I lay I did! There must 'a' been an angel there. There WAS an angel
+there, somewheres!"
+
+"And Mrs. Harper told about Joe scaring her with a firecracker, and
+you told about Peter and the Painkiller--"
+
+"Just as true as I live!"
+
+"And then there was a whole lot of talk 'bout dragging the river for
+us, and 'bout having the funeral Sunday, and then you and old Miss
+Harper hugged and cried, and she went."
+
+"It happened just so! It happened just so, as sure as I'm a-sitting in
+these very tracks. Tom, you couldn't told it more like if you'd 'a'
+seen it! And then what? Go on, Tom!"
+
+"Then I thought you prayed for me--and I could see you and hear every
+word you said. And you went to bed, and I was so sorry that I took and
+wrote on a piece of sycamore bark, 'We ain't dead--we are only off
+being pirates,' and put it on the table by the candle; and then you
+looked so good, laying there asleep, that I thought I went and leaned
+over and kissed you on the lips."
+
+"Did you, Tom, DID you! I just forgive you everything for that!" And
+she seized the boy in a crushing embrace that made him feel like the
+guiltiest of villains.
+
+"It was very kind, even though it was only a--dream," Sid soliloquized
+just audibly.
+
+"Shut up, Sid! A body does just the same in a dream as he'd do if he
+was awake. Here's a big Milum apple I've been saving for you, Tom, if
+you was ever found again--now go 'long to school. I'm thankful to the
+good God and Father of us all I've got you back, that's long-suffering
+and merciful to them that believe on Him and keep His word, though
+goodness knows I'm unworthy of it, but if only the worthy ones got His
+blessings and had His hand to help them over the rough places, there's
+few enough would smile here or ever enter into His rest when the long
+night comes. Go 'long Sid, Mary, Tom--take yourselves off--you've
+hendered me long enough."
+
+The children left for school, and the old lady to call on Mrs. Harper
+and vanquish her realism with Tom's marvellous dream. Sid had better
+judgment than to utter the thought that was in his mind as he left the
+house. It was this: "Pretty thin--as long a dream as that, without any
+mistakes in it!"
+
+What a hero Tom was become, now! He did not go skipping and prancing,
+but moved with a dignified swagger as became a pirate who felt that the
+public eye was on him. And indeed it was; he tried not to seem to see
+the looks or hear the remarks as he passed along, but they were food
+and drink to him. Smaller boys than himself flocked at his heels, as
+proud to be seen with him, and tolerated by him, as if he had been the
+drummer at the head of a procession or the elephant leading a menagerie
+into town. Boys of his own size pretended not to know he had been away
+at all; but they were consuming with envy, nevertheless. They would
+have given anything to have that swarthy suntanned skin of his, and his
+glittering notoriety; and Tom would not have parted with either for a
+circus.
+
+At school the children made so much of him and of Joe, and delivered
+such eloquent admiration from their eyes, that the two heroes were not
+long in becoming insufferably "stuck-up." They began to tell their
+adventures to hungry listeners--but they only began; it was not a thing
+likely to have an end, with imaginations like theirs to furnish
+material. And finally, when they got out their pipes and went serenely
+puffing around, the very summit of glory was reached.
+
+Tom decided that he could be independent of Becky Thatcher now. Glory
+was sufficient. He would live for glory. Now that he was distinguished,
+maybe she would be wanting to "make up." Well, let her--she should see
+that he could be as indifferent as some other people. Presently she
+arrived. Tom pretended not to see her. He moved away and joined a group
+of boys and girls and began to talk. Soon he observed that she was
+tripping gayly back and forth with flushed face and dancing eyes,
+pretending to be busy chasing schoolmates, and screaming with laughter
+when she made a capture; but he noticed that she always made her
+captures in his vicinity, and that she seemed to cast a conscious eye
+in his direction at such times, too. It gratified all the vicious
+vanity that was in him; and so, instead of winning him, it only "set
+him up" the more and made him the more diligent to avoid betraying that
+he knew she was about. Presently she gave over skylarking, and moved
+irresolutely about, sighing once or twice and glancing furtively and
+wistfully toward Tom. Then she observed that now Tom was talking more
+particularly to Amy Lawrence than to any one else. She felt a sharp
+pang and grew disturbed and uneasy at once. She tried to go away, but
+her feet were treacherous, and carried her to the group instead. She
+said to a girl almost at Tom's elbow--with sham vivacity:
+
+"Why, Mary Austin! you bad girl, why didn't you come to Sunday-school?"
+
+"I did come--didn't you see me?"
+
+"Why, no! Did you? Where did you sit?"
+
+"I was in Miss Peters' class, where I always go. I saw YOU."
+
+"Did you? Why, it's funny I didn't see you. I wanted to tell you about
+the picnic."
+
+"Oh, that's jolly. Who's going to give it?"
+
+"My ma's going to let me have one."
+
+"Oh, goody; I hope she'll let ME come."
+
+"Well, she will. The picnic's for me. She'll let anybody come that I
+want, and I want you."
+
+"That's ever so nice. When is it going to be?"
+
+"By and by. Maybe about vacation."
+
+"Oh, won't it be fun! You going to have all the girls and boys?"
+
+"Yes, every one that's friends to me--or wants to be"; and she glanced
+ever so furtively at Tom, but he talked right along to Amy Lawrence
+about the terrible storm on the island, and how the lightning tore the
+great sycamore tree "all to flinders" while he was "standing within
+three feet of it."
+
+"Oh, may I come?" said Grace Miller.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And me?" said Sally Rogers.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And me, too?" said Susy Harper. "And Joe?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+And so on, with clapping of joyful hands till all the group had begged
+for invitations but Tom and Amy. Then Tom turned coolly away, still
+talking, and took Amy with him. Becky's lips trembled and the tears
+came to her eyes; she hid these signs with a forced gayety and went on
+chattering, but the life had gone out of the picnic, now, and out of
+everything else; she got away as soon as she could and hid herself and
+had what her sex call "a good cry." Then she sat moody, with wounded
+pride, till the bell rang. She roused up, now, with a vindictive cast
+in her eye, and gave her plaited tails a shake and said she knew what
+SHE'D do.
+
+At recess Tom continued his flirtation with Amy with jubilant
+self-satisfaction. And he kept drifting about to find Becky and lacerate
+her with the performance. At last he spied her, but there was a sudden
+falling of his mercury. She was sitting cosily on a little bench behind
+the schoolhouse looking at a picture-book with Alfred Temple--and so
+absorbed were they, and their heads so close together over the book,
+that they did not seem to be conscious of anything in the world besides.
+Jealousy ran red-hot through Tom's veins. He began to hate himself for
+throwing away the chance Becky had offered for a reconciliation. He
+called himself a fool, and all the hard names he could think of. He
+wanted to cry with vexation. Amy chatted happily along, as they walked,
+for her heart was singing, but Tom's tongue had lost its function. He
+did not hear what Amy was saying, and whenever she paused expectantly he
+could only stammer an awkward assent, which was as often misplaced as
+otherwise. He kept drifting to the rear of the schoolhouse, again and
+again, to sear his eyeballs with the hateful spectacle there. He could
+not help it. And it maddened him to see, as he thought he saw, that
+Becky Thatcher never once suspected that he was even in the land of the
+living. But she did see, nevertheless; and she knew she was winning her
+fight, too, and was glad to see him suffer as she had suffered.
+
+Amy's happy prattle became intolerable. Tom hinted at things he had to
+attend to; things that must be done; and time was fleeting. But in
+vain--the girl chirped on. Tom thought, "Oh, hang her, ain't I ever
+going to get rid of her?" At last he must be attending to those
+things--and she said artlessly that she would be "around" when school
+let out. And he hastened away, hating her for it.
+
+"Any other boy!" Tom thought, grating his teeth. "Any boy in the whole
+town but that Saint Louis smarty that thinks he dresses so fine and is
+aristocracy! Oh, all right, I licked you the first day you ever saw
+this town, mister, and I'll lick you again! You just wait till I catch
+you out! I'll just take and--"
+
+And he went through the motions of thrashing an imaginary boy
+--pummelling the air, and kicking and gouging. "Oh, you do, do you? You
+holler 'nough, do you? Now, then, let that learn you!" And so the
+imaginary flogging was finished to his satisfaction.
+
+Tom fled home at noon. His conscience could not endure any more of
+Amy's grateful happiness, and his jealousy could bear no more of the
+other distress. Becky resumed her picture inspections with Alfred, but
+as the minutes dragged along and no Tom came to suffer, her triumph
+began to cloud and she lost interest; gravity and absent-mindedness
+followed, and then melancholy; two or three times she pricked up her
+ear at a footstep, but it was a false hope; no Tom came. At last she
+grew entirely miserable and wished she hadn't carried it so far. When
+poor Alfred, seeing that he was losing her, he did not know how, kept
+exclaiming: "Oh, here's a jolly one! look at this!" she lost patience
+at last, and said, "Oh, don't bother me! I don't care for them!" and
+burst into tears, and got up and walked away.
+
+Alfred dropped alongside and was going to try to comfort her, but she
+said:
+
+"Go away and leave me alone, can't you! I hate you!"
+
+So the boy halted, wondering what he could have done--for she had said
+she would look at pictures all through the nooning--and she walked on,
+crying. Then Alfred went musing into the deserted schoolhouse. He was
+humiliated and angry. He easily guessed his way to the truth--the girl
+had simply made a convenience of him to vent her spite upon Tom Sawyer.
+He was far from hating Tom the less when this thought occurred to him.
+He wished there was some way to get that boy into trouble without much
+risk to himself. Tom's spelling-book fell under his eye. Here was his
+opportunity. He gratefully opened to the lesson for the afternoon and
+poured ink upon the page.
+
+Becky, glancing in at a window behind him at the moment, saw the act,
+and moved on, without discovering herself. She started homeward, now,
+intending to find Tom and tell him; Tom would be thankful and their
+troubles would be healed. Before she was half way home, however, she
+had changed her mind. The thought of Tom's treatment of her when she
+was talking about her picnic came scorching back and filled her with
+shame. She resolved to let him get whipped on the damaged
+spelling-book's account, and to hate him forever, into the bargain.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+TOM arrived at home in a dreary mood, and the first thing his aunt
+said to him showed him that he had brought his sorrows to an
+unpromising market:
+
+"Tom, I've a notion to skin you alive!"
+
+"Auntie, what have I done?"
+
+"Well, you've done enough. Here I go over to Sereny Harper, like an
+old softy, expecting I'm going to make her believe all that rubbage
+about that dream, when lo and behold you she'd found out from Joe that
+you was over here and heard all the talk we had that night. Tom, I
+don't know what is to become of a boy that will act like that. It makes
+me feel so bad to think you could let me go to Sereny Harper and make
+such a fool of myself and never say a word."
+
+This was a new aspect of the thing. His smartness of the morning had
+seemed to Tom a good joke before, and very ingenious. It merely looked
+mean and shabby now. He hung his head and could not think of anything
+to say for a moment. Then he said:
+
+"Auntie, I wish I hadn't done it--but I didn't think."
+
+"Oh, child, you never think. You never think of anything but your own
+selfishness. You could think to come all the way over here from
+Jackson's Island in the night to laugh at our troubles, and you could
+think to fool me with a lie about a dream; but you couldn't ever think
+to pity us and save us from sorrow."
+
+"Auntie, I know now it was mean, but I didn't mean to be mean. I
+didn't, honest. And besides, I didn't come over here to laugh at you
+that night."
+
+"What did you come for, then?"
+
+"It was to tell you not to be uneasy about us, because we hadn't got
+drownded."
+
+"Tom, Tom, I would be the thankfullest soul in this world if I could
+believe you ever had as good a thought as that, but you know you never
+did--and I know it, Tom."
+
+"Indeed and 'deed I did, auntie--I wish I may never stir if I didn't."
+
+"Oh, Tom, don't lie--don't do it. It only makes things a hundred times
+worse."
+
+"It ain't a lie, auntie; it's the truth. I wanted to keep you from
+grieving--that was all that made me come."
+
+"I'd give the whole world to believe that--it would cover up a power
+of sins, Tom. I'd 'most be glad you'd run off and acted so bad. But it
+ain't reasonable; because, why didn't you tell me, child?"
+
+"Why, you see, when you got to talking about the funeral, I just got
+all full of the idea of our coming and hiding in the church, and I
+couldn't somehow bear to spoil it. So I just put the bark back in my
+pocket and kept mum."
+
+"What bark?"
+
+"The bark I had wrote on to tell you we'd gone pirating. I wish, now,
+you'd waked up when I kissed you--I do, honest."
+
+The hard lines in his aunt's face relaxed and a sudden tenderness
+dawned in her eyes.
+
+"DID you kiss me, Tom?"
+
+"Why, yes, I did."
+
+"Are you sure you did, Tom?"
+
+"Why, yes, I did, auntie--certain sure."
+
+"What did you kiss me for, Tom?"
+
+"Because I loved you so, and you laid there moaning and I was so sorry."
+
+The words sounded like truth. The old lady could not hide a tremor in
+her voice when she said:
+
+"Kiss me again, Tom!--and be off with you to school, now, and don't
+bother me any more."
+
+The moment he was gone, she ran to a closet and got out the ruin of a
+jacket which Tom had gone pirating in. Then she stopped, with it in her
+hand, and said to herself:
+
+"No, I don't dare. Poor boy, I reckon he's lied about it--but it's a
+blessed, blessed lie, there's such a comfort come from it. I hope the
+Lord--I KNOW the Lord will forgive him, because it was such
+goodheartedness in him to tell it. But I don't want to find out it's a
+lie. I won't look."
+
+She put the jacket away, and stood by musing a minute. Twice she put
+out her hand to take the garment again, and twice she refrained. Once
+more she ventured, and this time she fortified herself with the
+thought: "It's a good lie--it's a good lie--I won't let it grieve me."
+So she sought the jacket pocket. A moment later she was reading Tom's
+piece of bark through flowing tears and saying: "I could forgive the
+boy, now, if he'd committed a million sins!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THERE was something about Aunt Polly's manner, when she kissed Tom,
+that swept away his low spirits and made him lighthearted and happy
+again. He started to school and had the luck of coming upon Becky
+Thatcher at the head of Meadow Lane. His mood always determined his
+manner. Without a moment's hesitation he ran to her and said:
+
+"I acted mighty mean to-day, Becky, and I'm so sorry. I won't ever,
+ever do that way again, as long as ever I live--please make up, won't
+you?"
+
+The girl stopped and looked him scornfully in the face:
+
+"I'll thank you to keep yourself TO yourself, Mr. Thomas Sawyer. I'll
+never speak to you again."
+
+She tossed her head and passed on. Tom was so stunned that he had not
+even presence of mind enough to say "Who cares, Miss Smarty?" until the
+right time to say it had gone by. So he said nothing. But he was in a
+fine rage, nevertheless. He moped into the schoolyard wishing she were
+a boy, and imagining how he would trounce her if she were. He presently
+encountered her and delivered a stinging remark as he passed. She
+hurled one in return, and the angry breach was complete. It seemed to
+Becky, in her hot resentment, that she could hardly wait for school to
+"take in," she was so impatient to see Tom flogged for the injured
+spelling-book. If she had had any lingering notion of exposing Alfred
+Temple, Tom's offensive fling had driven it entirely away.
+
+Poor girl, she did not know how fast she was nearing trouble herself.
+The master, Mr. Dobbins, had reached middle age with an unsatisfied
+ambition. The darling of his desires was, to be a doctor, but poverty
+had decreed that he should be nothing higher than a village
+schoolmaster. Every day he took a mysterious book out of his desk and
+absorbed himself in it at times when no classes were reciting. He kept
+that book under lock and key. There was not an urchin in school but was
+perishing to have a glimpse of it, but the chance never came. Every boy
+and girl had a theory about the nature of that book; but no two
+theories were alike, and there was no way of getting at the facts in
+the case. Now, as Becky was passing by the desk, which stood near the
+door, she noticed that the key was in the lock! It was a precious
+moment. She glanced around; found herself alone, and the next instant
+she had the book in her hands. The title-page--Professor Somebody's
+ANATOMY--carried no information to her mind; so she began to turn the
+leaves. She came at once upon a handsomely engraved and colored
+frontispiece--a human figure, stark naked. At that moment a shadow fell
+on the page and Tom Sawyer stepped in at the door and caught a glimpse
+of the picture. Becky snatched at the book to close it, and had the
+hard luck to tear the pictured page half down the middle. She thrust
+the volume into the desk, turned the key, and burst out crying with
+shame and vexation.
+
+"Tom Sawyer, you are just as mean as you can be, to sneak up on a
+person and look at what they're looking at."
+
+"How could I know you was looking at anything?"
+
+"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Tom Sawyer; you know you're
+going to tell on me, and oh, what shall I do, what shall I do! I'll be
+whipped, and I never was whipped in school."
+
+Then she stamped her little foot and said:
+
+"BE so mean if you want to! I know something that's going to happen.
+You just wait and you'll see! Hateful, hateful, hateful!"--and she
+flung out of the house with a new explosion of crying.
+
+Tom stood still, rather flustered by this onslaught. Presently he said
+to himself:
+
+"What a curious kind of a fool a girl is! Never been licked in school!
+Shucks! What's a licking! That's just like a girl--they're so
+thin-skinned and chicken-hearted. Well, of course I ain't going to tell
+old Dobbins on this little fool, because there's other ways of getting
+even on her, that ain't so mean; but what of it? Old Dobbins will ask
+who it was tore his book. Nobody'll answer. Then he'll do just the way
+he always does--ask first one and then t'other, and when he comes to the
+right girl he'll know it, without any telling. Girls' faces always tell
+on them. They ain't got any backbone. She'll get licked. Well, it's a
+kind of a tight place for Becky Thatcher, because there ain't any way
+out of it." Tom conned the thing a moment longer, and then added: "All
+right, though; she'd like to see me in just such a fix--let her sweat it
+out!"
+
+Tom joined the mob of skylarking scholars outside. In a few moments
+the master arrived and school "took in." Tom did not feel a strong
+interest in his studies. Every time he stole a glance at the girls'
+side of the room Becky's face troubled him. Considering all things, he
+did not want to pity her, and yet it was all he could do to help it. He
+could get up no exultation that was really worthy the name. Presently
+the spelling-book discovery was made, and Tom's mind was entirely full
+of his own matters for a while after that. Becky roused up from her
+lethargy of distress and showed good interest in the proceedings. She
+did not expect that Tom could get out of his trouble by denying that he
+spilt the ink on the book himself; and she was right. The denial only
+seemed to make the thing worse for Tom. Becky supposed she would be
+glad of that, and she tried to believe she was glad of it, but she
+found she was not certain. When the worst came to the worst, she had an
+impulse to get up and tell on Alfred Temple, but she made an effort and
+forced herself to keep still--because, said she to herself, "he'll tell
+about me tearing the picture sure. I wouldn't say a word, not to save
+his life!"
+
+Tom took his whipping and went back to his seat not at all
+broken-hearted, for he thought it was possible that he had unknowingly
+upset the ink on the spelling-book himself, in some skylarking bout--he
+had denied it for form's sake and because it was custom, and had stuck
+to the denial from principle.
+
+A whole hour drifted by, the master sat nodding in his throne, the air
+was drowsy with the hum of study. By and by, Mr. Dobbins straightened
+himself up, yawned, then unlocked his desk, and reached for his book,
+but seemed undecided whether to take it out or leave it. Most of the
+pupils glanced up languidly, but there were two among them that watched
+his movements with intent eyes. Mr. Dobbins fingered his book absently
+for a while, then took it out and settled himself in his chair to read!
+Tom shot a glance at Becky. He had seen a hunted and helpless rabbit
+look as she did, with a gun levelled at its head. Instantly he forgot
+his quarrel with her. Quick--something must be done! done in a flash,
+too! But the very imminence of the emergency paralyzed his invention.
+Good!--he had an inspiration! He would run and snatch the book, spring
+through the door and fly. But his resolution shook for one little
+instant, and the chance was lost--the master opened the volume. If Tom
+only had the wasted opportunity back again! Too late. There was no help
+for Becky now, he said. The next moment the master faced the school.
+Every eye sank under his gaze. There was that in it which smote even
+the innocent with fear. There was silence while one might count ten
+--the master was gathering his wrath. Then he spoke: "Who tore this book?"
+
+There was not a sound. One could have heard a pin drop. The stillness
+continued; the master searched face after face for signs of guilt.
+
+"Benjamin Rogers, did you tear this book?"
+
+A denial. Another pause.
+
+"Joseph Harper, did you?"
