textfiles/etext/AUTHORS/TWAIN/twain-adventures-27.txt

                                      1876

                          THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER

                                 by Mark Twain
DEDICATION

                                   Dedication

                To my wife this book is affectionately dedicated
PREFACE

                           Preface

  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.

                           Chapter 1

                  Tom Plays, Fights, and Hides

  "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 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 lappels 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. Consound 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
practice 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. Peterburg. 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 yet 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."

  "O, 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."

  "O yes- I've seen whole families in the same fix."

  "Smarty! You think you're some, now, don't you? O 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 gimme much more of your sass I'll take and bounce a
rock off'n your head."

  "O, 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 eyeing 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 a 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 noses,
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 2

                  A The Glorious Whitewasher

  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, quarreling, 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' she tole me go 'long an' 'tend to
my own business- she 'lowed she'd 'tend to de whitewashin'."

  "O, never you mind what she said, Jim. That's the way she always
talks. Gimme the bucket- I won't be gone only a minute. She won't ever
know."

  "O, 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 labbord! Ting-a-ling-ling!
Chow-ch-chow-chow!" The left hand began to describe circles.

  "Stop the stabboard! Ting-a-ling-ling! Stop the labbord! 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."

  "O, 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-"

  "O, 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 beside 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 firecrackers, 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 treadmill 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 a while over the substantial change which had taken
place in his worldly circumstances, and then wended toward
headquarters to report.

                           Chapter 3

                     Busy at War and Love

  TOM PRESENTED HIMSELF before Aunt Polly, who was sitting by an
open window in a pleasant rearward apartment, which was bed-room,
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 sometime 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 hasted 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 a
while 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 rode 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 well-nigh 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 brim-full 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 owdacious 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 poor hands still
forever, 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 O! 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 4

                  Showing off in Sunday School

  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,- O I don't know what it is!"

  "Shall!"

  "O, 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?"

  "O, 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,
present, 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 breast 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's 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 traveled, 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 head-quarters. 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."

  "O, 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, someday, 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 then- 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 and looking sheepish. He blushed, now,
and his eyes fell. Mr. Walters's 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 GOLIATH!"

  Let us draw the curtain of charity over the rest of the scene.

                           Chapter 5

                  The Pinch Bug and His Prey

  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 Douglas, fair, smart and forty, a generous, goodhearted 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
gauntlet; 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 to the skies, on flow'ry beds

                                                           of ease,

        Whilst others fight to win the prize, and sail thro' blood

                                                            -y 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 "pinch-bug," 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 forepaws 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 stand-still.
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 pinch-bug, but he did not think it
was upright in him to carry it off.

                           Chapter 6

                        Tom Meets Becky

  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 occured 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:

  "O 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! O don't stir so, Sid, you'll kill me."

  "Tom, why didn't you wake me sooner? O, 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-"

  "O, Tom, you ain't dying, are you? Don't, Tom- O, 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:

  "O, 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?"

  "O, auntie, I'm-"

  "What's the matter with you- what is the matter with you, child!"

  "O, 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:

  "O, 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 dem 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?"

  "Cert'nly."

  "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 cross-roads 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
Constantinople 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 a-saying the Lord's Prayer back'ards."

  "Say, Huck, 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, Huck. 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
'Dem 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, Huck, 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."

  "O, 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 pinch-bug's prison, and the boys separated, each feeling wealthier
than before.

  When Tom reached the little isolated frame school-house, 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
girl's side of the school-house. 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 fool-hardy 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 offense. 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
non-committal 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 cork-screw of smoke issuing from the chimneys. 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."

  "O, 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, 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 I 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."

  "O, 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 vise 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 7

                  Tick-Running and Heartbreak

  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 lappel 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 a while, 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 shan'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 a
while before when the master came tip-toeing 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."

  "O, I should say so! I wish I had some now."

  "Do you? I've got some. I'll let you chew it a while, 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."

  "O, 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 shan't tell you."

  "Shall I tell you?"

  "Ye- yes- but some other time."

  "No, now."

  "No, not now- to-morrow."

  "O, 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, never 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."

  "O it's ever so gay! Why me and Amy Lawrence"-

  The big eyes told Tom his blunder and he stopped, confused.

