The Project Gutenberg eBook of Tom Sawyer, Detective, by Mark Twain

Published：2026-07-31 06:40:08 Source: best pool toys for siblings Author: Pool Toys

Tom Sawyer,kids percussion sets for 10 year olds under 10 dollars Detective

By Mark Twain

Contents

CHAPTER I.
AN INVITATION FOR TOM AND HUCK

[Note: Strange as the incidents of this story are, they are not inventions, butfacts—even to the public confession of the accused. I take them from anold-time Swedish criminal trial, change the actors, and transfer the scenes toAmerica. I have added some details, but only a couple of them are importantones. — M. T.]

Well, it was the next spring after me and Tom Sawyer set our old nigger Jimfree, the time he was chained up for a runaway slave down there on Tom’suncle Silas’s farm in Arkansaw. The frost was working out of the ground,and out of the air, too, and it was getting closer and closer onto barefoottime every day; and next it would be marble time, and next mumbletypeg, andnext tops and hoops, and next kites, and then right away it would be summer andgoing in a-swimming. It just makes a boy homesick to look ahead like that andsee how far off summer is. Yes, and it sets him to sighing and saddeningaround, and there’s something the matter with him, he don’t knowwhat. But anyway, he gets out by himself and mopes and thinks; and mostly hehunts for a lonesome place high up on the hill in the edge of the woods, andsets there and looks away off on the big Mississippi down there a-reachingmiles and miles around the points where the timber looks smoky and dimit’s so far off and still, and everything’s so solemn it seems likeeverybody you’ve loved is dead and gone, and you ’most wish you wasdead and gone too, and done with it all.

Don’t you know what that is? It’s spring fever. That is what thename of it is. And when you’ve got it, you want—oh, you don’tquite know what it is you dowant, but it just fairly makes your heartache, you want it so! It seems to you that mainly what you want is to get away;get away from the same old tedious things you’re so used to seeing and sotired of, and set something new. That is the idea; you want to go and be awanderer; you want to go wandering far away to strange countries whereeverything is mysterious and wonderful and romantic. And if you can’t dothat, you’ll put up with considerable less; you’ll go anywhere youcango, just so as to get away, and be thankful of the chance, too.

Well, me and Tom Sawyer had the spring fever, and had it bad, too; but itwarn’t any use to think about Tom trying to get away, because, as hesaid, his Aunt Polly wouldn’t let him quit school and go traipsing offsomers wasting time; so we was pretty blue. We was setting on the front stepsone day about sundown talking this way, when out comes his aunt Polly with aletter in her hand and says:

“Tom, I reckon you’ve got to pack up and go down toArkansaw—your aunt Sally wants you.”

I ’most jumped out of my skin for joy. I reckoned Tom would fly at hisaunt and hug her head off; but if you believe me he set there like a rock, andnever said a word. It made me fit to cry to see him act so foolish, with such anoble chance as this opening up. Why, we might lose it if he didn’t speakup and show he was thankful and grateful. But he set there and studied andstudied till I was that distressed I didn’t know what to do; then hesays, very ca’m, and I could a shot him for it:

“Well,” he says, “I’m right down sorry, Aunt Polly, butI reckon I got to be excused—for the present.”

His aunt Polly was knocked so stupid and so mad at the cold impudence of itthat she couldn’t say a word for as much as a half a minute, and thisgave me a chance to nudge Tom and whisper:

“Ain’t you got any sense? Sp’iling such a noble chance asthis and throwing it away?”

But he warn’t disturbed. He mumbled back:

“Huck Finn, do you want me to let her seehow bad I want to go?Why, she’d begin to doubt, right away, and imagine a lot of sicknessesand dangers and objections, and first you know she’d take it all back.You lemme alone; I reckon I know how to work her.”

Now I never would ’a’ thought of that. But he was right. Tom Sawyerwas always right—the levelest head I ever see, and always athimself and ready for anything you might spring on him. By this time his auntPolly was all straight again, and she let fly. She says:

I reckon I got to be excused

“You’ll be excused! youwill! Well, I never heard the likeof it in all my days! The idea of you talking like that to me!Now takeyourself off and pack your traps; and if I hear another word out of you aboutwhat you’ll be excused from and what you won’t, I layI’llexcuse you—with a hickory!”

She hit his head a thump with her thimble as we dodged by, and he let on to bewhimpering as we struck for the stairs. Up in his room he hugged me, he was soout of his head for gladness because he was going traveling. And he says:

“Before we get away she’ll wish she hadn’t let me go, but shewon’t know any way to get around it now. After what she’s said, herpride won’t let her take it back.”

Tom was packed in ten minutes, all except what his aunt and Mary would finishup for him; then we waited ten more for her to get cooled down and sweet andgentle again; for Tom said it took her ten minutes to unruffle in times whenhalf of her feathers was up, but twenty when they was all up, and this was oneof the times when they was all up. Then we went down, being in a sweat to knowwhat the letter said.

She was setting there in a brown study, with it laying in her lap. We set down,and she says:

“They’re in considerable trouble down there, and they think you andHuck’ll be a kind of diversion for them—’comfort,’ theysay. Much of that they’ll get out of you and Huck Finn, I reckon.There’s a neighbor named Brace Dunlap that’s been wanting to marrytheir Benny for three months, and at last they told him point blank and oncefor all, he could’t;so he has soured on them, and they’reworried about it. I reckon he’s somebody they think they better be on thegood side of, for they’ve tried to please him by hiring his no-accountbrother to help on the farm when they can’t hardly afford it, anddon’t want him around anyhow. Who are the Dunlaps?”

“They live about a mile from Uncle Silas’s place, AuntPolly—all the farmers live about a mile apart down there—and BraceDunlap is a long sight richer than any of the others, and owns a whole grist ofniggers. He’s a widower, thirty-six years old, without any children, andis proud of his money and overbearing, and everybody is a little afraid of him.I judge he thought he could have any girl he wanted, just for the asking, andit must have set him back a good deal when he found he couldn’t getBenny. Why, Benny’s only half as old as he is, and just as sweet andlovely as—well, you’ve seen her. Poor old Uncle Silas—why,it’s pitiful, him trying to curry favor that way—so hard pushed andpoor, and yet hiring that useless Jubiter Dunlap to please his ornerybrother.”

“What a name—Jubiter! Where’d he get it?”

“It’s only just a nickname. I reckon they’ve forgot his realname long before this. He’s twenty-seven, now, and has had it ever sincethe first time he ever went in swimming. The school teacher seen a round brownmole the size of a dime on his left leg above his knee, and four little bits ofmoles around it, when he was naked, and he said it minded him of Jubiter andhis moons; and the children thought it was funny, and so they got to callinghim Jubiter, and he’s Jubiter yet. He’s tall, and lazy, and sly,and sneaky, and ruther cowardly, too, but kind of good-natured, and wears longbrown hair and no beard, and hasn’t got a cent, and Brace boards him fornothing, and gives him his old clothes to wear, and despises him. Jubiter is atwin.”

“What’s t’other twin like?”

“Just exactly like Jubiter—so they say; used to was, anyway, but hehain’t been seen for seven years. He got to robbing when he was nineteenor twenty, and they jailed him; but he broke jail and got away—up Northhere, somers. They used to hear about him robbing and burglaring now and then,but that was years ago. He’s dead, now. At least that’s what theysay. They don’t hear about him any more.”

“What was his name?”

“Jake.”

There wasn’t anything more said for a considerable while; the old ladywas thinking. At last she says:

“The thing that is mostly worrying your aunt Sally is the tempers thatthat man Jubiter gets your uncle into.”

Tom was astonished, and so was I. Tom says:

“Tempers? Uncle Silas? Land, you must be joking! I didn’t know hehadany temper.”

“Works him up into perfect rages, your aunt Sally says; says he acts asif he would really hit the man, sometimes.”

“Aunt Polly, it beats anything I ever heard of. Why, he’s just asgentle as mush.”

“Well, she’s worried, anyway. Says your uncle Silas is like achanged man, on account of all this quarreling. And the neighbors talk aboutit, and lay all the blame on your uncle, of course, because he’s apreacher and hain’t got any business to quarrel. Your aunt Sally says hehates to go into the pulpit he’s so ashamed; and the people have begun tocool toward him, and he ain’t as popular now as he used to was.”

“Well, ain’t it strange? Why, Aunt Polly, he was always so good andkind and moony and absent-minded and chuckle-headed and lovable—why, hewas just an angel! What canbe the matter of him, do you reckon?”

CHAPTER II.
JAKE DUNLAP

We had powerful good luck; because we got a chance in a stern-wheeler from awayNorth which was bound for one of them bayous or one-horse rivers away downLouisiana way, and so we could go all the way down the Upper Mississippi andall the way down the Lower Mississippi to that farm in Arkansaw without havingto change steamboats at St. Louis; not so very much short of a thousand milesat one pull.

A pretty lonesome boat; there warn’t but few passengers, and all oldfolks, that set around, wide apart, dozing, and was very quiet. We was fourdays getting out of the “upper river,” because we got aground somuch. But it warn’t dull—couldn’t be for boys that wastraveling, of course.

From the very start me and Tom allowed that there was somebody sick in thestateroom next to ourn, because the meals was always toted in there by thewaiters. By and by we asked about it—Tom did and the waiter said it was aman, but he didn’t look sick.

“Well, but ain’the sick?”

“I don’t know; maybe he is, but ’pears to me he’s justletting on.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Because if he was sick he would pull his clothes off sometime orother—don’t you reckon he would? Well, this one don’t. Atleast he don’t ever pull off his boots, anyway.”

“The mischief he don’t! Not even when he goes to bed?”

“No.”

It was always nuts for Tom Sawyer—a mystery was. If you’d lay out amystery and a pie before me and him, you wouldn’t have to say take yourchoice; it was a thing that would regulate itself. Because in my nature I havealways run to pie, whilst in his nature he has always run to mystery. Peopleare made different. And it is the best way. Tom says to the waiter:

“What’s the man’s name?”

“Phillips.”

“Where’d he come aboard?”

“I think he got aboard at Elexandria, up on the Iowa line.”

“What do you reckon he’s a-playing?”

“I hain’t any notion—I never thought of it.”

I says to myself, here’s another one that runs to pie.

“Anything peculiar about him?—the way he acts or talks?”

“No—nothing, except he seems so scary, and keeps his doors lockednight and day both, and when you knock he won’t let you in till he opensthe door a crack and sees who it is.”

“By jimminy, it’s int’resting! I’d like to get a lookat him. Say—the next time you’re going in there, don’t youreckon you could spread the door and—”

“No, indeedy! He’s always behind it. He would block thatgame.”

Tom studied over it, and then he says:

“Looky here. You lend me your apern and let me take him his breakfast inthe morning. I’ll give you a quarter.”

The boy was plenty willing enough, if the head steward wouldn’t mind. Tomsays that’s all right, he reckoned he could fix it with the head steward;and he done it. He fixed it so as we could both go in with aperns on and totingvittles.

He didn’t sleep much, he was in such a sweat to get in there and find outthe mystery about Phillips; and moreover he done a lot of guessing about it allnight, which warn’t no use, for if you are going to find out the facts ofa thing, what’s the sense in guessing out what ain’t the facts andwasting ammunition? I didn’t lose no sleep. I wouldn’t give a dernto know what’s the matter of Phillips, I says to myself.