+
+Another denial. Tom's uneasiness grew more and more intense under the
+slow torture of these proceedings. The master scanned the ranks of
+boys--considered a while, then turned to the girls:
+
+"Amy Lawrence?"
+
+A shake of the head.
+
+"Gracie Miller?"
+
+The same sign.
+
+"Susan Harper, did you do this?"
+
+Another negative. The next girl was Becky Thatcher. Tom was trembling
+from head to foot with excitement and a sense of the hopelessness of
+the situation.
+
+"Rebecca Thatcher" [Tom glanced at her face--it was white with terror]
+--"did you tear--no, look me in the face" [her hands rose in appeal]
+--"did you tear this book?"
+
+A thought shot like lightning through Tom's brain. He sprang to his
+feet and shouted--"I done it!"
+
+The school stared in perplexity at this incredible folly. Tom stood a
+moment, to gather his dismembered faculties; and when he stepped
+forward to go to his punishment the surprise, the gratitude, the
+adoration that shone upon him out of poor Becky's eyes seemed pay
+enough for a hundred floggings. Inspired by the splendor of his own
+act, he took without an outcry the most merciless flaying that even Mr.
+Dobbins had ever administered; and also received with indifference the
+added cruelty of a command to remain two hours after school should be
+dismissed--for he knew who would wait for him outside till his
+captivity was done, and not count the tedious time as loss, either.
+
+Tom went to bed that night planning vengeance against Alfred Temple;
+for with shame and repentance Becky had told him all, not forgetting
+her own treachery; but even the longing for vengeance had to give way,
+soon, to pleasanter musings, and he fell asleep at last with Becky's
+latest words lingering dreamily in his ear--
+
+"Tom, how COULD you be so noble!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+VACATION was approaching. The schoolmaster, always severe, grew
+severer and more exacting than ever, for he wanted the school to make a
+good showing on "Examination" day. His rod and his ferule were seldom
+idle now--at least among the smaller pupils. Only the biggest boys, and
+young ladies of eighteen and twenty, escaped lashing. Mr. Dobbins'
+lashings were very vigorous ones, too; for although he carried, under
+his wig, a perfectly bald and shiny head, he had only reached middle
+age, and there was no sign of feebleness in his muscle. As the great
+day approached, all the tyranny that was in him came to the surface; he
+seemed to take a vindictive pleasure in punishing the least
+shortcomings. The consequence was, that the smaller boys spent their
+days in terror and suffering and their nights in plotting revenge. They
+threw away no opportunity to do the master a mischief. But he kept
+ahead all the time. The retribution that followed every vengeful
+success was so sweeping and majestic that the boys always retired from
+the field badly worsted. At last they conspired together and hit upon a
+plan that promised a dazzling victory. They swore in the sign-painter's
+boy, told him the scheme, and asked his help. He had his own reasons
+for being delighted, for the master boarded in his father's family and
+had given the boy ample cause to hate him. The master's wife would go
+on a visit to the country in a few days, and there would be nothing to
+interfere with the plan; the master always prepared himself for great
+occasions by getting pretty well fuddled, and the sign-painter's boy
+said that when the dominie had reached the proper condition on
+Examination Evening he would "manage the thing" while he napped in his
+chair; then he would have him awakened at the right time and hurried
+away to school.
+
+In the fulness of time the interesting occasion arrived. At eight in
+the evening the schoolhouse was brilliantly lighted, and adorned with
+wreaths and festoons of foliage and flowers. The master sat throned in
+his great chair upon a raised platform, with his blackboard behind him.
+He was looking tolerably mellow. Three rows of benches on each side and
+six rows in front of him were occupied by the dignitaries of the town
+and by the parents of the pupils. To his left, back of the rows of
+citizens, was a spacious temporary platform upon which were seated the
+scholars who were to take part in the exercises of the evening; rows of
+small boys, washed and dressed to an intolerable state of discomfort;
+rows of gawky big boys; snowbanks of girls and young ladies clad in
+lawn and muslin and conspicuously conscious of their bare arms, their
+grandmothers' ancient trinkets, their bits of pink and blue ribbon and
+the flowers in their hair. All the rest of the house was filled with
+non-participating scholars.
+
+The exercises began. A very little boy stood up and sheepishly
+recited, "You'd scarce expect one of my age to speak in public on the
+stage," etc.--accompanying himself with the painfully exact and
+spasmodic gestures which a machine might have used--supposing the
+machine to be a trifle out of order. But he got through safely, though
+cruelly scared, and got a fine round of applause when he made his
+manufactured bow and retired.
+
+A little shamefaced girl lisped, "Mary had a little lamb," etc.,
+performed a compassion-inspiring curtsy, got her meed of applause, and
+sat down flushed and happy.
+
+Tom Sawyer stepped forward with conceited confidence and soared into
+the unquenchable and indestructible "Give me liberty or give me death"
+speech, with fine fury and frantic gesticulation, and broke down in the
+middle of it. A ghastly stage-fright seized him, his legs quaked under
+him and he was like to choke. True, he had the manifest sympathy of the
+house but he had the house's silence, too, which was even worse than
+its sympathy. The master frowned, and this completed the disaster. Tom
+struggled awhile and then retired, utterly defeated. There was a weak
+attempt at applause, but it died early.
+
+"The Boy Stood on the Burning Deck" followed; also "The Assyrian Came
+Down," and other declamatory gems. Then there were reading exercises,
+and a spelling fight. The meagre Latin class recited with honor. The
+prime feature of the evening was in order, now--original "compositions"
+by the young ladies. Each in her turn stepped forward to the edge of
+the platform, cleared her throat, held up her manuscript (tied with
+dainty ribbon), and proceeded to read, with labored attention to
+"expression" and punctuation. The themes were the same that had been
+illuminated upon similar occasions by their mothers before them, their
+grandmothers, and doubtless all their ancestors in the female line
+clear back to the Crusades. "Friendship" was one; "Memories of Other
+Days"; "Religion in History"; "Dream Land"; "The Advantages of
+Culture"; "Forms of Political Government Compared and Contrasted";
+"Melancholy"; "Filial Love"; "Heart Longings," etc., etc.
+
+A prevalent feature in these compositions was a nursed and petted
+melancholy; another was a wasteful and opulent gush of "fine language";
+another was a tendency to lug in by the ears particularly prized words
+and phrases until they were worn entirely out; and a peculiarity that
+conspicuously marked and marred them was the inveterate and intolerable
+sermon that wagged its crippled tail at the end of each and every one
+of them. No matter what the subject might be, a brain-racking effort
+was made to squirm it into some aspect or other that the moral and
+religious mind could contemplate with edification. The glaring
+insincerity of these sermons was not sufficient to compass the
+banishment of the fashion from the schools, and it is not sufficient
+to-day; it never will be sufficient while the world stands, perhaps.
+There is no school in all our land where the young ladies do not feel
+obliged to close their compositions with a sermon; and you will find
+that the sermon of the most frivolous and the least religious girl in
+the school is always the longest and the most relentlessly pious. But
+enough of this. Homely truth is unpalatable.
+
+Let us return to the "Examination." The first composition that was
+read was one entitled "Is this, then, Life?" Perhaps the reader can
+endure an extract from it:
+
+  "In the common walks of life, with what delightful
+   emotions does the youthful mind look forward to some
+   anticipated scene of festivity! Imagination is busy
+   sketching rose-tinted pictures of joy. In fancy, the
+   voluptuous votary of fashion sees herself amid the
+   festive throng, 'the observed of all observers.' Her
+   graceful form, arrayed in snowy robes, is whirling
+   through the mazes of the joyous dance; her eye is
+   brightest, her step is lightest in the gay assembly.
+
+  "In such delicious fancies time quickly glides by,
+   and the welcome hour arrives for her entrance into
+   the Elysian world, of which she has had such bright
+   dreams. How fairy-like does everything appear to
+   her enchanted vision! Each new scene is more charming
+   than the last. But after a while she finds that
+   beneath this goodly exterior, all is vanity, the
+   flattery which once charmed her soul, now grates
+   harshly upon her ear; the ball-room has lost its
+   charms; and with wasted health and imbittered heart,
+   she turns away with the conviction that earthly
+   pleasures cannot satisfy the longings of the soul!"
+
+And so forth and so on. There was a buzz of gratification from time to
+time during the reading, accompanied by whispered ejaculations of "How
+sweet!" "How eloquent!" "So true!" etc., and after the thing had closed
+with a peculiarly afflicting sermon the applause was enthusiastic.
+
+Then arose a slim, melancholy girl, whose face had the "interesting"
+paleness that comes of pills and indigestion, and read a "poem." Two
+stanzas of it will do:
+
+   "A MISSOURI MAIDEN'S FAREWELL TO ALABAMA
+
+   "Alabama, good-bye! I love thee well!
+      But yet for a while do I leave thee now!
+    Sad, yes, sad thoughts of thee my heart doth swell,
+      And burning recollections throng my brow!
+    For I have wandered through thy flowery woods;
+      Have roamed and read near Tallapoosa's stream;
+    Have listened to Tallassee's warring floods,
+      And wooed on Coosa's side Aurora's beam.
+
+   "Yet shame I not to bear an o'er-full heart,
+      Nor blush to turn behind my tearful eyes;
+    'Tis from no stranger land I now must part,
+      'Tis to no strangers left I yield these sighs.
+    Welcome and home were mine within this State,
+      Whose vales I leave--whose spires fade fast from me
+    And cold must be mine eyes, and heart, and tete,
+      When, dear Alabama! they turn cold on thee!"
+
+There were very few there who knew what "tete" meant, but the poem was
+very satisfactory, nevertheless.
+
+Next appeared a dark-complexioned, black-eyed, black-haired young
+lady, who paused an impressive moment, assumed a tragic expression, and
+began to read in a measured, solemn tone:
+
+  "A VISION
+
+   "Dark and tempestuous was night. Around the
+   throne on high not a single star quivered; but
+   the deep intonations of the heavy thunder
+   constantly vibrated upon the ear; whilst the
+   terrific lightning revelled in angry mood
+   through the cloudy chambers of heaven, seeming
+   to scorn the power exerted over its terror by
+   the illustrious Franklin! Even the boisterous
+   winds unanimously came forth from their mystic
+   homes, and blustered about as if to enhance by
+   their aid the wildness of the scene.
+
+   "At such a time, so dark, so dreary, for human
+   sympathy my very spirit sighed; but instead thereof,
+
+   "'My dearest friend, my counsellor, my comforter
+   and guide--My joy in grief, my second bliss
+   in joy,' came to my side. She moved like one of
+   those bright beings pictured in the sunny walks
+   of fancy's Eden by the romantic and young, a
+   queen of beauty unadorned save by her own
+   transcendent loveliness. So soft was her step, it
+   failed to make even a sound, and but for the
+   magical thrill imparted by her genial touch, as
+   other unobtrusive beauties, she would have glided
+   away un-perceived--unsought. A strange sadness
+   rested upon her features, like icy tears upon
+   the robe of December, as she pointed to the
+   contending elements without, and bade me contemplate
+   the two beings presented."
+
+This nightmare occupied some ten pages of manuscript and wound up with
+a sermon so destructive of all hope to non-Presbyterians that it took
+the first prize. This composition was considered to be the very finest
+effort of the evening. The mayor of the village, in delivering the
+prize to the author of it, made a warm speech in which he said that it
+was by far the most "eloquent" thing he had ever listened to, and that
+Daniel Webster himself might well be proud of it.
+
+It may be remarked, in passing, that the number of compositions in
+which the word "beauteous" was over-fondled, and human experience
+referred to as "life's page," was up to the usual average.
+
+Now the master, mellow almost to the verge of geniality, put his chair
+aside, turned his back to the audience, and began to draw a map of
+America on the blackboard, to exercise the geography class upon. But he
+made a sad business of it with his unsteady hand, and a smothered
+titter rippled over the house. He knew what the matter was, and set
+himself to right it. He sponged out lines and remade them; but he only
+distorted them more than ever, and the tittering was more pronounced.
+He threw his entire attention upon his work, now, as if determined not
+to be put down by the mirth. He felt that all eyes were fastened upon
+him; he imagined he was succeeding, and yet the tittering continued; it
+even manifestly increased. And well it might. There was a garret above,
+pierced with a scuttle over his head; and down through this scuttle
+came a cat, suspended around the haunches by a string; she had a rag
+tied about her head and jaws to keep her from mewing; as she slowly
+descended she curved upward and clawed at the string, she swung
+downward and clawed at the intangible air. The tittering rose higher
+and higher--the cat was within six inches of the absorbed teacher's
+head--down, down, a little lower, and she grabbed his wig with her
+desperate claws, clung to it, and was snatched up into the garret in an
+instant with her trophy still in her possession! And how the light did
+blaze abroad from the master's bald pate--for the sign-painter's boy
+had GILDED it!
+
+That broke up the meeting. The boys were avenged. Vacation had come.
+
+   NOTE:--The pretended "compositions" quoted in
+   this chapter are taken without alteration from a
+   volume entitled "Prose and Poetry, by a Western
+   Lady"--but they are exactly and precisely after
+   the schoolgirl pattern, and hence are much
+   happier than any mere imitations could be.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+TOM joined the new order of Cadets of Temperance, being attracted by
+the showy character of their "regalia." He promised to abstain from
+smoking, chewing, and profanity as long as he remained a member. Now he
+found out a new thing--namely, that to promise not to do a thing is the
+surest way in the world to make a body want to go and do that very
+thing. Tom soon found himself tormented with a desire to drink and
+swear; the desire grew to be so intense that nothing but the hope of a
+chance to display himself in his red sash kept him from withdrawing
+from the order. Fourth of July was coming; but he soon gave that up
+--gave it up before he had worn his shackles over forty-eight hours--and
+fixed his hopes upon old Judge Frazer, justice of the peace, who was
+apparently on his deathbed and would have a big public funeral, since
+he was so high an official. During three days Tom was deeply concerned
+about the Judge's condition and hungry for news of it. Sometimes his
+hopes ran high--so high that he would venture to get out his regalia
+and practise before the looking-glass. But the Judge had a most
+discouraging way of fluctuating. At last he was pronounced upon the
+mend--and then convalescent. Tom was disgusted; and felt a sense of
+injury, too. He handed in his resignation at once--and that night the
+Judge suffered a relapse and died. Tom resolved that he would never
+trust a man like that again.
+
+The funeral was a fine thing. The Cadets paraded in a style calculated
+to kill the late member with envy. Tom was a free boy again, however
+--there was something in that. He could drink and swear, now--but found
+to his surprise that he did not want to. The simple fact that he could,
+took the desire away, and the charm of it.
+
+Tom presently wondered to find that his coveted vacation was beginning
+to hang a little heavily on his hands.
+
+He attempted a diary--but nothing happened during three days, and so
+he abandoned it.
+
+The first of all the negro minstrel shows came to town, and made a
+sensation. Tom and Joe Harper got up a band of performers and were
+happy for two days.
+
+Even the Glorious Fourth was in some sense a failure, for it rained
+hard, there was no procession in consequence, and the greatest man in
+the world (as Tom supposed), Mr. Benton, an actual United States
+Senator, proved an overwhelming disappointment--for he was not
+twenty-five feet high, nor even anywhere in the neighborhood of it.
+
+A circus came. The boys played circus for three days afterward in
+tents made of rag carpeting--admission, three pins for boys, two for
+girls--and then circusing was abandoned.
+
+A phrenologist and a mesmerizer came--and went again and left the
+village duller and drearier than ever.
+
+There were some boys-and-girls' parties, but they were so few and so
+delightful that they only made the aching voids between ache the harder.
+
+Becky Thatcher was gone to her Constantinople home to stay with her
+parents during vacation--so there was no bright side to life anywhere.
+
+The dreadful secret of the murder was a chronic misery. It was a very
+cancer for permanency and pain.
+
+Then came the measles.
+
+During two long weeks Tom lay a prisoner, dead to the world and its
+happenings. He was very ill, he was interested in nothing. When he got
+upon his feet at last and moved feebly down-town, a melancholy change
+had come over everything and every creature. There had been a
+"revival," and everybody had "got religion," not only the adults, but
+even the boys and girls. Tom went about, hoping against hope for the
+sight of one blessed sinful face, but disappointment crossed him
+everywhere. He found Joe Harper studying a Testament, and turned sadly
+away from the depressing spectacle. He sought Ben Rogers, and found him
+visiting the poor with a basket of tracts. He hunted up Jim Hollis, who
+called his attention to the precious blessing of his late measles as a
+warning. Every boy he encountered added another ton to his depression;
+and when, in desperation, he flew for refuge at last to the bosom of
+Huckleberry Finn and was received with a Scriptural quotation, his
+heart broke and he crept home and to bed realizing that he alone of all
+the town was lost, forever and forever.
+
+And that night there came on a terrific storm, with driving rain,
+awful claps of thunder and blinding sheets of lightning. He covered his
+head with the bedclothes and waited in a horror of suspense for his
+doom; for he had not the shadow of a doubt that all this hubbub was
+about him. He believed he had taxed the forbearance of the powers above
+to the extremity of endurance and that this was the result. It might
+have seemed to him a waste of pomp and ammunition to kill a bug with a
+battery of artillery, but there seemed nothing incongruous about the
+getting up such an expensive thunderstorm as this to knock the turf
+from under an insect like himself.
+
+By and by the tempest spent itself and died without accomplishing its
+object. The boy's first impulse was to be grateful, and reform. His
+second was to wait--for there might not be any more storms.
+
+The next day the doctors were back; Tom had relapsed. The three weeks
+he spent on his back this time seemed an entire age. When he got abroad
+at last he was hardly grateful that he had been spared, remembering how
+lonely was his estate, how companionless and forlorn he was. He drifted
+listlessly down the street and found Jim Hollis acting as judge in a
+juvenile court that was trying a cat for murder, in the presence of her
+victim, a bird. He found Joe Harper and Huck Finn up an alley eating a
+stolen melon. Poor lads! they--like Tom--had suffered a relapse.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+AT last the sleepy atmosphere was stirred--and vigorously: the murder
+trial came on in the court. It became the absorbing topic of village
+talk immediately. Tom could not get away from it. Every reference to
+the murder sent a shudder to his heart, for his troubled conscience and
+fears almost persuaded him that these remarks were put forth in his
+hearing as "feelers"; he did not see how he could be suspected of
+knowing anything about the murder, but still he could not be
+comfortable in the midst of this gossip. It kept him in a cold shiver
+all the time. He took Huck to a lonely place to have a talk with him.
+It would be some relief to unseal his tongue for a little while; to
+divide his burden of distress with another sufferer. Moreover, he
+wanted to assure himself that Huck had remained discreet.
+
+"Huck, have you ever told anybody about--that?"
+
+"'Bout what?"
+
+"You know what."
+
+"Oh--'course I haven't."
+
+"Never a word?"
+
+"Never a solitary word, so help me. What makes you ask?"
+
+"Well, I was afeard."
+
+"Why, Tom Sawyer, we wouldn't be alive two days if that got found out.
+YOU know that."
+
+Tom felt more comfortable. After a pause:
+
+"Huck, they couldn't anybody get you to tell, could they?"
+
+"Get me to tell? Why, if I wanted that half-breed devil to drownd me
+they could get me to tell. They ain't no different way."
+
+"Well, that's all right, then. I reckon we're safe as long as we keep
+mum. But let's swear again, anyway. It's more surer."
+
+"I'm agreed."
+
+So they swore again with dread solemnities.
+
+"What is the talk around, Huck? I've heard a power of it."
+
+"Talk? Well, it's just Muff Potter, Muff Potter, Muff Potter all the
+time. It keeps me in a sweat, constant, so's I want to hide som'ers."
+
+"That's just the same way they go on round me. I reckon he's a goner.
+Don't you feel sorry for him, sometimes?"
+
+"Most always--most always. He ain't no account; but then he hain't
+ever done anything to hurt anybody. Just fishes a little, to get money
+to get drunk on--and loafs around considerable; but lord, we all do
+that--leastways most of us--preachers and such like. But he's kind of
+good--he give me half a fish, once, when there warn't enough for two;
+and lots of times he's kind of stood by me when I was out of luck."
+
+"Well, he's mended kites for me, Huck, and knitted hooks on to my
+line. I wish we could get him out of there."
+
+"My! we couldn't get him out, Tom. And besides, 'twouldn't do any
+good; they'd ketch him again."
+
+"Yes--so they would. But I hate to hear 'em abuse him so like the
+dickens when he never done--that."
+
+"I do too, Tom. Lord, I hear 'em say he's the bloodiest looking
+villain in this country, and they wonder he wasn't ever hung before."