  "O, Tom! Then I ain't the first you've ever been engaged to!"

  The child began to cry. Tom said:

  "O 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 8

                      A Pirate Bold To Be

  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 school-house 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 war-path 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 blood-curdling war-whoop, and sear the
eye-balls 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, all 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
cross-bones 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 afterwards. 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,
bare-legged, with fluttering shirt. He presently halted under a
great elm, blew an answering blast, and then began to tip-toe 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 carcass 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 shan'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 9

                   Tragedy in the Grave Yard

  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 death-watch 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?"

  "O, Tom, they can see in the dark, same as cats. I wisht I hadn't
come."

  "O, 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. O, 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, 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 dem sight. What kin they be up to?"

  The whispers 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 Dr. 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 year 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 head-board 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. O, 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 till now."

  "O, 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 whisky; 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."

  "O, 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
halfbreed 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 10

                Dire Prophecy of the Howling Dog

  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 Dr. 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, 'tain't 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, Huck. It's the best thing. Would you just hold hands
and swear that we-"

  "O, 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 illustration.)

  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
lappel 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 cant- I can't do it, Huck!"

  "Please, Tom. There 'tis again!"

  "O, lordy, I'm thankful!" whispered Tom. "I know his voice. It's
Bull Harbison."

  "O, 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.

  "O, 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:

  "O, Huck, IT'S A STRAY DOG!"

  "Quick, Tom, quick! Who does he mean?"

  "Huck, he must mean us both- we're right together."

  "O, 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. O, 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. O, 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 t'other 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 tip-toeing 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 tip-toed 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.

  "O, 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 bannisters 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 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 hooky 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 11

                      Conscience Racks Torn

  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 heart-break
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: "O, 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 about 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 marveled, 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 12

                   The Cat and the Painkiller

  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 tea-spoonful 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 build 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 upon 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, puffing, eyeing the tea-spoon 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
musn'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 into 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 tell-tale tea-spoon 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 numscull. What has that got to do with it?"

  "Heaps. Because if he'd a 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-"

  "O, 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 school-yard 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 school-house 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 hand-springs, 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
school-house, 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 13

                   The Pirate Crew Set Sail

  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, Hoe 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, stead-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
midstream, 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,-
foretopmast-stuns'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 eye-shot 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 rafts 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."

  "O yes, that's so," said Joe, "but I hadn't thought much about it,
you know. I'd a good deal ruther be a pirate, now that I've tried it."

  "You see," said Tom, "people don't go much on hermits, now-a-days,
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
sack-cloth and ashes on his head, and stand out in the rain, and-"

  "What does he put sack-cloth 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:

  "O 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 14

                 Happy Camp of the Freebooters

  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 dew-drops 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 practiced upon its
simplicity more than once. A tumble-bug 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 cat-bird, 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 kurrying
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
sand-bar. 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
wild-wood 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-
provision 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 makes, 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 gaily 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 door-steps 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 ferry boat 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 ferry boat, but the boys could
not determine what the men in them were doing. Presently a great jet
of white smoke burst from the ferry boat'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."

  "O 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 sent 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 unkindnesses 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 ferry boat 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 fish-hooks, and one of that kind of marbles known as a "sure
'nough crystal." Then he tip-toed 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 sand-bar.

                           Chapter 15

                   Tom's Stealthy Visit Home

  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 up stream, 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 ferry boat 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
down stream, 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; and 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, 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- O, it's so hard! Only last Saturday
my Joe busted a fire-cracker right under my nose and I knocked him
sprawling. Little did I know then, how soon- O, 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 up stream. 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 wood.

  He sat down and took a long rest, torturing himself meantime to keep
awake, and then started wearily 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 16

                 First Pipes- "I've Lost My Knife"

  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 a 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:

  "O, boys, let's give it up. I want to go home. It's so lonesome."

  "O, 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 shan't go in. I mean to go home."

  "O, 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. O, 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 eyeing 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 gaily 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; "O, hundreds of times. Once down
there 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 I could see Johnny Miller
tackle it once."

  "O, 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.' I'll say, 'O, 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?"