Well, in the morning we put on the aperns and got a couple of trays of truck,and Tom he knocked on the door. The man opened it a crack, and then he let usin and shut it quick. By Jackson, when we got a sight of him, we ’mostdropped the trays! and Tom says:

“Why, Jubiter Dunlap, where’d youcome from?”

Well, the man was astonished, of course; and first off he looked like hedidn’t know whether to be scared, or glad, or both, or which, but finallyhe settled down to being glad; and then his color come back, though at firsthis face had turned pretty white. So we got to talking together while he et hisbreakfast. And he says:

“But I aint Jubiter Dunlap. I’d just as soon tell you who I am,though, if you’ll swear to keep mum, for I ain’t no Phillips,either.”

Tom says:

“We’ll keep mum, but there ain’t any need to tell who you areif you ain’t Jubiter Dunlap.”

“Why?”

“Because if you ain’t him you’re t’other twin, Jake.You’re the spit’n image of Jubiter.”

“Well, I’m Jake. But looky here, how do you come to know usDunlaps?”

Tom told about the adventures we’d had down there at his uncleSilas’s last summer, and when he see that there warn’t anythingabout his folks—or him either, for that matter—that we didn’tknow, he opened out and talked perfectly free and candid. He never made anybones about his own case; said he’d been a hard lot, was a hard lot yet,and reckoned he’d be a hard lot plumb to the end. He said of course itwas a dangerous life, and—He give a kind of gasp, and set his head like aperson that’s listening. We didn’t say anything, and so it was verystill for a second or so, and there warn’t no sounds but the screaking ofthe woodwork and the chug-chugging of the machinery down below.

Then we got him comfortable again, telling him about his people, and howBrace’s wife had been dead three years, and Brace wanted to marry Bennyand she shook him, and Jubiter was working for Uncle Silas, and him and UncleSilas quarreling all the time—and then he let go and laughed.

“Land!” he says, “it’s like old times to hear all thistittle-tattle, and does me good. It’s been seven years and more since Iheard any. How do they talk about me these days?”

“Who?”

“The farmers—and the family.”

“Why, they don’t talk about you at all—at least only just amention, once in a long time.”

“The nation!” he says, surprised; “why is that?”

“Because they think you are dead long ago.”

“No! Are you speaking true?—honor bright, now.” He jumped up,excited.

“Honor bright. There ain’t anybody thinks you are alive.”

“Then I’m saved, I’m saved, sure! I’ll go home.They’ll hide me and save my life. You keep mum. Swear you’ll keepmum—swear you’ll never, never tell on me. Oh, boys, be good to apoor devil that’s being hunted day and night, and dasn’t show hisface! I’ve never done you any harm; I’ll never do you any, as Godis in the heavens; swear you’ll be good to me and help me save mylife.”

Swear you’ll be good to me and help me save my life.

We’d a swore it if he’d been a dog; and so we done it. Well, hecouldn’t love us enough for it or be grateful enough, poor cuss; it wasall he could do to keep from hugging us.

We talked along, and he got out a little hand-bag and begun to open it, andtold us to turn our backs. We done it, and when he told us to turn again he wasperfectly different to what he was before. He had on blue goggles and thenaturalest-looking long brown whiskers and mustashes you ever see. His ownmother wouldn’t ’a’ knowed him. He asked us if he looked likehis brother Jubiter, now.

“No,” Tom said; “there ain’t anything left that’slike him except the long hair.”

“All right, I’ll get that cropped close to my head before I getthere; then him and Brace will keep my secret, and I’ll live with them asbeing a stranger, and the neighbors won’t ever guess me out. What do youthink?”

Tom he studied awhile, then he says:

“Well, of course me and Huck are going to keep mum there, but if youdon’t keep mum yourself there’s going to be a little bit of arisk—it ain’t much, maybe, but it’s a little. I mean, if youtalk, won’t people notice that your voice is just like Jubiter’s;and mightn’t it make them think of the twin they reckoned was dead, butmaybe after all was hid all this time under another name?”

“By George,” he says, “you’re a sharp one! You’reperfectly right. I’ve got to play deef and dumb when there’s aneighbor around. If I’d a struck for home and forgot that littledetail—However, I wasn’t striking for home. I was breaking for anyplace where I could get away from these fellows that are after me; then I wasgoing to put on this disguise and get some different clothes, and—”

He jumped for the outside door and laid his ear against it and listened, paleand kind of panting. Presently he whispers:

“Sounded like cocking a gun! Lord, what a life to lead!”

Sounded like a cocking gun!

Then he sunk down in a chair all limp and sick like, and wiped the sweat off ofhis face.

CHAPTER III.
A DIAMOND ROBBERY

From that time out, we was with him ’most all the time, and one ort’other of us slept in his upper berth. He said he had been so lonesome,and it was such a comfort to him to have company, and somebody to talk to inhis troubles. We was in a sweat to find out what his secret was, but Tom saidthe best way was not to seem anxious, then likely he would drop into it himselfin one of his talks, but if we got to asking questions he would get suspiciousand shet up his shell. It turned out just so. It warn’t no trouble to seethat he wantedto talk about it, but always along at first he wouldscare away from it when he got on the very edge of it, and go to talking aboutsomething else. The way it come about was this: He got to asking us, kind ofindifferent like, about the passengers down on deck. We told him about them.But he warn’t satisfied; we warn’t particular enough. He told us todescribe them better. Tom done it. At last, when Tom was describing one of theroughest and raggedest ones, he gave a shiver and a gasp and says:

“Oh, lordy, that’s one of them! They’re aboard sure—Ijust knowed it. I sort of hoped I had got away, but I never believed it. Goon.”

Presently when Tom was describing another mangy, rough deck passenger, he givethat shiver again and says:

“That’s him!—that’s the other one. If it would onlycome a good black stormy night and I could get ashore. You see, they’vegot spies on me. They’ve got a right to come up and buy drinks at the baryonder forrard, and they take that chance to bribe somebody to keep watch onme—porter or boots or somebody. If I was to slip ashore without anybodyseeing me, they would know it inside of an hour.”

So then he got to wandering along, and pretty soon, sure enough, he wastelling! He was poking along through his ups and downs, and when he come tothat place he went right along. He says:

“It was a confidence game. We played it on a julery-shop in St. Louis.What we was after was a couple of noble big di’monds as big ashazel-nuts, which everybody was running to see. We was dressed up fine, and weplayed it on them in broad daylight. We ordered the di’monds sent to thehotel for us to see if we wanted to buy, and when we was examining them we hadpaste counterfeits all ready, and themwas the things that went back tothe shop when we said the water wasn’t quite fine enough for twelvethousand dollars.”

“Twelve-thousand-dollars!” Tom says. “Was they really worthall that money, do you reckon?”

“Every cent of it.”

“And you fellows got away with them?”

“As easy as nothing. I don’t reckon the julery people knowthey’ve been robbed yet. But it wouldn’t be good sense to stayaround St. Louis, of course, so we considered where we’d go. One was forgoing one way, one another, so we throwed up, heads or tails, and the UpperMississippi won. We done up the di’monds in a paper and put our names onit and put it in the keep of the hotel clerk, and told him not to ever leteither of us have it again without the others was on hand to see it done; thenwe went down town, each by his own self—because I reckon maybe we all hadthe same notion. I don’t know for certain, but I reckon maybe wehad.”

“What notion?” Tom says.

“To rob the others.”

“What—one take everything, after all of you had helped to getit?”

“Cert’nly.”

It disgusted Tom Sawyer, and he said it was the orneriest, low-downest thing heever heard of. But Jake Dunlap said it warn’t unusual in the profession.Said when a person was in that line of business he’d got to look out forhis own intrust, there warn’t nobody else going to do it for him. Andthen he went on. He says:

“You see, the trouble was, you couldn’t divide up twodi’monds amongst three. If there’d been three—But never mindabout that, there warn’t three. I loafed along the back streets studyingand studying. And I says to myself, I’ll hog them di’monds thefirst chance I get, and I’ll have a disguise all ready, and I’llgive the boys the slip, and when I’m safe away I’ll put it on, andthen let them find me if they can. So I got the false whiskers and the gogglesand this countrified suit of clothes, and fetched them along back in ahand-bag; and when I was passing a shop where they sell all sorts of things, Igot a glimpse of one of my pals through the window. It was Bud Dixon. I wasglad, you bet. I says to myself, I’ll see what he buys. So I kept shady,and watched. Now what do you reckon it was he bought?”

“Whiskers?” said I.

“No.”

“Goggles?”

“No.”

“Oh, keep still, Huck Finn, can’t you, you’re only justhendering all you can. What wasit he bought, Jake?”

“You’d never guess in the world. It was only just ascrewdriver—just a wee little bit of a screwdriver.”

“Well, I declare! What did he want with that?”

“That’s what I thought. It was curious. It clean stumped me. I saysto myself, what can he want with that thing? Well, when he come out I stoodback out of sight, and then tracked him to a second-hand slop-shop and see himbuy a red flannel shirt and some old ragged clothes—just the oneshe’s got on now, as you’ve described. Then I went down to the wharfand hid my things aboard the up-river boat that we had picked out, and thenstarted back and had another streak of luck. I seen our other pal lay inhisstock of old rusty second-handers. We got the di’monds andwent aboard the boat.

“But now we was up a stump, for we couldn’t go to bed. We had toset up and watch one another. Pity, that was; pity to put that kind of a strainon us, because there was bad blood between us from a couple of weeks back, andwe was only friends in the way of business. Bad anyway, seeing there was onlytwo di’monds betwixt three men. First we had supper, and then tramped upand down the deck together smoking till most midnight; then we went and setdown in my stateroom and locked the doors and looked in the piece of paper tosee if the di’monds was all right, then laid it on the lower berth rightin full sight; and there we set, and set, and by-and-by it got to be dreadfulhard to keep awake. At last Bud Dixon he dropped off. As soon as he was snoringa good regular gait that was likely to last, and had his chin on his breast andlooked permanent, Hal Clayton nodded towards the di’monds and thentowards the outside door, and I understood. I reached and got the paper, andthen we stood up and waited perfectly still; Bud never stirred; I turned thekey of the outside door very soft and slow, then turned the knob the same way,and we went tiptoeing out onto the guard, and shut the door very soft andgentle.

We stood up and waited perfectly still.

“There warn’t nobody stirring anywhere, and the boat was slippingalong, swift and steady, through the big water in the smoky moonlight. We neversaid a word, but went straight up onto the hurricane-deck and plumb back aft,and set down on the end of the sky-light. Both of us knowed what that meant,without having to explain to one another. Bud Dixon would wake up and miss theswag, and would come straight for us, for he ain’t afeard of anything oranybody, that man ain’t. He would come, and we would heave him overboard,or get killed trying. It made me shiver, because I ain’t as brave as somepeople, but if I showed the white feather—well, I knowed better than dothat. I kind of hoped the boat would land somers, and we could skip ashore andnot have to run the risk of this row, I was so scared of Bud Dixon, but she wasan upper-river tub and there warn’t no real chance of that.

“Well, the time strung along and along, and that fellow never come! Why,it strung along till dawn begun to break, and still he never come.‘Thunder,’ I says, ‘what do you make out ofthis?—ain’t it suspicious?’ ‘Land!’ Hal says,‘do you reckon he’s playing us?—open the paper!’ I doneit, and by gracious there warn’t anything in it but a couple of littlepieces of loaf-sugar! that’sthe reason he could set there andsnooze all night so comfortable. Smart? Well, I reckon! He had had them twopapers all fixed and ready, and he had put one of them in place oft’other right under our noses.