+
+"Yes, they talk like that, all the time. I've heard 'em say that if he
+was to get free they'd lynch him."
+
+"And they'd do it, too."
+
+The boys had a long talk, but it brought them little comfort. As the
+twilight drew on, they found themselves hanging about the neighborhood
+of the little isolated jail, perhaps with an undefined hope that
+something would happen that might clear away their difficulties. But
+nothing happened; there seemed to be no angels or fairies interested in
+this luckless captive.
+
+The boys did as they had often done before--went to the cell grating
+and gave Potter some tobacco and matches. He was on the ground floor
+and there were no guards.
+
+His gratitude for their gifts had always smote their consciences
+before--it cut deeper than ever, this time. They felt cowardly and
+treacherous to the last degree when Potter said:
+
+"You've been mighty good to me, boys--better'n anybody else in this
+town. And I don't forget it, I don't. Often I says to myself, says I,
+'I used to mend all the boys' kites and things, and show 'em where the
+good fishin' places was, and befriend 'em what I could, and now they've
+all forgot old Muff when he's in trouble; but Tom don't, and Huck
+don't--THEY don't forget him, says I, 'and I don't forget them.' Well,
+boys, I done an awful thing--drunk and crazy at the time--that's the
+only way I account for it--and now I got to swing for it, and it's
+right. Right, and BEST, too, I reckon--hope so, anyway. Well, we won't
+talk about that. I don't want to make YOU feel bad; you've befriended
+me. But what I want to say, is, don't YOU ever get drunk--then you won't
+ever get here. Stand a litter furder west--so--that's it; it's a prime
+comfort to see faces that's friendly when a body's in such a muck of
+trouble, and there don't none come here but yourn. Good friendly
+faces--good friendly faces. Git up on one another's backs and let me
+touch 'em. That's it. Shake hands--yourn'll come through the bars, but
+mine's too big. Little hands, and weak--but they've helped Muff Potter
+a power, and they'd help him more if they could."
+
+Tom went home miserable, and his dreams that night were full of
+horrors. The next day and the day after, he hung about the court-room,
+drawn by an almost irresistible impulse to go in, but forcing himself
+to stay out. Huck was having the same experience. They studiously
+avoided each other. Each wandered away, from time to time, but the same
+dismal fascination always brought them back presently. Tom kept his
+ears open when idlers sauntered out of the court-room, but invariably
+heard distressing news--the toils were closing more and more
+relentlessly around poor Potter. At the end of the second day the
+village talk was to the effect that Injun Joe's evidence stood firm and
+unshaken, and that there was not the slightest question as to what the
+jury's verdict would be.
+
+Tom was out late, that night, and came to bed through the window. He
+was in a tremendous state of excitement. It was hours before he got to
+sleep. All the village flocked to the court-house the next morning, for
+this was to be the great day. Both sexes were about equally represented
+in the packed audience. After a long wait the jury filed in and took
+their places; shortly afterward, Potter, pale and haggard, timid and
+hopeless, was brought in, with chains upon him, and seated where all
+the curious eyes could stare at him; no less conspicuous was Injun Joe,
+stolid as ever. There was another pause, and then the judge arrived and
+the sheriff proclaimed the opening of the court. The usual whisperings
+among the lawyers and gathering together of papers followed. These
+details and accompanying delays worked up an atmosphere of preparation
+that was as impressive as it was fascinating.
+
+Now a witness was called who testified that he found Muff Potter
+washing in the brook, at an early hour of the morning that the murder
+was discovered, and that he immediately sneaked away. After some
+further questioning, counsel for the prosecution said:
+
+"Take the witness."
+
+The prisoner raised his eyes for a moment, but dropped them again when
+his own counsel said:
+
+"I have no questions to ask him."
+
+The next witness proved the finding of the knife near the corpse.
+Counsel for the prosecution said:
+
+"Take the witness."
+
+"I have no questions to ask him," Potter's lawyer replied.
+
+A third witness swore he had often seen the knife in Potter's
+possession.
+
+"Take the witness."
+
+Counsel for Potter declined to question him. The faces of the audience
+began to betray annoyance. Did this attorney mean to throw away his
+client's life without an effort?
+
+Several witnesses deposed concerning Potter's guilty behavior when
+brought to the scene of the murder. They were allowed to leave the
+stand without being cross-questioned.
+
+Every detail of the damaging circumstances that occurred in the
+graveyard upon that morning which all present remembered so well was
+brought out by credible witnesses, but none of them were cross-examined
+by Potter's lawyer. The perplexity and dissatisfaction of the house
+expressed itself in murmurs and provoked a reproof from the bench.
+Counsel for the prosecution now said:
+
+"By the oaths of citizens whose simple word is above suspicion, we
+have fastened this awful crime, beyond all possibility of question,
+upon the unhappy prisoner at the bar. We rest our case here."
+
+A groan escaped from poor Potter, and he put his face in his hands and
+rocked his body softly to and fro, while a painful silence reigned in
+the court-room. Many men were moved, and many women's compassion
+testified itself in tears. Counsel for the defence rose and said:
+
+"Your honor, in our remarks at the opening of this trial, we
+foreshadowed our purpose to prove that our client did this fearful deed
+while under the influence of a blind and irresponsible delirium
+produced by drink. We have changed our mind. We shall not offer that
+plea." [Then to the clerk:] "Call Thomas Sawyer!"
+
+A puzzled amazement awoke in every face in the house, not even
+excepting Potter's. Every eye fastened itself with wondering interest
+upon Tom as he rose and took his place upon the stand. The boy looked
+wild enough, for he was badly scared. The oath was administered.
+
+"Thomas Sawyer, where were you on the seventeenth of June, about the
+hour of midnight?"
+
+Tom glanced at Injun Joe's iron face and his tongue failed him. The
+audience listened breathless, but the words refused to come. After a
+few moments, however, the boy got a little of his strength back, and
+managed to put enough of it into his voice to make part of the house
+hear:
+
+"In the graveyard!"
+
+"A little bit louder, please. Don't be afraid. You were--"
+
+"In the graveyard."
+
+A contemptuous smile flitted across Injun Joe's face.
+
+"Were you anywhere near Horse Williams' grave?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Speak up--just a trifle louder. How near were you?"
+
+"Near as I am to you."
+
+"Were you hidden, or not?"
+
+"I was hid."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Behind the elms that's on the edge of the grave."
+
+Injun Joe gave a barely perceptible start.
+
+"Any one with you?"
+
+"Yes, sir. I went there with--"
+
+"Wait--wait a moment. Never mind mentioning your companion's name. We
+will produce him at the proper time. Did you carry anything there with
+you."
+
+Tom hesitated and looked confused.
+
+"Speak out, my boy--don't be diffident. The truth is always
+respectable. What did you take there?"
+
+"Only a--a--dead cat."
+
+There was a ripple of mirth, which the court checked.
+
+"We will produce the skeleton of that cat. Now, my boy, tell us
+everything that occurred--tell it in your own way--don't skip anything,
+and don't be afraid."
+
+Tom began--hesitatingly at first, but as he warmed to his subject his
+words flowed more and more easily; in a little while every sound ceased
+but his own voice; every eye fixed itself upon him; with parted lips
+and bated breath the audience hung upon his words, taking no note of
+time, rapt in the ghastly fascinations of the tale. The strain upon
+pent emotion reached its climax when the boy said:
+
+"--and as the doctor fetched the board around and Muff Potter fell,
+Injun Joe jumped with the knife and--"
+
+Crash! Quick as lightning the half-breed sprang for a window, tore his
+way through all opposers, and was gone!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+TOM was a glittering hero once more--the pet of the old, the envy of
+the young. His name even went into immortal print, for the village
+paper magnified him. There were some that believed he would be
+President, yet, if he escaped hanging.
+
+As usual, the fickle, unreasoning world took Muff Potter to its bosom
+and fondled him as lavishly as it had abused him before. But that sort
+of conduct is to the world's credit; therefore it is not well to find
+fault with it.
+
+Tom's days were days of splendor and exultation to him, but his nights
+were seasons of horror. Injun Joe infested all his dreams, and always
+with doom in his eye. Hardly any temptation could persuade the boy to
+stir abroad after nightfall. Poor Huck was in the same state of
+wretchedness and terror, for Tom had told the whole story to the lawyer
+the night before the great day of the trial, and Huck was sore afraid
+that his share in the business might leak out, yet, notwithstanding
+Injun Joe's flight had saved him the suffering of testifying in court.
+The poor fellow had got the attorney to promise secrecy, but what of
+that? Since Tom's harassed conscience had managed to drive him to the
+lawyer's house by night and wring a dread tale from lips that had been
+sealed with the dismalest and most formidable of oaths, Huck's
+confidence in the human race was well-nigh obliterated.
+
+Daily Muff Potter's gratitude made Tom glad he had spoken; but nightly
+he wished he had sealed up his tongue.
+
+Half the time Tom was afraid Injun Joe would never be captured; the
+other half he was afraid he would be. He felt sure he never could draw
+a safe breath again until that man was dead and he had seen the corpse.
+
+Rewards had been offered, the country had been scoured, but no Injun
+Joe was found. One of those omniscient and awe-inspiring marvels, a
+detective, came up from St. Louis, moused around, shook his head,
+looked wise, and made that sort of astounding success which members of
+that craft usually achieve. That is to say, he "found a clew." But you
+can't hang a "clew" for murder, and so after that detective had got
+through and gone home, Tom felt just as insecure as he was before.
+
+The slow days drifted on, and each left behind it a slightly lightened
+weight of apprehension.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+THERE comes a time in every rightly-constructed boy's life when he has
+a raging desire to go somewhere and dig for hidden treasure. This
+desire suddenly came upon Tom one day. He sallied out to find Joe
+Harper, but failed of success. Next he sought Ben Rogers; he had gone
+fishing. Presently he stumbled upon Huck Finn the Red-Handed. Huck
+would answer. Tom took him to a private place and opened the matter to
+him confidentially. Huck was willing. Huck was always willing to take a
+hand in any enterprise that offered entertainment and required no
+capital, for he had a troublesome superabundance of that sort of time
+which is not money. "Where'll we dig?" said Huck.
+
+"Oh, most anywhere."
+
+"Why, is it hid all around?"
+
+"No, indeed it ain't. It's hid in mighty particular places, Huck
+--sometimes on islands, sometimes in rotten chests under the end of a
+limb of an old dead tree, just where the shadow falls at midnight; but
+mostly under the floor in ha'nted houses."
+
+"Who hides it?"
+
+"Why, robbers, of course--who'd you reckon? Sunday-school
+sup'rintendents?"
+
+"I don't know. If 'twas mine I wouldn't hide it; I'd spend it and have
+a good time."
+
+"So would I. But robbers don't do that way. They always hide it and
+leave it there."
+
+"Don't they come after it any more?"
+
+"No, they think they will, but they generally forget the marks, or
+else they die. Anyway, it lays there a long time and gets rusty; and by
+and by somebody finds an old yellow paper that tells how to find the
+marks--a paper that's got to be ciphered over about a week because it's
+mostly signs and hy'roglyphics."
+
+"Hyro--which?"
+
+"Hy'roglyphics--pictures and things, you know, that don't seem to mean
+anything."
+
+"Have you got one of them papers, Tom?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Well then, how you going to find the marks?"
+
+"I don't want any marks. They always bury it under a ha'nted house or
+on an island, or under a dead tree that's got one limb sticking out.
+Well, we've tried Jackson's Island a little, and we can try it again
+some time; and there's the old ha'nted house up the Still-House branch,
+and there's lots of dead-limb trees--dead loads of 'em."
+
+"Is it under all of them?"
+
+"How you talk! No!"
+
+"Then how you going to know which one to go for?"
+
+"Go for all of 'em!"
+
+"Why, Tom, it'll take all summer."
+
+"Well, what of that? Suppose you find a brass pot with a hundred
+dollars in it, all rusty and gray, or rotten chest full of di'monds.
+How's that?"
+
+Huck's eyes glowed.
+
+"That's bully. Plenty bully enough for me. Just you gimme the hundred
+dollars and I don't want no di'monds."
+
+"All right. But I bet you I ain't going to throw off on di'monds. Some
+of 'em's worth twenty dollars apiece--there ain't any, hardly, but's
+worth six bits or a dollar."
+
+"No! Is that so?"
+
+"Cert'nly--anybody'll tell you so. Hain't you ever seen one, Huck?"
+
+"Not as I remember."
+
+"Oh, kings have slathers of them."
+
+"Well, I don' know no kings, Tom."
+
+"I reckon you don't. But if you was to go to Europe you'd see a raft
+of 'em hopping around."
+
+"Do they hop?"
+
+"Hop?--your granny! No!"
+
+"Well, what did you say they did, for?"
+
+"Shucks, I only meant you'd SEE 'em--not hopping, of course--what do
+they want to hop for?--but I mean you'd just see 'em--scattered around,
+you know, in a kind of a general way. Like that old humpbacked Richard."
+
+"Richard? What's his other name?"
+
+"He didn't have any other name. Kings don't have any but a given name."
+
+"No?"
+
+"But they don't."
+
+"Well, if they like it, Tom, all right; but I don't want to be a king
+and have only just a given name, like a nigger. But say--where you
+going to dig first?"
+
+"Well, I don't know. S'pose we tackle that old dead-limb tree on the
+hill t'other side of Still-House branch?"
+
+"I'm agreed."
+
+So they got a crippled pick and a shovel, and set out on their
+three-mile tramp. They arrived hot and panting, and threw themselves
+down in the shade of a neighboring elm to rest and have a smoke.
+
+"I like this," said Tom.
+
+"So do I."
+
+"Say, Huck, if we find a treasure here, what you going to do with your
+share?"
+
+"Well, I'll have pie and a glass of soda every day, and I'll go to
+every circus that comes along. I bet I'll have a gay time."
+
+"Well, ain't you going to save any of it?"
+
+"Save it? What for?"
+
+"Why, so as to have something to live on, by and by."
+
+"Oh, that ain't any use. Pap would come back to thish-yer town some
+day and get his claws on it if I didn't hurry up, and I tell you he'd
+clean it out pretty quick. What you going to do with yourn, Tom?"
+
+"I'm going to buy a new drum, and a sure-'nough sword, and a red
+necktie and a bull pup, and get married."
+
+"Married!"
+
+"That's it."
+
+"Tom, you--why, you ain't in your right mind."
+
+"Wait--you'll see."
+
+"Well, that's the foolishest thing you could do. Look at pap and my
+mother. Fight! Why, they used to fight all the time. I remember, mighty
+well."
+
+"That ain't anything. The girl I'm going to marry won't fight."
+
+"Tom, I reckon they're all alike. They'll all comb a body. Now you
+better think 'bout this awhile. I tell you you better. What's the name
+of the gal?"
+
+"It ain't a gal at all--it's a girl."
+
+"It's all the same, I reckon; some says gal, some says girl--both's
+right, like enough. Anyway, what's her name, Tom?"
+
+"I'll tell you some time--not now."
+
+"All right--that'll do. Only if you get married I'll be more lonesomer
+than ever."
+
+"No you won't. You'll come and live with me. Now stir out of this and
+we'll go to digging."
+
+They worked and sweated for half an hour. No result. They toiled
+another half-hour. Still no result. Huck said:
+
+"Do they always bury it as deep as this?"
+
+"Sometimes--not always. Not generally. I reckon we haven't got the
+right place."
+
+So they chose a new spot and began again. The labor dragged a little,
+but still they made progress. They pegged away in silence for some
+time. Finally Huck leaned on his shovel, swabbed the beaded drops from
+his brow with his sleeve, and said:
+
+"Where you going to dig next, after we get this one?"
+
+"I reckon maybe we'll tackle the old tree that's over yonder on
+Cardiff Hill back of the widow's."
+
+"I reckon that'll be a good one. But won't the widow take it away from
+us, Tom? It's on her land."
+
+"SHE take it away! Maybe she'd like to try it once. Whoever finds one
+of these hid treasures, it belongs to him. It don't make any difference
+whose land it's on."
+
+That was satisfactory. The work went on. By and by Huck said:
+
+"Blame it, we must be in the wrong place again. What do you think?"
+
+"It is mighty curious, Huck. I don't understand it. Sometimes witches
+interfere. I reckon maybe that's what's the trouble now."
+
+"Shucks! Witches ain't got no power in the daytime."
+
+"Well, that's so. I didn't think of that. Oh, I know what the matter
+is! What a blamed lot of fools we are! You got to find out where the
+shadow of the limb falls at midnight, and that's where you dig!"
+
+"Then consound it, we've fooled away all this work for nothing. Now
+hang it all, we got to come back in the night. It's an awful long way.
+Can you get out?"
+
+"I bet I will. We've got to do it to-night, too, because if somebody
+sees these holes they'll know in a minute what's here and they'll go
+for it."
+
+"Well, I'll come around and maow to-night."
+
+"All right. Let's hide the tools in the bushes."
+
+The boys were there that night, about the appointed time. They sat in
+the shadow waiting. It was a lonely place, and an hour made solemn by
+old traditions. Spirits whispered in the rustling leaves, ghosts lurked
+in the murky nooks, the deep baying of a hound floated up out of the
+distance, an owl answered with his sepulchral note. The boys were
+subdued by these solemnities, and talked little. By and by they judged
+that twelve had come; they marked where the shadow fell, and began to
+dig. Their hopes commenced to rise. Their interest grew stronger, and
+their industry kept pace with it. The hole deepened and still deepened,
+but every time their hearts jumped to hear the pick strike upon
+something, they only suffered a new disappointment. It was only a stone
+or a chunk. At last Tom said:
+
+"It ain't any use, Huck, we're wrong again."
+
+"Well, but we CAN'T be wrong. We spotted the shadder to a dot."
+
+"I know it, but then there's another thing."
+
+"What's that?".
+
+"Why, we only guessed at the time. Like enough it was too late or too
+early."
+
+Huck dropped his shovel.
+
+"That's it," said he. "That's the very trouble. We got to give this
+one up. We can't ever tell the right time, and besides this kind of
+thing's too awful, here this time of night with witches and ghosts
+a-fluttering around so. I feel as if something's behind me all the time;
+and I'm afeard to turn around, becuz maybe there's others in front
+a-waiting for a chance. I been creeping all over, ever since I got here."
+
+"Well, I've been pretty much so, too, Huck. They most always put in a
+dead man when they bury a treasure under a tree, to look out for it."
+
+"Lordy!"
+
+"Yes, they do. I've always heard that."
+
+"Tom, I don't like to fool around much where there's dead people. A
+body's bound to get into trouble with 'em, sure."
+
+"I don't like to stir 'em up, either. S'pose this one here was to
+stick his skull out and say something!"
+
+"Don't Tom! It's awful."
+
+"Well, it just is. Huck, I don't feel comfortable a bit."
+
+"Say, Tom, let's give this place up, and try somewheres else."
+
+"All right, I reckon we better."
+
+"What'll it be?"
+
+Tom considered awhile; and then said:
+
+"The ha'nted house. That's it!"
+
+"Blame it, I don't like ha'nted houses, Tom. Why, they're a dern sight
+worse'n dead people. Dead people might talk, maybe, but they don't come
+sliding around in a shroud, when you ain't noticing, and peep over your
+shoulder all of a sudden and grit their teeth, the way a ghost does. I
+couldn't stand such a thing as that, Tom--nobody could."
+
+"Yes, but, Huck, ghosts don't travel around only at night. They won't
+hender us from digging there in the daytime."
+
+"Well, that's so. But you know mighty well people don't go about that
+ha'nted house in the day nor the night."
+
+"Well, that's mostly because they don't like to go where a man's been
+murdered, anyway--but nothing's ever been seen around that house except
+in the night--just some blue lights slipping by the windows--no regular
+ghosts."
+
+"Well, where you see one of them blue lights flickering around, Tom,
+you can bet there's a ghost mighty close behind it. It stands to
+reason. Becuz you know that they don't anybody but ghosts use 'em."
+
+"Yes, that's so. But anyway they don't come around in the daytime, so
+what's the use of our being afeard?"
+
+"Well, all right. We'll tackle the ha'nted house if you say so--but I
+reckon it's taking chances."
+
+They had started down the hill by this time. There in the middle of
+the moonlit valley below them stood the "ha'nted" house, utterly
+isolated, its fences gone long ago, rank weeds smothering the very
+doorsteps, the chimney crumbled to ruin, the window-sashes vacant, a
+corner of the roof caved in. The boys gazed awhile, half expecting to
+see a blue light flit past a window; then talking in a low tone, as
+befitted the time and the circumstances, they struck far off to the
+right, to give the haunted house a wide berth, and took their way
+homeward through the woods that adorned the rearward side of Cardiff
+Hill.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+ABOUT noon the next day the boys arrived at the dead tree; they had
+come for their tools. Tom was impatient to go to the haunted house;
+Huck was measurably so, also--but suddenly said:
+
+"Lookyhere, Tom, do you know what day it is?"
