CHAPTER XXVII.

I CREPT to their doors and listened; they was snor-
ing. So I tiptoed along, and got down stairs all
right. There warn't a sound anywheres. I peeped
through a crack of the dining-room door, and see the
men that was watching the corpse all sound asleep on
their chairs. The door was open into the parlor, where
the corpse was laying, and there was a candle in both
rooms. I passed along, and the parlor door was open;
but I see there warn't nobody in there but the re-
mainders of Peter; so I shoved on by; but the front
door was locked, and the key wasn't there. Just then
I heard somebody coming down the stairs, back behind
me. I run in the parlor and took a swift look around,
and the only place I see to hide the bag was in the
coffin. The lid was shoved along about a foot, show-
ing the dead man's face down in there, with a wet
cloth over it, and his shroud on. I tucked the money-
bag in under the lid, just down beyond where his
hands was crossed, which made me creep, they was so
cold, and then I run back across the room and in
behind the door.

The person coming was Mary Jane. She went to
the coffin, very soft, and kneeled down and looked in;
then she put up her handkerchief, and I see she begun
to cry, though I couldn't hear her, and her back was
to me. I slid out, and as I passed the dining-room I
thought I'd make sure them watchers hadn't seen me;
so I looked through the crack, and everything was all
right. They hadn't stirred.

I slipped up to bed, feeling ruther blue, on accounts
of the thing playing out that way after I had took so
much trouble and run so much resk about it. Says I,
if it could stay where it is, all right; because when we
get down the river a hundred mile or two I could write
back to Mary Jane, and she could dig him up again
and get it; but that ain't the thing that's going to
happen; the thing that's going to happen is, the
money 'll be found when they come to screw on the
lid. Then the king 'll get it again, and it 'll be a long
day before he gives anybody another chance to smouch
it from him. Of course I WANTED to slide down and
get it out of there, but I dasn't try it. Every minute
it was getting earlier now, and pretty soon some of
them watchers would begin to stir, and I might get
catched -- catched with six thousand dollars in my
hands that nobody hadn't hired me to take care of. I
don't wish to be mixed up in no such business as that,
I says to myself.

When I got down stairs in the morning the parlor
was shut up, and the watchers was gone. There warn't
nobody around but the family and the widow Bartley
and our tribe. I watched their faces to see if anything
had been happening, but I couldn't tell.

Towards the middle of the day the undertaker come
with his man, and they set the coffin in the middle of
the room on a couple of chairs, and then set all our
chairs in rows, and borrowed more from the neighbors
till the hall and the parlor and the dining-room was
full. I see the coffin lid was the way it was before,
but I dasn't go to look in under it, with folks around.

Then the people begun to flock in, and the beats
and the girls took seats in the front row at the head of
the coffin, and for a half an hour the people filed
around slow, in single rank, and looked down at the
dead man's face a minute, and some dropped in a tear,
and it was all very still and solemn, only the girls and
the beats holding handkerchiefs to their eyes and keep-
ing their heads bent, and sobbing a little. There
warn't no other sound but the scraping of the feet on
the floor and blowing noses -- because people always
blows them more at a funeral than they do at other
places except church.

When the place was packed full the undertaker he
slid around in his black gloves with his softy soother-
ing ways, putting on the last touches, and getting
people and things all ship-shape and comfortable, and
making no more sound than a cat. He never spoke;
he moved people around, he squeezed in late ones, he
opened up passageways, and done it with nods, and
signs with his hands. Then he took his place over
against the wall. He was the softest, glidingest,
stealthiest man I ever see; and there warn't no more
smile to him than there is to a ham.

They had borrowed a melodeum -- a sick one; and
when everything was ready a young woman set down
and worked it, and it was pretty skreeky and colicky,
and everybody joined in and sung, and Peter was the
only one that had a good thing, according to my
notion. Then the Reverend Hobson opened up, slow
and solemn, and begun to talk; and straight off the
most outrageous row busted out in the cellar a body
ever heard; it was only one dog, but he made a most
powerful racket, and he kept it up right along; the
parson he had to stand there, over the coffin, and wait
-- you couldn't hear yourself think. It was right
down awkward, and nobody didn't seem to know what
to do. But pretty soon they see that long-legged
undertaker make a sign to the preacher as much as to
say, "Don't you worry -- just depend on me." Then
he stooped down and begun to glide along the wall,
just his shoulders showing over the people's heads.
So he glided along, and the powwow and racket get-
ting more and more outrageous all the time; and at
last, when he had gone around two sides of the room,
he disappears down cellar. Then in about two seconds
we heard a whack, and the dog he finished up with a
most amazing howl or two, and then everything was
dead still, and the parson begun his solemn talk where
he left off. In a minute or two here comes this under-
taker's back and shoulders gliding along the wall
again; and so he glided and glided around three sides
of the room, and then rose up, and shaded his mouth
with his hands, and stretched his neck out towards the
preacher, over the people's heads, and says, in a kind
of a coarse whisper, "HE HAD A RAT!" Then he
drooped down and glided along the wall again to his
place. You could see it was a great satisfaction to the
people, because naturally they wanted to know. A
little thing like that don't cost nothing, and it's just the
little things that makes a man to be looked up to and
liked. There warn't no more popular man in town
than what that undertaker was.

Well, the funeral sermon was very good, but pison
long and tiresome; and then the king he shoved in and
got off some of his usual rubbage, and at last the job
was through, and the undertaker begun to sneak up on
the coffin with his screw-driver. I was in a sweat
then, and watched him pretty keen. But he never
meddled at all; just slid the lid along as soft as mush,
and screwed it down tight and fast. So there I was!
I didn't know whether the money was in there or not.
So, says I, s'pose somebody has hogged that bag on
the sly? -- now how do I know whether to write to
Mary Jane or not? S'pose she dug him up and didn't
find nothing, what would she think of me? Blame it,
I says, I might get hunted up and jailed; I'd better
lay low and keep dark, and not write at all; the thing's
awful mixed now; trying to better it, I've worsened it
a hundred times, and I wish to goodness I'd just let it
alone, dad fetch the whole business!

They buried him, and we come back home, and I
went to watching faces again -- I couldn't help it, and
I couldn't rest easy. But nothing come of it; the
faces didn't tell me nothing.                                

The king he visited around in the evening, and
sweetened everybody up, and made himself ever so
friendly; and he give out the idea that his congrega-
tion over in England would be in a sweat about him,
so he must hurry and settle up the estate right away
and leave for home. He was very sorry he was so
pushed, and so was everybody; they wished he could
stay longer, but they said they could see it couldn't be
done. And he said of course him and William would
take the girls home with them; and that pleased every-
body too, because then the girls would be well fixed and
amongst their own relations; and it pleased the girls,
too -- tickled them so they clean forgot they ever had
a trouble in the world; and told him to sell out as
quick as he wanted to, they would be ready. Them
poor things was that glad and happy it made my heart
ache to see them getting fooled and lied to so, but I
didn't see no safe way for me to chip in and change
the general tune.

Well, blamed if the king didn't bill the house and
the niggers and all the property for auction straight
off -- sale two days after the funeral; but anybody
could buy private beforehand if they wanted to.

So the next day after the funeral, along about noon-
time, the girls' joy got the first jolt. A couple of
nigger traders come along, and the king sold them the
niggers reasonable, for three-day drafts as they called
it, and away they went, the two sons up the river to
Memphis, and their mother down the river to Orleans.
I thought them poor girls and them niggers would
break their hearts for grief; they cried around each
other, and took on so it most made me down sick to
see it. The girls said they hadn't ever dreamed of
seeing the family separated or sold away from the
town. I can't ever get it out of my memory, the
sight of them poor miserable girls and niggers hanging
around each other's necks and crying; and I reckon I
couldn't a stood it all, but would a had to bust out
and tell on our gang if I hadn't knowed the sale warn't
no account and the niggers would be back home in a
week or two.

The thing made a big stir in the town, too, and a
good many come out flatfooted and said it was scandal-
ous to separate the mother and the children that way.
It injured the frauds some; but the old fool he bulled
right along, spite of all the duke could say or do, and
I tell you the duke was powerful uneasy.

Next day was auction day. About broad day in the
morning the king and the duke come up in the garret
and woke me up, and I see by their look that there
was trouble. The king says:

"Was you in my room night before last?"

"No, your majesty" -- which was the way I always
called him when nobody but our gang warn't around.

"Was you in there yisterday er last night?"

"No, your majesty."

"Honor bright, now -- no lies."

"Honor bright, your majesty, I'm telling you the
truth. I hain't been a-near your room since Miss Mary
Jane took you and the duke and showed it to you."

The duke says:

"Have you seen anybody else go in there?"

"No, your grace, not as I remember, I believe."

"Stop and think."

I studied awhile and see my chance; then I says:

"Well, I see the niggers go in there several times."

Both of them gave a little jump, and looked like
they hadn't ever expected it, and then like they HAD.
Then the duke says:

"What, all of them?"

"No -- leastways, not all at once -- that is, I don't
think I ever see them all come OUT at once but just one
time."

"Hello! When was that?"

"It was the day we had the funeral. In the morn-
ing. It warn't early, because I overslept. I was just
starting down the ladder, and I see them."

"Well, go on, GO on! What did they do? How'd
they act?"

"They didn't do nothing. And they didn't act
anyway much, as fur as I see. They tiptoed away;
so I seen, easy enough, that they'd shoved in there to
do up your majesty's room, or something, s'posing
you was up; and found you WARN'T up, and so they
was hoping to slide out of the way of trouble without
waking you up, if they hadn't already waked you up."

"Great guns, THIS is a go!" says the king; and
both of them looked pretty sick and tolerable silly.
They stood there a-thinking and scratching their heads
a minute, and the duke he bust into a kind of a little
raspy chuckle, and says:

"It does beat all how neat the niggers played their
hand. They let on to be SORRY they was going out of
this region! And I believed they WAS sorry, and so
did you, and so did everybody. Don't ever tell ME
any more that a nigger ain't got any histrionic talent.
Why, the way they played that thing it would fool
ANYBODY. In my opinion, there's a fortune in 'em. If
I had capital and a theater, I wouldn't want a better
lay-out than that -- and here we've gone and sold 'em
for a song. Yes, and ain't privileged to sing the song
yet. Say, where IS that song -- that draft?"

"In the bank for to be collected. Where WOULD it
be?"

"Well, THAT'S all right then, thank goodness."

Says I, kind of timid-like:

"Is something gone wrong?"

The king whirls on me and rips out:

"None o' your business! You keep your head
shet, and mind y'r own affairs -- if you got any.
Long as you're in this town don't you forgit THAT --
you hear?" Then he says to the duke, "We got to
jest swaller it and say noth'n': mum's the word for US."

As they was starting down the ladder the duke he
chuckles again, and says:

"Quick sales AND small profits! It's a good busi-
ness -- yes."

The king snarls around on him and says:

"I was trying to do for the best in sellin' 'em out
so quick. If the profits has turned out to be none,
lackin' considable, and none to carry, is it my fault
any more'n it's yourn?"

"Well, THEY'D be in this house yet and we WOULDN'T
if I could a got my advice listened to."