“We felt pretty cheap. But the thing to do, straight off, was to make aplan; and we done it. We would do up the paper again, just as it was, and slipin, very elaborate and soft, and lay it on the bunk again, and let on wedidn’t know about any trick, and hadn’t any idea he was a-laughingat us behind them bogus snores of his’n; and we would stick by him, andthe first night we was ashore we would get him drunk and search him, and getthe di’monds; and dofor him, too, if it warn’t too risky.If we got the swag, we’d gotto do for him, or he would hunt usdown and do for us, sure. But I didn’t have no real hope. I knowed wecould get him drunk—he was always ready for that—but what’sthe good of it? You might search him a year and never find—Well, rightthere I catched my breath and broke off my thought! For an idea went rippingthrough my head that tore my brains to rags—and land, but I felt gay andgood! You see, I had had my boots off, to unswell my feet, and just then I tookup one of them to put it on, and I catched a glimpse of the heel-bottom, and itjust took my breath away. You remember about that puzzlesome littlescrewdriver?”

“You bet I do,” says Tom, all excited.

“Well, when I catched that glimpse of that boot heel, the idea that wentsmashing through my head was, I know where he’s hid the di’monds!You look at this boot heel, now. See, it’s bottomed with a steel plate,and the plate is fastened on with little screws. Now there wasn’t a screwabout that feller anywhere but in his boot heels; so, if he needed ascrewdriver, I reckoned I knowed why.”

“Huck, ain’t it bully!” says Tom.

“Well, I got my boots on, and we went down and slipped in and laid thepaper of sugar on the berth, and sat down soft and sheepish and went tolistening to Bud Dixon snore. Hal Clayton dropped off pretty soon, but Ididn’t; I wasn’t ever so wide awake in my life. I was spying outfrom under the shade of my hat brim, searching the floor for leather. It tookme a long time, and I begun to think maybe my guess was wrong, but at last Istruck it. It laid over by the bulkhead, and was nearly the color of thecarpet. It was a little round plug about as thick as the end of your littlefinger, and I says to myself there’s a di’mond in the nestyou’ve come from. Before long I spied out the plug’s mate.

“Think of the smartness and coolness of that blatherskite! He put up thatscheme on us and reasoned out what we would do, and we went ahead and done itperfectly exact, like a couple of pudd’nheads. He set there and took hisown time to unscrew his heelplates and cut out his plugs and stick in thedi’monds and screw on his plates again. He allowed we would steal thebogus swag and wait all night for him to come up and get drownded, and byGeorge it’s just what we done! I think it was powerful smart.”

“You bet your life it was!” says Tom, just full of admiration.

CHAPTER IV.
THE THREE SLEEPERS

Well, all day we went through the humbug of watching one another, and it waspretty sickly business for two of us and hard to act out, I can tell you. Aboutnight we landed at one of them little Missouri towns high up toward Iowa, andhad supper at the tavern, and got a room upstairs with a cot and a double bedin it, but I dumped my bag under a deal table in the dark hall while we wasmoving along it to bed, single file, me last, and the landlord in the lead witha tallow candle. We had up a lot of whisky, and went to playing high-low-jackfor dimes, and as soon as the whisky begun to take hold of Bud we stoppeddrinking, but we didn’t let him stop. We loaded him till he fell out ofhis chair and laid there snoring.

“We was ready for business now. I said we better pull our boots off, andhis’n too, and not make any noise, then we could pull him and haul himaround and ransack him without any trouble. So we done it. I set my boots andBud’s side by side, where they’d be handy. Then we stripped him andsearched his seams and his pockets and his socks and the inside of his boots,and everything, and searched his bundle. Never found any di’monds. Wefound the screwdriver, and Hal says, ‘What do you reckon he wanted withthat?’ I said I didn’t know; but when he wasn’t looking Ihooked it. At last Hal he looked beat and discouraged, and said we’d gotto give it up. That was what I was waiting for. I says:

“‘There’s one place we hain’t searched.’

“‘What place is that?’ he says.

“‘His stomach.’

“‘By gracious, I never thought of that! Nowwe’re onthe homestretch, to a dead moral certainty. How’ll we manage?’

“‘Well,’ I says, ‘just stay by him till I turn out andhunt up a drug store, and I reckon I’ll fetch something that’llmake them di’monds tired of the company they’re keeping.’

“He said that’s the ticket, and with him looking straight at me Islid myself into Bud’s boots instead of my own, and he never noticed.They was just a shade large for me, but that was considerable better than beingtoo small. I got my bag as I went a-groping through the hall, and in about aminute I was out the back way and stretching up the river road at a five-milegait.

“And not feeling so very bad, neither—walking on di’mondsdon’t have no such effect. When I had gone fifteen minutes I says tomyself, there’s more’n a mile behind me, and everything quiet.Another five minutes and I says there’s considerable more land behind menow, and there’s a man back there that’s begun to wonderwhat’s the trouble. Another five and I says to myself he’s gettingreal uneasy—he’s walking the floor now. Another five, and I says tomyself, there’s two mile and a half behind me, and he’sawfuluneasy—beginning to cuss, I reckon. Pretty soon I says tomyself, forty minutes gone—he knowsthere’s something up!Fifty minutes—the truth’s a-busting on him now! he is reckoning Ifound the di’monds whilst we was searching, and shoved them in my pocketand never let on—yes, and he’s starting out to hunt for me.He’ll hunt for new tracks in the dust, and they’ll as likely sendhim down the river as up.

“Just then I see a man coming down on a mule, and before I thought Ijumped into the bush. It was stupid! When he got abreast he stopped and waiteda little for me to come out; then he rode on again. But I didn’t feel gayany more. I says to myself I’ve botched my chances by that; I surelyhave, if he meets up with Hal Clayton.

“Well, about three in the morning I fetched Elexandria and see thisstern-wheeler laying there, and was very glad, because I felt perfectly safe,now, you know. It was just daybreak. I went aboard and got this stateroom andput on these clothes and went up in the pilot-house—to watch, though Ididn’t reckon there was any need of it. I set there and played with mydi’monds and waited and waited for the boat to start, but shedidn’t. You see, they was mending her machinery, but I didn’t knowanything about it, not being very much used to steamboats.

Walked ashore.

“Well, to cut the tale short, we never left there till plumb noon; andlong before that I was hid in this stateroom; for before breakfast I see a mancoming, away off, that had a gait like Hal Clayton’s, and it made me justsick. I says to myself, if he finds out I’m aboard this boat, he’sgot me like a rat in a trap. All he’s got to do is to have me watched,and wait—wait till I slip ashore, thinking he is a thousand miles away,then slip after me and dog me to a good place and make me give up thedi’monds, and then he’ll—oh, I know what he’ll do!Ain’t it awful—awful! And now to think the otherone’saboard, too! Oh, ain’t it hard luck, boys—ain’t it hard! Butyou’ll help save me, won’tyou?—oh, boys, be good to apoor devil that’s being hunted to death, and save me—I’llworship the very ground you walk on!”

We turned in and soothed him down and told him we would plan for him and helphim, and he needn’t be so afeard; and so by and by he got to feeling kindof comfortable again, and unscrewed his heelplates and held up hisdi’monds this way and that, admiring them and loving them; and when thelight struck into them they wasbeautiful, sure; why, they seemed tokind of bust, and snap fire out all around. But all the same I judged he was afool. If I had been him I would a handed the di’monds to them pals andgot them to go ashore and leave me alone. But he was made different. He said itwas a whole fortune and he couldn’t bear the idea.

Twice we stopped to fix the machinery and laid a good while, once in the night;but it wasn’t dark enough, and he was afeard to skip. But the third timewe had to fix it there was a better chance. We laid up at a country woodyardabout forty mile above Uncle Silas’s place a little after one at night,and it was thickening up and going to storm. So Jake he laid for a chance toslide. We begun to take in wood. Pretty soon the rain come a-drenching down,and the wind blowed hard. Of course every boat-hand fixed a gunny sack and putit on like a bonnet, the way they do when they are toting wood, and we got onefor Jake, and he slipped down aft with his hand-bag and come tramping forrardjust like the rest, and walked ashore with them, and when we see him pass outof the light of the torch-basket and get swallowed up in the dark, we got ourbreath again and just felt grateful and splendid. But it wasn’t for long.Somebody told, I reckon; for in about eight or ten minutes them two pals cometearing forrard as tight as they could jump and darted ashore and was gone. Wewaited plumb till dawn for them to come back, and kept hoping they would, butthey never did. We was awful sorry and low-spirited. All the hope we had wasthat Jake had got such a start that they couldn’t get on his track, andhe would get to his brother’s and hide there and be safe.

He was going to take the river road, and told us to find out if Brace andJubiter was to home and no strangers there, and then slip out about sundown andtell him. Said he would wait for us in a little bunch of sycamores right backof Tom’s uncle Silas’s tobacker field on the river road, a lonesomeplace.

We set and talked a long time about his chances, and Tom said he was all rightif the pals struck up the river instead of down, but it wasn’t likely,because maybe they knowed where he was from; more likely they would go right,and dog him all day, him not suspecting, and kill him when it come dark, andtake the boots. So we was pretty sorrowful.

CHAPTER V.
A TRAGEDY IN THE WOODS

We didn’t get done tinkering the machinery till away late in theafternoon, and so it was so close to sundown when we got home that we neverstopped on our road, but made a break for the sycamores as tight as we couldgo, to tell Jake what the delay was, and have him wait till we could go toBrace’s and find out how things was there. It was getting pretty dim bythe time we turned the corner of the woods, sweating and panting with that longrun, and see the sycamores thirty yards ahead of us; and just then we see acouple of men run into the bunch and heard two or three terrible screams forhelp. “Poor Jake is killed, sure,” we says. We was scared throughand through, and broke for the tobacker field and hid there, trembling so ourclothes would hardly stay on; and just as we skipped in there, a couple of menwent tearing by, and into the bunch they went, and in a second out jumps fourmen and took out up the road as tight as they could go, two chasing two.

We laid down, kind of weak and sick, and listened for more sounds, butdidn’t hear none for a good while but just our hearts. We was thinking ofthat awful thing laying yonder in the sycamores, and it seemed like being thatclose to a ghost, and it give me the cold shudders. The moon come a-swelling upout of the ground, now, powerful big and round and bright, behind a comb oftrees, like a face looking through prison bars, and the black shadders andwhite places begun to creep around, and it was miserable quiet and still andnight-breezy and graveyardy and scary. All of a sudden Tom whispers:

“Look!—what’s that?”

“Don’t!” I says. “Don’t take a person by surprisethat way. I’m ’most ready to die, anyway, without you doingthat.”

“Look, I tell you. It’s something coming out of thesycamores.”

“Don’t, Tom!”

“It’s terrible tall!”

“Oh, lordy-lordy! let’s—”

“Keep still—it’s a-coming this way.”

He was so excited he could hardly get breath enough to whisper. I had to look.I couldn’t help it. So now we was both on our knees with our chins on afence rail and gazing—yes, and gasping too. It was coming down theroad—coming in the shadder of the trees, and you couldn’t see itgood; not till it was pretty close to us; then it stepped into a bright splotchof moonlight and we sunk right down in our tracks—it was JakeDunlap’s ghost! That was what we said to ourselves.