  "O, 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 marvelously
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 lip 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 hand-breadth 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 sand-bar 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 practiced
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 17

                  Pirates at Their Own Funeral

  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 school-house yard, and feeling very melancholy. But she found
nothing there to comfort her. She soliloquised:

  "O, if I only had his 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. O, 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 the 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 18

                  Tom Reveals His Dream Secret

  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 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
dreamed 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 wood-box, 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?"

  "O, 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. O, yes- you said you
believed the door was open."

  "As I'm a-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- O, 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!"

  "O, 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-prophecying- 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 fire-cracker, and
you told about Peter and the Pain-killer-"

  "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
soliloquised 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 marvelous 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
sun-tanned 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 school-mates, 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 Peter's 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."

  "O, that's jolly. Who's going to give it?"

  "My ma's going to let me have one."

  "O, 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."

  "O, 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."

  "O, may I come?" said Gracie 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 school-house 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 beside. 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 eye-balls 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, "O 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! O, 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-
pummeling the air, and kicking and gouging. "O, 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, and kept exclaiming: "O here's a jolly one! look at this!" she
lost patience at last, and said, "O, 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 19

                 The Cruelty of "I Didn't Think"

  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."

  "O, 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."

  "O, 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, auntie, 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 comfort come from it. I hope the
Lord- I know the Lord will forgive him, because it was such
good-heartedness 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 20

                  Tom Takes Becky's Punishment

  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 school-yard
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 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 O, 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
brokenhearted, 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 leveled 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 sunk 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 21

             Eloquence- and the Master's Gilded Dome

  VACATION WAS APPROACHING. The schoolmaster, always sever, 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's 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 fullness of time the interesting occasion arrived. At eight
in the evening the school-house 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; snow-banks 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 nonparticipating 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 shame-faced 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 a while 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 declaratory gems. Then there were reading
exercises, and a spelling fight. The meager 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 brainracking 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 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 every thing 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 embittered 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 awhile 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 unperceived- 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 re-made 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.

                           Chapter 22

                   Huck Finn Quotes Scripture

  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 death-bed 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 practice 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 23

                  The Salvation of Muff Potter

  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."

  "O- '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, It wouldn'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 ben 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 little 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
courtroom, 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 courthouse 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 courtroom. Many men were moved, and many women's compassion
testified itself in tears. Counsel for the defense 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's 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 24

               Splendid Days and Fearsome Nights

  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 clue." But
you can't hang a "clue" 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 25

                  Seeking the Buried Treasure

  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.

  "O, 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'rogliphics."

  "Hyro- which?"

  "Hy'rogliphics- 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 a 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."

  "O, kings have slathers of them."

  "Well, I don't 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?- you 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
hump-backed 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?"

  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."

  "O, 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
neck-tie 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, Tom. 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 a while. 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 meow 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, Huck. 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 a while; and then said-

  "The ha'nted house. That's it!"

  "Blame it, I don't like ha'nted houses, Tom. Why they're a dem 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 afeared?"

  "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 a while, 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 26

                Real Robbers Seize the Box of Gold

  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-

  "Looky-here, 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' ben 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 noble 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 upstairs.
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!..... O, 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 day time?-
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 cant- 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?"

  "O, 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 hearthstones 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- "O, 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 fire-place- 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 a while in blissful silence.

  "Pard, there's thousands of dollars here," said Injun Joe.

  "'Twas always said that Murrel's gang used 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 upstairs?"

  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 a while; 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!"

  "O, 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 27

                    Trembling on the Trail

  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 anyone'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. O, 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?"

  "O, 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 ben 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
onehorse 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!"

  "O, 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 28

                    In the Lair of Injun Joe

  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 "meow," 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 laying 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, and 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 with whisky! 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:

  "Looky-here, 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 meow- 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's hayloft. He let's me, and so does his pap's
nigger man, Uncle Jake. I tote water for Uncle Jake whenever he
wants me to, and anytime 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. Sometimes 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, Huck, 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 meow."

                           Chapter 29

                      Huck Saves the Widow

  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 schoolmates. 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 "meow," 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
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 ferry
boat 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's.
She'll have ice cream! She has it 'most every day- dead loads of it.
And she'll be awful glad to have us."