The king sassed back as much as was safe for him,
and then swapped around and lit into ME again. He
give me down the banks for not coming and TELLING
him I see the niggers come out of his room acting that
way -- said any fool would a KNOWED something was
up. And then waltzed in and cussed HIMSELF awhile,
and said it all come of him not laying late and taking
his natural rest that morning, and he'd be blamed if he'd
ever do it again. So they went off a-jawing; and I
felt dreadful glad I'd worked it all off on to the niggers,
and yet hadn't done the niggers no harm by it.
<--split-->
CHAPTER XXVIII.

BY and by it was getting-up time. So I come down
the ladder and started for down-stairs; but as I
come to the girls' room the door was open, and I see
Mary Jane setting by her old hair trunk, which was
open and she'd been packing things in it -- getting
ready to go to England. But she had stopped now
with a folded gown in her lap, and had her face in her
hands, crying. I felt awful bad to see it; of course
anybody would. I went in there and says:

"Miss Mary Jane, you can't a-bear to see people
in trouble, and I can't -- most always. Tell me
about it."

So she done it. And it was the niggers -- I just
expected it. She said the beautiful trip to England
was most about spoiled for her; she didn't know HOW
she was ever going to be happy there, knowing the
mother and the children warn't ever going to see
each other no more -- and then busted out bitterer
than ever, and flung up her hands, and says:

"Oh, dear, dear, to think they ain't EVER going to
see each other any more!"

"But they WILL -- and inside of two weeks -- and I
KNOW it!" says I.

Laws, it was out before I could think! And before
I could budge she throws her arms around my neck
and told me to say it AGAIN, say it AGAIN, say it AGAIN!

I see I had spoke too sudden and said too much,
and was in a close place. I asked her to let me think
a minute; and she set there, very impatient and ex-
cited and handsome, but looking kind of happy and
eased-up, like a person that's had a tooth pulled out.
So I went to studying it out. I says to myself, I
reckon a body that ups and tells the truth when he is
in a tight place is taking considerable many resks,
though I ain't had no experience, and can't say for
certain; but it looks so to me, anyway; and yet here's
a case where I'm blest if it don't look to me like the
truth is better and actuly SAFER than a lie. I must lay
it by in my mind, and think it over some time or
other, it's so kind of strange and unregular. I never
see nothing like it. Well, I says to myself at last,
I'm a-going to chance it; I'll up and tell the truth this
time, though it does seem most like setting down on a
kag of powder and touching it off just to see where
you'll go to. Then I says:

"Miss Mary Jane, is there any place out of town a
little ways where you could go and stay three or four
days?"

"Yes; Mr. Lothrop's. Why?"

"Never mind why yet. If I'll tell you how I know
the niggers will see each other again inside of two
weeks -- here in this house -- and PROVE how I know
it -- will you go to Mr. Lothrop's and stay four days?"

"Four days!" she says; "I'll stay a year!"

"All right," I says, "I don't want nothing more
out of YOU than just your word -- I druther have it than
another man's kiss-the-Bible." She smiled and red-
dened up very sweet, and I says, "If you don't mind
it, I'll shut the door -- and bolt it."

Then I come back and set down again, and says:

"Don't you holler. Just set still and take it like a
man. I got to tell the truth, and you want to brace
up, Miss Mary, because it's a bad kind, and going to
be hard to take, but there ain't no help for it. These
uncles of yourn ain't no uncles at all; they're a couple
of frauds -- regular dead-beats. There, now we're
over the worst of it, you can stand the rest middling
easy."

It jolted her up like everything, of course; but I
was over the shoal water now, so I went right along,
her eyes a-blazing higher and higher all the time, and
told her every blame thing, from where we first struck
that young fool going up to the steamboat, clear
through to where she flung herself on to the king's
breast at the front door and he kissed her sixteen or
seventeen times -- and then up she jumps, with her
face afire like sunset, and says:

"The brute! Come, don't waste a minute -- not a
SECOND -- we'll have them tarred and feathered, and
flung in the river!"

Says I:

"Cert'nly. But do you mean BEFORE you go to Mr.
Lothrop's, or --"

"Oh," she says, "what am I THINKING about!"
she says, and set right down again. "Don't mind
what I said -- please don't -- you WON'T, now, WILL
you?" Laying her silky hand on mine in that kind
of a way that I said I would die first. "I never
thought, I was so stirred up," she says; "now go on,
and I won't do so any more. You tell me what to do,
and whatever you say I'll do it."

"Well," I says, "it's a rough gang, them two
frauds, and I'm fixed so I got to travel with them a
while longer, whether I want to or not -- I druther not
tell you why; and if you was to blow on them this
town would get me out of their claws, and I'd be all
right; but there'd be another person that you don't
know about who'd be in big trouble. Well, we got
to save HIM, hain't we? Of course. Well, then, we
won't blow on them."

Saying them words put a good idea in my head. I
see how maybe I could get me and Jim rid of the
frauds; get them jailed here, and then leave. But I
didn't want to run the raft in the daytime without any-
body aboard to answer questions but me; so I didn't
want the plan to begin working till pretty late to-night.
I says:

"Miss Mary Jane, I'll tell you what we'll do, and
you won't have to stay at Mr. Lothrop's so long,
nuther. How fur is it?"

"A little short of four miles -- right out in the
country, back here."

"Well, that 'll answer. Now you go along out there,
and lay low till nine or half-past to-night, and then get
them to fetch you home again -- tell them you've
thought of something. If you get here before eleven
put a candle in this window, and if I don't turn up
wait TILL eleven, and THEN if I don't turn up it means
I'm gone, and out of the way, and safe. Then you
come out and spread the news around, and get these
beats jailed."

"Good," she says, "I'll do it."

"And if it just happens so that I don't get away,
but get took up along with them, you must up and say
I told you the whole thing beforehand, and you must
stand by me all you can."

"Stand by you! indeed I will. They sha'n't touch
a hair of your head!" she says, and I see her nostrils
spread and her eyes snap when she said it, too.

"If I get away I sha'n't be here," I says, "to
prove these rapscallions ain't your uncles, and I
couldn't do it if I WAS here. I could swear they was
beats and bummers, that's all, though that's worth
something. Well, there's others can do that better than
what I can, and they're people that ain't going to be
doubted as quick as I'd be. I'll tell you how to find
them. Gimme a pencil and a piece of paper. There
-- 'Royal Nonesuch, Bricksville.' Put it away, and
don't lose it. When the court wants to find out some-
thing about these two, let them send up to Bricksville
and say they've got the men that played the Royal
Nonesuch, and ask for some witnesses -- why, you'll
have that entire town down here before you can hardly
wink, Miss Mary. And they'll come a-biling, too."

I judged we had got everything fixed about right
now. So I says:

"Just let the auction go right along, and don't
worry. Nobody don't have to pay for the things they
buy till a whole day after the auction on accounts of
the short notice, and they ain't going out of this till
they get that money; and the way we've fixed it the
sale ain't going to count, and they ain't going to get
no money. It's just like the way it was with the
niggers -- it warn't no sale, and the niggers will be
back before long. Why, they can't collect the money
for the NIGGERS yet -- they're in the worst kind of a
fix, Miss Mary."

"Well," she says, "I'll run down to breakfast now,
and then I'll start straight for Mr. Lothrop's."

"'Deed, THAT ain't the ticket, Miss Mary Jane," I
says, "by no manner of means; go BEFORE breakfast."

"Why?"

"What did you reckon I wanted you to go at all
for, Miss Mary?"

"Well, I never thought -- and come to think, I
don't know. What was it?"

"Why, it's because you ain't one of these leather-
face people. I don't want no better book than what
your face is. A body can set down and read it off
like coarse print. Do you reckon you can go and
face your uncles when they come to kiss you good-
morning, and never --"

"There, there, don't! Yes, I'll go before break-
fast -- I'll be glad to. And leave my sisters with
them?"

"Yes; never mind about them. They've got to
stand it yet a while. They might suspicion something
if all of you was to go. I don't want you to see them,
nor your sisters, nor nobody in this town; if a neigh-
bor was to ask how is your uncles this morning your
face would tell something. No, you go right along,
Miss Mary Jane, and I'll fix it with all of them. I'll
tell Miss Susan to give your love to your uncles and
say you've went away for a few hours for to get a
little rest and change, or to see a friend, and you'll be
back to-night or early in the morning."

"Gone to see a friend is all right, but I won't have
my love given to them."

"Well, then, it sha'n't be." It was well enough to
tell HER so -- no harm in it. It was only a little thing
to do, and no trouble; and it's the little things that
smooths people's roads the most, down here below; it
would make Mary Jane comfortable, and it wouldn't
cost nothing. Then I says: "There's one more thing
-- that bag of money."

"Well, they've got that; and it makes me feel
pretty silly to think HOW they got it."

"No, you're out, there. They hain't got it."

"Why, who's got it?"

"I wish I knowed, but I don't. I HAD it, because I
stole it from them; and I stole it to give to you; and
I know where I hid it, but I'm afraid it ain't there no
more. I'm awful sorry, Miss Mary Jane, I'm just as
sorry as I can be; but I done the best I could; I did
honest. I come nigh getting caught, and I had to
shove it into the first place I come to, and run -- and
it warn't a good place."

"Oh, stop blaming yourself -- it's too bad to do it,
and I won't allow it -- you couldn't help it; it wasn't
your fault. Where did you hide it?"

I didn't want to set her to thinking about her
troubles again; and I couldn't seem to get my mouth
to tell her what would make her see that corpse laying
in the coffin with that bag of money on his stomach.
So for a minute I didn't say nothing; then I says:

"I'd ruther not TELL you where I put it, Miss Mary
Jane, if you don't mind letting me off; but I'll write it
for you on a piece of paper, and you can read it along
the road to Mr. Lothrop's, if you want to. Do you
reckon that 'll do?"

"Oh, yes."

So I wrote: "I put it in the coffin. It was in
there when you was crying there, away in the night.
I was behind the door, and I was mighty sorry for
you, Miss Mary Jane."

It made my eyes water a little to remember her cry-
ing there all by herself in the night, and them devils
laying there right under her own roof, shaming her
and robbing her; and when I folded it up and give it
to her I see the water come into her eyes, too; and
she shook me by the hand, hard, and says:

"GOOD-bye. I'm going to do everything just as
you've told me; and if I don't ever see you again, I
sha'n't ever forget you. and I'll think of you a many
and a many a time, and I'll PRAY for you, too!" -- and
she was gone.

Pray for me! I reckoned if she knowed me she'd
take a job that was more nearer her size. But I bet
she done it, just the same -- she was just that kind.
She had the grit to pray for Judus if she took the
notion -- there warn't no back-down to her, I judge.
You may say what you want to, but in my opinion
she had more sand in her than any girl I ever see; in
my opinion she was just full of sand. It sounds like
flattery, but it ain't no flattery. And when it comes
to beauty -- and goodness, too -- she lays over them
all. I hain't ever seen her since that time that I see
her go out of that door; no, I hain't ever seen her
since, but I reckon I've thought of her a many and a
many a million times, and of her saying she would
pray for me; and if ever I'd a thought it would do
any good for me to pray for HER, blamed if I wouldn't
a done it or bust.

Well, Mary Jane she lit out the back way, I reckon;
because nobody see her go. When I struck Susan
and the hare-lip, I says:

"What's the name of them people over on t'other
side of the river that you all goes to see sometimes?"

They says:

"There's several; but it's the Proctors, mainly."