It was Jake Dunlap’s ghost.

We couldn’t stir for a minute or two; then it was gone. We talked aboutit in low voices. Tom says:

“They’re mostly dim and smoky, or like they’re made out offog, but this one wasn’t.”

“No,” I says; “I seen the goggles and the whiskers perfectlyplain.”

“Yes, and the very colors in them loud countrified Sundayclothes—plaid breeches, green and black—”

“Cotton velvet westcot, fire-red and yaller squares—”

“Leather straps to the bottoms of the breeches legs and one of themhanging unbottoned—”

“Yes, and that hat—”

“What a hat for a ghost to wear!”

You see it was the first season anybody wore that kind—a black stiff-brimstove-pipe, very high, and not smooth, with a round top—just like asugar-loaf.

“Did you notice if its hair was the same, Huck?”

“No—seems to me I did, then again it seems to me Ididn’t.”

“I didn’t either; but it had its bag along, I noticed that.”

“So did I. How can there be a ghost-bag, Tom?”

“Sho! I wouldn’t be as ignorant as that if I was you, Huck Finn.Whatever a ghost has, turns to ghost-stuff. They’ve got to have theirthings, like anybody else. You see, yourself, that its clothes was turned toghost-stuff. Well, then, what’s to hender its bag from turning, too? Ofcourse it done it.”

That was reasonable. I couldn’t find no fault with it. Bill Withers andhis brother Jack come along by, talking, and Jack says:

“What do you reckon he was toting?”

“I dunno; but it was pretty heavy.”

“Yes, all he could lug. Nigger stealing corn from old Parson Silas, Ijudged.”

“So did I. And so I allowed I wouldn’t let on to see him.”

“That’s me, too.”

Then they both laughed, and went on out of hearing. It showed how unpopular oldUncle Silas had got to be now. They wouldn’t ’a’ let a niggersteal anybody else’s corn and never done anything to him.

We heard some more voices mumbling along towards us and getting louder, andsometimes a cackle of a laugh. It was Lem Beebe and Jim Lane. Jim Lane says:

“Who?—Jubiter Dunlap?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I reckon so. I seen him spading up some groundalong about an hour ago, just before sundown—him and the parson. Said heguessed he wouldn’t go to-night, but we could have his dog if we wantedhim.”

“Too tired, I reckon.”

“Yes—works so hard!”

“Oh, you bet!”

They cackled at that, and went on by. Tom said we better jump out and tag alongafter them, because they was going our way and it wouldn’t be comfortableto run across the ghost all by ourselves. So we done it, and got home allright.

That night was the second of September—a Saturday. I sha’n’tever forget it. You’ll see why, pretty soon.

CHAPTER VI.
PLANS TO SECURE THE DIAMONDS

We tramped along behind Jim and Lem till we come to the back stile where oldJim’s cabin was that he was captivated in, the time we set him free, andhere come the dogs piling around us to say howdy, and there was the lights ofthe house, too; so we warn’t afeard any more, and was going to climbover, but Tom says:

“Hold on; set down here a minute. By George!”

“What’s the matter?” says I.

“Matter enough!” he says. “Wasn’t you expecting wewould be the first to tell the family who it is that’s been killed yonderin the sycamores, and all about them rapscallions that done it, and about thedi’monds they’ve smouched off of the corpse, and paint it up fine,and have the glory of being the ones that knows a lot more about it thananybody else?”

“Why, of course. It wouldn’t be you, Tom Sawyer, if you was to letsuch a chance go by. I reckon it ain’t going to suffer none for lack ofpaint,” I says, “when you start in to scollop the facts.”

“Well, now,” he says, perfectly ca’m, “what would yousay if I was to tell you I ain’t going to start in at all?”

I was astonished to hear him talk so. I says:

“I’d say it’s a lie. You ain’t in earnest, TomSawyer?”

“You’ll soon see. Was the ghost barefooted?”

Was the ghost barefooted?

“No, it wasn’t. What of it?”

“You wait—I’ll show you what. Did it have its bootson?”

“Yes. I seen them plain.”

“Swear it?”

“Yes, I swear it.”

“So do I. Now do you know what that means?”

“No. What does it mean?”

“Means that them thieves didn’t get thedi’monds.”

“Jimminy! What makes you think that?”

“I don’t only think it, I know it. Didn’t the breeches andgoggles and whiskers and hand-bag and every blessed thing turn to ghost-stuff?Everything it had on turned, didn’t it? It shows that the reason itsboots turned too was because it still had them on after it started to goha’nting around, and if that ain’t proof that them blatherskitesdidn’t get the boots, I’d like to know what you’d callproof.”

Think of that now. I never see such a head as that boy had. Why, I had eyes andI could see things, but they never meant nothing to me. But Tom Sawyer wasdifferent. When Tom Sawyer seen a thing it just got up on its hind legs andtalkedto him—told him everything it knowed. I never see such ahead.

“Tom Sawyer,” I says, “I’ll say it again as I’vesaid it a many a time before: I ain’t fitten to black your boots. Butthat’s all right—that’s neither here nor there. God Almightymade us all, and some He gives eyes that’s blind, and some He gives eyesthat can see, and I reckon it ain’t none of our lookout what He done itfor; it’s all right, or He’d ’a’ fixed it some otherway. Go on—I see plenty plain enough, now, that them thieves didn’tget way with the di’monds. Why didn’t they, do you reckon?”

“Because they got chased away by them other two men before they couldpull the boots off of the corpse.”

“That’s so! I see it now. But looky here, Tom, why ain’t weto go and tell about it?”

“Oh, shucks, Huck Finn, can’t you see? Look at it. What’sa-going to happen? There’s going to be an inquest in the morning. Themtwo men will tell how they heard the yells and rushed there just in time to notsave the stranger. Then the jury’ll twaddle and twaddle and twaddle, andfinally they’ll fetch in a verdict that he got shot or stuck or bustedover the head with something, and come to his death by the inspiration of God.And after they’ve buried him they’ll auction off his things for topay the expenses, and then’s ourchance.” “How,Tom?”

“Buy the boots for two dollars!”

Well, it ’most took my breath.

“My land! Why, Tom, we’llget the di’monds!”

“You bet. Some day there’ll be a big reward offered forthem—a thousand dollars, sure. That’s our money! Now we’lltrot in and see the folks. And mind you we don’t know anything about anymurder, or any di’monds, or any thieves—don’t you forgetthat.”

I had to sigh a little over the way he had got it fixed. I’d’a’ soldthem di’monds—yes, sir—for twelvethousand dollars; but I didn’t say anything. It wouldn’t done anygood. I says:

“But what are we going to tell your aunt Sally has made us so longgetting down here from the village, Tom?”

“Oh, I’ll leave that to you,” he says. “I reckon youcan explain it somehow.”

He was always just that strict and delicate. He never would tell a lie himself.

We struck across the big yard, noticing this, that, and t’other thingthat was so familiar, and we so glad to see it again, and when we got to theroofed big passageway betwixt the double log house and the kitchen part, therewas everything hanging on the wall just as it used to was, even to UncleSilas’s old faded green baize working-gown with the hood to it, andraggedy white patch between the shoulders that always looked like somebody hadhit him with a snowball; and then we lifted the latch and walked in. Aunt Sallyshe was just a-ripping and a-tearing around, and the children was huddled inone corner, and the old man he was huddled in the other and praying for help intime of need. She jumped for us with joy and tears running down her face andgive us a whacking box on the ear, and then hugged us and kissed us and boxedus again, and just couldn’t seem to get enough of it, she was so glad tosee us; and she says:

“Where haveyou been a-loafing to, you good-for-nothing trash!I’ve been that worried about you I didn’t know what to do. Yourtraps has been here ever so long, and I’ve had supper cooked fresh aboutfour times so as to have it hot and good when you come, till at last mypatience is just plumb wore out, and I declare I—I—why I could skinyou alive! You must be starving, poor things!—set down, set down,everybody; don’t lose no more time.”

It was good to be there again behind all that noble corn-pone and spareribs,and everything that you could ever want in this world. Old Uncle Silas hepeeled off one of his bulliest old-time blessings, with as many layers to it asan onion, and whilst the angels was hauling in the slack of it I was trying tostudy up what to say about what kept us so long. When our plates was allloadened and we’d got a-going, she asked me, and I says:

“Well, you see,—er—Mizzes—”

“Huck Finn! Since when am I Mizzes to you? Have I ever been stingy ofcuffs or kisses for you since the day you stood in this room and I took you forTom Sawyer and blessed God for sending you to me, though you told me fourthousand lies and I believed every one of them like a simpleton? Call me AuntSally—like you always done.”

So I done it. And I says:

“Well, me and Tom allowed we would come along afoot and take a smell ofthe woods, and we run across Lem Beebe and Jim Lane, and they asked us to gowith them blackberrying to-night, and said they could borrow JubiterDunlap’s dog, because he had told them just that minute—”

“Where did they see him?” says the old man; and when I looked up tosee how hecome to take an intrust in a little thing like that, his eyeswas just burning into me, he was that eager. It surprised me so it kind ofthrowed me off, but I pulled myself together again and says:

“It was when he was spading up some ground along with you, towardssundown or along there.”

He only said, “Um,” in a kind of a disappointed way, anddidn’t take no more intrust. So I went on. I says:

“Well, then, as I was a-saying—”

“That’ll do, you needn’t go no furder.” It was AuntSally. She was boring right into me with her eyes, and very indignant.“Huck Finn,” she says, “how’d them men come to talkabout going a-black-berrying in September—in thisregion?”

I see I had slipped up, and I couldn’t say a word. She waited, stilla-gazing at me, then she says:

“And how’d they come to strike that idiot idea of goinga-blackberrying in the night?”

“Well, m’m, they—er—they told us they had a lantern,and—”

“Oh, shetup—do! Looky here; what was they going to do witha dog?—hunt blackberries with it?”

“I think, m’m, they—”

“Now, Tom Sawyer, what kind of a lie are you fixing yourmouth tocontribit to this mess of rubbage? Speak out—and I warn you before youbegin, that I don’t believe a word of it. You and Huck’s been up tosomething you no business to—I know it perfectly well; I know you,bothof you. Now you explain that dog, and them blackberries, and thelantern, and the rest of that rot—and mind you talk as straight as astring—do you hear?”

Tom he looked considerable hurt, and says, very dignified:

“It is a pity if Huck is to be talked to that way, just for making alittle bit of a mistake that anybody could make.”

“What mistake has he made?”

“Why, only the mistake of saying blackberries when of course he meantstrawberries.”

“Tom Sawyer, I lay if you aggravate me a little more,I’ll—”

“Aunt Sally, without knowing it—and of course without intendingit—you are in the wrong. If you’d ’a’ studied naturalhistory the way you ought, you would know that all over the world except justhere in Arkansaw they alwayshunt strawberries with a dog—and alantern—”

But she busted in on him there and just piled into him and snowed him under.She was so mad she couldn’t get the words out fast enough, and she gushedthem out in one everlasting freshet. That was what Tom Sawyer was after. Heallowed to work her up and get her started and then leave her alone and let herburn herself out. Then she would be so aggravated with that subject that shewouldn’t say another word about it, nor let anybody else. Well, ithappened just so. When she was tuckered out and had to hold up, he says, quiteca’m:

“And yet, all the same, Aunt Sally—”

“Shet up!” she says, “I don’t want to hear another wordout of you.”