  "O, 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's splendid hospitality was a tempting bait. It and
Tom's persuasions presently carried the day. So it was decided to
say nothing to 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's. 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 ferry boat 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 produced, 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 defense
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 underneath 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 ferry boat 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 ferry boat'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 Welchman'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 a while; 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 from 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's 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."

  "O, 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's!"

  "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 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 Welchman'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 dont- 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 tip-toe, their
weapons in their hands. Huck accompanied them no further. He hid
behind a great boulder 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 30

                   Tom and Becky in the Cave

  THE EARLIEST SUSPICION of dawn appeared on Sunday morning, Huck came
groping up the hill and rapped gently at the old Welchman'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
locked, 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 acrost 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 tip-toe 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?"

  "O, 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 Welchman's sons departed at once. As they were leaving the
room Huck sprang up and exclaimed:

  "O, please don't tell anybody it was me that blowed on them! O,
please!"

  "All right if you say it, Huck, but you ought to have the credit
of what you did."

  "O, no, no! Please don't tell!"

  When the young men were gone, the old Welchman 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 accounts 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 Welchman 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 Welchman 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 Welchman 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 Welchman 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 bills 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 Welchman 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 Welchman 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 Welchman 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 re-told 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 staid 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 ferry boat 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 ferry boat ordered out, and before the
horror was half an hour old, two hundred men were pouring down
high-road 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 Welchman 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 Welchman 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
somber 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 aint many left, now,
that's got hope enough, or strength enough, either, to go on
searching."

                           Chapter 31

                      Found and Lost Again

  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
encrusted with a frost work 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 a while, 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 both 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-

  "O, 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 the
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:

  "O, Tom, never mind the bats, let's go back that way! We seem to get
worse and worse off all the time."

  Tom stopped.

  "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.

  "O, 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!

  "O, 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! O, 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 no 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.

  "O, 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 on 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 said 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, 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
heartsinking 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
further 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 32

                   "Turn Out! They're Found!"

  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
heart-breaking 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 clues 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 downtown 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 yes, 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?"

  "O, judge, Injun Joe's in the cave!"

                           Chapter 33

                     The Fate of Injun Joe

  WITHIN A FEW MINUTES the news had spread, and a dozen were on
their way to McDougal's cave, at, 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
dessert spoonful 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 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 Welchman 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 whisky. Nobody told me it was you; but I just knowed it must 'a'
ben you, soon as I heard 'bout that whisky 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 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?"

  "O, 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 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 Welchman's part of it before.

  "Well," said Huck, presently, coming back to the main question,
"whoever nipped the whisky 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 everything 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
newfangled 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?"

  "O, most anybody. Waylay people- that's mostly the way."

  "And kill them?"

  "No- not always. Hide 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 b'lieve 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 a while, 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-

  "Looky-here 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 re-searched 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:

  "Looky-here, Huck, there's foot-prints 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, looky-here!"

  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, plowing 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's 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 wood-shed, 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
Welchman's house, they stopped to rest. Just as they were about to
move on, the Welchman stepped out and said:

  "Hallo, who's that?"

  "Huck and Tom Sawyer."

  "Good! Come along with me, boys, you 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's."

  Huck said with some apprehension- for he was long used to being
falsely accused-

  "Mr. Jones, we haven't been doing nothing."

  The Welchman 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, any ways."

  "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's
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 bed chamber 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 34

                         Floods of Gold

  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."

  "O, 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 just '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 Welchman 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. Oh, 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?"

  "O, 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. O, 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 brim full of interest. There was scarcely an interruption
from anyone 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 35

                  Respectable Huck Joins the Gang

  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 afterwards 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's protection, introduced him into society- no, dragged him
into it, hurled him into it- and his sufferings were almost more
then 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 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
git 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 wood-shed; 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 a while, 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
dem for a thing 'thout it's tollable hard to git- and you go and beg
off for me with the widder."

  "O, 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 dem foolishness has got
to come up and spile it all!"

  Tom saw his opportunity-

  "Looky-here, Huck, being rich ain't going to keep me back from
turning robber."

  "No! O, good-licks, are you in real dead-wood earnest, Tom?"

  "Just as dead earnest as I'm a-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?"

  "O, 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

                         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.

                              THE END
.