"That's the name," I says; "I most forgot it.
Well, Miss Mary Jane she told me to tell you she's
gone over there in a dreadful hurry -- one of them's
sick."

"Which one?"

"I don't know; leastways, I kinder forget; but I
thinks it's --"

"Sakes alive, I hope it ain't HANNER?"

"I'm sorry to say it," I says, "but Hanner's the
very one."

"My goodness, and she so well only last week! Is
she took bad?"

"It ain't no name for it. They set up with her all
night, Miss Mary Jane said, and they don't think she'll
last many hours."

"Only think of that, now! What's the matter with
her?"

I couldn't think of anything reasonable, right off
that way, so I says:

"Mumps."

"Mumps your granny! They don't set up with
people that's got the mumps."

"They don't, don't they? You better bet they do
with THESE mumps. These mumps is different. It's a
new kind, Miss Mary Jane said."

"How's it a new kind?"

"Because it's mixed up with other things."

"What other things?"

"Well, measles, and whooping-cough, and erysiplas,
and consumption, and yaller janders, and brain-fever,
and I don't know what all."

"My land! And they call it the MUMPS?"

"That's what Miss Mary Jane said."

"Well, what in the nation do they call it the MUMPS
for?"

"Why, because it IS the mumps. That's what it
starts with."

"Well, ther' ain't no sense in it. A body might
stump his toe, and take pison, and fall down the well,
and break his neck, and bust his brains out, and some-
body come along and ask what killed him, and some
numskull up and say, 'Why, he stumped his TOE.'
Would ther' be any sense in that? NO. And ther'
ain't no sense in THIS, nuther. Is it ketching?"

"Is it KETCHING? Why, how you talk. Is a HARROW
catching -- in the dark? If you don't hitch on to one
tooth, you're bound to on another, ain't you? And
you can't get away with that tooth without fetching
the whole harrow along, can you? Well, these kind
of mumps is a kind of a harrow, as you may say -- and
it ain't no slouch of a harrow, nuther, you come to
get it hitched on good."

"Well, it's awful, I think," says the hare-lip.
"I'll go to Uncle Harvey and --"

"Oh, yes," I says, "I WOULD. Of COURSE I would.
I wouldn't lose no time."

"Well, why wouldn't you?"

"Just look at it a minute, and maybe you can see.
Hain't your uncles obleegd to get along home to Eng-
land as fast as they can? And do you reckon they'd
be mean enough to go off and leave you to go all that
journey by yourselves? YOU know they'll wait for
you. So fur, so good. Your uncle Harvey's a
preacher, ain't he? Very well, then; is a PREACHER
going to deceive a steamboat clerk? is he going to
deceive a SHIP CLERK? -- so as to get them to let Miss
Mary Jane go aboard? Now YOU know he ain't.
What WILL he do, then? Why, he'll say, 'It's a great
pity, but my church matters has got to get along the
best way they can; for my niece has been exposed to
the dreadful pluribus-unum mumps, and so it's my
bounden duty to set down here and wait the three
months it takes to show on her if she's got it.' But
never mind, if you think it's best to tell your uncle
Harvey --"

"Shucks, and stay fooling around here when we
could all be having good times in England whilst we
was waiting to find out whether Mary Jane's got it or
not? Why, you talk like a muggins."

"Well, anyway, maybe you'd better tell some of
the neighbors."

"Listen at that, now. You do beat all for natural
stupidness. Can't you SEE that THEY'D go and tell?
Ther' ain't no way but just to not tell anybody at ALL."

"Well, maybe you're right -- yes, I judge you ARE
right."

"But I reckon we ought to tell Uncle Harvey she's
gone out a while, anyway, so he won't be uneasy
about her?"

"Yes, Miss Mary Jane she wanted you to do that.
She says, 'Tell them to give Uncle Harvey and
William my love and a kiss, and say I've run over the
river to see Mr.' -- Mr. -- what IS the name of that
rich family your uncle Peter used to think so much
of? -- I mean the one that --"

"Why, you must mean the Apthorps, ain't it?"

"Of course; bother them kind of names, a body
can't ever seem to remember them, half the time,
somehow. Yes, she said, say she has run over for to
ask the Apthorps to be sure and come to the auction
and buy this house, because she allowed her uncle
Peter would ruther they had it than anybody else;
and she's going to stick to them till they say they'll
come, and then, if she ain't too tired, she's coming
home; and if she is, she'll be home in the morning
anyway. She said, don't say nothing about the Proc-
tors, but only about the Apthorps -- which 'll be per-
fectly true, because she is going there to speak about
their buying the house; I know it, because she told
me so herself."

"All right," they said, and cleared out to lay for
their uncles, and give them the love and the kisses,
and tell them the message.

Everything was all right now. The girls wouldn't
say nothing because they wanted to go to England;
and the king and the duke would ruther Mary Jane was
off working for the auction than around in reach of
Doctor Robinson. I felt very good; I judged I had
done it pretty neat -- I reckoned Tom Sawyer couldn't
a done it no neater himself. Of course he would a
throwed more style into it, but I can't do that very
handy, not being brung up to it.

Well, they held the auction in the public square,
along towards the end of the afternoon, and it strung
along, and strung along, and the old man he was on
hand and looking his level pisonest, up there longside
of the auctioneer, and chipping in a little Scripture
now and then, or a little goody-goody saying of some
kind, and the duke he was around goo-gooing for sym-
pathy all he knowed how, and just spreading himself
generly.

But by and by the thing dragged through, and
everything was sold -- everything but a little old trifling
lot in the graveyard. So they'd got to work that off
-- I never see such a girafft as the king was for want-
ing to swallow EVERYTHING. Well, whilst they was at it
a steamboat landed, and in about two minutes up
comes a crowd a-whooping and yelling and laughing
and carrying on, and singing out:

"HERE'S your opposition line! here's your two sets
o' heirs to old Peter Wilks -- and you pays your
money and you takes your choice!"
<--split-->
CHAPTER XXIX.

THEY was fetching a very nice-looking old gentle-
man along, and a nice-looking younger one, with
his right arm in a sling. And, my souls, how the
people yelled and laughed, and kept it up. But I didn't
see no joke about it, and I judged it would strain the
duke and the king some to see any. I reckoned
they'd turn pale. But no, nary a pale did THEY turn.
The duke he never let on he suspicioned what was
up, but just went a goo-gooing around, happy and
satisfied, like a jug that's googling out buttermilk;
and as for the king, he just gazed and gazed down
sorrowful on them new-comers like it give him the
stomach-ache in his very heart to think there could be
such frauds and rascals in the world. Oh, he done it
admirable. Lots of the principal people gethered
around the king, to let him see they was on his side.
That old gentleman that had just come looked all puz-
zled to death. Pretty soon he begun to speak, and I
see straight off he pronounced LIKE an Englishman --
not the king's way, though the king's WAS pretty good
for an imitation. I can't give the old gent's words,
nor I can't imitate him; but he turned around to the
crowd, and says, about like this:

"This is a surprise to me which I wasn't looking
for; and I'll acknowledge, candid and frank, I ain't
very well fixed to meet it and answer it; for my
brother and me has had misfortunes; he's broke his
arm, and our baggage got put off at a town above here
last night in the night by a mistake. I am Peter
Wilks' brother Harvey, and this is his brother William,
which can't hear nor speak -- and can't even make
signs to amount to much, now't he's only got one
hand to work them with. We are who we say we are;
and in a day or two, when I get the baggage, I can
prove it. But up till then I won't say nothing more,
but go to the hotel and wait."

So him and the new dummy started off; and the king
he laughs, and blethers out:

"Broke his arm -- VERY likely, AIN'T it? -- and very
convenient, too, for a fraud that's got to make signs,
and ain't learnt how. Lost their baggage! That's
MIGHTY good! -- and mighty ingenious -- under the
CIRCUMSTANCES!

So he laughed again; and so did everybody else,
except three or four, or maybe half a dozen. One of
these was that doctor; another one was a sharp-
looking gentleman, with a carpet-bag of the old-
fashioned kind made out of carpet-stuff, that had just
come off of the steamboat and was talking to him in a
low voice, and glancing towards the king now and then
and nodding their heads -- it was Levi Bell, the lawyer
that was gone up to Louisville; and another one was
a big rough husky that come along and listened to
all the old gentleman said, and was listening to the
king now. And when the king got done this husky
up and says:

"Say, looky here; if you are Harvey Wilks, when'd
you come to this town?"

"The day before the funeral, friend," says the king.

"But what time o' day?"

"In the evenin' -- 'bout an hour er two before sun-
down."

"HOW'D you come?"

"I come down on the Susan Powell from Cincin-
nati."

"Well, then, how'd you come to be up at the Pint
in the MORNIN' -- in a canoe?"

"I warn't up at the Pint in the mornin'."

"It's a lie."

Several of them jumped for him and begged him not
to talk that way to an old man and a preacher.

"Preacher be hanged, he's a fraud and a liar. He
was up at the Pint that mornin'. I live up there, don't
I? Well, I was up there, and he was up there. I see
him there. He come in a canoe, along with Tim
Collins and a boy."

The doctor he up and says:

"Would you know the boy again if you was to see
him, Hines?"

"I reckon I would, but I don't know. Why,
yonder he is, now. I know him perfectly easy."

It was me he pointed at. The doctor says:

"Neighbors, I don't know whether the new couple
is frauds or not; but if THESE two ain't frauds, I am an
idiot, that's all. I think it's our duty to see that they
don't get away from here till we've looked into this
thing. Come along, Hines; come along, the rest of
you. We'll take these fellows to the tavern and
affront them with t'other couple, and I reckon we'll
find out SOMETHING before we get through."

It was nuts for the crowd, though maybe not for
the king's friends; so we all started. It was about
sundown. The doctor he led me along by the hand,
and was plenty kind enough, but he never let go my
hand.

We all got in a big room in the hotel, and lit up
some candles, and fetched in the new couple. First,
the doctor says:

"I don't wish to be too hard on these two men, but
I think they're frauds, and they may have complices
that we don't know nothing about. If they have,
won't the complices get away with that bag of gold
Peter Wilks left? It ain't unlikely. If these men
ain't frauds, they won't object to sending for that
money and letting us keep it till they prove they're
all right -- ain't that so?"

Everybody agreed to that. So I judged they had
our gang in a pretty tight place right at the outstart.
But the king he only looked sorrowful, and says:

"Gentlemen, I wish the money was there, for I
ain't got no disposition to throw anything in the way
of a fair, open, out-and-out investigation o' this
misable business; but, alas, the money ain't there;
you k'n send and see, if you want to."

"Where is it, then?"

"Well, when my niece give it to me to keep for her
I took and hid it inside o' the straw tick o' my bed,
not wishin' to bank it for the few days we'd be here,
and considerin' the bed a safe place, we not bein' used
to niggers, and suppos'n' 'em honest, like servants in
England. The niggers stole it the very next mornin'
after I had went down stairs; and when I sold 'em I
hadn't missed the money yit, so they got clean away
with it. My servant here k'n tell you 'bout it, gentle-
men."

The doctor and several said "Shucks!" and I see
nobody didn't altogether believe him. One man asked
me if I see the niggers steal it. I said no, but I see
them sneaking out of the room and hustling away, and
I never thought nothing, only I reckoned they was
afraid they had waked up my master and was trying to
get away before he made trouble with them. That
was all they asked me. Then the doctor whirls on me
and says:

"Are YOU English, too?"