So we was perfectly safe, then, and didn’t have no more trouble aboutthat delay. Tom done it elegant.

CHAPTER VII.
A NIGHT’S VIGIL

Benny she was looking pretty sober, and she sighed some, now and then; butpretty soon she got to asking about Mary, and Sid, and Tom’s aunt Polly,and then Aunt Sally’s clouds cleared off and she got in a good humor andjoined in on the questions and was her lovingest best self, and so the rest ofthe supper went along gay and pleasant. But the old man he didn’t takeany hand hardly, and was absent-minded and restless, and done a considerableamount of sighing; and it was kind of heart-breaking to see him so sad andtroubled and worried.

By and by, a spell after supper, come a nigger and knocked on the door and puthis head in with his old straw hat in his hand bowing and scraping, and saidhis Marse Brace was out at the stile and wanted his brother, and was gettingtired waiting supper for him, and would Marse Silas please tell him where hewas? I never see Uncle Silas speak up so sharp and fractious before. He says:

“Am I his brother’s keeper?” And then he kind of wiltedtogether, and looked like he wished he hadn’t spoken so, and then hesays, very gentle: “But you needn’t say that, Billy; I was tooksudden and irritable, and I ain’t very well these days, and not hardlyresponsible. Tell him he ain’t here.”

And when the nigger was gone he got up and walked the floor, backwards andforwards, mumbling and muttering to himself and plowing his hands through hishair. It was real pitiful to see him. Aunt Sally she whispered to us and toldus not to take notice of him, it embarrassed him. She said he was alwaysthinking and thinking, since these troubles come on, and she allowed hedidn’t more’n about half know what he was about when the thinkingspells was on him; and she said he walked in his sleep considerable more nowthan he used to, and sometimes wandered around over the house and even outdoorsin his sleep, and if we catched him at it we must let him alone and not disturbhim. She said she reckoned it didn’t do him no harm, and may be it donehim good. She said Benny was the only one that was much help to him these days.Said Benny appeared to know just when to try to soothe him and when to leavehim alone.

So he kept on tramping up and down the floor and muttering, till by and by hebegun to look pretty tired; then Benny she went and snuggled up to his side andput one hand in his and one arm around his waist and walked with him; and hesmiled down on her, and reached down and kissed her; and so, little by littlethe trouble went out of his face and she persuaded him off to his room. Theyhad very petting ways together, and it was uncommon pretty to see.

Aunt Sally she was busy getting the children ready for bed; so by and by it gotdull and tedious, and me and Tom took a turn in the moonlight, and fetched upin the watermelon-patch and et one, and had a good deal of talk. And Tom saidhe’d bet the quarreling was all Jubiter’s fault, and he was goingto be on hand the first time he got a chance, and see; and if it was so, he wasgoing to do his level best to get Uncle Silas to turn him off.

And so we talked and smoked and stuffed watermelons much as two hours, and thenit was pretty late, and when we got back the house was quiet and dark, andeverybody gone to bed.

Smoked and stuffed watermelon

Tom he always seen everything, and now he see that the old green baizework-gown was gone, and said it wasn’t gone when he went out; so heallowed it was curious, and then we went up to bed.

We could hear Benny stirring around in her room, which was next to ourn, andjudged she was worried a good deal about her father and couldn’t sleep.We found we couldn’t, neither. So we set up a long time, and smoked andtalked in a low voice, and felt pretty dull and down-hearted. We talked themurder and the ghost over and over again, and got so creepy and crawly wecouldn’t get sleepy nohow and noway.

By and by, when it was away late in the night and all the sounds was latesounds and solemn, Tom nudged me and whispers to me to look, and I done it, andthere we see a man poking around in the yard like he didn’t know justwhat he wanted to do, but it was pretty dim and we couldn’t see him good.Then he started for the stile, and as he went over it the moon came out strong,and he had a long-handled shovel over his shoulder, and we see the white patchon the old work-gown. So Tom says:

“He’s a-walking in his sleep. I wish we was allowed to follow himand see where he’s going to. There, he’s turned down by thetobacker-field. Out of sight now. It’s a dreadful pity he can’trest no better.”

We waited a long time, but he didn’t come back any more, or if he did hecome around the other way; so at last we was tuckered out and went to sleep andhad nightmares, a million of them. But before dawn we was awake again, becausemeantime a storm had come up and been raging, and the thunder and lightning wasawful, and the wind was a-thrashing the trees around, and the rain was drivingdown in slanting sheets, and the gullies was running rivers. Tom says:

“Looky here, Huck, I’ll tell you one thing that’s mightycurious. Up to the time we went out last night the family hadn’t heardabout Jake Dunlap being murdered. Now the men that chased Hal Clayton and BudDixon away would spread the thing around in a half an hour, and every neighborthat heard it would shin out and fly around from one farm to t’other andtry to be the first to tell the news. Land, they don’t have such a bigthing as that to tell twice in thirty year! Huck, it’s mighty strange; Idon’t understand it.”

So then he was in a fidget for the rain to let up, so we could turn out and runacross some of the people and see if they would say anything about it to us.And he said if they did we must be horribly surprised and shocked.

We was out and gone the minute the rain stopped. It was just broad day then. Weloafed along up the road, and now and then met a person and stopped and saidhowdy, and told them when we come, and how we left the folks at home, and howlong we was going to stay, and all that, but none of them said a word aboutthat thing; which was just astonishing, and no mistake. Tom said he believed ifwe went to the sycamores we would find that body laying there solitary andalone, and not a soul around. Said he believed the men chased the thieves sofar into the woods that the thieves prob’ly seen a good chance and turnedon them at last, and maybe they all killed each other, and so therewasn’t anybody left to tell.

First we knowed, gabbling along that away, we was right at the sycamores. Thecold chills trickled down my back and I wouldn’t budge another step, forall Tom’s persuading. But he couldn’t hold in; he’dgotto see if the boots was safe on that body yet. So he cropein—and the next minute out he come again with his eyes bulging he was soexcited, and says:

Huck, it’s gone!

“Huck, it’s gone!”

I wasastonished! I says:

“Tom, you don’t mean it.”

“It’s gone, sure. There ain’t a sign of it. The ground istrampled some, but if there was any blood it’s all washed away by thestorm, for it’s all puddles and slush in there.”

At last I give in, and went and took a look myself; and it was just as Tomsaid—there wasn’t a sign of a corpse.

“Dern it,” I says, “the di’monds is gone. Don’tyou reckon the thieves slunk back and lugged him off, Tom?”

“Looks like it. It just does. Now where’d they hide him, do youreckon?”

“I don’t know,” I says, disgusted, “and what’smore I don’t care. They’ve got the boots, and that’s all Icared about. He’ll lay around these woods a long time before I hunt himup.”

Tom didn’t feel no more intrust in him neither, only curiosity to knowwhat come of him; but he said we’d lay low and keep dark and itwouldn’t be long till the dogs or somebody rousted him out.

We went back home to breakfast ever so bothered and put out and disappointedand swindled. I warn’t ever so down on a corpse before.

CHAPTER VIII.
TALKING WITH THE GHOST

It warn’t very cheerful at breakfast. Aunt Sally she looked old and tiredand let the children snarl and fuss at one another and didn’t seem tonotice it was going on, which wasn’t her usual style; me and Tom had aplenty to think about without talking; Benny she looked like she hadn’thad much sleep, and whenever she’d lift her head a little and steal alook towards her father you could see there was tears in her eyes; and as forthe old man, his things stayed on his plate and got cold without him knowingthey was there, I reckon, for he was thinking and thinking all the time, andnever said a word and never et a bite.

By and by when it was stillest, that nigger’s head was poked in at thedoor again, and he said his Marse Brace was getting powerful uneasy about MarseJubiter, which hadn’t come home yet, and would Marse Silasplease—He was looking at Uncle Silas, and he stopped there, like the restof his words was froze; for Uncle Silas he rose up shaky and steadied himselfleaning his fingers on the table, and he was panting, and his eyes was set onthe nigger, and he kept swallowing, and put his other hand up to his throat acouple of times, and at last he got his words started, and says:

What does he think?

“Does he—does he—think—whatdoes he think! Tellhim—tell him—” Then he sunk down in his chair limp and weak,and says, so as you could hardly hear him: “Go away—go away!”

The nigger looked scared and cleared out, and we all felt—well, Idon’t know how we felt, but it was awful, with the old man panting there,and his eyes set and looking like a person that was dying. None of us couldbudge; but Benny she slid around soft, with her tears running down, and stoodby his side, and nestled his old gray head up against her and begun to strokeit and pet it with her hands, and nodded to us to go away, and we done it,going out very quiet, like the dead was there.

Me and Tom struck out for the woods mighty solemn, and saying how different itwas now to what it was last summer when we was here and everything was sopeaceful and happy and everybody thought so much of Uncle Silas, and he was socheerful and simple-hearted and pudd’n-headed and good—and now lookat him. If he hadn’t lost his mind he wasn’t much short of it. Thatwas what we allowed.

It was a most lovely day now, and bright and sunshiny; and the further andfurther we went over the hills towards the prairie the lovelier and lovelierthe trees and flowers got to be and the more it seemed strange and somehowwrong that there had to be trouble in such a world as this. And then all of asudden I catched my breath and grabbed Tom’s arm, and all my livers andlungs and things fell down into my legs.

“There it is!” I says. We jumped back behind a bush shivering, andTom says:

“’Sh!—don’t make a noise.”

It was setting on a log right in the edge of a little prairie, thinking. Itried to get Tom to come away, but he wouldn’t, and I dasn’t budgeby myself. He said we mightn’t ever get another chance to see one, and hewas going to look his fill at this one if he died for it. So I looked too,though it give me the fan-tods to do it. Tom he hadto talk, but hetalked low. He says:

“Poor Jakey, it’s got all its things on, just as he said he would.Nowyou see what we wasn’t certain about—its hair.It’s not long now the way it was: it’s got it cropped close to itshead, the way he said he would. Huck, I never see anything look any morenaturaler than what It does.”

“Nor I neither,” I says; “I’d recognize itanywheres.”

“So would I. It looks perfectly solid and genuwyne, just the way it donebefore it died.”

So we kept a-gazing. Pretty soon Tom says:

“Huck, there’s something mighty curious about this one, don’tyou know? IT oughtn’t to be going around in the daytime.”

“That’s so, Tom—I never heard the like of it before.”

“No, sir, they don’t ever come out only at night—and then nottill after twelve. There’s something wrong about this one, now you markmy words. I don’t believe it’s got any right to be around in thedaytime. But don’t it look natural! Jake was going to play deef and dumbhere, so the neighbors wouldn’t know his voice. Do you reckon it would dothat if we was to holler at it?”

“Lordy, Tom, don’t talk so! If you was to holler at it I’ddie in my tracks.”

“Don’t you worry, I ain’t going to holler at it. Look, Huck,it’s a-scratching its head—don’t you see?”

“Well, what of it?”

“Why, this. What’s the sense of it scratching its head? Thereain’t anything there to itch; its head is made out of fog or somethinglike that, and can’t itch. A fog can’t itch; any fool knowsthat.”

“Well, then, if it don’t itch and can’t itch, what in thenation is it scratching it for? Ain’t it just habit, don’t youreckon?”