+
+Tom mentally ran over the days of the week, and then quickly lifted
+his eyes with a startled look in them--
+
+"My! I never once thought of it, Huck!"
+
+"Well, I didn't neither, but all at once it popped onto me that it was
+Friday."
+
+"Blame it, a body can't be too careful, Huck. We might 'a' got into an
+awful scrape, tackling such a thing on a Friday."
+
+"MIGHT! Better say we WOULD! There's some lucky days, maybe, but
+Friday ain't."
+
+"Any fool knows that. I don't reckon YOU was the first that found it
+out, Huck."
+
+"Well, I never said I was, did I? And Friday ain't all, neither. I had
+a rotten bad dream last night--dreampt about rats."
+
+"No! Sure sign of trouble. Did they fight?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, that's good, Huck. When they don't fight it's only a sign that
+there's trouble around, you know. All we got to do is to look mighty
+sharp and keep out of it. We'll drop this thing for to-day, and play.
+Do you know Robin Hood, Huck?"
+
+"No. Who's Robin Hood?"
+
+"Why, he was one of the greatest men that was ever in England--and the
+best. He was a robber."
+
+"Cracky, I wisht I was. Who did he rob?"
+
+"Only sheriffs and bishops and rich people and kings, and such like.
+But he never bothered the poor. He loved 'em. He always divided up with
+'em perfectly square."
+
+"Well, he must 'a' been a brick."
+
+"I bet you he was, Huck. Oh, he was the noblest man that ever was.
+They ain't any such men now, I can tell you. He could lick any man in
+England, with one hand tied behind him; and he could take his yew bow
+and plug a ten-cent piece every time, a mile and a half."
+
+"What's a YEW bow?"
+
+"I don't know. It's some kind of a bow, of course. And if he hit that
+dime only on the edge he would set down and cry--and curse. But we'll
+play Robin Hood--it's nobby fun. I'll learn you."
+
+"I'm agreed."
+
+So they played Robin Hood all the afternoon, now and then casting a
+yearning eye down upon the haunted house and passing a remark about the
+morrow's prospects and possibilities there. As the sun began to sink
+into the west they took their way homeward athwart the long shadows of
+the trees and soon were buried from sight in the forests of Cardiff
+Hill.
+
+On Saturday, shortly after noon, the boys were at the dead tree again.
+They had a smoke and a chat in the shade, and then dug a little in
+their last hole, not with great hope, but merely because Tom said there
+were so many cases where people had given up a treasure after getting
+down within six inches of it, and then somebody else had come along and
+turned it up with a single thrust of a shovel. The thing failed this
+time, however, so the boys shouldered their tools and went away feeling
+that they had not trifled with fortune, but had fulfilled all the
+requirements that belong to the business of treasure-hunting.
+
+When they reached the haunted house there was something so weird and
+grisly about the dead silence that reigned there under the baking sun,
+and something so depressing about the loneliness and desolation of the
+place, that they were afraid, for a moment, to venture in. Then they
+crept to the door and took a trembling peep. They saw a weed-grown,
+floorless room, unplastered, an ancient fireplace, vacant windows, a
+ruinous staircase; and here, there, and everywhere hung ragged and
+abandoned cobwebs. They presently entered, softly, with quickened
+pulses, talking in whispers, ears alert to catch the slightest sound,
+and muscles tense and ready for instant retreat.
+
+In a little while familiarity modified their fears and they gave the
+place a critical and interested examination, rather admiring their own
+boldness, and wondering at it, too. Next they wanted to look up-stairs.
+This was something like cutting off retreat, but they got to daring
+each other, and of course there could be but one result--they threw
+their tools into a corner and made the ascent. Up there were the same
+signs of decay. In one corner they found a closet that promised
+mystery, but the promise was a fraud--there was nothing in it. Their
+courage was up now and well in hand. They were about to go down and
+begin work when--
+
+"Sh!" said Tom.
+
+"What is it?" whispered Huck, blanching with fright.
+
+"Sh!... There!... Hear it?"
+
+"Yes!... Oh, my! Let's run!"
+
+"Keep still! Don't you budge! They're coming right toward the door."
+
+The boys stretched themselves upon the floor with their eyes to
+knot-holes in the planking, and lay waiting, in a misery of fear.
+
+"They've stopped.... No--coming.... Here they are. Don't whisper
+another word, Huck. My goodness, I wish I was out of this!"
+
+Two men entered. Each boy said to himself: "There's the old deaf and
+dumb Spaniard that's been about town once or twice lately--never saw
+t'other man before."
+
+"T'other" was a ragged, unkempt creature, with nothing very pleasant
+in his face. The Spaniard was wrapped in a serape; he had bushy white
+whiskers; long white hair flowed from under his sombrero, and he wore
+green goggles. When they came in, "t'other" was talking in a low voice;
+they sat down on the ground, facing the door, with their backs to the
+wall, and the speaker continued his remarks. His manner became less
+guarded and his words more distinct as he proceeded:
+
+"No," said he, "I've thought it all over, and I don't like it. It's
+dangerous."
+
+"Dangerous!" grunted the "deaf and dumb" Spaniard--to the vast
+surprise of the boys. "Milksop!"
+
+This voice made the boys gasp and quake. It was Injun Joe's! There was
+silence for some time. Then Joe said:
+
+"What's any more dangerous than that job up yonder--but nothing's come
+of it."
+
+"That's different. Away up the river so, and not another house about.
+'Twon't ever be known that we tried, anyway, long as we didn't succeed."
+
+"Well, what's more dangerous than coming here in the daytime!--anybody
+would suspicion us that saw us."
+
+"I know that. But there warn't any other place as handy after that
+fool of a job. I want to quit this shanty. I wanted to yesterday, only
+it warn't any use trying to stir out of here, with those infernal boys
+playing over there on the hill right in full view."
+
+"Those infernal boys" quaked again under the inspiration of this
+remark, and thought how lucky it was that they had remembered it was
+Friday and concluded to wait a day. They wished in their hearts they
+had waited a year.
+
+The two men got out some food and made a luncheon. After a long and
+thoughtful silence, Injun Joe said:
+
+"Look here, lad--you go back up the river where you belong. Wait there
+till you hear from me. I'll take the chances on dropping into this town
+just once more, for a look. We'll do that 'dangerous' job after I've
+spied around a little and think things look well for it. Then for
+Texas! We'll leg it together!"
+
+This was satisfactory. Both men presently fell to yawning, and Injun
+Joe said:
+
+"I'm dead for sleep! It's your turn to watch."
+
+He curled down in the weeds and soon began to snore. His comrade
+stirred him once or twice and he became quiet. Presently the watcher
+began to nod; his head drooped lower and lower, both men began to snore
+now.
+
+The boys drew a long, grateful breath. Tom whispered:
+
+"Now's our chance--come!"
+
+Huck said:
+
+"I can't--I'd die if they was to wake."
+
+Tom urged--Huck held back. At last Tom rose slowly and softly, and
+started alone. But the first step he made wrung such a hideous creak
+from the crazy floor that he sank down almost dead with fright. He
+never made a second attempt. The boys lay there counting the dragging
+moments till it seemed to them that time must be done and eternity
+growing gray; and then they were grateful to note that at last the sun
+was setting.
+
+Now one snore ceased. Injun Joe sat up, stared around--smiled grimly
+upon his comrade, whose head was drooping upon his knees--stirred him
+up with his foot and said:
+
+"Here! YOU'RE a watchman, ain't you! All right, though--nothing's
+happened."
+
+"My! have I been asleep?"
+
+"Oh, partly, partly. Nearly time for us to be moving, pard. What'll we
+do with what little swag we've got left?"
+
+"I don't know--leave it here as we've always done, I reckon. No use to
+take it away till we start south. Six hundred and fifty in silver's
+something to carry."
+
+"Well--all right--it won't matter to come here once more."
+
+"No--but I'd say come in the night as we used to do--it's better."
+
+"Yes: but look here; it may be a good while before I get the right
+chance at that job; accidents might happen; 'tain't in such a very good
+place; we'll just regularly bury it--and bury it deep."
+
+"Good idea," said the comrade, who walked across the room, knelt down,
+raised one of the rearward hearth-stones and took out a bag that
+jingled pleasantly. He subtracted from it twenty or thirty dollars for
+himself and as much for Injun Joe, and passed the bag to the latter,
+who was on his knees in the corner, now, digging with his bowie-knife.
+
+The boys forgot all their fears, all their miseries in an instant.
+With gloating eyes they watched every movement. Luck!--the splendor of
+it was beyond all imagination! Six hundred dollars was money enough to
+make half a dozen boys rich! Here was treasure-hunting under the
+happiest auspices--there would not be any bothersome uncertainty as to
+where to dig. They nudged each other every moment--eloquent nudges and
+easily understood, for they simply meant--"Oh, but ain't you glad NOW
+we're here!"
+
+Joe's knife struck upon something.
+
+"Hello!" said he.
+
+"What is it?" said his comrade.
+
+"Half-rotten plank--no, it's a box, I believe. Here--bear a hand and
+we'll see what it's here for. Never mind, I've broke a hole."
+
+He reached his hand in and drew it out--
+
+"Man, it's money!"
+
+The two men examined the handful of coins. They were gold. The boys
+above were as excited as themselves, and as delighted.
+
+Joe's comrade said:
+
+"We'll make quick work of this. There's an old rusty pick over amongst
+the weeds in the corner the other side of the fireplace--I saw it a
+minute ago."
+
+He ran and brought the boys' pick and shovel. Injun Joe took the pick,
+looked it over critically, shook his head, muttered something to
+himself, and then began to use it. The box was soon unearthed. It was
+not very large; it was iron bound and had been very strong before the
+slow years had injured it. The men contemplated the treasure awhile in
+blissful silence.
+
+"Pard, there's thousands of dollars here," said Injun Joe.
+
+"'Twas always said that Murrel's gang used to be around here one
+summer," the stranger observed.
+
+"I know it," said Injun Joe; "and this looks like it, I should say."
+
+"Now you won't need to do that job."
+
+The half-breed frowned. Said he:
+
+"You don't know me. Least you don't know all about that thing. 'Tain't
+robbery altogether--it's REVENGE!" and a wicked light flamed in his
+eyes. "I'll need your help in it. When it's finished--then Texas. Go
+home to your Nance and your kids, and stand by till you hear from me."
+
+"Well--if you say so; what'll we do with this--bury it again?"
+
+"Yes. [Ravishing delight overhead.] NO! by the great Sachem, no!
+[Profound distress overhead.] I'd nearly forgot. That pick had fresh
+earth on it! [The boys were sick with terror in a moment.] What
+business has a pick and a shovel here? What business with fresh earth
+on them? Who brought them here--and where are they gone? Have you heard
+anybody?--seen anybody? What! bury it again and leave them to come and
+see the ground disturbed? Not exactly--not exactly. We'll take it to my
+den."
+
+"Why, of course! Might have thought of that before. You mean Number
+One?"
+
+"No--Number Two--under the cross. The other place is bad--too common."
+
+"All right. It's nearly dark enough to start."
+
+Injun Joe got up and went about from window to window cautiously
+peeping out. Presently he said:
+
+"Who could have brought those tools here? Do you reckon they can be
+up-stairs?"
+
+The boys' breath forsook them. Injun Joe put his hand on his knife,
+halted a moment, undecided, and then turned toward the stairway. The
+boys thought of the closet, but their strength was gone. The steps came
+creaking up the stairs--the intolerable distress of the situation woke
+the stricken resolution of the lads--they were about to spring for the
+closet, when there was a crash of rotten timbers and Injun Joe landed
+on the ground amid the debris of the ruined stairway. He gathered
+himself up cursing, and his comrade said:
+
+"Now what's the use of all that? If it's anybody, and they're up
+there, let them STAY there--who cares? If they want to jump down, now,
+and get into trouble, who objects? It will be dark in fifteen minutes
+--and then let them follow us if they want to. I'm willing. In my
+opinion, whoever hove those things in here caught a sight of us and
+took us for ghosts or devils or something. I'll bet they're running
+yet."
+
+Joe grumbled awhile; then he agreed with his friend that what daylight
+was left ought to be economized in getting things ready for leaving.
+Shortly afterward they slipped out of the house in the deepening
+twilight, and moved toward the river with their precious box.
+
+Tom and Huck rose up, weak but vastly relieved, and stared after them
+through the chinks between the logs of the house. Follow? Not they.
+They were content to reach ground again without broken necks, and take
+the townward track over the hill. They did not talk much. They were too
+much absorbed in hating themselves--hating the ill luck that made them
+take the spade and the pick there. But for that, Injun Joe never would
+have suspected. He would have hidden the silver with the gold to wait
+there till his "revenge" was satisfied, and then he would have had the
+misfortune to find that money turn up missing. Bitter, bitter luck that
+the tools were ever brought there!
+
+They resolved to keep a lookout for that Spaniard when he should come
+to town spying out for chances to do his revengeful job, and follow him
+to "Number Two," wherever that might be. Then a ghastly thought
+occurred to Tom.
+
+"Revenge? What if he means US, Huck!"
+
+"Oh, don't!" said Huck, nearly fainting.
+
+They talked it all over, and as they entered town they agreed to
+believe that he might possibly mean somebody else--at least that he
+might at least mean nobody but Tom, since only Tom had testified.
+
+Very, very small comfort it was to Tom to be alone in danger! Company
+would be a palpable improvement, he thought.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+THE adventure of the day mightily tormented Tom's dreams that night.
+Four times he had his hands on that rich treasure and four times it
+wasted to nothingness in his fingers as sleep forsook him and
+wakefulness brought back the hard reality of his misfortune. As he lay
+in the early morning recalling the incidents of his great adventure, he
+noticed that they seemed curiously subdued and far away--somewhat as if
+they had happened in another world, or in a time long gone by. Then it
+occurred to him that the great adventure itself must be a dream! There
+was one very strong argument in favor of this idea--namely, that the
+quantity of coin he had seen was too vast to be real. He had never seen
+as much as fifty dollars in one mass before, and he was like all boys
+of his age and station in life, in that he imagined that all references
+to "hundreds" and "thousands" were mere fanciful forms of speech, and
+that no such sums really existed in the world. He never had supposed
+for a moment that so large a sum as a hundred dollars was to be found
+in actual money in any one's possession. If his notions of hidden
+treasure had been analyzed, they would have been found to consist of a
+handful of real dimes and a bushel of vague, splendid, ungraspable
+dollars.
+
+But the incidents of his adventure grew sensibly sharper and clearer
+under the attrition of thinking them over, and so he presently found
+himself leaning to the impression that the thing might not have been a
+dream, after all. This uncertainty must be swept away. He would snatch
+a hurried breakfast and go and find Huck. Huck was sitting on the
+gunwale of a flatboat, listlessly dangling his feet in the water and
+looking very melancholy. Tom concluded to let Huck lead up to the
+subject. If he did not do it, then the adventure would be proved to
+have been only a dream.
+
+"Hello, Huck!"
+
+"Hello, yourself."
+
+Silence, for a minute.
+
+"Tom, if we'd 'a' left the blame tools at the dead tree, we'd 'a' got
+the money. Oh, ain't it awful!"
+
+"'Tain't a dream, then, 'tain't a dream! Somehow I most wish it was.
+Dog'd if I don't, Huck."
+
+"What ain't a dream?"
+
+"Oh, that thing yesterday. I been half thinking it was."
+
+"Dream! If them stairs hadn't broke down you'd 'a' seen how much dream
+it was! I've had dreams enough all night--with that patch-eyed Spanish
+devil going for me all through 'em--rot him!"
+
+"No, not rot him. FIND him! Track the money!"
+
+"Tom, we'll never find him. A feller don't have only one chance for
+such a pile--and that one's lost. I'd feel mighty shaky if I was to see
+him, anyway."
+
+"Well, so'd I; but I'd like to see him, anyway--and track him out--to
+his Number Two."
+
+"Number Two--yes, that's it. I been thinking 'bout that. But I can't
+make nothing out of it. What do you reckon it is?"
+
+"I dono. It's too deep. Say, Huck--maybe it's the number of a house!"
+
+"Goody!... No, Tom, that ain't it. If it is, it ain't in this
+one-horse town. They ain't no numbers here."
+
+"Well, that's so. Lemme think a minute. Here--it's the number of a
+room--in a tavern, you know!"
+
+"Oh, that's the trick! They ain't only two taverns. We can find out
+quick."
+
+"You stay here, Huck, till I come."
+
+Tom was off at once. He did not care to have Huck's company in public
+places. He was gone half an hour. He found that in the best tavern, No.
+2 had long been occupied by a young lawyer, and was still so occupied.
+In the less ostentatious house, No. 2 was a mystery. The
+tavern-keeper's young son said it was kept locked all the time, and he
+never saw anybody go into it or come out of it except at night; he did
+not know any particular reason for this state of things; had had some
+little curiosity, but it was rather feeble; had made the most of the
+mystery by entertaining himself with the idea that that room was
+"ha'nted"; had noticed that there was a light in there the night before.
+
+"That's what I've found out, Huck. I reckon that's the very No. 2
+we're after."
+
+"I reckon it is, Tom. Now what you going to do?"
+
+"Lemme think."
+
+Tom thought a long time. Then he said:
+
+"I'll tell you. The back door of that No. 2 is the door that comes out
+into that little close alley between the tavern and the old rattle trap
+of a brick store. Now you get hold of all the door-keys you can find,
+and I'll nip all of auntie's, and the first dark night we'll go there
+and try 'em. And mind you, keep a lookout for Injun Joe, because he
+said he was going to drop into town and spy around once more for a
+chance to get his revenge. If you see him, you just follow him; and if
+he don't go to that No. 2, that ain't the place."
+
+"Lordy, I don't want to foller him by myself!"
+
+"Why, it'll be night, sure. He mightn't ever see you--and if he did,
+maybe he'd never think anything."
+
+"Well, if it's pretty dark I reckon I'll track him. I dono--I dono.
+I'll try."
+
+"You bet I'll follow him, if it's dark, Huck. Why, he might 'a' found
+out he couldn't get his revenge, and be going right after that money."
+
+"It's so, Tom, it's so. I'll foller him; I will, by jingoes!"
+
+"Now you're TALKING! Don't you ever weaken, Huck, and I won't."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+THAT night Tom and Huck were ready for their adventure. They hung
+about the neighborhood of the tavern until after nine, one watching the
+alley at a distance and the other the tavern door. Nobody entered the
+alley or left it; nobody resembling the Spaniard entered or left the
+tavern door. The night promised to be a fair one; so Tom went home with
+the understanding that if a considerable degree of darkness came on,
+Huck was to come and "maow," whereupon he would slip out and try the
+keys. But the night remained clear, and Huck closed his watch and
+retired to bed in an empty sugar hogshead about twelve.
+
+Tuesday the boys had the same ill luck. Also Wednesday. But Thursday
+night promised better. Tom slipped out in good season with his aunt's
+old tin lantern, and a large towel to blindfold it with. He hid the
+lantern in Huck's sugar hogshead and the watch began. An hour before
+midnight the tavern closed up and its lights (the only ones
+thereabouts) were put out. No Spaniard had been seen. Nobody had
+entered or left the alley. Everything was auspicious. The blackness of
+darkness reigned, the perfect stillness was interrupted only by
+occasional mutterings of distant thunder.
+
+Tom got his lantern, lit it in the hogshead, wrapped it closely in the
+towel, and the two adventurers crept in the gloom toward the tavern.
+Huck stood sentry and Tom felt his way into the alley. Then there was a
+season of waiting anxiety that weighed upon Huck's spirits like a
+mountain. He began to wish he could see a flash from the lantern--it
+would frighten him, but it would at least tell him that Tom was alive
+yet. It seemed hours since Tom had disappeared. Surely he must have
+fainted; maybe he was dead; maybe his heart had burst under terror and
+excitement. In his uneasiness Huck found himself drawing closer and
+closer to the alley; fearing all sorts of dreadful things, and
+momentarily expecting some catastrophe to happen that would take away
+his breath. There was not much to take away, for he seemed only able to
+inhale it by thimblefuls, and his heart would soon wear itself out, the
+way it was beating. Suddenly there was a flash of light and Tom came
+tearing by him: "Run!" said he; "run, for your life!"