I says yes; and him and some others laughed, and
said, "Stuff!"

Well, then they sailed in on the general investiga-
tion, and there we had it, up and down, hour in, hour
out, and nobody never said a word about supper, nor
ever seemed to think about it -- and so they kept it
up, and kept it up; and it WAS the worst mixed-up
thing you ever see. They made the king tell his yarn,
and they made the old gentleman tell his'n; and any-
body but a lot of prejudiced chuckleheads would a SEEN
that the old gentleman was spinning truth and t'other
one lies. And by and by they had me up to tell what
I knowed. The king he give me a left-handed look
out of the corner of his eye, and so I knowed enough
to talk on the right side. I begun to tell about
Sheffield, and how we lived there, and all about the
English Wilkses, and so on; but I didn't get pretty
fur till the doctor begun to laugh; and Levi Bell, the
lawyer, says:

"Set down, my boy; I wouldn't strain myself if I
was you. I reckon you ain't used to lying, it don't
seem to come handy; what you want is practice. You
do it pretty awkward."

I didn't care nothing for the compliment, but I was
glad to be let off, anyway.

The doctor he started to say something, and turns
and says:

"If you'd been in town at first, Levi Bell --
"
The king broke in and reached out his hand, and
says:

"Why, is this my poor dead brother's old friend
that he's wrote so often about?"

The lawyer and him shook hands, and the lawyer
smiled and looked pleased, and they talked right along
awhile, and then got to one side and talked low; and
at last the lawyer speaks up and says:

"That 'll fix it. I'll take the order and send it,
along with your brother's, and then they'll know it's
all right."

So they got some paper and a pen, and the king he
set down and twisted his head to one side, and chawed
his tongue, and scrawled off something; and then they
give the pen to the duke -- and then for the first time
the duke looked sick. But he took the pen and wrote.
So then the lawyer turns to the new old gentleman and
says:

"You and your brother please write a line or two
and sign your names."

The old gentleman wrote, but nobody couldn't read
it. The lawyer looked powerful astonished, and says:

"Well, it beats ME -- and snaked a lot of old letters
out of his pocket, and examined them, and then ex-
amined the old man's writing, and then THEM again;
and then says: "These old letters is from Harvey
Wilks; and here's THESE two handwritings, and any-
body can see they didn't write them" (the king and
the duke looked sold and foolish, I tell you, to see
how the lawyer had took them in), "and here's THIS old
gentleman's hand writing, and anybody can tell, easy
enough, HE didn't write them -- fact is, the scratches
he makes ain't properly WRITING at all. Now, here's
some letters from --"

The new old gentleman says:

"If you please, let me explain. Nobody can read
my hand but my brother there -- so he copies for me.
It's HIS hand you've got there, not mine."

"WELL!" says the lawyer, "this IS a state of
things. I've got some of William's letters, too; so if
you'll get him to write a line or so we can com --"

"He CAN'T write with his left hand," says the old
gentleman. "If he could use his right hand, you
would see that he wrote his own letters and mine
too. Look at both, please -- they're by the same
hand."

The lawyer done it, and says:

"I believe it's so -- and if it ain't so, there's a heap
stronger resemblance than I'd noticed before, anyway.
Well, well, well! I thought we was right on the track
of a slution, but it's gone to grass, partly. But any-
way, one thing is proved -- THESE two ain't either of
'em Wilkses" -- and he wagged his head towards the
king and the duke.

Well, what do you think? That muleheaded old
fool wouldn't give in THEN! Indeed he wouldn't.
Said it warn't no fair test. Said his brother William
was the cussedest joker in the world, and hadn't tried
to write -- HE see William was going to play one of his
jokes the minute he put the pen to paper. And so he
warmed up and went warbling right along till he was
actuly beginning to believe what he was saying HIM-
SELF; but pretty soon the new gentleman broke in, and
says:

"I've thought of something. Is there anybody
here that helped to lay out my br -- helped to lay out
the late Peter Wilks for burying?"

"Yes," says somebody, "me and Ab Turner done
it. We're both here."

Then the old man turns towards the king, and
says:

"Peraps this gentleman can tell me what was
tattooed on his breast?"

Blamed if the king didn't have to brace up mighty
quick, or he'd a squshed down like a bluff bank that
the river has cut under, it took him so sudden; and,
mind you, it was a thing that was calculated to make
most ANYBODY sqush to get fetched such a solid one as
that without any notice, because how was HE going to
know what was tattooed on the man? He whitened a
little; he couldn't help it; and it was mighty still in
there, and everybody bending a little forwards and
gazing at him. Says I to myself, NOW he'll throw up
the sponge -- there ain't no more use. Well, did he?
A body can't hardly believe it, but he didn't. I
reckon he thought he'd keep the thing up till he tired
them people out, so they'd thin out, and him and the
duke could break loose and get away. Anyway, he
set there, and pretty soon he begun to smile, and says:

"Mf! It's a VERY tough question, AIN'T it! YES,
sir, I k'n tell you what's tattooed on his breast. It's
jest a small, thin, blue arrow -- that's what it is; and
if you don't look clost, you can't see it. NOW what
do you say -- hey?"

Well, I never see anything like that old blister for
clean out-and-out cheek.

The new old gentleman turns brisk towards Ab
Turner and his pard, and his eye lights up like he
judged he'd got the king THIS time, and says:

"There -- you've heard what he said! Was there
any such mark on Peter Wilks' breast?"

Both of them spoke up and says:

"We didn't see no such mark."

"Good!" says the old gentleman. "Now, what
you DID see on his breast was a small dim P, and a B
(which is an initial he dropped when he was young),
and a W, with dashes between them, so: P -- B --
W" -- and he marked them that way on a piece of
paper. "Come, ain't that what you saw?"

Both of them spoke up again, and says:

"No, we DIDN'T. We never seen any marks at all."

Well, everybody WAS in a state of mind now, and
they sings out:

"The whole BILIN' of 'm 's frauds! Le's duck
'em! le's drown 'em! le's ride 'em on a rail!" and
everybody was whooping at once, and there was a rat-
tling powwow. But the lawyer he jumps on the table
and yells, and says:

"Gentlemen -- gentleMEN! Hear me just a word --
just a SINGLE word -- if you PLEASE! There's one way
yet -- let's go and dig up the corpse and look."

That took them.

"Hooray!" they all shouted, and was starting right
off; but the lawyer and the doctor sung out:

"Hold on, hold on! Collar all these four men and
the boy, and fetch THEM along, too!"

"We'll do it!" they all shouted; "and if we don't
find them marks we'll lynch the whole gang!"

I WAS scared, now, I tell you. But there warn't no
getting away, you know. They gripped us all, and
marched us right along, straight for the graveyard,
which was a mile and a half down the river, and the
whole town at our heels, for we made noise enough,
and it was only nine in the evening.

As we went by our house I wished I hadn't sent
Mary Jane out of town; because now if I could tip her
the wink she'd light out and save me, and blow on our
dead-beats.

Well, we swarmed along down the river road, just
carrying on like wildcats; and to make it more scary
the sky was darking up, and the lightning beginning to
wink and flitter, and the wind to shiver amongst the
leaves. This was the most awful trouble and most
dangersome I ever was in; and I was kinder stunned;
everything was going so different from what I had
allowed for; stead of being fixed so I could take my
own time if I wanted to, and see all the fun, and have
Mary Jane at my back to save me and set me free
when the close-fit come, here was nothing in the
world betwixt me and sudden death but just them
tattoo-marks. If they didn't find them --

I couldn't bear to think about it; and yet, some-
how, I couldn't think about nothing else. It got
darker and darker, and it was a beautiful time to give
the crowd the slip; but that big husky had me by the
wrist -- Hines -- and a body might as well try to give
Goliar the slip. He dragged me right along, he was so
excited, and I had to run to keep up.

When they got there they swarmed into the grave-
yard and washed over it like an overflow. And when
they got to the grave they found they had about a
hundred times as many shovels as they wanted, but
nobody hadn't thought to fetch a lantern. But they
sailed into digging anyway by the flicker of the light-
ning, and sent a man to the nearest house, a half a
mile off, to borrow one.

So they dug and dug like everything; and it got
awful dark, and the rain started, and the wind swished
and swushed along, and the lightning come brisker and
brisker, and the thunder boomed; but them people
never took no notice of it, they was so full of this
business; and one minute you could see everything
and every face in that big crowd, and the shovelfuls of
dirt sailing up out of the grave, and the next second
the dark wiped it all out, and you couldn't see nothing
at all.

At last they got out the coffin and begun to unscrew
the lid, and then such another crowding and shoulder-
ing and shoving as there was, to scrouge in and get a
sight, you never see; and in the dark, that way, it was
awful. Hines he hurt my wrist dreadful pulling and
tugging so, and I reckon he clean forgot I was in the
world, he was so excited and panting.

All of a sudden the lightning let go a perfect sluice
of white glare, and somebody sings out:

"By the living jingo, here's the bag of gold on his
breast!"

Hines let out a whoop, like everybody else, and
dropped my wrist and give a big surge to bust his way
in and get a look, and the way I lit out and shinned
for the road in the dark there ain't nobody can tell.

I had the road all to myself, and I fairly flew --
leastways, I had it all to myself except the solid dark,
and the now-and-then glares, and the buzzing of the
rain, and the thrashing of the wind, and the splitting
of the thunder; and sure as you are born I did clip it
along!

When I struck the town I see there warn't nobody
out in the storm, so I never hunted for no back streets,
but humped it straight through the main one; and
when I begun to get towards our house I aimed my
eye and set it. No light there; the house all dark --
which made me feel sorry and disappointed, I didn't
know why. But at last, just as I was sailing by, FLASH
comes the light in Mary Jane's window! and my heart
swelled up sudden, like to bust; and the same second
the house and all was behind me in the dark, and
wasn't ever going to be before me no more in this
world. She WAS the best girl I ever see, and had the
most sand.

The minute I was far enough above the town to see
I could make the towhead, I begun to look sharp for
a boat to borrow, and the first time the lightning
showed me one that wasn't chained I snatched it and
shoved. It was a canoe, and warn't fastened with
nothing but a rope. The towhead was a rattling big
distance off, away out there in the middle of the river,
but I didn't lose no time; and when I struck the raft
at last I was so fagged I would a just laid down to
blow and gasp if I could afforded it. But I didn't.
As I sprung aboard I sung out:

"Out with you, Jim, and set her loose! Glory be
to goodness, we're shut of them!"

Jim lit out, and was a-coming for me with both arms
spread, he was so full of joy; but when I glimpsed
him in the lightning my heart shot up in my mouth
and I went overboard backwards; for I forgot he was
old King Lear and a drownded A-rab all in one, and it
most scared the livers and lights out of me. But Jim
fished me out, and was going to hug me and bless me,
and so on, he was so glad I was back and we was shut
of the king and the duke, but I says:

"Not now; have it for breakfast, have it for break-
fast! Cut loose and let her slide!"