“No, sir, I don’t. I ain’t a bit satisfied about the way thisone acts. I’ve a blame good notion it’s a bogus one—I have,as sure as I’m a-sitting here. Because, if it—Huck!”

“Well, what’s the matter now?”

“You can’t see the bushes through it!”

“Why, Tom, it’s so, sure! It’s as solid as a cow. I sort ofbegin to think—”

“Huck, it’s biting off a chaw of tobacker! By George, theydon’t chaw—they hain’t got anything to chaw with.Huck!”

“I’m a-listening.”

“It ain’t a ghost at all. It’s Jake Dunlap his ownself!”

“Oh your granny!” I says.

“Huck Finn, did we find any corpse in the sycamores?”

“No.”

“Or any sign of one?”

“No.”

“Mighty good reason. Hadn’t ever been any corpse there.”

“Why, Tom, you know we heard—”

“Yes, we did—heard a howl or two. Does that prove anybody waskilled? Course it don’t. And we seen four men run, then this one comewalking out and we took it for a ghost. No more ghost than you are. It was JakeDunlap his own self, and it’s Jake Dunlap now. He’s been and gothis hair cropped, the way he said he would, and he’s playing himself fora stranger, just the same as he said he would. Ghost? Hum!—he’s assound as a nut.”

Then I see it all, and how we had took too much for granted. I was powerfulglad he didn’t get killed, and so was Tom, and we wondered which he wouldlike the best—for us to never let on to know him, or how? Tom reckonedthe best way would be to go and ask him. So he started; but I kept a littlebehind, because I didn’t know but it might be a ghost, after all. WhenTom got to where he was, he says:

“Me and Huck’s mighty glad to see you again, and you needn’tbe afeared we’ll tell. And if you think it’ll be safer for you ifwe don’t let on to know you when we run across you, say the word andyou’ll see you can depend on us, and would ruther cut our hands off thanget you into the least little bit of danger.”

First off he looked surprised to see us, and not very glad, either; but as Tomwent on he looked pleasanter, and when he was done he smiled, and nodded hishead several times, and made signs with his hands, and says:

Goo-goo—goo-goo

“Goo-goo—goo-goo,” the way deef and dummies does.

Just then we see some of Steve Nickerson’s people coming that livedt’other side of the prairie, so Tom says:

“You do it elegant; I never see anybody do it better. You’re right;play it on us, too; play it on us same as the others; it’ll keep you inpractice and prevent you making blunders. We’ll keep away from you andlet on we don’t know you, but any time we can be any help, you just letus know.”

Then we loafed along past the Nickersons, and of course they asked if that wasthe new stranger yonder, and where’d he come from, and what was his name,and which communion was he, Babtis’ or Methodis’, and whichpolitics, Whig or Democrat, and how long is he staying, and all them otherquestions that humans always asks when a stranger comes, and animals does, too.But Tom said he warn’t able to make anything out of deef and dumb signs,and the same with goo-gooing. Then we watched them go and bullyrag Jake;because we was pretty uneasy for him. Tom said it would take him days to get sohe wouldn’t forget he was a deef and dummy sometimes, and speak outbefore he thought. When we had watched long enough to see that Jake was gettingalong all right and working his signs very good, we loafed along again,allowing to strike the schoolhouse about recess time, which was a three-miletramp.

I was so disappointed not to hear Jake tell about the row in the sycamores, andhow near he come to getting killed, that I couldn’t seem to get over it,and Tom he felt the same, but said if we was in Jake’s fix we would wantto go careful and keep still and not take any chances.

The boys and girls was all glad to see us again, and we had a real good timeall through recess. Coming to school the Henderson boys had come across the newdeef and dummy and told the rest; so all the scholars was chuck full of him andcouldn’t talk about anything else, and was in a sweat to get a sight ofhim because they hadn’t ever seen a deef and dummy in their lives, and itmade a powerful excitement.

Tom said it was tough to have to keep mum now; said we would be heroes if wecould come out and tell all we knowed; but after all, it was still more heroicto keep mum, there warn’t two boys in a million could do it. That was TomSawyer’s idea about it, and I reckoned there warn’t anybody couldbetter it.

CHAPTER IX.
FINDING OF JUBITER DUNLAP

In the next two or three days Dummy he got to be powerful popular. He wentassociating around with the neighbors, and they made much of him, and was proudto have such a rattling curiosity among them. They had him to breakfast, theyhad him to dinner, they had him to supper; they kept him loaded up with hog andhominy, and warn’t ever tired staring at him and wondering over him, andwishing they knowed more about him, he was so uncommon and romantic. His signswarn’t no good; people couldn’t understand them and heprob’ly couldn’t himself, but he done a sight of goo-gooing, and soeverybody was satisfied, and admired to hear him go it. He toted a piece ofslate around, and a pencil; and people wrote questions on it and he wroteanswers; but there warn’t anybody could read his writing but BraceDunlap. Brace said he couldn’t read it very good, but he could manage todig out the meaning most of the time. He said Dummy said he belonged away offsomers and used to be well off, but got busted by swindlers which he hadtrusted, and was poor now, and hadn’t any way to make a living.

Everybody praised Brace Dunlap for being so good to that stranger. He let himhave a little log-cabin all to himself, and had his niggers take care of it,and fetch him all the vittles he wanted.

Dummy was at our house some, because old Uncle Silas was so afflicted himself,these days, that anybody else that was afflicted was a comfort to him. Me andTom didn’t let on that we had knowed him before, and he didn’t leton that he had knowed us before. The family talked their troubles out beforehim the same as if he wasn’t there, but we reckoned it wasn’t anyharm for him to hear what they said. Generly he didn’t seem to notice,but sometimes he did.

Well, two or three days went along, and everybody got to getting uneasy aboutJubiter Dunlap. Everybody was asking everybody if they had any idea what hadbecome of him. No, they hadn’t, they said: and they shook their heads andsaid there was something powerful strange about it. Another and another daywent by; then there was a report got around that praps he was murdered. You betit made a big stir! Everybody’s tongue was clacking away after that.Saturday two or three gangs turned out and hunted the woods to see if theycould run across his remainders. Me and Tom helped, and it was noble good timesand exciting. Tom he was so brimful of it he couldn’t eat nor rest. Hesaid if we could find that corpse we would be celebrated, and more talked aboutthan if we got drownded.

The others got tired and give it up; but not Tom Sawyer—that warn’this style. Saturday night he didn’t sleep any, hardly, trying to think upa plan; and towards daylight in the morning he struck it. He snaked me out ofbed and was all excited, and says:

“Quick, Huck, snatch on your clothes—I’ve got it!Bloodhound!”

In two minutes we was tearing up the river road in the dark towards thevillage. Old Jeff Hooker had a bloodhound, and Tom was going to borrow him. Isays:

“The trail’s too old, Tom—and besides, it’s rained, youknow.”

“It don’t make any difference, Huck. If the body’s hid in thewoods anywhere around the hound will find it. If he’s been murdered andburied, they wouldn’t bury him deep, it ain’t likely, and if thedog goes over the spot he’ll scent him, sure. Huck, we’re going tobe celebrated, sure as you’re born!”

He was just a-blazing; and whenever he got afire he was most likely to getafire all over. That was the way this time. In two minutes he had got it allciphered out, and wasn’t only just going to find the corpse—no, hewas going to get on the track of that murderer and hunt himdown, too;and not only that, but he was going to stick to himtill—“Well,” I says, “you better find the corpse first;I reckon that’s a-plenty for to-day. For all we know, thereain’tany corpse and nobody hain’t been murdered. That cusscould ’a’ gone off somers and not been killed at all.”

That graveled him, and he says:

“Huck Finn, I never see such a person as you to want to spoil everything.As long as youcan’t see anything hopeful in a thing, youwon’t let anybody else. What good can it do you to throw cold water onthat corpse and get up that selfish theory that there ain’t been anymurder? None in the world. I don’t see how you can act so. Iwouldn’t treat you like that, and you know it. Here we’ve got anoble good opportunity to make a ruputation, and—”

“Oh, go ahead,” I says. “I’m sorry, and I take it allback. I didn’t mean nothing. Fix it any way you want it. Heain’t any consequence to me. If he’s killed, I’m as glad ofit as you are; and if he—”

“I never said anything about being glad; I only—”

“Well, then, I’m as sorryas you are. Any way you drutherhave it, that is the way I druther have it. He—”

“There ain’t any druthers aboutit, Huck Finn; nobody saidanything about druthers. And as for—”

He forgot he was talking, and went tramping along, studying. He begun to getexcited again, and pretty soon he says:

“Huck, it’ll be the bulliest thing that ever happened if we findthe body after everybody else has quit looking, and then go ahead and hunt upthe murderer. It won’t only be an honor to us, but it’ll be anhonor to Uncle Silas because it was us that done it. It’ll set him upagain, you see if it don’t.”

But Old Jeff Hooker he throwed cold water on the whole business when we got tohis blacksmith shop and told him what we come for.

“You can take the dog,” he says, “but you ain’t a-goingto find any corpse, because there ain’t any corpse to find.Everybody’s quit looking, and they’re right. Soon as they come tothink, they knowed there warn’t no corpse. And I’ll tell you forwhy. What does a person kill another person for, Tom Sawyer?—answer methat.”

“Why, he—er—”

“Answer up! You ain’t no fool. What does he kill himfor?”

“Well, sometimes it’s for revenge, and—”

“Wait. One thing at a time. Revenge, says you; and right you are. Now whoever had anything agin that poor trifling no-account? Who do you reckon wouldwant to kill him?—that rabbit!”

Tom was stuck. I reckon he hadn’t thought of a person having to have areasonfor killing a person before, and now he sees it warn’tlikely anybody would have that much of a grudge against a lamb like JubiterDunlap. The blacksmith says, by and by:

“The revenge idea won’t work, you see. Well, then, what’snext? Robbery? B’gosh, that must ’a’ been it, Tom! Yes,sirree, I reckon we’ve struck it this time. Some feller wanted hisgallus-buckles, and so he—”

But it was so funny he busted out laughing, and just went on laughing andlaughing and laughing till he was ’most dead, and Tom looked so put outand cheap that I knowed he was ashamed he had come, and he wished hehadn’t. But old Hooker never let up on him. He raked up everything aperson ever could want to kill another person about, and any fool could seethey didn’t any of them fit this case, and he just made no end of fun ofthe whole business and of the people that had been hunting the body; and hesaid:

“If they’d had any sense they’d ’a’ knowed thelazy cuss slid out because he wanted a loafing spell after all this work.He’ll come pottering back in a couple of weeks, and then how’ll youfellers feel? But, laws bless you, take the dog, and go and hunt hisremainders. Do, Tom.”

Then he busted out, and had another of them forty-rod laughs of hisn. Tomcouldn’t back down after all this, so he said, “All right, unchainhim;” and the blacksmith done it, and we started home and left that oldman laughing yet.

It was a lovely dog. There ain’t any dog that’s got a lovelierdisposition than a bloodhound, and this one knowed us and liked us. He caperedand raced around ever so friendly, and powerful glad to be free and have aholiday; but Tom was so cut up he couldn’t take any intrust in him, andsaid he wished he’d stopped and thought a minute before he ever startedon such a fool errand. He said old Jeff Hooker would tell everybody, andwe’d never hear the last of it.