+
+He needn't have repeated it; once was enough; Huck was making thirty
+or forty miles an hour before the repetition was uttered. The boys
+never stopped till they reached the shed of a deserted slaughter-house
+at the lower end of the village. Just as they got within its shelter
+the storm burst and the rain poured down. As soon as Tom got his breath
+he said:
+
+"Huck, it was awful! I tried two of the keys, just as soft as I could;
+but they seemed to make such a power of racket that I couldn't hardly
+get my breath I was so scared. They wouldn't turn in the lock, either.
+Well, without noticing what I was doing, I took hold of the knob, and
+open comes the door! It warn't locked! I hopped in, and shook off the
+towel, and, GREAT CAESAR'S GHOST!"
+
+"What!--what'd you see, Tom?"
+
+"Huck, I most stepped onto Injun Joe's hand!"
+
+"No!"
+
+"Yes! He was lying there, sound asleep on the floor, with his old
+patch on his eye and his arms spread out."
+
+"Lordy, what did you do? Did he wake up?"
+
+"No, never budged. Drunk, I reckon. I just grabbed that towel and
+started!"
+
+"I'd never 'a' thought of the towel, I bet!"
+
+"Well, I would. My aunt would make me mighty sick if I lost it."
+
+"Say, Tom, did you see that box?"
+
+"Huck, I didn't wait to look around. I didn't see the box, I didn't
+see the cross. I didn't see anything but a bottle and a tin cup on the
+floor by Injun Joe; yes, I saw two barrels and lots more bottles in the
+room. Don't you see, now, what's the matter with that ha'nted room?"
+
+"How?"
+
+"Why, it's ha'nted with whiskey! Maybe ALL the Temperance Taverns have
+got a ha'nted room, hey, Huck?"
+
+"Well, I reckon maybe that's so. Who'd 'a' thought such a thing? But
+say, Tom, now's a mighty good time to get that box, if Injun Joe's
+drunk."
+
+"It is, that! You try it!"
+
+Huck shuddered.
+
+"Well, no--I reckon not."
+
+"And I reckon not, Huck. Only one bottle alongside of Injun Joe ain't
+enough. If there'd been three, he'd be drunk enough and I'd do it."
+
+There was a long pause for reflection, and then Tom said:
+
+"Lookyhere, Huck, less not try that thing any more till we know Injun
+Joe's not in there. It's too scary. Now, if we watch every night, we'll
+be dead sure to see him go out, some time or other, and then we'll
+snatch that box quicker'n lightning."
+
+"Well, I'm agreed. I'll watch the whole night long, and I'll do it
+every night, too, if you'll do the other part of the job."
+
+"All right, I will. All you got to do is to trot up Hooper Street a
+block and maow--and if I'm asleep, you throw some gravel at the window
+and that'll fetch me."
+
+"Agreed, and good as wheat!"
+
+"Now, Huck, the storm's over, and I'll go home. It'll begin to be
+daylight in a couple of hours. You go back and watch that long, will
+you?"
+
+"I said I would, Tom, and I will. I'll ha'nt that tavern every night
+for a year! I'll sleep all day and I'll stand watch all night."
+
+"That's all right. Now, where you going to sleep?"
+
+"In Ben Rogers' hayloft. He lets me, and so does his pap's nigger man,
+Uncle Jake. I tote water for Uncle Jake whenever he wants me to, and
+any time I ask him he gives me a little something to eat if he can
+spare it. That's a mighty good nigger, Tom. He likes me, becuz I don't
+ever act as if I was above him. Sometime I've set right down and eat
+WITH him. But you needn't tell that. A body's got to do things when
+he's awful hungry he wouldn't want to do as a steady thing."
+
+"Well, if I don't want you in the daytime, I'll let you sleep. I won't
+come bothering around. Any time you see something's up, in the night,
+just skip right around and maow."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+THE first thing Tom heard on Friday morning was a glad piece of news
+--Judge Thatcher's family had come back to town the night before. Both
+Injun Joe and the treasure sunk into secondary importance for a moment,
+and Becky took the chief place in the boy's interest. He saw her and
+they had an exhausting good time playing "hi-spy" and "gully-keeper"
+with a crowd of their school-mates. The day was completed and crowned
+in a peculiarly satisfactory way: Becky teased her mother to appoint
+the next day for the long-promised and long-delayed picnic, and she
+consented. The child's delight was boundless; and Tom's not more
+moderate. The invitations were sent out before sunset, and straightway
+the young folks of the village were thrown into a fever of preparation
+and pleasurable anticipation. Tom's excitement enabled him to keep
+awake until a pretty late hour, and he had good hopes of hearing Huck's
+"maow," and of having his treasure to astonish Becky and the picnickers
+with, next day; but he was disappointed. No signal came that night.
+
+Morning came, eventually, and by ten or eleven o'clock a giddy and
+rollicking company were gathered at Judge Thatcher's, and everything
+was ready for a start. It was not the custom for elderly people to mar
+the picnics with their presence. The children were considered safe
+enough under the wings of a few young ladies of eighteen and a few
+young gentlemen of twenty-three or thereabouts. The old steam ferryboat
+was chartered for the occasion; presently the gay throng filed up the
+main street laden with provision-baskets. Sid was sick and had to miss
+the fun; Mary remained at home to entertain him. The last thing Mrs.
+Thatcher said to Becky, was:
+
+"You'll not get back till late. Perhaps you'd better stay all night
+with some of the girls that live near the ferry-landing, child."
+
+"Then I'll stay with Susy Harper, mamma."
+
+"Very well. And mind and behave yourself and don't be any trouble."
+
+Presently, as they tripped along, Tom said to Becky:
+
+"Say--I'll tell you what we'll do. 'Stead of going to Joe Harper's
+we'll climb right up the hill and stop at the Widow Douglas'. She'll
+have ice-cream! She has it most every day--dead loads of it. And she'll
+be awful glad to have us."
+
+"Oh, that will be fun!"
+
+Then Becky reflected a moment and said:
+
+"But what will mamma say?"
+
+"How'll she ever know?"
+
+The girl turned the idea over in her mind, and said reluctantly:
+
+"I reckon it's wrong--but--"
+
+"But shucks! Your mother won't know, and so what's the harm? All she
+wants is that you'll be safe; and I bet you she'd 'a' said go there if
+she'd 'a' thought of it. I know she would!"
+
+The Widow Douglas' splendid hospitality was a tempting bait. It and
+Tom's persuasions presently carried the day. So it was decided to say
+nothing anybody about the night's programme. Presently it occurred to
+Tom that maybe Huck might come this very night and give the signal. The
+thought took a deal of the spirit out of his anticipations. Still he
+could not bear to give up the fun at Widow Douglas'. And why should he
+give it up, he reasoned--the signal did not come the night before, so
+why should it be any more likely to come to-night? The sure fun of the
+evening outweighed the uncertain treasure; and, boy-like, he determined
+to yield to the stronger inclination and not allow himself to think of
+the box of money another time that day.
+
+Three miles below town the ferryboat stopped at the mouth of a woody
+hollow and tied up. The crowd swarmed ashore and soon the forest
+distances and craggy heights echoed far and near with shoutings and
+laughter. All the different ways of getting hot and tired were gone
+through with, and by-and-by the rovers straggled back to camp fortified
+with responsible appetites, and then the destruction of the good things
+began. After the feast there was a refreshing season of rest and chat
+in the shade of spreading oaks. By-and-by somebody shouted:
+
+"Who's ready for the cave?"
+
+Everybody was. Bundles of candles were procured, and straightway there
+was a general scamper up the hill. The mouth of the cave was up the
+hillside--an opening shaped like a letter A. Its massive oaken door
+stood unbarred. Within was a small chamber, chilly as an ice-house, and
+walled by Nature with solid limestone that was dewy with a cold sweat.
+It was romantic and mysterious to stand here in the deep gloom and look
+out upon the green valley shining in the sun. But the impressiveness of
+the situation quickly wore off, and the romping began again. The moment
+a candle was lighted there was a general rush upon the owner of it; a
+struggle and a gallant defence followed, but the candle was soon
+knocked down or blown out, and then there was a glad clamor of laughter
+and a new chase. But all things have an end. By-and-by the procession
+went filing down the steep descent of the main avenue, the flickering
+rank of lights dimly revealing the lofty walls of rock almost to their
+point of junction sixty feet overhead. This main avenue was not more
+than eight or ten feet wide. Every few steps other lofty and still
+narrower crevices branched from it on either hand--for McDougal's cave
+was but a vast labyrinth of crooked aisles that ran into each other and
+out again and led nowhere. It was said that one might wander days and
+nights together through its intricate tangle of rifts and chasms, and
+never find the end of the cave; and that he might go down, and down,
+and still down, into the earth, and it was just the same--labyrinth
+under labyrinth, and no end to any of them. No man "knew" the cave.
+That was an impossible thing. Most of the young men knew a portion of
+it, and it was not customary to venture much beyond this known portion.
+Tom Sawyer knew as much of the cave as any one.
+
+The procession moved along the main avenue some three-quarters of a
+mile, and then groups and couples began to slip aside into branch
+avenues, fly along the dismal corridors, and take each other by
+surprise at points where the corridors joined again. Parties were able
+to elude each other for the space of half an hour without going beyond
+the "known" ground.
+
+By-and-by, one group after another came straggling back to the mouth
+of the cave, panting, hilarious, smeared from head to foot with tallow
+drippings, daubed with clay, and entirely delighted with the success of
+the day. Then they were astonished to find that they had been taking no
+note of time and that night was about at hand. The clanging bell had
+been calling for half an hour. However, this sort of close to the day's
+adventures was romantic and therefore satisfactory. When the ferryboat
+with her wild freight pushed into the stream, nobody cared sixpence for
+the wasted time but the captain of the craft.
+
+Huck was already upon his watch when the ferryboat's lights went
+glinting past the wharf. He heard no noise on board, for the young
+people were as subdued and still as people usually are who are nearly
+tired to death. He wondered what boat it was, and why she did not stop
+at the wharf--and then he dropped her out of his mind and put his
+attention upon his business. The night was growing cloudy and dark. Ten
+o'clock came, and the noise of vehicles ceased, scattered lights began
+to wink out, all straggling foot-passengers disappeared, the village
+betook itself to its slumbers and left the small watcher alone with the
+silence and the ghosts. Eleven o'clock came, and the tavern lights were
+put out; darkness everywhere, now. Huck waited what seemed a weary long
+time, but nothing happened. His faith was weakening. Was there any use?
+Was there really any use? Why not give it up and turn in?
+
+A noise fell upon his ear. He was all attention in an instant. The
+alley door closed softly. He sprang to the corner of the brick store.
+The next moment two men brushed by him, and one seemed to have
+something under his arm. It must be that box! So they were going to
+remove the treasure. Why call Tom now? It would be absurd--the men
+would get away with the box and never be found again. No, he would
+stick to their wake and follow them; he would trust to the darkness for
+security from discovery. So communing with himself, Huck stepped out
+and glided along behind the men, cat-like, with bare feet, allowing
+them to keep just far enough ahead not to be invisible.
+
+They moved up the river street three blocks, then turned to the left
+up a cross-street. They went straight ahead, then, until they came to
+the path that led up Cardiff Hill; this they took. They passed by the
+old Welshman's house, half-way up the hill, without hesitating, and
+still climbed upward. Good, thought Huck, they will bury it in the old
+quarry. But they never stopped at the quarry. They passed on, up the
+summit. They plunged into the narrow path between the tall sumach
+bushes, and were at once hidden in the gloom. Huck closed up and
+shortened his distance, now, for they would never be able to see him.
+He trotted along awhile; then slackened his pace, fearing he was
+gaining too fast; moved on a piece, then stopped altogether; listened;
+no sound; none, save that he seemed to hear the beating of his own
+heart. The hooting of an owl came over the hill--ominous sound! But no
+footsteps. Heavens, was everything lost! He was about to spring with
+winged feet, when a man cleared his throat not four feet from him!
+Huck's heart shot into his throat, but he swallowed it again; and then
+he stood there shaking as if a dozen agues had taken charge of him at
+once, and so weak that he thought he must surely fall to the ground. He
+knew where he was. He knew he was within five steps of the stile
+leading into Widow Douglas' grounds. Very well, he thought, let them
+bury it there; it won't be hard to find.
+
+Now there was a voice--a very low voice--Injun Joe's:
+
+"Damn her, maybe she's got company--there's lights, late as it is."
+
+"I can't see any."
+
+This was that stranger's voice--the stranger of the haunted house. A
+deadly chill went to Huck's heart--this, then, was the "revenge" job!
+His thought was, to fly. Then he remembered that the Widow Douglas had
+been kind to him more than once, and maybe these men were going to
+murder her. He wished he dared venture to warn her; but he knew he
+didn't dare--they might come and catch him. He thought all this and
+more in the moment that elapsed between the stranger's remark and Injun
+Joe's next--which was--
+
+"Because the bush is in your way. Now--this way--now you see, don't
+you?"
+
+"Yes. Well, there IS company there, I reckon. Better give it up."
+
+"Give it up, and I just leaving this country forever! Give it up and
+maybe never have another chance. I tell you again, as I've told you
+before, I don't care for her swag--you may have it. But her husband was
+rough on me--many times he was rough on me--and mainly he was the
+justice of the peace that jugged me for a vagrant. And that ain't all.
+It ain't a millionth part of it! He had me HORSEWHIPPED!--horsewhipped
+in front of the jail, like a nigger!--with all the town looking on!
+HORSEWHIPPED!--do you understand? He took advantage of me and died. But
+I'll take it out of HER."
+
+"Oh, don't kill her! Don't do that!"
+
+"Kill? Who said anything about killing? I would kill HIM if he was
+here; but not her. When you want to get revenge on a woman you don't
+kill her--bosh! you go for her looks. You slit her nostrils--you notch
+her ears like a sow!"
+
+"By God, that's--"
+
+"Keep your opinion to yourself! It will be safest for you. I'll tie
+her to the bed. If she bleeds to death, is that my fault? I'll not cry,
+if she does. My friend, you'll help me in this thing--for MY sake
+--that's why you're here--I mightn't be able alone. If you flinch, I'll
+kill you. Do you understand that? And if I have to kill you, I'll kill
+her--and then I reckon nobody'll ever know much about who done this
+business."
+
+"Well, if it's got to be done, let's get at it. The quicker the
+better--I'm all in a shiver."
+
+"Do it NOW? And company there? Look here--I'll get suspicious of you,
+first thing you know. No--we'll wait till the lights are out--there's
+no hurry."
+
+Huck felt that a silence was going to ensue--a thing still more awful
+than any amount of murderous talk; so he held his breath and stepped
+gingerly back; planted his foot carefully and firmly, after balancing,
+one-legged, in a precarious way and almost toppling over, first on one
+side and then on the other. He took another step back, with the same
+elaboration and the same risks; then another and another, and--a twig
+snapped under his foot! His breath stopped and he listened. There was
+no sound--the stillness was perfect. His gratitude was measureless. Now
+he turned in his tracks, between the walls of sumach bushes--turned
+himself as carefully as if he were a ship--and then stepped quickly but
+cautiously along. When he emerged at the quarry he felt secure, and so
+he picked up his nimble heels and flew. Down, down he sped, till he
+reached the Welshman's. He banged at the door, and presently the heads
+of the old man and his two stalwart sons were thrust from windows.
+
+"What's the row there? Who's banging? What do you want?"
+
+"Let me in--quick! I'll tell everything."
+
+"Why, who are you?"
+
+"Huckleberry Finn--quick, let me in!"
+
+"Huckleberry Finn, indeed! It ain't a name to open many doors, I
+judge! But let him in, lads, and let's see what's the trouble."
+
+"Please don't ever tell I told you," were Huck's first words when he
+got in. "Please don't--I'd be killed, sure--but the widow's been good
+friends to me sometimes, and I want to tell--I WILL tell if you'll
+promise you won't ever say it was me."
+
+"By George, he HAS got something to tell, or he wouldn't act so!"
+exclaimed the old man; "out with it and nobody here'll ever tell, lad."
+
+Three minutes later the old man and his sons, well armed, were up the
+hill, and just entering the sumach path on tiptoe, their weapons in
+their hands. Huck accompanied them no further. He hid behind a great
+bowlder and fell to listening. There was a lagging, anxious silence,
+and then all of a sudden there was an explosion of firearms and a cry.
+
+Huck waited for no particulars. He sprang away and sped down the hill
+as fast as his legs could carry him.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+AS the earliest suspicion of dawn appeared on Sunday morning, Huck
+came groping up the hill and rapped gently at the old Welshman's door.
+The inmates were asleep, but it was a sleep that was set on a
+hair-trigger, on account of the exciting episode of the night. A call
+came from a window:
+
+"Who's there!"
+
+Huck's scared voice answered in a low tone:
+
+"Please let me in! It's only Huck Finn!"
+
+"It's a name that can open this door night or day, lad!--and welcome!"
+
+These were strange words to the vagabond boy's ears, and the
+pleasantest he had ever heard. He could not recollect that the closing
+word had ever been applied in his case before. The door was quickly
+unlocked, and he entered. Huck was given a seat and the old man and his
+brace of tall sons speedily dressed themselves.
+
+"Now, my boy, I hope you're good and hungry, because breakfast will be
+ready as soon as the sun's up, and we'll have a piping hot one, too
+--make yourself easy about that! I and the boys hoped you'd turn up and
+stop here last night."
+
+"I was awful scared," said Huck, "and I run. I took out when the
+pistols went off, and I didn't stop for three mile. I've come now becuz
+I wanted to know about it, you know; and I come before daylight becuz I
+didn't want to run across them devils, even if they was dead."
+
+"Well, poor chap, you do look as if you'd had a hard night of it--but
+there's a bed here for you when you've had your breakfast. No, they
+ain't dead, lad--we are sorry enough for that. You see we knew right
+where to put our hands on them, by your description; so we crept along
+on tiptoe till we got within fifteen feet of them--dark as a cellar
+that sumach path was--and just then I found I was going to sneeze. It
+was the meanest kind of luck! I tried to keep it back, but no use
+--'twas bound to come, and it did come! I was in the lead with my pistol
+raised, and when the sneeze started those scoundrels a-rustling to get
+out of the path, I sung out, 'Fire boys!' and blazed away at the place
+where the rustling was. So did the boys. But they were off in a jiffy,
+those villains, and we after them, down through the woods. I judge we
+never touched them. They fired a shot apiece as they started, but their
+bullets whizzed by and didn't do us any harm. As soon as we lost the
+sound of their feet we quit chasing, and went down and stirred up the
+constables. They got a posse together, and went off to guard the river
+bank, and as soon as it is light the sheriff and a gang are going to
+beat up the woods. My boys will be with them presently. I wish we had
+some sort of description of those rascals--'twould help a good deal.
+But you couldn't see what they were like, in the dark, lad, I suppose?"
+
+"Oh yes; I saw them down-town and follered them."
+
+"Splendid! Describe them--describe them, my boy!"
+
+"One's the old deaf and dumb Spaniard that's ben around here once or
+twice, and t'other's a mean-looking, ragged--"
+
+"That's enough, lad, we know the men! Happened on them in the woods
+back of the widow's one day, and they slunk away. Off with you, boys,
+and tell the sheriff--get your breakfast to-morrow morning!"
+
+The Welshman's sons departed at once. As they were leaving the room
+Huck sprang up and exclaimed:
+
+"Oh, please don't tell ANYbody it was me that blowed on them! Oh,
+please!"
+
+"All right if you say it, Huck, but you ought to have the credit of
+what you did."
+
+"Oh no, no! Please don't tell!"
+
+When the young men were gone, the old Welshman said:
+
+"They won't tell--and I won't. But why don't you want it known?"
+
+Huck would not explain, further than to say that he already knew too
+much about one of those men and would not have the man know that he
+knew anything against him for the whole world--he would be killed for
+knowing it, sure.
+
+The old man promised secrecy once more, and said:
+
+"How did you come to follow these fellows, lad? Were they looking
+suspicious?"
+
+Huck was silent while he framed a duly cautious reply. Then he said:
+
+"Well, you see, I'm a kind of a hard lot,--least everybody says so,
+and I don't see nothing agin it--and sometimes I can't sleep much, on
+account of thinking about it and sort of trying to strike out a new way
+of doing. That was the way of it last night. I couldn't sleep, and so I
+come along up-street 'bout midnight, a-turning it all over, and when I
+got to that old shackly brick store by the Temperance Tavern, I backed
+up agin the wall to have another think. Well, just then along comes
+these two chaps slipping along close by me, with something under their
+arm, and I reckoned they'd stole it. One was a-smoking, and t'other one
+wanted a light; so they stopped right before me and the cigars lit up
+their faces and I see that the big one was the deaf and dumb Spaniard,
+by his white whiskers and the patch on his eye, and t'other one was a
+rusty, ragged-looking devil."