So in two seconds away we went a-sliding down the
river, and it DID seem so good to be free again and all
by ourselves on the big river, and nobody to bother
us. I had to skip around a bit, and jump up and
crack my heels a few times -- I couldn't help it; but
about the third crack I noticed a sound that I knowed
mighty well, and held my breath and listened and
waited; and sure enough, when the next flash busted
out over the water, here they come! -- and just a-
laying to their oars and making their skiff hum! It
was the king and the duke.

So I wilted right down on to the planks then, and
give up; and it was all I could do to keep from crying.
<--split-->
CHAPTER XXX.

WHEN they got aboard the king went for me, and
shook me by the collar, and says:

"Tryin' to give us the slip, was ye, you pup!
Tired of our company, hey?"

I says:

"No, your majesty, we warn't -- PLEASE don't, your
majesty!"

"Quick, then, and tell us what WAS your idea, or
I'll shake the insides out o' you!"

"Honest, I'll tell you everything just as it hap-
pened, your majesty. The man that had a-holt of me
was very good to me, and kept saying he had a boy
about as big as me that died last year, and he was
sorry to see a boy in such a dangerous fix; and when
they was all took by surprise by finding the gold, and
made a rush for the coffin, he lets go of me and whis-
pers, 'Heel it now, or they'll hang ye, sure!' and I
lit out. It didn't seem no good for ME to stay -- I
couldn't do nothing, and I didn't want to be hung if
I could get away. So I never stopped running till I
found the canoe; and when I got here I told Jim to
hurry, or they'd catch me and hang me yet, and said I
was afeard you and the duke wasn't alive now, and
I was awful sorry, and so was Jim, and was awful glad
when we see you coming; you may ask Jim if I
didn't."

Jim said it was so; and the king told him to shut
up, and said, "Oh, yes, it's MIGHTY likely!" and
shook me up again, and said he reckoned he'd drownd
me. But the duke says:

"Leggo the boy, you old idiot! Would YOU a done
any different? Did you inquire around for HIM when
you got loose? I don't remember it."

So the king let go of me, and begun to cuss that
town and everybody in it. But the duke says:

"You better a blame' sight give YOURSELF a good
cussing, for you're the one that's entitled to it most.
You hain't done a thing from the start that had any
sense in it, except coming out so cool and cheeky with
that imaginary blue-arrow mark. That WAS bright --
it was right down bully; and it was the thing that
saved us. For if it hadn't been for that they'd a jailed
us till them Englishmen's baggage come -- and then --
the penitentiary, you bet! But that trick took 'em to
the graveyard, and the gold done us a still bigger
kindness; for if the excited fools hadn't let go all
holts and made that rush to get a look we'd a slept in
our cravats to-night -- cravats warranted to WEAR, too
-- longer than WE'D need 'em."

They was still a minute -- thinking; then the king
says, kind of absent-minded like:

"Mf! And we reckoned the NIGGERS stole it!"

That made me squirm!

"Yes," says the duke, kinder slow and deliberate
and sarcastic, "WE did."

After about a half a minute the king drawls out:

"Leastways, I did."

The duke says, the same way:

"On the contrary, I did."

The king kind of ruffles up, and says:

"Looky here, Bilgewater, what'r you referrin' to?"

The duke says, pretty brisk:

"When it comes to that, maybe you'll let me ask,
what was YOU referring to?"

"Shucks!" says the king, very sarcastic; "but I
don't know -- maybe you was asleep, and didn't know
what you was about."

The duke bristles up now, and says:

"Oh, let UP on this cussed nonsense; do you take
me for a blame' fool? Don't you reckon I know who
hid that money in that coffin?"

"YES, sir! I know you DO know, because you done
it yourself!"

"It's a lie!" -- and the duke went for him. The
king sings out:

"Take y'r hands off! -- leggo my throat! -- I take it
all back!"

The duke says:

"Well, you just own up, first, that you DID hide
that money there, intending to give me the slip one of
these days, and come back and dig it up, and have it
all to yourself."

"Wait jest a minute, duke -- answer me this one
question, honest and fair; if you didn't put the money
there, say it, and I'll b'lieve you, and take back every-
thing I said."

"You old scoundrel, I didn't, and you know I
didn't. There, now!"

"Well, then, I b'lieve you. But answer me only
jest this one more -- now DON'T git mad; didn't you
have it in your mind to hook the money and hide it?"

The duke never said nothing for a little bit; then he
says:

"Well, I don't care if I DID, I didn't DO it, anyway.
But you not only had it in mind to do it, but you
DONE it."

"I wisht I never die if I done it, duke, and that's
honest. I won't say I warn't goin' to do it, because I
WAS; but you -- I mean somebody -- got in ahead o'
me."

"It's a lie! You done it, and you got to SAY you
done it, or --"

The king began to gurgle, and then he gasps out:

"'Nough! -- I OWN UP!"

I was very glad to hear him say that; it made me
feel much more easier than what I was feeling before.
So the duke took his hands off and says:

"If you ever deny it again I'll drown you. It's
WELL for you to set there and blubber like a baby -- it's
fitten for you, after the way you've acted. I never
see such an old ostrich for wanting to gobble every-
thing -- and I a-trusting you all the time, like you was
my own father. You ought to been ashamed of your-
self to stand by and hear it saddled on to a lot of poor
niggers, and you never say a word for 'em. It makes
me feel ridiculous to think I was soft enough to BELIEVE
that rubbage. Cuss you, I can see now why you was
so anxious to make up the deffisit -- you wanted to
get what money I'd got out of the Nonesuch and one
thing or another, and scoop it ALL!"

The king says, timid, and still a-snuffling:

"Why, duke, it was you that said make up the
deffisit; it warn't me."

"Dry up! I don't want to hear no more out of
you!" says the duke. "And NOW you see what you
GOT by it. They've got all their own money back, and
all of OURN but a shekel or two BESIDES. G'long to bed,
and don't you deffersit ME no more deffersits, long 's
YOU live!"

So the king sneaked into the wigwam and took to
his bottle for comfort, and before long the duke tackled
HIS bottle; and so in about a half an hour they was as
thick as thieves again, and the tighter they got the
lovinger they got, and went off a-snoring in each
other's arms. They both got powerful mellow, but I
noticed the king didn't get mellow enough to forget to
remember to not deny about hiding the money-bag
again. That made me feel easy and satisfied. Of
course when they got to snoring we had a long gabble,
and I told Jim everything.
<--split-->
CHAPTER XXXI.

WE dasn't stop again at any town for days and
days; kept right along down the river. We
was down south in the warm weather now, and a
mighty long ways from home. We begun to come to
trees with Spanish moss on them, hanging down from
the limbs like long, gray beards. It was the first I
ever see it growing, and it made the woods look solemn
and dismal. So now the frauds reckoned they was out
of danger, and they begun to work the villages again.

First they done a lecture on temperance; but they
didn't make enough for them both to get drunk on.
Then in another village they started a dancing-school;
but they didn't know no more how to dance than a
kangaroo does; so the first prance they made the
general public jumped in and pranced them out of
town. Another time they tried to go at yellocution;
but they didn't yellocute long till the audience got up
and give them a solid good cussing, and made them
skip out. They tackled missionarying, and mesmeriz-
ing, and doctoring, and telling fortunes, and a little of
everything; but they couldn't seem to have no luck.
So at last they got just about dead broke, and laid
around the raft as she floated along, thinking and
thinking, and never saying nothing, by the half a day
at a time, and dreadful blue and desperate.

And at last they took a change and begun to lay
their heads together in the wigwam and talk low and
confidential two or three hours at a time. Jim and me
got uneasy. We didn't like the look of it. We judged
they was studying up some kind of worse deviltry than
ever. We turned it over and over, and at last we made
up our minds they was going to break into somebody's
house or store, or was going into the counterfeit-
money business, or something. So then we was pretty
scared, and made up an agreement that we wouldn't
have nothing in the world to do with such actions, and
if we ever got the least show we would give them the
cold shake and clear out and leave them behind.
Well, early one morning we hid the raft in a good,
safe place about two mile below a little bit of a shabby
village named Pikesville, and the king he went ashore
and told us all to stay hid whilst he went up to town
and smelt around to see if anybody had got any wind
of the Royal Nonesuch there yet. ("House to rob,
you MEAN," says I to myself; "and when you get
through robbing it you'll come back here and wonder
what has become of me and Jim and the raft -- and
you'll have to take it out in wondering.") And he
said if he warn't back by midday the duke and me
would know it was all right, and we was to come along.

So we stayed where we was. The duke he fretted
and sweated around, and was in a mighty sour way.
He scolded us for everything, and we couldn't seem to
do nothing right; he found fault with every little
thing. Something was a-brewing, sure. I was good
and glad when midday come and no king; we could
have a change, anyway -- and maybe a chance for THE
chance on top of it. So me and the duke went up to
the village, and hunted around there for the king, and
by and by we found him in the back room of a little
low doggery, very tight, and a lot of loafers bullyrag-
ging him for sport, and he a-cussing and a-threatening
with all his might, and so tight he couldn't walk, and
couldn't do nothing to them. The duke he begun to
abuse him for an old fool, and the king begun to sass
back, and the minute they was fairly at it I lit out and
shook the reefs out of my hind legs, and spun down
the river road like a deer, for I see our chance; and I
made up my mind that it would be a long day before
they ever see me and Jim again. I got down there all
out of breath but loaded up with joy, and sung out:

"Set her loose, Jim! we're all right now!"

But there warn't no answer, and nobody come out
of the wigwam. Jim was gone! I set up a shout --
and then another -- and then another one; and run
this way and that in the woods, whooping and screech-
ing; but it warn't no use -- old Jim was gone. Then
I set down and cried; I couldn't help it. But I
couldn't set still long. Pretty soon I went out on the
road, trying to think what I better do, and I run across
a boy walking, and asked him if he'd seen a strange
nigger dressed so and so, and he says:

"Yes."

"Whereabouts?" says I.

"Down to Silas Phelps' place, two mile below
here. He's a runaway nigger, and they've got him.
Was you looking for him?"

"You bet I ain't! I run across him in the woods
about an hour or two ago, and he said if I hollered
he'd cut my livers out -- and told me to lay down and
stay where I was; and I done it. Been there ever
since; afeard to come out."

"Well," he says, "you needn't be afeard no more,
becuz they've got him. He run off f'm down South,
som'ers."

"It's a good job they got him."

"Well, I RECKON! There's two hunderd dollars re-
ward on him. It's like picking up money out'n the
road."

"Yes, it is -- and I could a had it if I'd been big
enough; I see him FIRST. Who nailed him?"

"It was an old fellow -- a stranger -- and he sold
out his chance in him for forty dollars, becuz he's got
to go up the river and can't wait. Think o' that,
now! You bet I'D wait, if it was seven year."

"That's me, every time," says I. "But maybe his
chance ain't worth no more than that, if he'll sell it so
cheap. Maybe there's something ain't straight about
it."

"But it IS, though -- straight as a string. I see the
handbill myself. It tells all about him, to a dot --
paints him like a picture, and tells the plantation he's
frum, below NewrLEANS. No-sirree-BOB, they ain't no
trouble 'bout THAT speculation, you bet you. Say,
gimme a chaw tobacker, won't ye?"

I didn't have none, so he left. I went to the raft,
and set down in the wigwam to think. But I couldn't
come to nothing. I thought till I wore my head sore,
but I couldn't see no way out of the trouble. After
all this long journey, and after all we'd done for them
scoundrels, here it was all come to nothing, everything
all busted up and ruined, because they could have the
heart to serve Jim such a trick as that, and make him
a slave again all his life, and amongst strangers, too,
for forty dirty dollars.