So we loafed along home down the back lanes, feeling pretty glum and nottalking. When we was passing the far corner of our tobacker field we heard thedog set up a long howl in there, and we went to the place and he was scratchingthe ground with all his might, and every now and then canting up his headsideways and fetching another howl.

Fetching another howl.

It was a long square, the shape of a grave; the rain had made it sink down andshow the shape. The minute we come and stood there we looked at one another andnever said a word. When the dog had dug down only a few inches he grabbedsomething and pulled it up, and it was an arm and a sleeve. Tom kind of gaspedout, and says:

“Come away, Huck—it’s found.”

I just felt awful. We struck for the road and fetched the first men that comealong. They got a spade at the crib and dug out the body, and you never seesuch an excitement. You couldn’t make anything out of the face, but youdidn’t need to. Everybody said:

“Poor Jubiter; it’s his clothes, to the last rag!”

Some rushed off to spread the news and tell the justice of the peace and havean inquest, and me and Tom lit out for the house. Tom was all afire and’most out of breath when we come tearing in where Uncle Silas and AuntSally and Benny was. Tom sung out:

“Me and Huck’s found Jubiter Dunlap’s corpse all by ourselveswith a bloodhound, after everybody else had quit hunting and given it up; andif it hadn’t a been for us it never would’a’ beenfound; and he wasmurdered too—they done it with a club orsomething like that; and I’m going to start in and find the murderer,next, and I bet I’ll do it!”

Aunt Sally and Benny sprung up pale and astonished, but Uncle Silas fell rightforward out of his chair on to the floor and groans out:

“Oh, my God, you’ve found him Now!”

CHAPTER X.
THE ARREST OF UNCLE SILAS

Them awful words froze us solid. We couldn’t move hand or foot for asmuch as half a minute. Then we kind of come to, and lifted the old man up andgot him into his chair, and Benny petted him and kissed him and tried tocomfort him, and poor old Aunt Sally she done the same; but, poor things, theywas so broke up and scared and knocked out of their right minds that theydidn’t hardly know what they was about. With Tom it was awful; it’most petrified him to think maybe he had got his uncle into a thousandtimes more trouble than ever, and maybe it wouldn’t ever happened if hehadn’t been so ambitious to get celebrated, and let the corpse alone theway the others done. But pretty soon he sort of come to himself again and says:

“Uncle Silas, don’t you say another word like that. It’sdangerous, and there ain’t a shadder of truth in it.”

Aunt Sally and Benny was thankful to hear him say that, and they said the same;but the old man he wagged his head sorrowful and hopeless, and the tears rundown his face, and he says;

“No—I done it; poor Jubiter, I done it!”

It was dreadful to hear him say it. Then he went on and told about it, and saidit happened the day me and Tom come—along about sundown. He said Jubiterpestered him and aggravated him till he was so mad he just sort of lost hismind and grabbed up a stick and hit him over the head with all his might, andJubiter dropped in his tracks. Then he was scared and sorry, and got down onhis knees and lifted his head up, and begged him to speak and say hewasn’t dead; and before long he come to, and when he see who it washolding his head, he jumped like he was ’most scared to death, andcleared the fence and tore into the woods, and was gone. So he hoped hewasn’t hurt bad.

“But laws,” he says, “it was only just fear that gave himthat last little spurt of strength, and of course it soon played out and helaid down in the bush, and there wasn’t anybody to help him, and hedied.”

Then the old man cried and grieved, and said he was a murderer and the mark ofCain was on him, and he had disgraced his family and was going to be found outand hung. But Tom said:

“No, you ain’t going to be found out. You didn’tkillhim. Onelick wouldn’t kill him. Somebody else done it.”

“Oh, yes,” he says, “I done it—nobody else. Who elsehad anything against him? Who else couldhave anything againsthim?”

He looked up kind of like he hoped some of us could mention somebody that couldhave a grudge against that harmless no-account, but of course it warn’tno use—he hadus; we couldn’t say a word. He noticed that,and he saddened down again, and I never see a face so miserable and so pitifulto see. Tom had a sudden idea, and says:

“But hold on!—somebody buriedhim. Now who—”

He shut off sudden. I knowed the reason. It give me the cold shudders when hesaid them words, because right away I remembered about us seeing Uncle Silasprowling around with a long-handled shovel away in the night that night. And Iknowed Benny seen him, too, because she was talking about it one day. Theminute Tom shut off he changed the subject and went to begging Uncle Silas tokeep mum, and the rest of us done the same, and said he must, and saidit wasn’t his business to tell on himself, and if he kept mum nobodywould ever know; but if it was found out and any harm come to him it wouldbreak the family’s hearts and kill them, and yet never do anybody anygood. So at last he promised. We was all of us more comfortable, then, and wentto work to cheer up the old man. We told him all he’d got to do was tokeep still, and it wouldn’t be long till the whole thing would blow overand be forgot. We all said there wouldn’t anybody ever suspect UncleSilas, nor ever dream of such a thing, he being so good and kind, and havingsuch a good character; and Tom says, cordial and hearty, he says:

“Why, just look at it a minute; just consider. Here is Uncle Silas, allthese years a preacher—at his own expense; all these years doing goodwith all his might and every way he can think of—at his own expense, allthe time; always been loved by everybody, and respected; always been peaceableand minding his own business, the very last man in this whole deestrict totouch a person, and everybody knows it. Suspect him?Why, it ain’tany more possible than—”

“By authority of the State of Arkansaw, I arrest you for the murder ofJubiter Dunlap!” shouts the sheriff at the door.

It was awful. Aunt Sally and Benny flung themselves at Uncle Silas, screamingand crying, and hugged him and hung to him, and Aunt Sally said go away, shewouldn’t ever give him up, they shouldn’t have him, and the niggersthey come crowding and crying to the door and—well, I couldn’tstand it; it was enough to break a person’s heart; so I got out.

They took him up to the little one-horse jail in the village, and we all wentalong to tell him good-bye; and Tom was feeling elegant, and says to me,“We’ll have a most noble good time and heaps of danger some darknight getting him out of there, Huck, and it’ll be talked abouteverywheres and we will be celebrated;” but the old man busted thatscheme up the minute he whispered to him about it. He said no, it was his dutyto stand whatever the law done to him, and he would stick to the jail plumbthrough to the end, even if there warn’t no door to it. It disappointedTom and graveled him a good deal, but he had to put up with it.

But he felt responsible and bound to get his uncle Silas free; and he told AuntSally, the last thing, not to worry, because he was going to turn in and worknight and day and beat this game and fetch Uncle Silas out innocent; and shewas very loving to him and thanked him and said she knowed he would do his verybest. And she told us to help Benny take care of the house and the children,and then we had a good-bye cry all around and went back to the farm, and lefther there to live with the jailer’s wife a month till the trial inOctober.

CHAPTER XI.
TOM SAWYER DISCOVERS THE MURDERERS

Well, that was a hard month on us all. Poor Benny, she kept up the best shecould, and me and Tom tried to keep things cheerful there at the house, but itkind of went for nothing, as you may say. It was the same up at the jail. Wewent up every day to see the old people, but it was awful dreary, because theold man warn’t sleeping much, and was walking in his sleep considerableand so he got to looking fagged and miserable, and his mind got shaky, and weall got afraid his troubles would break him down and kill him. And whenever wetried to persuade him to feel cheerfuler, he only shook his head and said if weonly knowed what it was to carry around a murderer’s load in your heartwe wouldn’t talk that way. Tom and all of us kept telling him itwasn’tmurder, but just accidental killing! but it never made anydifference—it was murder, and he wouldn’t have it any other way. Heactu’ly begun to come out plain and square towards trial time andacknowledge that he triedto kill the man. Why, that was awful, youknow. It made things seem fifty times as dreadful, and there warn’t nomore comfort for Aunt Sally and Benny. But he promised he wouldn’t say aword about his murder when others was around, and we was glad of that.

Kept me up ’most all night.

Tom Sawyer racked the head off of himself all that month trying to plan someway out for Uncle Silas, and many’s the night he kept me up ’mostall night with this kind of tiresome work, but he couldn’t seem to get onthe right track no way. As for me, I reckoned a body might as well give it up,it all looked so blue and I was so downhearted; but he wouldn’t. He stuckto the business right along, and went on planning and thinking and ransackinghis head.

So at last the trial come on, towards the middle of October, and we was all inthe court. The place was jammed, of course. Poor old Uncle Silas, he lookedmore like a dead person than a live one, his eyes was so hollow and he lookedso thin and so mournful. Benny she set on one side of him and Aunt Sally on theother, and they had veils on, and was full of trouble. But Tom he set by ourlawyer, and had his finger in everywheres, of course. The lawyer let him, andthe judge let him. He ’most took the business out of the lawyer’shands sometimes; which was well enough, because that was only a mud-turtle of aback-settlement lawyer and didn’t know enough to come in when it rains,as the saying is.

They swore in the jury, and then the lawyer for the prostitution got up andbegun. He made a terrible speech against the old man, that made him moan andgroan, and made Benny and Aunt Sally cry. The way hetold about themurder kind of knocked us all stupid it was so different from the oldman’s tale. He said he was going to prove that Uncle Silas wasseento kill Jubiter Dunlap by two good witnesses, and done itdeliberate, and saidhe was going to kill him the very minute he hit himwith the club; and they seen him hide Jubiter in the bushes, and they seen thatJubiter was stone-dead. And said Uncle Silas come later and lugged Jubiter downinto the tobacker field, and two men seen him do it. And said Uncle Silasturned out, away in the night, and buried Jubiter, and a man seen him at it.

I says to myself, poor old Uncle Silas has been lying about it because hereckoned nobody seen him and he couldn’t bear to break Aunt Sally’sheart and Benny’s; and right he was: as for me, I would ’a’lied the same way, and so would anybody that had any feeling, to save them suchmisery and sorrow which theywarn’t no ways responsible for. Well,it made our lawyer look pretty sick; and it knocked Tom silly, too, for alittle spell, but then he braced up and let on that he warn’tworried—but I knowed he was, all the same. And thepeople—my, but it made a stir amongst them!

Our lawyer.

And when that lawyer was done telling the jury what he was going to prove, heset down and begun to work his witnesses.

First, he called a lot of them to show that there was bad blood betwixt UncleSilas and the diseased; and they told how they had heard Uncle Silas threatenthe diseased, at one time and another, and how it got worse and worse andeverybody was talking about it, and how diseased got afraid of his life, andtold two or three of them he was certain Uncle Silas would up and kill him sometime or another.

Tom and our lawyer asked them some questions; but it warn’t no use, theystuck to what they said.

Next, they called up Lem Beebe, and he took the stand. It come into my mind,then, how Lem and Jim Lane had come along talking, that time, about borrowing adog or something from Jubiter Dunlap; and that brought up the blackberries andthe lantern; and that brought up Bill and Jack Withers, and how they passed by,talking about a nigger stealing Uncle Silas’s corn; and that fetched upour old ghost that come along about the same time and scared us so—andhere hewas too, and a privileged character, on accounts of his beingdeef and dumb and a stranger, and they had fixed him a chair inside therailing, where he could cross his legs and be comfortable, whilst the otherpeople was all in a jam so they couldn’t hardly breathe. So it all comeback to me just the way it was that day; and it made me mournful to think howpleasant it was up to then, and how miserable ever since.