+
+"Could you see the rags by the light of the cigars?"
+
+This staggered Huck for a moment. Then he said:
+
+"Well, I don't know--but somehow it seems as if I did."
+
+"Then they went on, and you--"
+
+"Follered 'em--yes. That was it. I wanted to see what was up--they
+sneaked along so. I dogged 'em to the widder's stile, and stood in the
+dark and heard the ragged one beg for the widder, and the Spaniard
+swear he'd spile her looks just as I told you and your two--"
+
+"What! The DEAF AND DUMB man said all that!"
+
+Huck had made another terrible mistake! He was trying his best to keep
+the old man from getting the faintest hint of who the Spaniard might
+be, and yet his tongue seemed determined to get him into trouble in
+spite of all he could do. He made several efforts to creep out of his
+scrape, but the old man's eye was upon him and he made blunder after
+blunder. Presently the Welshman said:
+
+"My boy, don't be afraid of me. I wouldn't hurt a hair of your head
+for all the world. No--I'd protect you--I'd protect you. This Spaniard
+is not deaf and dumb; you've let that slip without intending it; you
+can't cover that up now. You know something about that Spaniard that
+you want to keep dark. Now trust me--tell me what it is, and trust me
+--I won't betray you."
+
+Huck looked into the old man's honest eyes a moment, then bent over
+and whispered in his ear:
+
+"'Tain't a Spaniard--it's Injun Joe!"
+
+The Welshman almost jumped out of his chair. In a moment he said:
+
+"It's all plain enough, now. When you talked about notching ears and
+slitting noses I judged that that was your own embellishment, because
+white men don't take that sort of revenge. But an Injun! That's a
+different matter altogether."
+
+During breakfast the talk went on, and in the course of it the old man
+said that the last thing which he and his sons had done, before going
+to bed, was to get a lantern and examine the stile and its vicinity for
+marks of blood. They found none, but captured a bulky bundle of--
+
+"Of WHAT?"
+
+If the words had been lightning they could not have leaped with a more
+stunning suddenness from Huck's blanched lips. His eyes were staring
+wide, now, and his breath suspended--waiting for the answer. The
+Welshman started--stared in return--three seconds--five seconds--ten
+--then replied:
+
+"Of burglar's tools. Why, what's the MATTER with you?"
+
+Huck sank back, panting gently, but deeply, unutterably grateful. The
+Welshman eyed him gravely, curiously--and presently said:
+
+"Yes, burglar's tools. That appears to relieve you a good deal. But
+what did give you that turn? What were YOU expecting we'd found?"
+
+Huck was in a close place--the inquiring eye was upon him--he would
+have given anything for material for a plausible answer--nothing
+suggested itself--the inquiring eye was boring deeper and deeper--a
+senseless reply offered--there was no time to weigh it, so at a venture
+he uttered it--feebly:
+
+"Sunday-school books, maybe."
+
+Poor Huck was too distressed to smile, but the old man laughed loud
+and joyously, shook up the details of his anatomy from head to foot,
+and ended by saying that such a laugh was money in a-man's pocket,
+because it cut down the doctor's bill like everything. Then he added:
+
+"Poor old chap, you're white and jaded--you ain't well a bit--no
+wonder you're a little flighty and off your balance. But you'll come
+out of it. Rest and sleep will fetch you out all right, I hope."
+
+Huck was irritated to think he had been such a goose and betrayed such
+a suspicious excitement, for he had dropped the idea that the parcel
+brought from the tavern was the treasure, as soon as he had heard the
+talk at the widow's stile. He had only thought it was not the treasure,
+however--he had not known that it wasn't--and so the suggestion of a
+captured bundle was too much for his self-possession. But on the whole
+he felt glad the little episode had happened, for now he knew beyond
+all question that that bundle was not THE bundle, and so his mind was
+at rest and exceedingly comfortable. In fact, everything seemed to be
+drifting just in the right direction, now; the treasure must be still
+in No. 2, the men would be captured and jailed that day, and he and Tom
+could seize the gold that night without any trouble or any fear of
+interruption.
+
+Just as breakfast was completed there was a knock at the door. Huck
+jumped for a hiding-place, for he had no mind to be connected even
+remotely with the late event. The Welshman admitted several ladies and
+gentlemen, among them the Widow Douglas, and noticed that groups of
+citizens were climbing up the hill--to stare at the stile. So the news
+had spread. The Welshman had to tell the story of the night to the
+visitors. The widow's gratitude for her preservation was outspoken.
+
+"Don't say a word about it, madam. There's another that you're more
+beholden to than you are to me and my boys, maybe, but he don't allow
+me to tell his name. We wouldn't have been there but for him."
+
+Of course this excited a curiosity so vast that it almost belittled
+the main matter--but the Welshman allowed it to eat into the vitals of
+his visitors, and through them be transmitted to the whole town, for he
+refused to part with his secret. When all else had been learned, the
+widow said:
+
+"I went to sleep reading in bed and slept straight through all that
+noise. Why didn't you come and wake me?"
+
+"We judged it warn't worth while. Those fellows warn't likely to come
+again--they hadn't any tools left to work with, and what was the use of
+waking you up and scaring you to death? My three negro men stood guard
+at your house all the rest of the night. They've just come back."
+
+More visitors came, and the story had to be told and retold for a
+couple of hours more.
+
+There was no Sabbath-school during day-school vacation, but everybody
+was early at church. The stirring event was well canvassed. News came
+that not a sign of the two villains had been yet discovered. When the
+sermon was finished, Judge Thatcher's wife dropped alongside of Mrs.
+Harper as she moved down the aisle with the crowd and said:
+
+"Is my Becky going to sleep all day? I just expected she would be
+tired to death."
+
+"Your Becky?"
+
+"Yes," with a startled look--"didn't she stay with you last night?"
+
+"Why, no."
+
+Mrs. Thatcher turned pale, and sank into a pew, just as Aunt Polly,
+talking briskly with a friend, passed by. Aunt Polly said:
+
+"Good-morning, Mrs. Thatcher. Good-morning, Mrs. Harper. I've got a
+boy that's turned up missing. I reckon my Tom stayed at your house last
+night--one of you. And now he's afraid to come to church. I've got to
+settle with him."
+
+Mrs. Thatcher shook her head feebly and turned paler than ever.
+
+"He didn't stay with us," said Mrs. Harper, beginning to look uneasy.
+A marked anxiety came into Aunt Polly's face.
+
+"Joe Harper, have you seen my Tom this morning?"
+
+"No'm."
+
+"When did you see him last?"
+
+Joe tried to remember, but was not sure he could say. The people had
+stopped moving out of church. Whispers passed along, and a boding
+uneasiness took possession of every countenance. Children were
+anxiously questioned, and young teachers. They all said they had not
+noticed whether Tom and Becky were on board the ferryboat on the
+homeward trip; it was dark; no one thought of inquiring if any one was
+missing. One young man finally blurted out his fear that they were
+still in the cave! Mrs. Thatcher swooned away. Aunt Polly fell to
+crying and wringing her hands.
+
+The alarm swept from lip to lip, from group to group, from street to
+street, and within five minutes the bells were wildly clanging and the
+whole town was up! The Cardiff Hill episode sank into instant
+insignificance, the burglars were forgotten, horses were saddled,
+skiffs were manned, the ferryboat ordered out, and before the horror
+was half an hour old, two hundred men were pouring down highroad and
+river toward the cave.
+
+All the long afternoon the village seemed empty and dead. Many women
+visited Aunt Polly and Mrs. Thatcher and tried to comfort them. They
+cried with them, too, and that was still better than words. All the
+tedious night the town waited for news; but when the morning dawned at
+last, all the word that came was, "Send more candles--and send food."
+Mrs. Thatcher was almost crazed; and Aunt Polly, also. Judge Thatcher
+sent messages of hope and encouragement from the cave, but they
+conveyed no real cheer.
+
+The old Welshman came home toward daylight, spattered with
+candle-grease, smeared with clay, and almost worn out. He found Huck
+still in the bed that had been provided for him, and delirious with
+fever. The physicians were all at the cave, so the Widow Douglas came
+and took charge of the patient. She said she would do her best by him,
+because, whether he was good, bad, or indifferent, he was the Lord's,
+and nothing that was the Lord's was a thing to be neglected. The
+Welshman said Huck had good spots in him, and the widow said:
+
+"You can depend on it. That's the Lord's mark. He don't leave it off.
+He never does. Puts it somewhere on every creature that comes from his
+hands."
+
+Early in the forenoon parties of jaded men began to straggle into the
+village, but the strongest of the citizens continued searching. All the
+news that could be gained was that remotenesses of the cavern were
+being ransacked that had never been visited before; that every corner
+and crevice was going to be thoroughly searched; that wherever one
+wandered through the maze of passages, lights were to be seen flitting
+hither and thither in the distance, and shoutings and pistol-shots sent
+their hollow reverberations to the ear down the sombre aisles. In one
+place, far from the section usually traversed by tourists, the names
+"BECKY & TOM" had been found traced upon the rocky wall with
+candle-smoke, and near at hand a grease-soiled bit of ribbon. Mrs.
+Thatcher recognized the ribbon and cried over it. She said it was the
+last relic she should ever have of her child; and that no other memorial
+of her could ever be so precious, because this one parted latest from
+the living body before the awful death came. Some said that now and
+then, in the cave, a far-away speck of light would glimmer, and then a
+glorious shout would burst forth and a score of men go trooping down the
+echoing aisle--and then a sickening disappointment always followed; the
+children were not there; it was only a searcher's light.
+
+Three dreadful days and nights dragged their tedious hours along, and
+the village sank into a hopeless stupor. No one had heart for anything.
+The accidental discovery, just made, that the proprietor of the
+Temperance Tavern kept liquor on his premises, scarcely fluttered the
+public pulse, tremendous as the fact was. In a lucid interval, Huck
+feebly led up to the subject of taverns, and finally asked--dimly
+dreading the worst--if anything had been discovered at the Temperance
+Tavern since he had been ill.
+
+"Yes," said the widow.
+
+Huck started up in bed, wild-eyed:
+
+"What? What was it?"
+
+"Liquor!--and the place has been shut up. Lie down, child--what a turn
+you did give me!"
+
+"Only tell me just one thing--only just one--please! Was it Tom Sawyer
+that found it?"
+
+The widow burst into tears. "Hush, hush, child, hush! I've told you
+before, you must NOT talk. You are very, very sick!"
+
+Then nothing but liquor had been found; there would have been a great
+powwow if it had been the gold. So the treasure was gone forever--gone
+forever! But what could she be crying about? Curious that she should
+cry.
+
+These thoughts worked their dim way through Huck's mind, and under the
+weariness they gave him he fell asleep. The widow said to herself:
+
+"There--he's asleep, poor wreck. Tom Sawyer find it! Pity but somebody
+could find Tom Sawyer! Ah, there ain't many left, now, that's got hope
+enough, or strength enough, either, to go on searching."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+NOW to return to Tom and Becky's share in the picnic. They tripped
+along the murky aisles with the rest of the company, visiting the
+familiar wonders of the cave--wonders dubbed with rather
+over-descriptive names, such as "The Drawing-Room," "The Cathedral,"
+"Aladdin's Palace," and so on. Presently the hide-and-seek frolicking
+began, and Tom and Becky engaged in it with zeal until the exertion
+began to grow a trifle wearisome; then they wandered down a sinuous
+avenue holding their candles aloft and reading the tangled web-work of
+names, dates, post-office addresses, and mottoes with which the rocky
+walls had been frescoed (in candle-smoke). Still drifting along and
+talking, they scarcely noticed that they were now in a part of the cave
+whose walls were not frescoed. They smoked their own names under an
+overhanging shelf and moved on. Presently they came to a place where a
+little stream of water, trickling over a ledge and carrying a limestone
+sediment with it, had, in the slow-dragging ages, formed a laced and
+ruffled Niagara in gleaming and imperishable stone. Tom squeezed his
+small body behind it in order to illuminate it for Becky's
+gratification. He found that it curtained a sort of steep natural
+stairway which was enclosed between narrow walls, and at once the
+ambition to be a discoverer seized him. Becky responded to his call,
+and they made a smoke-mark for future guidance, and started upon their
+quest. They wound this way and that, far down into the secret depths of
+the cave, made another mark, and branched off in search of novelties to
+tell the upper world about. In one place they found a spacious cavern,
+from whose ceiling depended a multitude of shining stalactites of the
+length and circumference of a man's leg; they walked all about it,
+wondering and admiring, and presently left it by one of the numerous
+passages that opened into it. This shortly brought them to a bewitching
+spring, whose basin was incrusted with a frostwork of glittering
+crystals; it was in the midst of a cavern whose walls were supported by
+many fantastic pillars which had been formed by the joining of great
+stalactites and stalagmites together, the result of the ceaseless
+water-drip of centuries. Under the roof vast knots of bats had packed
+themselves together, thousands in a bunch; the lights disturbed the
+creatures and they came flocking down by hundreds, squeaking and
+darting furiously at the candles. Tom knew their ways and the danger of
+this sort of conduct. He seized Becky's hand and hurried her into the
+first corridor that offered; and none too soon, for a bat struck
+Becky's light out with its wing while she was passing out of the
+cavern. The bats chased the children a good distance; but the fugitives
+plunged into every new passage that offered, and at last got rid of the
+perilous things. Tom found a subterranean lake, shortly, which
+stretched its dim length away until its shape was lost in the shadows.
+He wanted to explore its borders, but concluded that it would be best
+to sit down and rest awhile, first. Now, for the first time, the deep
+stillness of the place laid a clammy hand upon the spirits of the
+children. Becky said:
+
+"Why, I didn't notice, but it seems ever so long since I heard any of
+the others."
+
+"Come to think, Becky, we are away down below them--and I don't know
+how far away north, or south, or east, or whichever it is. We couldn't
+hear them here."
+
+Becky grew apprehensive.
+
+"I wonder how long we've been down here, Tom? We better start back."
+
+"Yes, I reckon we better. P'raps we better."
+
+"Can you find the way, Tom? It's all a mixed-up crookedness to me."
+
+"I reckon I could find it--but then the bats. If they put our candles
+out it will be an awful fix. Let's try some other way, so as not to go
+through there."
+
+"Well. But I hope we won't get lost. It would be so awful!" and the
+girl shuddered at the thought of the dreadful possibilities.
+
+They started through a corridor, and traversed it in silence a long
+way, glancing at each new opening, to see if there was anything
+familiar about the look of it; but they were all strange. Every time
+Tom made an examination, Becky would watch his face for an encouraging
+sign, and he would say cheerily:
+
+"Oh, it's all right. This ain't the one, but we'll come to it right
+away!"
+
+But he felt less and less hopeful with each failure, and presently
+began to turn off into diverging avenues at sheer random, in desperate
+hope of finding the one that was wanted. He still said it was "all
+right," but there was such a leaden dread at his heart that the words
+had lost their ring and sounded just as if he had said, "All is lost!"
+Becky clung to his side in an anguish of fear, and tried hard to keep
+back the tears, but they would come. At last she said:
+
+"Oh, Tom, never mind the bats, let's go back that way! We seem to get
+worse and worse off all the time."
+
+"Listen!" said he.
+
+Profound silence; silence so deep that even their breathings were
+conspicuous in the hush. Tom shouted. The call went echoing down the
+empty aisles and died out in the distance in a faint sound that
+resembled a ripple of mocking laughter.
+
+"Oh, don't do it again, Tom, it is too horrid," said Becky.
+
+"It is horrid, but I better, Becky; they might hear us, you know," and
+he shouted again.
+
+The "might" was even a chillier horror than the ghostly laughter, it
+so confessed a perishing hope. The children stood still and listened;
+but there was no result. Tom turned upon the back track at once, and
+hurried his steps. It was but a little while before a certain
+indecision in his manner revealed another fearful fact to Becky--he
+could not find his way back!
+
+"Oh, Tom, you didn't make any marks!"
+
+"Becky, I was such a fool! Such a fool! I never thought we might want
+to come back! No--I can't find the way. It's all mixed up."
+
+"Tom, Tom, we're lost! we're lost! We never can get out of this awful
+place! Oh, why DID we ever leave the others!"
+
+She sank to the ground and burst into such a frenzy of crying that Tom
+was appalled with the idea that she might die, or lose her reason. He
+sat down by her and put his arms around her; she buried her face in his
+bosom, she clung to him, she poured out her terrors, her unavailing
+regrets, and the far echoes turned them all to jeering laughter. Tom
+begged her to pluck up hope again, and she said she could not. He fell
+to blaming and abusing himself for getting her into this miserable
+situation; this had a better effect. She said she would try to hope
+again, she would get up and follow wherever he might lead if only he
+would not talk like that any more. For he was no more to blame than
+she, she said.
+
+So they moved on again--aimlessly--simply at random--all they could do
+was to move, keep moving. For a little while, hope made a show of
+reviving--not with any reason to back it, but only because it is its
+nature to revive when the spring has not been taken out of it by age
+and familiarity with failure.
+
+By-and-by Tom took Becky's candle and blew it out. This economy meant
+so much! Words were not needed. Becky understood, and her hope died
+again. She knew that Tom had a whole candle and three or four pieces in
+his pockets--yet he must economize.
+
+By-and-by, fatigue began to assert its claims; the children tried to
+pay attention, for it was dreadful to think of sitting down when time
+was grown to be so precious, moving, in some direction, in any
+direction, was at least progress and might bear fruit; but to sit down
+was to invite death and shorten its pursuit.
+
+At last Becky's frail limbs refused to carry her farther. She sat
+down. Tom rested with her, and they talked of home, and the friends
+there, and the comfortable beds and, above all, the light! Becky cried,
+and Tom tried to think of some way of comforting her, but all his
+encouragements were grown threadbare with use, and sounded like
+sarcasms. Fatigue bore so heavily upon Becky that she drowsed off to
+sleep. Tom was grateful. He sat looking into her drawn face and saw it
+grow smooth and natural under the influence of pleasant dreams; and
+by-and-by a smile dawned and rested there. The peaceful face reflected
+somewhat of peace and healing into his own spirit, and his thoughts
+wandered away to bygone times and dreamy memories. While he was deep in
+his musings, Becky woke up with a breezy little laugh--but it was
+stricken dead upon her lips, and a groan followed it.
+
+"Oh, how COULD I sleep! I wish I never, never had waked! No! No, I
+don't, Tom! Don't look so! I won't say it again."
+
+"I'm glad you've slept, Becky; you'll feel rested, now, and we'll find
+the way out."
+
+"We can try, Tom; but I've seen such a beautiful country in my dream.
+I reckon we are going there."
+
+"Maybe not, maybe not. Cheer up, Becky, and let's go on trying."
+
+They rose up and wandered along, hand in hand and hopeless. They tried
+to estimate how long they had been in the cave, but all they knew was
+that it seemed days and weeks, and yet it was plain that this could not
+be, for their candles were not gone yet. A long time after this--they
+could not tell how long--Tom said they must go softly and listen for
+dripping water--they must find a spring. They found one presently, and
+Tom said it was time to rest again. Both were cruelly tired, yet Becky
+said she thought she could go a little farther. She was surprised to
+hear Tom dissent. She could not understand it. They sat down, and Tom
+fastened his candle to the wall in front of them with some clay.
+Thought was soon busy; nothing was said for some time. Then Becky broke
+the silence:
+
+"Tom, I am so hungry!"
+
+Tom took something out of his pocket.
+
+"Do you remember this?" said he.
+
+Becky almost smiled.
+
+"It's our wedding-cake, Tom."
+
+"Yes--I wish it was as big as a barrel, for it's all we've got."
+
+"I saved it from the picnic for us to dream on, Tom, the way grown-up
+people do with wedding-cake--but it'll be our--"
+
+She dropped the sentence where it was. Tom divided the cake and Becky
+ate with good appetite, while Tom nibbled at his moiety. There was
+abundance of cold water to finish the feast with. By-and-by Becky
+suggested that they move on again. Tom was silent a moment. Then he
+said:
+
+"Becky, can you bear it if I tell you something?"
+
+Becky's face paled, but she thought she could.
+
+"Well, then, Becky, we must stay here, where there's water to drink.
+That little piece is our last candle!"
+
+Becky gave loose to tears and wailings. Tom did what he could to
+comfort her, but with little effect. At length Becky said:
+
+"Tom!"
+
+"Well, Becky?"
+
+"They'll miss us and hunt for us!"
+
+"Yes, they will! Certainly they will!"
+
+"Maybe they're hunting for us now, Tom."