Once I said to myself it would be a thousand times
better for Jim to be a slave at home where his family
was, as long as he'd GOT to be a slave, and so I'd better
write a letter to Tom Sawyer and tell him to tell Miss
Watson where he was. But I soon give up that notion
for two things: she'd be mad and disgusted at his
rascality and ungratefulness for leaving her, and so
she'd sell him straight down the river again; and if
she didn't, everybody naturally despises an ungrateful
nigger, and they'd make Jim feel it all the time, and so
he'd feel ornery and disgraced. And then think of
ME! It would get all around that Huck Finn helped a
nigger to get his freedom; and if I was ever to see
anybody from that town again I'd be ready to get
down and lick his boots for shame. That's just the
way: a person does a low-down thing, and then he
don't want to take no consequences of it. Thinks as
long as he can hide, it ain't no disgrace. That was
my fix exactly. The more I studied about this the
more my conscience went to grinding me, and the
more wicked and low-down and ornery I got to feel-
ing. And at last, when it hit me all of a sudden that
here was the plain hand of Providence slapping me in
the face and letting me know my wickedness was being
watched all the time from up there in heaven,whilst I
was stealing a poor old woman's nigger that hadn't
ever done me no harm, and now was showing me
there's One that's always on the lookout, and ain't a-
going to allow no such miserable doings to go only
just so fur and no further, I most dropped in my
tracks I was so scared. Well, I tried the best I could
to kinder soften it up somehow for myself by saying I
was brung up wicked, and so I warn't so much to
blame; but something inside of me kept saying,
"There was the Sunday-school, you could a gone to
it; and if you'd a done it they'd a learnt you there
that people that acts as I'd been acting about that
nigger goes to everlasting fire."

It made me shiver. And I about made up my mind
to pray, and see if I couldn't try to quit being the kind
of a boy I was and be better. So I kneeled down.
But the words wouldn't come. Why wouldn't they?
It warn't no use to try and hide it from Him. Nor
from ME, neither. I knowed very well why they
wouldn't come. It was because my heart warn't right;
it was because I warn't square; it was because I was
playing double. I was letting ON to give up sin, but
away inside of me I was holding on to the biggest one
of all. I was trying to make my mouth SAY I would
do the right thing and the clean thing, and go and write
to that nigger's owner and tell where he was; but deep
down in me I knowed it was a lie, and He knowed it.
You can't pray a lie -- I found that out.

So I was full of trouble, full as I could be; and
didn't know what to do. At last I had an idea; and I
says, I'll go and write the letter -- and then see if I can
pray. Why, it was astonishing, the way I felt as light
as a feather right straight off, and my troubles all
gone. So I got a piece of paper and a pencil, all
glad and excited, and set down and wrote:

   Miss Watson, your runaway nigger Jim is down
   here two mile below Pikesville, and Mr. Phelps
   has got him and he will give him up for the
   reward if you send.

                                  HUCK FINN.

I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first
time I had ever felt so in my life, and I knowed I
could pray now. But I didn't do it straight off, but
laid the paper down and set there thinking -- thinking
how good it was all this happened so, and how near I
come to being lost and going to hell. And went on
thinking. And got to thinking over our trip down the
river; and I see Jim before me all the time: in the
day and in the night-time, sometimes moonlight, some-
times storms, and we a-floating along, talking and
singing and laughing. But somehow I couldn't seem
to strike no places to harden me against him, but only
the other kind. I'd see him standing my watch on top
of his'n, 'stead of calling me, so I could go on sleep-
ing; and see him how glad he was when I come back
out of the fog; and when I come to him again in the
swamp, up there where the feud was; and such-like
times; and would always call me honey, and pet me
and do everything he could think of for me, and how
good he always was; and at last I struck the time I
saved him by telling the men we had small-pox aboard,
and he was so grateful, and said I was the best friend
old Jim ever had in the world, and the ONLY one he's
got now; and then I happened to look around and see
that paper.

It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in
my hand. I was a-trembling, because I'd got to de-
cide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I
studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then
says to myself:

"All right, then, I'll GO to hell" -- and tore it up.

It was awful thoughts and awful words, but they was
said. And I let them stay said; and never thought no
more about reforming. I shoved the whole thing out
of my head, and said I would take up wickedness
again, which was in my line, being brung up to it, and
the other warn't. And for a starter I would go to
work and steal Jim out of slavery again; and if I could
think up anything worse, I would do that, too; be-
cause as long as I was in, and in for good, I might as
well go the whole hog.

Then I set to thinking over how to get at it, and
turned over some considerable many ways in my mind;
and at last fixed up a plan that suited me. So then I
took the bearings of a woody island that was down
the river a piece, and as soon as it was fairly dark I
crept out with my raft and went for it, and hid it
there, and then turned in. I slept the night through,
and got up before it was light, and had my breakfast,
and put on my store clothes, and tied up some others
and one thing or another in a bundle, and took the
canoe and cleared for shore. I landed below where I
judged was Phelps's place, and hid my bundle in the
woods, and then filled up the canoe with water, and
loaded rocks into her and sunk her where I could find
her again when I wanted her, about a quarter of a
mile below a little steam sawmill that was on the bank.

Then I struck up the road, and when I passed the
mill I see a sign on it, "Phelps's Sawmill," and when
I come to the farm-houses, two or three hundred yards
further along, I kept my eyes peeled, but didn't see
nobody around, though it was good daylight now.
But I didn't mind, because I didn't want to see nobody
just yet -- I only wanted to get the lay of the land.
According to my plan, I was going to turn up there
from the village, not from below. So I just took a
look, and shoved along, straight for town. Well, the
very first man I see when I got there was the duke.
He was sticking up a bill for the Royal Nonesuch --
three-night performance -- like that other time. They
had the cheek, them frauds! I was right on him be-
fore I could shirk. He looked astonished, and says:

"Hel-LO! Where'd YOU come from?" Then he
says, kind of glad and eager, "Where's the raft? --
got her in a good place?"

I says:

"Why, that's just what I was going to ask your
grace."

Then he didn't look so joyful, and says:

"What was your idea for asking ME?" he says.

"Well," I says, "when I see the king in that dog-
gery yesterday I says to myself, we can't get him
home for hours, till he's soberer; so I went a-loafing
around town to put in the time and wait. A man up
and offered me ten cents to help him pull a skiff over
the river and back to fetch a sheep, and so I went
along; but when we was dragging him to the boat, and
the man left me a-holt of the rope and went behind
him to shove him along, he was too strong for me and
jerked loose and run, and we after him. We didn't
have no dog, and so we had to chase him all over the
country till we tired him out. We never got him till
dark; then we fetched him over, and I started down
for the raft. When I got there and see it was gone, I
says to myself, 'They've got into trouble and had to
leave; and they've took my nigger, which is the only
nigger I've got in the world, and now I'm in a strange
country, and ain't got no property no more, nor noth-
ing, and no way to make my living;' so I set down
and cried. I slept in the woods all night. But what
DID become of the raft, then? -- and Jim -- poor Jim!"

"Blamed if I know -- that is, what's become of the
raft. That old fool had made a trade and got forty
dollars, and when we found him in the doggery the
loafers had matched half-dollars with him and got
every cent but what he'd spent for whisky; and when
I got him home late last night and found the raft gone,
we said, 'That little rascal has stole our raft and shook
us, and run off down the river.'"

"I wouldn't shake my NIGGER, would I? -- the only
nigger I had in the world, and the only property."

"We never thought of that. Fact is, I reckon we'd
come to consider him OUR nigger; yes, we did consider
him so -- goodness knows we had trouble enough for
him. So when we see the raft was gone and we flat
broke, there warn't anything for it but to try the
Royal Nonesuch another shake. And I've pegged
along ever since, dry as a powder-horn. Where's that
ten cents? Give it here."

I had considerable money, so I give him ten cents,
but begged him to spend it for something to eat, and
give me some, because it was all the money I had, and
I hadn't had nothing to eat since yesterday. He never
said nothing. The next minute he whirls on me and
says:

"Do you reckon that nigger would blow on us?
We'd skin him if he done that!"

"How can he blow? Hain't he run off?"

"No! That old fool sold him, and never divided
with me, and the money's gone."

"SOLD him?" I says, and begun to cry; "why, he
was MY nigger, and that was my money. Where is
he? -- I want my nigger."

"Well, you can't GET your nigger, that's all -- so
dry up your blubbering. Looky here -- do you think
YOU'D venture to blow on us? Blamed if I think I'd
trust you. Why, if you WAS to blow on us --"

He stopped, but I never see the duke look so ugly out
of his eyes before. I went on a-whimpering, and says:

"I don't want to blow on nobody; and I ain't got
no time to blow, nohow. I got to turn out and find
my nigger."

He looked kinder bothered, and stood there with his
bills fluttering on his arm, thinking, and wrinkling up
his forehead. At last he says:

"I'll tell you something. We got to be here three
days. If you'll promise you won't blow, and won't
let the nigger blow, I'll tell you where to find him."

So I promised, and he says:

"A farmer by the name of Silas Ph----" and then
he stopped. You see, he started to tell me the truth;
but when he stopped that way, and begun to study and
think again, I reckoned he was changing his mind.
And so he was. He wouldn't trust me; he wanted to
make sure of having me out of the way the whole
three days. So pretty soon he says:

"The man that bought him is named Abram Foster
-- Abram G. Foster -- and he lives forty mile back
here in the country, on the road to Lafayette."

"All right," I says, "I can walk it in three days.
And I'll start this very afternoon."

"No you wont, you'll start NOW; and don't you
lose any time about it, neither, nor do any gabbling by
the way. Just keep a tight tongue in your head and
move right along, and then you won't get into trouble
with US, d'ye hear?"

That was the order I wanted, and that was the one I
played for. I wanted to be left free to work my plans.

"So clear out," he says; "and you can tell Mr.
Foster whatever you want to. Maybe you can get
him to believe that Jim IS your nigger -- some idiots
don't require documents -- leastways I've heard there's
such down South here. And when you tell him the
handbill and the reward's bogus, maybe he'll believe
you when you explain to him what the idea was for
getting 'em out. Go 'long now, and tell him anything
you want to; but mind you don't work your jaw any
BETWEEN here and there."

So I left, and struck for the back country. I didn't
look around, but I kinder felt like he was watching me.
But I knowed I could tire him out at that. I went
straight out in the country as much as a mile before I
stopped; then I doubled back through the woods
towards Phelps'. I reckoned I better start in on my
plan straight off without fooling around, because I
wanted to stop Jim's mouth till these fellows could get
away. I didn't want no trouble with their kind. I'd
seen all I wanted to of them, and wanted to get entirely
shut of them.
<--split-->
CHAPTER XXXII.

WHEN I got there it was all still and Sunday-like,
and hot and sunshiny; the hands was gone to
the fields; and there was them kind of faint dronings
of bugs and flies in the air that makes it seem so lone-
some and like everybody's dead and gone; and if a
breeze fans along and quivers the leaves it makes you
feel mournful, because you feel like it's spirits whisper-
ing -- spirits that's been dead ever so many years --
and you always think they're talking about YOU. As a
general thing it makes a body wish HE was dead, too,
and done with it all.

Phelps' was one of these little one-horse cotton plan-
tations, and they all look alike. A rail fence round a
two-acre yard; a stile made out of logs sawed off and
up-ended in steps, like barrels of a different length, to
climb over the fence with, and for the women to stand
on when they are going to jump on to a horse; some
sickly grass-patches in the big yard, but mostly it was
bare and smooth, like an old hat with the nap rubbed
off; big double log-house for the white folks -- hewed
logs, with the chinks stopped up with mud or mortar,
and these mud-stripes been whitewashed some time or
another; round-log kitchen, with a big broad, open
but roofed passage joining it to the house; log smoke-
house back of the kitchen; three little log nigger-cabins
in a row t'other side the smoke-house; one little hut
all by itself away down against the back fence, and
some outbuildings down a piece the other side; ash-
hopper and big kettle to bile soap in by the little hut;
bench by the kitchen door, with bucket of water and a
gourd; hound asleep there in the sun; more hounds
asleep round about; about three shade trees away off
in a corner; some currant bushes and gooseberry
bushes in one place by the fence; outside of the fence
a garden and a watermelon patch; then the cotton
fields begins, and after the fields the woods.

I went around and clumb over the back stile by the
ash-hopper, and started for the kitchen. When I got
a little ways I heard the dim hum of a spinning-wheel
wailing along up and sinking along down again; and
then I knowed for certain I wished I was dead -- for
that IS the lonesomest sound in the whole world.

I went right along, not fixing up any particular plan,
but just trusting to Providence to put the right words
in my mouth when the time come; for I'd noticed that
Providence always did put the right words in my mouth
if I left it alone.

When I got half-way, first one hound and then
another got up and went for me, and of course I
stopped and faced them, and kept still. And such
another powwow as they made! In a quarter of a
minute I was a kind of a hub of a wheel, as you may
say -- spokes made out of dogs -- circle of fifteen
of them packed together around me, with their necks
and noses stretched up towards me, a-barking and
howling; and more a-coming; you could see them sail-
ing over fences and around corners from everywheres.

A nigger woman come tearing out of the kitchen with
a rolling-pin in her hand, singing out, "Begone YOU
Tige! you Spot! begone sah!" and she fetched first
one and then another of them a clip and sent them
howling, and then the rest followed; and the next
second half of them come back, wagging their tails
around me, and making friends with me. There ain't
no harm in a hound, nohow.

And behind the woman comes a little nigger girl and
two little nigger boys without anything on but tow-linen
shirts, and they hung on to their mother's gown, and
peeped out from behind her at me, bashful, the way
they always do. And here comes the white woman
running from the house, about forty-five or fifty year
old, bareheaded, and her spinning-stick in her hand;
and behind her comes her little white children, acting
the same way the little niggers was going. She was
smiling all over so she could hardly stand -- and says:

"It's YOU, at last! -- AIN'T it?"

I out with a "Yes'm" before I thought.

She grabbed me and hugged me tight; and then
gripped me by both hands and shook and shook; and
the tears come in her eyes, and run down over; and
she couldn't seem to hug and shake enough, and kept
saying, "You don't look as much like your mother as
I reckoned you would; but law sakes, I don't care for
that, I'm so glad to see you! Dear, dear, it does seem
like I could eat you up! Children, it's your cousin
Tom! -- tell him howdy."

But they ducked their heads, and put their fingers in
their mouths, and hid behind her. So she run on:

"Lize, hurry up and get him a hot breakfast right
away -- or did you get your breakfast on the boat?"

I said I had got it on the boat. So then she started
for the house, leading me by the hand, and the children
tagging after. When we got there she set me down in
a split-bottomed chair, and set herself down on a little
low stool in front of me, holding both of my hands,
and says:

"Now I can have a GOOD look at you; and, laws-a-
me, I've been hungry for it a many and a many a time,
all these long years, and it's come at last! We been
expecting you a couple of days and more. What kep'
you? -- boat get aground?"

"Yes'm -- she --"

"Don't say yes'm -- say Aunt Sally. Where'd she
get aground?"

I didn't rightly know what to say, because I didn't
know whether the boat would be coming up the river
or down. But I go a good deal on instinct; and my
instinct said she would be coming up -- from down
towards Orleans. That didn't help me much, though;
for I didn't know the names of bars down that way. I
see I'd got to invent a bar, or forget the name of the
one we got aground on -- or -- Now I struck an idea,
and fetched it out:

"It warn't the grounding -- that didn't keep us back
but a little. We blowed out a cylinder-head."

"Good gracious! anybody hurt?"

"No'm. Killed a nigger."

"Well, it's lucky; because sometimes people do get
hurt. Two years ago last Christmas your uncle Silas
was coming up from Newrleans on the old Lally Rook,
and she blowed out a cylinder-head and crippled a man.
And I think he died afterwards. He was a Baptist.
Your uncle Silas knowed a family in Baton Rouge
that knowed his people very well. Yes, I remember
now, he DID die. Mortification set in, and they had to
amputate him. But it didn't save him. Yes, it was
mortification -- that was it. He turned blue all over,
and died in the hope of a glorious resurrection. They
say he was a sight to look at. Your uncle's been up
to the town every day to fetch you. And he's gone
again, not more'n an hour ago; he'll be back any
minute now. You must a met him on the road, didn't
you? -- oldish man, with a --"

"No, I didn't see nobody, Aunt Sally. The boat
landed just at daylight, and I left my baggage on the
wharf-boat and went looking around the town and out
a piece in the country, to put in the time and not get
here too soon; and so I come down the back way."

"Who'd you give the baggage to?"

"Nobody."

"Why, child, it 'll be stole!"

"Not where I hid it I reckon it won't," I says.

"How'd you get your breakfast so early on the
boat?"

It was kinder thin ice, but I says:

"The captain see me standing around, and told me
I better have something to eat before I went ashore;
so he took me in the texas to the officers' lunch, and
give me all I wanted."

I was getting so uneasy I couldn't listen good. I
had my mind on the children all the time; I wanted to
get them out to one side and pump them a little, and
find out who I was. But I couldn't get no show, Mrs.
Phelps kept it up and run on so. Pretty soon she made
the cold chills streak all down my back, because she
says:

"But here we're a-running on this way, and you
hain't told me a word about Sis, nor any of them.
Now I'll rest my works a little, and you start up yourn;
just tell me EVERYTHING -- tell me all about 'm all
every one of 'm; and how they are, and what they're
doing, and what they told you to tell me; and every
last thing you can think of."

Well, I see I was up a stump -- and up it good.
Providence had stood by me this fur all right, but I
was hard and tight aground now. I see it warn't a bit
of use to try to go ahead -- I'd got to throw up my
hand. So I says to myself, here's another place where
I got to resk the truth. I opened my mouth to begin;
but she grabbed me and hustled me in behind the bed,
and says:

"Here he comes! Stick your head down lower --
there, that'll do; you can't be seen now. Don't you
let on you're here. I'll play a joke on him. Children,
don't you say a word."

I see I was in a fix now. But it warn't no use to
worry; there warn't nothing to do but just hold still,
and try and be ready to stand from under when the
lightning struck.

I had just one little glimpse of the old gentleman
when he come in; then the bed hid him. Mrs. Phelps
she jumps for him, and says:

"Has he come?"

"No," says her husband.

"Good-NESS gracious!" she says, "what in the
warld can have become of him?"

"I can't imagine," says the old gentleman; "and
I must say it makes me dreadful uneasy."

"Uneasy!" she says; "I'm ready to go distracted!
He MUST a come; and you've missed him along the
road. I KNOW it's so -- something tells me so."

"Why, Sally, I COULDN'T miss him along the road --
YOU know that."

"But oh, dear, dear, what WILL Sis say! He must a
come! You must a missed him. He --"

"Oh, don't distress me any more'n I'm already dis-
tressed. I don't know what in the world to make of it.
I'm at my wit's end, and I don't mind acknowledging
't I'm right down scared. But there's no hope that
he's come; for he COULDN'T come and me miss him.
Sally, it's terrible -- just terrible -- something's hap-
pened to the boat, sure!"

"Why, Silas! Look yonder! -- up the road! -- ain't
that somebody coming?"

He sprung to the window at the head of the bed,
and that give Mrs. Phelps the chance she wanted. She
stooped down quick at the foot of the bed and give me
a pull, and out I come; and when he turned back
from the window there she stood, a-beaming and a-smil-
ing like a house afire, and I standing pretty meek and
sweaty alongside. The old gentleman stared, and
says:

"Why, who's that?"

"Who do you reckon 't is?"

"I hain't no idea. Who IS it?"

"It's TOM SAWYER!"

By jings, I most slumped through the floor! But
there warn't no time to swap knives; the old man
grabbed me by the hand and shook, and kept on shak-
ing; and all the time how the woman did dance around
and laugh and cry; and then how they both did fire off
questions about Sid, and Mary, and the rest of the
tribe.

But if they was joyful, it warn't nothing to what I
was; for it was like being born again, I was so glad to
find out who I was. Well, they froze to me for two
hours; and at last, when my chin was so tired it
couldn't hardly go any more, I had told them more
about my family -- I mean the Sawyer family -- than
ever happened to any six Sawyer families. And I ex-
plained all about how we blowed out a cylinder-head at
the mouth of White River, and it took us three days to
fix it. Which was all right, and worked first-rate; be-
cause THEY didn't know but what it would take three
days to fix it. If I'd a called it a bolthead it would a
done just as well.

Now I was feeling pretty comfortable all down one
side, and pretty uncomfortable all up the other. Be-
ing Tom Sawyer was easy and comfortable, and it
stayed easy and comfortable till by and by I hear a
steamboat coughing along down the river. Then I
says to myself, s'pose Tom Sawyer comes down on that
boat? And s'pose he steps in here any minute, and
sings out my name before I can throw him a wink to
keep quiet?

Well, I couldn't HAVE it that way; it wouldn't do at
all. I must go up the road and waylay him. So I
told the folks I reckoned I would go up to the town
and fetch down my baggage. The old gentleman was
for going along with me, but I said no, I could drive
the horse myself, and I druther he wouldn't take no
trouble about me.
<--split-->
CHAPTER XXXIII.

SO I started for town in the wagon, and when I was
half-way I see a wagon coming, and sure enough it
was Tom Sawyer, and I stopped and waited till he come
along. I says "Hold on!" and it stopped alongside,
and his mouth opened up like a trunk, and stayed so;
and he swallowed two or three times like a person that's
got a dry throat, and then says:

"I hain't ever done you no harm. You know that.
So, then, what you want to come back and ha'nt ME
for?"

I says:

"I hain't come back -- I hain't been GONE."

When he heard my voice it righted him up some, but
he warn't quite satisfied yet. He says:

"Don't you play nothing on me, because I wouldn't
on you. Honest injun, you ain't a ghost?"

"Honest injun, I ain't," I says.

"Well -- I -- I -- well, that ought to settle it, of
course; but I can't somehow seem to understand it no
way. Looky here, warn't you ever murdered AT ALL?"

"No. I warn't ever murdered at all -- I played it
on them. You come in here and feel of me if you
don't believe me."