+
+"Why, I reckon maybe they are. I hope they are."
+
+"When would they miss us, Tom?"
+
+"When they get back to the boat, I reckon."
+
+"Tom, it might be dark then--would they notice we hadn't come?"
+
+"I don't know. But anyway, your mother would miss you as soon as they
+got home."
+
+A frightened look in Becky's face brought Tom to his senses and he saw
+that he had made a blunder. Becky was not to have gone home that night!
+The children became silent and thoughtful. In a moment a new burst of
+grief from Becky showed Tom that the thing in his mind had struck hers
+also--that the Sabbath morning might be half spent before Mrs. Thatcher
+discovered that Becky was not at Mrs. Harper's.
+
+The children fastened their eyes upon their bit of candle and watched
+it melt slowly and pitilessly away; saw the half inch of wick stand
+alone at last; saw the feeble flame rise and fall, climb the thin
+column of smoke, linger at its top a moment, and then--the horror of
+utter darkness reigned!
+
+How long afterward it was that Becky came to a slow consciousness that
+she was crying in Tom's arms, neither could tell. All that they knew
+was, that after what seemed a mighty stretch of time, both awoke out of
+a dead stupor of sleep and resumed their miseries once more. Tom said
+it might be Sunday, now--maybe Monday. He tried to get Becky to talk,
+but her sorrows were too oppressive, all her hopes were gone. Tom said
+that they must have been missed long ago, and no doubt the search was
+going on. He would shout and maybe some one would come. He tried it;
+but in the darkness the distant echoes sounded so hideously that he
+tried it no more.
+
+The hours wasted away, and hunger came to torment the captives again.
+A portion of Tom's half of the cake was left; they divided and ate it.
+But they seemed hungrier than before. The poor morsel of food only
+whetted desire.
+
+By-and-by Tom said:
+
+"SH! Did you hear that?"
+
+Both held their breath and listened. There was a sound like the
+faintest, far-off shout. Instantly Tom answered it, and leading Becky
+by the hand, started groping down the corridor in its direction.
+Presently he listened again; again the sound was heard, and apparently
+a little nearer.
+
+"It's them!" said Tom; "they're coming! Come along, Becky--we're all
+right now!"
+
+The joy of the prisoners was almost overwhelming. Their speed was
+slow, however, because pitfalls were somewhat common, and had to be
+guarded against. They shortly came to one and had to stop. It might be
+three feet deep, it might be a hundred--there was no passing it at any
+rate. Tom got down on his breast and reached as far down as he could.
+No bottom. They must stay there and wait until the searchers came. They
+listened; evidently the distant shoutings were growing more distant! a
+moment or two more and they had gone altogether. The heart-sinking
+misery of it! Tom whooped until he was hoarse, but it was of no use. He
+talked hopefully to Becky; but an age of anxious waiting passed and no
+sounds came again.
+
+The children groped their way back to the spring. The weary time
+dragged on; they slept again, and awoke famished and woe-stricken. Tom
+believed it must be Tuesday by this time.
+
+Now an idea struck him. There were some side passages near at hand. It
+would be better to explore some of these than bear the weight of the
+heavy time in idleness. He took a kite-line from his pocket, tied it to
+a projection, and he and Becky started, Tom in the lead, unwinding the
+line as he groped along. At the end of twenty steps the corridor ended
+in a "jumping-off place." Tom got down on his knees and felt below, and
+then as far around the corner as he could reach with his hands
+conveniently; he made an effort to stretch yet a little farther to the
+right, and at that moment, not twenty yards away, a human hand, holding
+a candle, appeared from behind a rock! Tom lifted up a glorious shout,
+and instantly that hand was followed by the body it belonged to--Injun
+Joe's! Tom was paralyzed; he could not move. He was vastly gratified
+the next moment, to see the "Spaniard" take to his heels and get
+himself out of sight. Tom wondered that Joe had not recognized his
+voice and come over and killed him for testifying in court. But the
+echoes must have disguised the voice. Without doubt, that was it, he
+reasoned. Tom's fright weakened every muscle in his body. He said to
+himself that if he had strength enough to get back to the spring he
+would stay there, and nothing should tempt him to run the risk of
+meeting Injun Joe again. He was careful to keep from Becky what it was
+he had seen. He told her he had only shouted "for luck."
+
+But hunger and wretchedness rise superior to fears in the long run.
+Another tedious wait at the spring and another long sleep brought
+changes. The children awoke tortured with a raging hunger. Tom believed
+that it must be Wednesday or Thursday or even Friday or Saturday, now,
+and that the search had been given over. He proposed to explore another
+passage. He felt willing to risk Injun Joe and all other terrors. But
+Becky was very weak. She had sunk into a dreary apathy and would not be
+roused. She said she would wait, now, where she was, and die--it would
+not be long. She told Tom to go with the kite-line and explore if he
+chose; but she implored him to come back every little while and speak
+to her; and she made him promise that when the awful time came, he
+would stay by her and hold her hand until all was over.
+
+Tom kissed her, with a choking sensation in his throat, and made a
+show of being confident of finding the searchers or an escape from the
+cave; then he took the kite-line in his hand and went groping down one
+of the passages on his hands and knees, distressed with hunger and sick
+with bodings of coming doom.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+TUESDAY afternoon came, and waned to the twilight. The village of St.
+Petersburg still mourned. The lost children had not been found. Public
+prayers had been offered up for them, and many and many a private
+prayer that had the petitioner's whole heart in it; but still no good
+news came from the cave. The majority of the searchers had given up the
+quest and gone back to their daily avocations, saying that it was plain
+the children could never be found. Mrs. Thatcher was very ill, and a
+great part of the time delirious. People said it was heartbreaking to
+hear her call her child, and raise her head and listen a whole minute
+at a time, then lay it wearily down again with a moan. Aunt Polly had
+drooped into a settled melancholy, and her gray hair had grown almost
+white. The village went to its rest on Tuesday night, sad and forlorn.
+
+Away in the middle of the night a wild peal burst from the village
+bells, and in a moment the streets were swarming with frantic half-clad
+people, who shouted, "Turn out! turn out! they're found! they're
+found!" Tin pans and horns were added to the din, the population massed
+itself and moved toward the river, met the children coming in an open
+carriage drawn by shouting citizens, thronged around it, joined its
+homeward march, and swept magnificently up the main street roaring
+huzzah after huzzah!
+
+The village was illuminated; nobody went to bed again; it was the
+greatest night the little town had ever seen. During the first half-hour
+a procession of villagers filed through Judge Thatcher's house, seized
+the saved ones and kissed them, squeezed Mrs. Thatcher's hand, tried to
+speak but couldn't--and drifted out raining tears all over the place.
+
+Aunt Polly's happiness was complete, and Mrs. Thatcher's nearly so. It
+would be complete, however, as soon as the messenger dispatched with
+the great news to the cave should get the word to her husband. Tom lay
+upon a sofa with an eager auditory about him and told the history of
+the wonderful adventure, putting in many striking additions to adorn it
+withal; and closed with a description of how he left Becky and went on
+an exploring expedition; how he followed two avenues as far as his
+kite-line would reach; how he followed a third to the fullest stretch of
+the kite-line, and was about to turn back when he glimpsed a far-off
+speck that looked like daylight; dropped the line and groped toward it,
+pushed his head and shoulders through a small hole, and saw the broad
+Mississippi rolling by! And if it had only happened to be night he would
+not have seen that speck of daylight and would not have explored that
+passage any more! He told how he went back for Becky and broke the good
+news and she told him not to fret her with such stuff, for she was
+tired, and knew she was going to die, and wanted to. He described how he
+labored with her and convinced her; and how she almost died for joy when
+she had groped to where she actually saw the blue speck of daylight; how
+he pushed his way out at the hole and then helped her out; how they sat
+there and cried for gladness; how some men came along in a skiff and Tom
+hailed them and told them their situation and their famished condition;
+how the men didn't believe the wild tale at first, "because," said they,
+"you are five miles down the river below the valley the cave is in"
+--then took them aboard, rowed to a house, gave them supper, made them
+rest till two or three hours after dark and then brought them home.
+
+Before day-dawn, Judge Thatcher and the handful of searchers with him
+were tracked out, in the cave, by the twine clews they had strung
+behind them, and informed of the great news.
+
+Three days and nights of toil and hunger in the cave were not to be
+shaken off at once, as Tom and Becky soon discovered. They were
+bedridden all of Wednesday and Thursday, and seemed to grow more and
+more tired and worn, all the time. Tom got about, a little, on
+Thursday, was down-town Friday, and nearly as whole as ever Saturday;
+but Becky did not leave her room until Sunday, and then she looked as
+if she had passed through a wasting illness.
+
+Tom learned of Huck's sickness and went to see him on Friday, but
+could not be admitted to the bedroom; neither could he on Saturday or
+Sunday. He was admitted daily after that, but was warned to keep still
+about his adventure and introduce no exciting topic. The Widow Douglas
+stayed by to see that he obeyed. At home Tom learned of the Cardiff
+Hill event; also that the "ragged man's" body had eventually been found
+in the river near the ferry-landing; he had been drowned while trying
+to escape, perhaps.
+
+About a fortnight after Tom's rescue from the cave, he started off to
+visit Huck, who had grown plenty strong enough, now, to hear exciting
+talk, and Tom had some that would interest him, he thought. Judge
+Thatcher's house was on Tom's way, and he stopped to see Becky. The
+Judge and some friends set Tom to talking, and some one asked him
+ironically if he wouldn't like to go to the cave again. Tom said he
+thought he wouldn't mind it. The Judge said:
+
+"Well, there are others just like you, Tom, I've not the least doubt.
+But we have taken care of that. Nobody will get lost in that cave any
+more."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because I had its big door sheathed with boiler iron two weeks ago,
+and triple-locked--and I've got the keys."
+
+Tom turned as white as a sheet.
+
+"What's the matter, boy! Here, run, somebody! Fetch a glass of water!"
+
+The water was brought and thrown into Tom's face.
+
+"Ah, now you're all right. What was the matter with you, Tom?"
+
+"Oh, Judge, Injun Joe's in the cave!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+WITHIN a few minutes the news had spread, and a dozen skiff-loads of
+men were on their way to McDougal's cave, and the ferryboat, well
+filled with passengers, soon followed. Tom Sawyer was in the skiff that
+bore Judge Thatcher.
+
+When the cave door was unlocked, a sorrowful sight presented itself in
+the dim twilight of the place. Injun Joe lay stretched upon the ground,
+dead, with his face close to the crack of the door, as if his longing
+eyes had been fixed, to the latest moment, upon the light and the cheer
+of the free world outside. Tom was touched, for he knew by his own
+experience how this wretch had suffered. His pity was moved, but
+nevertheless he felt an abounding sense of relief and security, now,
+which revealed to him in a degree which he had not fully appreciated
+before how vast a weight of dread had been lying upon him since the day
+he lifted his voice against this bloody-minded outcast.
+
+Injun Joe's bowie-knife lay close by, its blade broken in two. The
+great foundation-beam of the door had been chipped and hacked through,
+with tedious labor; useless labor, too, it was, for the native rock
+formed a sill outside it, and upon that stubborn material the knife had
+wrought no effect; the only damage done was to the knife itself. But if
+there had been no stony obstruction there the labor would have been
+useless still, for if the beam had been wholly cut away Injun Joe could
+not have squeezed his body under the door, and he knew it. So he had
+only hacked that place in order to be doing something--in order to pass
+the weary time--in order to employ his tortured faculties. Ordinarily
+one could find half a dozen bits of candle stuck around in the crevices
+of this vestibule, left there by tourists; but there were none now. The
+prisoner had searched them out and eaten them. He had also contrived to
+catch a few bats, and these, also, he had eaten, leaving only their
+claws. The poor unfortunate had starved to death. In one place, near at
+hand, a stalagmite had been slowly growing up from the ground for ages,
+builded by the water-drip from a stalactite overhead. The captive had
+broken off the stalagmite, and upon the stump had placed a stone,
+wherein he had scooped a shallow hollow to catch the precious drop
+that fell once in every three minutes with the dreary regularity of a
+clock-tick--a dessertspoonful once in four and twenty hours. That drop
+was falling when the Pyramids were new; when Troy fell; when the
+foundations of Rome were laid; when Christ was crucified; when the
+Conqueror created the British empire; when Columbus sailed; when the
+massacre at Lexington was "news." It is falling now; it will still be
+falling when all these things shall have sunk down the afternoon of
+history, and the twilight of tradition, and been swallowed up in the
+thick night of oblivion. Has everything a purpose and a mission? Did
+this drop fall patiently during five thousand years to be ready for
+this flitting human insect's need? and has it another important object
+to accomplish ten thousand years to come? No matter. It is many and
+many a year since the hapless half-breed scooped out the stone to catch
+the priceless drops, but to this day the tourist stares longest at that
+pathetic stone and that slow-dropping water when he comes to see the
+wonders of McDougal's cave. Injun Joe's cup stands first in the list of
+the cavern's marvels; even "Aladdin's Palace" cannot rival it.
+
+Injun Joe was buried near the mouth of the cave; and people flocked
+there in boats and wagons from the towns and from all the farms and
+hamlets for seven miles around; they brought their children, and all
+sorts of provisions, and confessed that they had had almost as
+satisfactory a time at the funeral as they could have had at the
+hanging.
+
+This funeral stopped the further growth of one thing--the petition to
+the governor for Injun Joe's pardon. The petition had been largely
+signed; many tearful and eloquent meetings had been held, and a
+committee of sappy women been appointed to go in deep mourning and wail
+around the governor, and implore him to be a merciful ass and trample
+his duty under foot. Injun Joe was believed to have killed five
+citizens of the village, but what of that? If he had been Satan himself
+there would have been plenty of weaklings ready to scribble their names
+to a pardon-petition, and drip a tear on it from their permanently
+impaired and leaky water-works.
+
+The morning after the funeral Tom took Huck to a private place to have
+an important talk. Huck had learned all about Tom's adventure from the
+Welshman and the Widow Douglas, by this time, but Tom said he reckoned
+there was one thing they had not told him; that thing was what he
+wanted to talk about now. Huck's face saddened. He said:
+
+"I know what it is. You got into No. 2 and never found anything but
+whiskey. Nobody told me it was you; but I just knowed it must 'a' ben
+you, soon as I heard 'bout that whiskey business; and I knowed you
+hadn't got the money becuz you'd 'a' got at me some way or other and
+told me even if you was mum to everybody else. Tom, something's always
+told me we'd never get holt of that swag."
+
+"Why, Huck, I never told on that tavern-keeper. YOU know his tavern
+was all right the Saturday I went to the picnic. Don't you remember you
+was to watch there that night?"
+
+"Oh yes! Why, it seems 'bout a year ago. It was that very night that I
+follered Injun Joe to the widder's."
+
+"YOU followed him?"
+
+"Yes--but you keep mum. I reckon Injun Joe's left friends behind him,
+and I don't want 'em souring on me and doing me mean tricks. If it
+hadn't ben for me he'd be down in Texas now, all right."
+
+Then Huck told his entire adventure in confidence to Tom, who had only
+heard of the Welshman's part of it before.
+
+"Well," said Huck, presently, coming back to the main question,
+"whoever nipped the whiskey in No. 2, nipped the money, too, I reckon
+--anyways it's a goner for us, Tom."
+
+"Huck, that money wasn't ever in No. 2!"
+
+"What!" Huck searched his comrade's face keenly. "Tom, have you got on
+the track of that money again?"
+
+"Huck, it's in the cave!"
+
+Huck's eyes blazed.
+
+"Say it again, Tom."
+
+"The money's in the cave!"
+
+"Tom--honest injun, now--is it fun, or earnest?"
+
+"Earnest, Huck--just as earnest as ever I was in my life. Will you go
+in there with me and help get it out?"
+
+"I bet I will! I will if it's where we can blaze our way to it and not
+get lost."
+
+"Huck, we can do that without the least little bit of trouble in the
+world."
+
+"Good as wheat! What makes you think the money's--"
+
+"Huck, you just wait till we get in there. If we don't find it I'll
+agree to give you my drum and every thing I've got in the world. I
+will, by jings."
+
+"All right--it's a whiz. When do you say?"
+
+"Right now, if you say it. Are you strong enough?"
+
+"Is it far in the cave? I ben on my pins a little, three or four days,
+now, but I can't walk more'n a mile, Tom--least I don't think I could."
+
+"It's about five mile into there the way anybody but me would go,
+Huck, but there's a mighty short cut that they don't anybody but me
+know about. Huck, I'll take you right to it in a skiff. I'll float the
+skiff down there, and I'll pull it back again all by myself. You
+needn't ever turn your hand over."
+
+"Less start right off, Tom."
+
+"All right. We want some bread and meat, and our pipes, and a little
+bag or two, and two or three kite-strings, and some of these
+new-fangled things they call lucifer matches. I tell you, many's
+the time I wished I had some when I was in there before."
+
+A trifle after noon the boys borrowed a small skiff from a citizen who
+was absent, and got under way at once. When they were several miles
+below "Cave Hollow," Tom said:
+
+"Now you see this bluff here looks all alike all the way down from the
+cave hollow--no houses, no wood-yards, bushes all alike. But do you see
+that white place up yonder where there's been a landslide? Well, that's
+one of my marks. We'll get ashore, now."
+
+They landed.
+
+"Now, Huck, where we're a-standing you could touch that hole I got out
+of with a fishing-pole. See if you can find it."
+
+Huck searched all the place about, and found nothing. Tom proudly
+marched into a thick clump of sumach bushes and said:
+
+"Here you are! Look at it, Huck; it's the snuggest hole in this
+country. You just keep mum about it. All along I've been wanting to be
+a robber, but I knew I'd got to have a thing like this, and where to
+run across it was the bother. We've got it now, and we'll keep it
+quiet, only we'll let Joe Harper and Ben Rogers in--because of course
+there's got to be a Gang, or else there wouldn't be any style about it.
+Tom Sawyer's Gang--it sounds splendid, don't it, Huck?"
+
+"Well, it just does, Tom. And who'll we rob?"
+
+"Oh, most anybody. Waylay people--that's mostly the way."
+
+"And kill them?"
+
+"No, not always. Hive them in the cave till they raise a ransom."
+
+"What's a ransom?"
+
+"Money. You make them raise all they can, off'n their friends; and
+after you've kept them a year, if it ain't raised then you kill them.
+That's the general way. Only you don't kill the women. You shut up the
+women, but you don't kill them. They're always beautiful and rich, and
+awfully scared. You take their watches and things, but you always take
+your hat off and talk polite. They ain't anybody as polite as robbers
+--you'll see that in any book. Well, the women get to loving you, and
+after they've been in the cave a week or two weeks they stop crying and
+after that you couldn't get them to leave. If you drove them out they'd
+turn right around and come back. It's so in all the books."
+
+"Why, it's real bully, Tom. I believe it's better'n to be a pirate."
+
+"Yes, it's better in some ways, because it's close to home and
+circuses and all that."
+
+By this time everything was ready and the boys entered the hole, Tom
+in the lead. They toiled their way to the farther end of the tunnel,
+then made their spliced kite-strings fast and moved on. A few steps
+brought them to the spring, and Tom felt a shudder quiver all through
+him. He showed Huck the fragment of candle-wick perched on a lump of
+clay against the wall, and described how he and Becky had watched the
+flame struggle and expire.
+
+The boys began to quiet down to whispers, now, for the stillness and
+gloom of the place oppressed their spirits. They went on, and presently
+entered and followed Tom's other corridor until they reached the
+"jumping-off place." The candles revealed the fact that it was not
+really a precipice, but only a steep clay hill twenty or thirty feet
+high. Tom whispered:
+
+"Now I'll show you something, Huck."
+
+He held his candle aloft and said:
+
+"Look as far around the corner as you can. Do you see that? There--on
+the big rock over yonder--done with candle-smoke."
+
+"Tom, it's a CROSS!"
+
+"NOW where's your Number Two? 'UNDER THE CROSS,' hey? Right yonder's
+where I saw Injun Joe poke up his candle, Huck!"
+
+Huck stared at the mystic sign awhile, and then said with a shaky voice:
+
+"Tom, less git out of here!"
+
+"What! and leave the treasure?"
+
+"Yes--leave it. Injun Joe's ghost is round about there, certain."
+
+"No it ain't, Huck, no it ain't. It would ha'nt the place where he
+died--away out at the mouth of the cave--five mile from here."
+
+"No, Tom, it wouldn't. It would hang round the money. I know the ways
+of ghosts, and so do you."