So he done it; and it satisfied him; and he was that
glad to see me again he didn't know what to do. And
he wanted to know all about it right off, because it was
a grand adventure, and mysterious, and so it hit him
where he lived. But I said, leave it alone till by and
by; and told his driver to wait, and we drove off a little
piece, and I told him the kind of a fix I was in, and what
did he reckon we better do? He said, let him alone a
minute, and don't disturb him. So he thought and
thought, and pretty soon he says:

"It's all right; I've got it. Take my trunk in your
wagon, and let on it's your'n; and you turn back and
fool along slow, so as to get to the house about the
time you ought to; and I'll go towards town a piece,
and take a fresh start, and get there a quarter or a half
an hour after you; and you needn't let on to know
me at first."

I says:

"All right; but wait a minute. There's one more
thing -- a thing that NOBODY don't know but me. And
that is, there's a nigger here that I'm a-trying to steal
out of slavery, and his name is JIM -- old Miss Wat-
son's Jim."

He says:

" What ! Why, Jim is --"

He stopped and went to studying. I says:

"I know what you'll say. You'll say it's dirty, low-
down business; but what if it is? I'm low down; and
I'm a-going to steal him, and I want you keep mum
and not let on. Will you?"

His eye lit up, and he says:

"I'll HELP you steal him!"

Well, I let go all holts then, like I was shot. It
was the most astonishing speech I ever heard -- and
I'm bound to say Tom Sawyer fell considerable in my
estimation. Only I couldn't believe it. Tom Sawyer a
NIGGER-STEALER!

"Oh, shucks!" I says; "you're joking."

"I ain't joking, either."

"Well, then," I says, "joking or no joking, if you
hear anything said about a runaway nigger, don't for-
get to remember that YOU don't know nothing about
him, and I don't know nothing about him."

Then we took the trunk and put it in my wagon, and
he drove off his way and I drove mine. But of course
I forgot all about driving slow on accounts of being glad
and full of thinking; so I got home a heap too quick
for that length of a trip. The old gentleman was at
the door, and he says:

"Why, this is wonderful! Whoever would a
thought it was in that mare to do it? I wish we'd
a timed her. And she hain't sweated a hair -- not a
hair. It's wonderful. Why, I wouldn't take a hundred
dollars for that horse now -- I wouldn't, honest; and
yet I'd a sold her for fifteen before, and thought 'twas
all she was worth."

That's all he said. He was the innocentest, best old
soul I ever see. But it warn't surprising; because he
warn't only just a farmer, he was a preacher, too, and
had a little one-horse log church down back of the
plantation, which he built it himself at his own expense,
for a church and schoolhouse, and never charged noth-
ing for his preaching, and it was worth it, too. There
was plenty other farmer-preachers like that, and done
the same way, down South.

In about half an hour Tom's wagon drove up to the
front stile, and Aunt Sally she see it through the win-
dow, because it was only about fifty yards, and says:

"Why, there's somebody come! I wonder who
'tis? Why, I do believe it's a stranger. Jimmy "
(that's one of the children)' "run and tell Lize to put
on another plate for dinner."

Everybody made a rush for the front door, because,
of course, a stranger don't come EVERY year, and so he
lays over the yaller-fever, for interest, when he does
come. Tom was over the stile and starting for the
house; the wagon was spinning up the road for the
village, and we was all bunched in the front door. Tom
had his store clothes on, and an audience -- and that
was always nuts for Tom Sawyer. In them circum-
stances it warn't no trouble to him to throw in an
amount of style that was suitable. He warn't a boy to
meeky along up that yard like a sheep; no, he come
ca'm and important, like the ram. When he got a-front
of us he lifts his hat ever so gracious and dainty, like it
was the lid of a box that had butterflies asleep in it and
he didn't want to disturb them, and says:

"Mr. Archibald Nichols, I presume?"

"No, my boy," says the old gentleman, "I'm sorry
to say 't your driver has deceived you; Nichols's place
is down a matter of three mile more. Come in, come
in."

Tom he took a look back over his shoulder, and says,
"Too late -- he's out of sight."

"Yes, he's gone, my son, and you must come in
and eat your dinner with us; and then we'll hitch up
and take you down to Nichols's."

"Oh, I CAN'T make you so much trouble; I couldn't
think of it. I'll walk -- I don't mind the distance."

"But we won't LET you walk -- it wouldn't be South-
ern hospitality to do it. Come right in."

"Oh, DO," says Aunt Sally; "it ain't a bit of
trouble to us, not a bit in the world. You must stay.
It's a long, dusty three mile, and we can't let you walk.
And, besides, I've already told 'em to put on another
plate when I see you coming; so you mustn't disap-
point us. Come right in and make yourself at home."

So Tom he thanked them very hearty and handsome,
and let himself be persuaded, and come in; and when
he was in he said he was a stranger from Hicksville,
Ohio, and his name was William Thompson -- and he
made another bow.

Well, he run on, and on, and on, making up stuff
about Hicksville and everybody in it he could invent,
and I getting a little nervious, and wondering how this
was going to help me out of my scrape; and at last,
still talking along, he reached over and kissed Aunt
Sally right on the mouth, and then settled back again
in his chair comfortable, and was going on talking; but
she jumped up and wiped it off with the back of her
hand, and says:

"You owdacious puppy!"

He looked kind of hurt, and says:

"I'm surprised at you, m'am."

"You're s'rp -- Why, what do you reckon I am?
I've a good notion to take and -- Say, what do you
mean by kissing me?"

He looked kind of humble, and says:

"I didn't mean nothing, m'am. I didn't mean no
harm. I -- I -- thought you'd like it."

"Why, you born fool!" She took up the spinning
stick, and it looked like it was all she could do to keep
from giving him a crack with it. "What made you
think I'd like it?"

"Well, I don't know. Only, they -- they -- told
me you would."

"THEY told you I would. Whoever told you's
ANOTHER lunatic. I never heard the beat of it. Who's
THEY?"

"Why, everybody. They all said so, m'am."

It was all she could do to hold in; and her eyes
snapped, and her fingers worked like she wanted to
scratch him; and she says:

"Who's 'everybody'? Out with their names, or
ther'll be an idiot short."

He got up and looked distressed, and fumbled his
hat, and says:

"I'm sorry, and I warn't expecting it. They told
me to. They all told me to. They all said, kiss her;
and said she'd like it. They all said it -- every one of
them. But I'm sorry, m'am, and I won't do it no
more -- I won't, honest."

"You won't, won't you? Well, I sh'd RECKON you
won't!"

"No'm, I'm honest about it; I won't ever do it
again -- till you ask me."

"Till I ASK you! Well, I never see the beat of it in
my born days! I lay you'll be the Methusalem-num-
skull of creation before ever I ask you -- or the likes of
you."

"Well," he says, "it does surprise me so. I can't
make it out, somehow. They said you would, and I
thought you would. But --" He stopped and looked
around slow, like he wished he could run across a
friendly eye somewheres, and fetched up on the old
gentleman's, and says, "Didn't YOU think she'd like
me to kiss her, sir?"

"Why, no; I -- I -- well, no, I b'lieve I didn't."

Then he looks on around the same way to me, and
says:

"Tom, didn't YOU think Aunt Sally 'd open out her
arms and say, 'Sid Sawyer --'"

"My land!" she says, breaking in and jumping for
him, "you impudent young rascal, to fool a body
so --" and was going to hug him, but he fended her
off, and says:

"No, not till you've asked me first."

So she didn't lose no time, but asked him; and
hugged him and kissed him over and over again, and
then turned him over to the old man, and he took what
was left. And after they got a little quiet again she says:

"Why, dear me, I never see such a surprise. We
warn't looking for YOU at all, but only Tom. Sis never
wrote to me about anybody coming but him."

"It's because it warn't INTENDED for any of us to
come but Tom," he says; "but I begged and begged,
and at the last minute she let me come, too; so, com-
ing down the river, me and Tom thought it would be
a first-rate surprise for him to come here to the house
first, and for me to by and by tag along and drop in,
and let on to be a stranger. But it was a mistake,
Aunt Sally. This ain't no healthy place for a stranger
to come."

"No -- not impudent whelps, Sid. You ought to
had your jaws boxed; I hain't been so put out since I
don't know when. But I don't care, I don't mind
the terms -- I'd be willing to stand a thousand such
jokes to have you here. Well, to think of that per-
formance! I don't deny it, I was most putrified with
astonishment when you give me that smack."

We had dinner out in that broad open passage be-
twixt the house and the kitchen; and there was things
enough on that table for seven families -- and all hot,
too; none of your flabby, tough meat that's laid in a
cupboard in a damp cellar all night and tastes like a
hunk of old cold cannibal in the morning. Uncle
Silas he asked a pretty long blessing over it, but it was
worth it; and it didn't cool it a bit, neither, the way
I've seen them kind of interruptions do lots of times.
There was a considerable good deal of talk all the
afternoon, and me and Tom was on the lookout all the
time; but it warn't no use, they didn't happen to say
nothing about any runaway nigger, and we was afraid
to try to work up to it. But at supper, at night, one
of the little boys says:

"Pa, mayn't Tom and Sid and me go to the show?"

"No," says the old man, "I reckon there ain't go-
ing to be any; and you couldn't go if there was; be-
cause the runaway nigger told Burton and me all about
that scandalous show, and Burton said he would tell the
people; so I reckon they've drove the owdacious loaf-
ers out of town before this time."

So there it was! -- but I couldn't help it. Tom and
me was to sleep in the same room and bed; so, being
tired, we bid good-night and went up to bed right after
supper, and clumb out of the window and down the
lightning-rod, and shoved for the town; for I didn't
believe anybody was going to give the king and the
duke a hint, and so if I didn't hurry up and give them
one they'd get into trouble sure.

On the road Tom he told me all about how it was
reckoned I was murdered, and how pap disappeared
pretty soon, and didn't come back no more, and what
a stir there was when Jim run away; and I told Tom
all about our Royal Nonesuch rapscallions, and as
much of the raft voyage as I had time to; and as we
struck into the town and up through the  -- here comes a
raging rush of people with torches, and an awful
whooping and yelling, and banging tin pans and blow-
ing horns; and we jumped to one side to let them go
by; and as they went by I see they had the king and
the duke astraddle of a rail -- that is, I knowed it WAS
the king and the duke, though they was all over tar and
feathers, and didn't look like nothing in the world that
was human -- just looked like a couple of monstrous
big soldier-plumes. Well, it made me sick to see it;
and I was sorry for them poor pitiful rascals, it seemed
like I couldn't ever feel any hardness against them any
more in the world. It was a dreadful thing to see.
Human beings CAN be awful cruel to one another.

We see we was too late -- couldn't do no good. We
asked some stragglers about it, and they said everybody
went to the show looking very innocent; and laid
low and kept dark till the poor old king was in the
middle of his cavortings on the stage; then somebody
give a signal, and the house rose up and went for
them.

So we poked along back home, and I warn't feeling
so brash as I was before, but kind of ornery, and
humble, and to blame, somehow -- though I hadn't
done nothing. But that's always the way; it don't
make no difference whether you do right or wrong, a
person's conscience ain't got no sense, and just goes for
him anyway. If I had a yaller dog that didn't know
no more than a person's conscience does I would pison
him. It takes up more room than all the rest of a
person's insides, and yet ain't no good, nohow. Tom
Sawyer he says the same.