+
+Tom began to fear that Huck was right. Misgivings gathered in his
+mind. But presently an idea occurred to him--
+
+"Lookyhere, Huck, what fools we're making of ourselves! Injun Joe's
+ghost ain't a going to come around where there's a cross!"
+
+The point was well taken. It had its effect.
+
+"Tom, I didn't think of that. But that's so. It's luck for us, that
+cross is. I reckon we'll climb down there and have a hunt for that box."
+
+Tom went first, cutting rude steps in the clay hill as he descended.
+Huck followed. Four avenues opened out of the small cavern which the
+great rock stood in. The boys examined three of them with no result.
+They found a small recess in the one nearest the base of the rock, with
+a pallet of blankets spread down in it; also an old suspender, some
+bacon rind, and the well-gnawed bones of two or three fowls. But there
+was no money-box. The lads searched and researched this place, but in
+vain. Tom said:
+
+"He said UNDER the cross. Well, this comes nearest to being under the
+cross. It can't be under the rock itself, because that sets solid on
+the ground."
+
+They searched everywhere once more, and then sat down discouraged.
+Huck could suggest nothing. By-and-by Tom said:
+
+"Lookyhere, Huck, there's footprints and some candle-grease on the
+clay about one side of this rock, but not on the other sides. Now,
+what's that for? I bet you the money IS under the rock. I'm going to
+dig in the clay."
+
+"That ain't no bad notion, Tom!" said Huck with animation.
+
+Tom's "real Barlow" was out at once, and he had not dug four inches
+before he struck wood.
+
+"Hey, Huck!--you hear that?"
+
+Huck began to dig and scratch now. Some boards were soon uncovered and
+removed. They had concealed a natural chasm which led under the rock.
+Tom got into this and held his candle as far under the rock as he
+could, but said he could not see to the end of the rift. He proposed to
+explore. He stooped and passed under; the narrow way descended
+gradually. He followed its winding course, first to the right, then to
+the left, Huck at his heels. Tom turned a short curve, by-and-by, and
+exclaimed:
+
+"My goodness, Huck, lookyhere!"
+
+It was the treasure-box, sure enough, occupying a snug little cavern,
+along with an empty powder-keg, a couple of guns in leather cases, two
+or three pairs of old moccasins, a leather belt, and some other rubbish
+well soaked with the water-drip.
+
+"Got it at last!" said Huck, ploughing among the tarnished coins with
+his hand. "My, but we're rich, Tom!"
+
+"Huck, I always reckoned we'd get it. It's just too good to believe,
+but we HAVE got it, sure! Say--let's not fool around here. Let's snake
+it out. Lemme see if I can lift the box."
+
+It weighed about fifty pounds. Tom could lift it, after an awkward
+fashion, but could not carry it conveniently.
+
+"I thought so," he said; "THEY carried it like it was heavy, that day
+at the ha'nted house. I noticed that. I reckon I was right to think of
+fetching the little bags along."
+
+The money was soon in the bags and the boys took it up to the cross
+rock.
+
+"Now less fetch the guns and things," said Huck.
+
+"No, Huck--leave them there. They're just the tricks to have when we
+go to robbing. We'll keep them there all the time, and we'll hold our
+orgies there, too. It's an awful snug place for orgies."
+
+"What orgies?"
+
+"I dono. But robbers always have orgies, and of course we've got to
+have them, too. Come along, Huck, we've been in here a long time. It's
+getting late, I reckon. I'm hungry, too. We'll eat and smoke when we
+get to the skiff."
+
+They presently emerged into the clump of sumach bushes, looked warily
+out, found the coast clear, and were soon lunching and smoking in the
+skiff. As the sun dipped toward the horizon they pushed out and got
+under way. Tom skimmed up the shore through the long twilight, chatting
+cheerily with Huck, and landed shortly after dark.
+
+"Now, Huck," said Tom, "we'll hide the money in the loft of the
+widow's woodshed, and I'll come up in the morning and we'll count it
+and divide, and then we'll hunt up a place out in the woods for it
+where it will be safe. Just you lay quiet here and watch the stuff till
+I run and hook Benny Taylor's little wagon; I won't be gone a minute."
+
+He disappeared, and presently returned with the wagon, put the two
+small sacks into it, threw some old rags on top of them, and started
+off, dragging his cargo behind him. When the boys reached the
+Welshman's house, they stopped to rest. Just as they were about to move
+on, the Welshman stepped out and said:
+
+"Hallo, who's that?"
+
+"Huck and Tom Sawyer."
+
+"Good! Come along with me, boys, you are keeping everybody waiting.
+Here--hurry up, trot ahead--I'll haul the wagon for you. Why, it's not
+as light as it might be. Got bricks in it?--or old metal?"
+
+"Old metal," said Tom.
+
+"I judged so; the boys in this town will take more trouble and fool
+away more time hunting up six bits' worth of old iron to sell to the
+foundry than they would to make twice the money at regular work. But
+that's human nature--hurry along, hurry along!"
+
+The boys wanted to know what the hurry was about.
+
+"Never mind; you'll see, when we get to the Widow Douglas'."
+
+Huck said with some apprehension--for he was long used to being
+falsely accused:
+
+"Mr. Jones, we haven't been doing nothing."
+
+The Welshman laughed.
+
+"Well, I don't know, Huck, my boy. I don't know about that. Ain't you
+and the widow good friends?"
+
+"Yes. Well, she's ben good friends to me, anyway."
+
+"All right, then. What do you want to be afraid for?"
+
+This question was not entirely answered in Huck's slow mind before he
+found himself pushed, along with Tom, into Mrs. Douglas' drawing-room.
+Mr. Jones left the wagon near the door and followed.
+
+The place was grandly lighted, and everybody that was of any
+consequence in the village was there. The Thatchers were there, the
+Harpers, the Rogerses, Aunt Polly, Sid, Mary, the minister, the editor,
+and a great many more, and all dressed in their best. The widow
+received the boys as heartily as any one could well receive two such
+looking beings. They were covered with clay and candle-grease. Aunt
+Polly blushed crimson with humiliation, and frowned and shook her head
+at Tom. Nobody suffered half as much as the two boys did, however. Mr.
+Jones said:
+
+"Tom wasn't at home, yet, so I gave him up; but I stumbled on him and
+Huck right at my door, and so I just brought them along in a hurry."
+
+"And you did just right," said the widow. "Come with me, boys."
+
+She took them to a bedchamber and said:
+
+"Now wash and dress yourselves. Here are two new suits of clothes
+--shirts, socks, everything complete. They're Huck's--no, no thanks,
+Huck--Mr. Jones bought one and I the other. But they'll fit both of you.
+Get into them. We'll wait--come down when you are slicked up enough."
+
+Then she left.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+HUCK said: "Tom, we can slope, if we can find a rope. The window ain't
+high from the ground."
+
+"Shucks! what do you want to slope for?"
+
+"Well, I ain't used to that kind of a crowd. I can't stand it. I ain't
+going down there, Tom."
+
+"Oh, bother! It ain't anything. I don't mind it a bit. I'll take care
+of you."
+
+Sid appeared.
+
+"Tom," said he, "auntie has been waiting for you all the afternoon.
+Mary got your Sunday clothes ready, and everybody's been fretting about
+you. Say--ain't this grease and clay, on your clothes?"
+
+"Now, Mr. Siddy, you jist 'tend to your own business. What's all this
+blow-out about, anyway?"
+
+"It's one of the widow's parties that she's always having. This time
+it's for the Welshman and his sons, on account of that scrape they
+helped her out of the other night. And say--I can tell you something,
+if you want to know."
+
+"Well, what?"
+
+"Why, old Mr. Jones is going to try to spring something on the people
+here to-night, but I overheard him tell auntie to-day about it, as a
+secret, but I reckon it's not much of a secret now. Everybody knows
+--the widow, too, for all she tries to let on she don't. Mr. Jones was
+bound Huck should be here--couldn't get along with his grand secret
+without Huck, you know!"
+
+"Secret about what, Sid?"
+
+"About Huck tracking the robbers to the widow's. I reckon Mr. Jones
+was going to make a grand time over his surprise, but I bet you it will
+drop pretty flat."
+
+Sid chuckled in a very contented and satisfied way.
+
+"Sid, was it you that told?"
+
+"Oh, never mind who it was. SOMEBODY told--that's enough."
+
+"Sid, there's only one person in this town mean enough to do that, and
+that's you. If you had been in Huck's place you'd 'a' sneaked down the
+hill and never told anybody on the robbers. You can't do any but mean
+things, and you can't bear to see anybody praised for doing good ones.
+There--no thanks, as the widow says"--and Tom cuffed Sid's ears and
+helped him to the door with several kicks. "Now go and tell auntie if
+you dare--and to-morrow you'll catch it!"
+
+Some minutes later the widow's guests were at the supper-table, and a
+dozen children were propped up at little side-tables in the same room,
+after the fashion of that country and that day. At the proper time Mr.
+Jones made his little speech, in which he thanked the widow for the
+honor she was doing himself and his sons, but said that there was
+another person whose modesty--
+
+And so forth and so on. He sprung his secret about Huck's share in the
+adventure in the finest dramatic manner he was master of, but the
+surprise it occasioned was largely counterfeit and not as clamorous and
+effusive as it might have been under happier circumstances. However,
+the widow made a pretty fair show of astonishment, and heaped so many
+compliments and so much gratitude upon Huck that he almost forgot the
+nearly intolerable discomfort of his new clothes in the entirely
+intolerable discomfort of being set up as a target for everybody's gaze
+and everybody's laudations.
+
+The widow said she meant to give Huck a home under her roof and have
+him educated; and that when she could spare the money she would start
+him in business in a modest way. Tom's chance was come. He said:
+
+"Huck don't need it. Huck's rich."
+
+Nothing but a heavy strain upon the good manners of the company kept
+back the due and proper complimentary laugh at this pleasant joke. But
+the silence was a little awkward. Tom broke it:
+
+"Huck's got money. Maybe you don't believe it, but he's got lots of
+it. Oh, you needn't smile--I reckon I can show you. You just wait a
+minute."
+
+Tom ran out of doors. The company looked at each other with a
+perplexed interest--and inquiringly at Huck, who was tongue-tied.
+
+"Sid, what ails Tom?" said Aunt Polly. "He--well, there ain't ever any
+making of that boy out. I never--"
+
+Tom entered, struggling with the weight of his sacks, and Aunt Polly
+did not finish her sentence. Tom poured the mass of yellow coin upon
+the table and said:
+
+"There--what did I tell you? Half of it's Huck's and half of it's mine!"
+
+The spectacle took the general breath away. All gazed, nobody spoke
+for a moment. Then there was a unanimous call for an explanation. Tom
+said he could furnish it, and he did. The tale was long, but brimful of
+interest. There was scarcely an interruption from any one to break the
+charm of its flow. When he had finished, Mr. Jones said:
+
+"I thought I had fixed up a little surprise for this occasion, but it
+don't amount to anything now. This one makes it sing mighty small, I'm
+willing to allow."
+
+The money was counted. The sum amounted to a little over twelve
+thousand dollars. It was more than any one present had ever seen at one
+time before, though several persons were there who were worth
+considerably more than that in property.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+THE reader may rest satisfied that Tom's and Huck's windfall made a
+mighty stir in the poor little village of St. Petersburg. So vast a
+sum, all in actual cash, seemed next to incredible. It was talked
+about, gloated over, glorified, until the reason of many of the
+citizens tottered under the strain of the unhealthy excitement. Every
+"haunted" house in St. Petersburg and the neighboring villages was
+dissected, plank by plank, and its foundations dug up and ransacked for
+hidden treasure--and not by boys, but men--pretty grave, unromantic
+men, too, some of them. Wherever Tom and Huck appeared they were
+courted, admired, stared at. The boys were not able to remember that
+their remarks had possessed weight before; but now their sayings were
+treasured and repeated; everything they did seemed somehow to be
+regarded as remarkable; they had evidently lost the power of doing and
+saying commonplace things; moreover, their past history was raked up
+and discovered to bear marks of conspicuous originality. The village
+paper published biographical sketches of the boys.
+
+The Widow Douglas put Huck's money out at six per cent., and Judge
+Thatcher did the same with Tom's at Aunt Polly's request. Each lad had
+an income, now, that was simply prodigious--a dollar for every week-day
+in the year and half of the Sundays. It was just what the minister got
+--no, it was what he was promised--he generally couldn't collect it. A
+dollar and a quarter a week would board, lodge, and school a boy in
+those old simple days--and clothe him and wash him, too, for that
+matter.
+
+Judge Thatcher had conceived a great opinion of Tom. He said that no
+commonplace boy would ever have got his daughter out of the cave. When
+Becky told her father, in strict confidence, how Tom had taken her
+whipping at school, the Judge was visibly moved; and when she pleaded
+grace for the mighty lie which Tom had told in order to shift that
+whipping from her shoulders to his own, the Judge said with a fine
+outburst that it was a noble, a generous, a magnanimous lie--a lie that
+was worthy to hold up its head and march down through history breast to
+breast with George Washington's lauded Truth about the hatchet! Becky
+thought her father had never looked so tall and so superb as when he
+walked the floor and stamped his foot and said that. She went straight
+off and told Tom about it.
+
+Judge Thatcher hoped to see Tom a great lawyer or a great soldier some
+day. He said he meant to look to it that Tom should be admitted to the
+National Military Academy and afterward trained in the best law school
+in the country, in order that he might be ready for either career or
+both.
+
+Huck Finn's wealth and the fact that he was now under the Widow
+Douglas' protection introduced him into society--no, dragged him into
+it, hurled him into it--and his sufferings were almost more than he
+could bear. The widow's servants kept him clean and neat, combed and
+brushed, and they bedded him nightly in unsympathetic sheets that had
+not one little spot or stain which he could press to his heart and know
+for a friend. He had to eat with a knife and fork; he had to use
+napkin, cup, and plate; he had to learn his book, he had to go to
+church; he had to talk so properly that speech was become insipid in
+his mouth; whithersoever he turned, the bars and shackles of
+civilization shut him in and bound him hand and foot.
+
+He bravely bore his miseries three weeks, and then one day turned up
+missing. For forty-eight hours the widow hunted for him everywhere in
+great distress. The public were profoundly concerned; they searched
+high and low, they dragged the river for his body. Early the third
+morning Tom Sawyer wisely went poking among some old empty hogsheads
+down behind the abandoned slaughter-house, and in one of them he found
+the refugee. Huck had slept there; he had just breakfasted upon some
+stolen odds and ends of food, and was lying off, now, in comfort, with
+his pipe. He was unkempt, uncombed, and clad in the same old ruin of
+rags that had made him picturesque in the days when he was free and
+happy. Tom routed him out, told him the trouble he had been causing,
+and urged him to go home. Huck's face lost its tranquil content, and
+took a melancholy cast. He said:
+
+"Don't talk about it, Tom. I've tried it, and it don't work; it don't
+work, Tom. It ain't for me; I ain't used to it. The widder's good to
+me, and friendly; but I can't stand them ways. She makes me get up just
+at the same time every morning; she makes me wash, they comb me all to
+thunder; she won't let me sleep in the woodshed; I got to wear them
+blamed clothes that just smothers me, Tom; they don't seem to any air
+git through 'em, somehow; and they're so rotten nice that I can't set
+down, nor lay down, nor roll around anywher's; I hain't slid on a
+cellar-door for--well, it 'pears to be years; I got to go to church and
+sweat and sweat--I hate them ornery sermons! I can't ketch a fly in
+there, I can't chaw. I got to wear shoes all Sunday. The widder eats by
+a bell; she goes to bed by a bell; she gits up by a bell--everything's
+so awful reg'lar a body can't stand it."
+
+"Well, everybody does that way, Huck."
+
+"Tom, it don't make no difference. I ain't everybody, and I can't
+STAND it. It's awful to be tied up so. And grub comes too easy--I don't
+take no interest in vittles, that way. I got to ask to go a-fishing; I
+got to ask to go in a-swimming--dern'd if I hain't got to ask to do
+everything. Well, I'd got to talk so nice it wasn't no comfort--I'd got
+to go up in the attic and rip out awhile, every day, to git a taste in
+my mouth, or I'd a died, Tom. The widder wouldn't let me smoke; she
+wouldn't let me yell, she wouldn't let me gape, nor stretch, nor
+scratch, before folks--" [Then with a spasm of special irritation and
+injury]--"And dad fetch it, she prayed all the time! I never see such a
+woman! I HAD to shove, Tom--I just had to. And besides, that school's
+going to open, and I'd a had to go to it--well, I wouldn't stand THAT,
+Tom. Looky here, Tom, being rich ain't what it's cracked up to be. It's
+just worry and worry, and sweat and sweat, and a-wishing you was dead
+all the time. Now these clothes suits me, and this bar'l suits me, and
+I ain't ever going to shake 'em any more. Tom, I wouldn't ever got into
+all this trouble if it hadn't 'a' ben for that money; now you just take
+my sheer of it along with your'n, and gimme a ten-center sometimes--not
+many times, becuz I don't give a dern for a thing 'thout it's tollable
+hard to git--and you go and beg off for me with the widder."
+
+"Oh, Huck, you know I can't do that. 'Tain't fair; and besides if
+you'll try this thing just a while longer you'll come to like it."
+
+"Like it! Yes--the way I'd like a hot stove if I was to set on it long
+enough. No, Tom, I won't be rich, and I won't live in them cussed
+smothery houses. I like the woods, and the river, and hogsheads, and
+I'll stick to 'em, too. Blame it all! just as we'd got guns, and a
+cave, and all just fixed to rob, here this dern foolishness has got to
+come up and spile it all!"
+
+Tom saw his opportunity--
+
+"Lookyhere, Huck, being rich ain't going to keep me back from turning
+robber."
+
+"No! Oh, good-licks; are you in real dead-wood earnest, Tom?"
+
+"Just as dead earnest as I'm sitting here. But Huck, we can't let you
+into the gang if you ain't respectable, you know."
+
+Huck's joy was quenched.
+
+"Can't let me in, Tom? Didn't you let me go for a pirate?"
+
+"Yes, but that's different. A robber is more high-toned than what a
+pirate is--as a general thing. In most countries they're awful high up
+in the nobility--dukes and such."
+
+"Now, Tom, hain't you always ben friendly to me? You wouldn't shet me
+out, would you, Tom? You wouldn't do that, now, WOULD you, Tom?"
+
+"Huck, I wouldn't want to, and I DON'T want to--but what would people
+say? Why, they'd say, 'Mph! Tom Sawyer's Gang! pretty low characters in
+it!' They'd mean you, Huck. You wouldn't like that, and I wouldn't."
+
+Huck was silent for some time, engaged in a mental struggle. Finally
+he said:
+
+"Well, I'll go back to the widder for a month and tackle it and see if
+I can come to stand it, if you'll let me b'long to the gang, Tom."
+
+"All right, Huck, it's a whiz! Come along, old chap, and I'll ask the
+widow to let up on you a little, Huck."
+
+"Will you, Tom--now will you? That's good. If she'll let up on some of
+the roughest things, I'll smoke private and cuss private, and crowd
+through or bust. When you going to start the gang and turn robbers?"
+
+"Oh, right off. We'll get the boys together and have the initiation
+to-night, maybe."
+
+"Have the which?"
+
+"Have the initiation."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"It's to swear to stand by one another, and never tell the gang's
+secrets, even if you're chopped all to flinders, and kill anybody and
+all his family that hurts one of the gang."
+
+"That's gay--that's mighty gay, Tom, I tell you."
+
+"Well, I bet it is. And all that swearing's got to be done at
+midnight, in the lonesomest, awfulest place you can find--a ha'nted
+house is the best, but they're all ripped up now."
+
+"Well, midnight's good, anyway, Tom."
+
+"Yes, so it is. And you've got to swear on a coffin, and sign it with
+blood."
+
+"Now, that's something LIKE! Why, it's a million times bullier than
+pirating. I'll stick to the widder till I rot, Tom; and if I git to be
+a reg'lar ripper of a robber, and everybody talking 'bout it, I reckon
+she'll be proud she snaked me in out of the wet."
+
+
+
+CONCLUSION
+
+SO endeth this chronicle. It being strictly a history of a BOY, it
+must stop here; the story could not go much further without becoming
+the history of a MAN. When one writes a novel about grown people, he
+knows exactly where to stop--that is, with a marriage; but when he
+writes of juveniles, he must stop where he best can.
+
+Most of the characters that perform in this book still live, and are
+prosperous and happy. Some day it may seem worth while to take up the
+story of the younger ones again and see what sort of men and women they
+turned out to be; therefore it will be wisest not to reveal any of that
+part of their lives at present.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Complete
+by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TOM SAWYER ***
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