Lem Beebe, sworn, said—“I was a-coming along, that day,second of September, and Jim Lane was with me, and it was towards sundown, andwe heard loud talk, like quarrelling, and we was very close, only the hazelbushes between (that’s along the fence); and we heard a voice say,‘I’ve told you more’n once I’d kill you,’ andknowed it was this prisoner’s voice; and then we see a club come up abovethe bushes and down out of sight again, and heard a smashing thump and then agroan or two: and then we crope soft to where we could see, and there laidJupiter Dunlap dead, and this prisoner standing over him with the club; and thenext he hauled the dead man into a clump of bushes and hid him, and then westooped low, to be out of sight, and got away.”

Well, it was awful. It kind of froze everybody’s blood to hear it, andthe house was ’most as still whilst he was telling it as if therewarn’t nobody in it. And when he was done, you could hear them gasp andsigh, all over the house, and look at one another the same as to say,“Ain’t it perfectly terrible—ain’t it awful!”

Now happened a thing that astonished me. All the time the first witnesses wasproving the bad blood and the threats and all that, Tom Sawyer was alive andlaying for them; and the minute they was through, he went for them, and donehis level best to catch them in lies and spile their testimony. But now, howdifferent. When Lem first begun to talk, and never said anything about speakingto Jubiter or trying to borrow a dog off of him, he was all alive and layingfor Lem, and you could see he was getting ready to cross-question him to deathpretty soon, and then I judged him and me would go on the stand by and by andtell what we heard him and Jim Lane say. But the next time I looked at Tom Igot the cold shivers. Why, he was in the brownest study you eversee—miles and miles away. He warn’t hearing a word Lem Beebe wassaying; and when he got through he was still in that brown-study, just thesame. Our lawyer joggled him, and then he looked up startled, and says,“Take the witness if you want him. Lemme alone—I want tothink.”

Well, that beat me. I couldn’t understand it. And Benny and hermother—oh, they looked sick, they was so troubled. They shoved theirveils to one side and tried to get his eye, but it warn’t any use, and Icouldn’t get his eye either. So the mud-turtle he tackled the witness,but it didn’t amount to nothing; and he made a mess of it.

Then they called up Jim Lane, and he told the very same story over again,exact. Tom never listened to this one at all, but set there thinking andthinking, miles and miles away. So the mud-turtle went in alone again and comeout just as flat as he done before. The lawyer for the prostitution looked verycomfortable, but the judge looked disgusted. You see, Tom was just the same asa regular lawyer, nearly, because it was Arkansaw law for a prisoner to chooseanybody he wanted to help his lawyer, and Tom had had Uncle Silas shove himinto the case, and now he was botching it and you could see the judgedidn’t like it much. All that the mud-turtle got out of Lem and Jim wasthis: he asked them:

“Why didn’t you go and tell what you saw?”

“We was afraid we would get mixed up in it ourselves. And we was juststarting down the river a-hunting for all the week besides; but as soon as wecome back we found out they’d been searching for the body, so then wewent and told Brace Dunlap all about it.”

“When was that?”

“Saturday night, September 9th.”

The judge he spoke up and says:

“Mr. Sheriff, arrest these two witnesses on suspicions of beingaccessionary after the fact to the murder.”

The lawyer for the prostitution jumps up all excited, and says:

“Your honor! I protest against this extraordi—”

“Set down!” says the judge.

“Set down!” says the judge, pulling his bowie and laying it on hispulpit. “I beg you to respect the Court.”

So he done it. Then he called Bill Withers.

Bill Withers, sworn, said: “I was coming along about sundown,Saturday, September 2d, by the prisoner’s field, and my brother Jack waswith me and we seen a man toting off something heavy on his back and allowed itwas a nigger stealing corn; we couldn’t see distinct; next we made outthat it was one man carrying another; and the way it hung, so kind of limp, wejudged it was somebody that was drunk; and by the man’s walk we said itwas Parson Silas, and we judged he had found Sam Cooper drunk in the road,which he was always trying to reform him, and was toting him out ofdanger.”

It made the people shiver to think of poor old Uncle Silas toting off thediseased down to the place in his tobacker field where the dog dug up the body,but there warn’t much sympathy around amongst the faces, and I heard onecuss say “’Tis the coldest blooded work I ever struck, lugging amurdered man around like that, and going to bury him like a animal, and him apreacher at that.”

Tom he went on thinking, and never took no notice; so our lawyer took thewitness and done the best he could, and it was plenty poor enough.

Then Jack Withers he come on the stand and told the same tale, just like Billdone.

And after him comes Brace Dunlap, and he was looking very mournful, and mostcrying; and there was a rustle and a stir all around, and everybody got readyto listen, and lots of the women folks said, “Poor cretur, poorcretur,” and you could see a many of them wiping their eyes.

Brace Dunlap, sworn, said: “I was in considerable trouble a longtime about my poor brother, but I reckoned things warn’t near so bad ashe made out, and I couldn’t make myself believe anybody would have theheart to hurt a poor harmless cretur like that”—[by jings, I wassure I seen Tom give a kind of a faint little start, and then look disappointedagain]—“and you know I could’tthink a preacher wouldhurt him—it warn’t natural to think such an onlikely thing—soI never paid much attention, and now I sha’n’t ever, ever forgivemyself; for if I had a done different, my poor brother would be with me thisday, and not laying yonder murdered, and him so harmless.” He kind ofbroke down there and choked up, and waited to get his voice; and people allaround said the most pitiful things, and women cried; and it was very still inthere, and solemn, and old Uncle Silas, poor thing, he give a groan right outso everybody heard him. Then Brace he went on, “Saturday, September 2d,he didn’t come home to supper. By-and-by I got a little uneasy, and oneof my niggers went over to this prisoner’s place, but come back and saidhe warn’t there. So I got uneasier and uneasier, and couldn’trest. I went to bed, but I couldn’t sleep; and turned out, away late inthe night, and went wandering over to this prisoner’s place and allaround about there a good while, hoping I would run across my poor brother, andnever knowing he was out of his troubles and gone to a bettershore—” So he broke down and choked up again, and most all thewomen was crying now. Pretty soon he got another start and says: “But itwarn’t no use; so at last I went home and tried to get some sleep, butcouldn’t. Well, in a day or two everybody was uneasy, and they got totalking about this prisoner’s threats, and took to the idea, which Ididn’t take no stock in, that my brother was murdered so they huntedaround and tried to find his body, but couldn’t and give it up. And so Ireckoned he was gone off somers to have a little peace, and would come back tous when his troubles was kind of healed. But late Saturday night, the 9th, LemBeebe and Jim Lane come to my house and told me all—told me the wholeawful ’sassination, and my heart was broke. And thenI rememberedsomething that hadn’t took no hold of me at the time, because reportssaid this prisoner had took to walking in his sleep and doing all kind ofthings of no consequence, not knowing what he was about. I will tell you whatthat thing was that come back into my memory. Away late that awful Saturdaynight when I was wandering around about this prisoner’s place, grievingand troubled, I was down by the corner of the tobacker-field and I heard asound like digging in a gritty soil; and I crope nearer and peeped through thevines that hung on the rail fence and seen this prisonershoveling—shoveling with a long-handled shovel—heaving earthinto a big hole that was most filled up; his back was to me, but it was brightmoonlight and I knowed him by his old green baize work-gown with a splatterywhite patch in the middle of the back like somebody had hit him with asnowball. He was burying the man he’d murdered!”

And he slumped down in his chair crying and sobbing, and ’most everybodyin the house busted out wailing, and crying, and saying, “Oh, it’sawful—awful—horrible!” and there was a most tremendousexcitement, and you couldn’t hear yourself think; and right in the midstof it up jumps old Uncle Silas, white as a sheet, and sings out:

“It’s true, every word—I murdered him in coldblood!”

By Jackson, it petrified them! People rose up wild all over the house,straining and staring for a better look at him, and the judge was hammeringwith his mallet and the sheriff yelling “Order—order in thecourt—order!”

And all the while the old man stood there a-quaking and his eyes a-burning, andnot looking at his wife and daughter, which was clinging to him and begging himto keep still, but pawing them off with his hands and saying he wouldclear his black soul from crime, he wouldheave off this load that wasmore than he could bear, and he wouldn’tbear it another hour! Andthen he raged right along with his awful tale, everybody a-staring and gasping,judge, jury, lawyers, and everybody, and Benny and Aunt Sally crying theirhearts out. And by George, Tom Sawyer never looked at him once! Neveronce—just set there gazing with all his eyes at something else, Icouldn’t tell what. And so the old man raged right along, pouring hiswords out like a stream of fire:

I struck to kill.

“I killed him! I am guilty! But I never had the notion in my life to hurthim or harm him, spite of all them lies about my threatening him, till the veryminute I raised the club—then my heart went cold!—then the pity allwent out of it, and I struck to kill! In that one moment all my wrongs comeinto my mind; all the insults that that man and the scoundrel his brother,there, had put upon me, and how they laid in together to ruin me with thepeople, and take away my good name, and driveme to some deed that woulddestroy me and my family that hadn’t ever done themno harm, sohelp me God! And they done it in a mean revenge—for why? Because myinnocent pure girl here at my side wouldn’t marry that rich, insolent,ignorant coward, Brace Dunlap, who’s been sniveling here over a brotherhe never cared a brass farthing for—” [I see Tom give a jump andlook glad thistime, to a dead certainty] “—and in thatmoment I’ve told you about, I forgot my God and remembered only myheart’s bitterness, God forgive me, and I struck to kill. In one second Iwas miserably sorry—oh, filled with remorse; but I thought of my poorfamily, and I musthide what I’d done for their sakes; and I didhide that corpse in the bushes; and presently I carried it to the tobackerfield; and in the deep night I went with my shovel and buried itwhere—”

Up jumps Tom and shouts:

“Now, I’ve got it!” and waves his hand, oh, ever sofine and starchy, towards the old man, and says:

“Set down! A murder wasdone, but you never had no hand init!”

A murder was done.

Well, sir, you could a heard a pin drop. And the old man he sunk down kind ofbewildered in his seat and Aunt Sally and Benny didn’t know it, becausethey was so astonished and staring at Tom with their mouths open and notknowing what they was about. And the whole house the same. I never seen peoplelook so helpless and tangled up, and I hain’t ever seen eyes bug out andgaze without a blink the way theirn did. Tom says, perfectly ca’m:

“Your honor, may I speak?”

“For God’s sake, yes—go on!” says the judge, soastonished and mixed up he didn’t know what he was about hardly.

Then Tom he stood there and waited a second or two—that was for to workup an “effect,” as he calls it—then he started in just asca’m as ever, and says:

“For about two weeks now there’s been a little bill sticking on thefront of this courthouse offering two thousand dollars reward for a couple ofbig di’monds—stole at St. Louis. Them di’monds is worthtwelve thousand dollars. But never mind about that till I get to it. Now aboutthis murder. I will tell you all about it—how it happened—who doneit—every detail.”

You could see everybody nestle now, and begin to listen for all they was worth.

“This man here, Brace Dunlap, that’s been sniveling so about hisdead brother that youknow he never cared a straw for, wanted to marrythat young girl there, and she wouldn’t have him. So he told Uncle Silashe would make him sorry. Uncle Silas knowed how powerful he was, and how littlechance he had against such a man, and he was scared and worried, and doneeverything he could think of to smooth him over and get him to be good to him:he even took his no-account brother Jubiter on the farm and give him wages andstinted his own family to pay them; and Jubiter done everything his brothercould contrive to insult Uncle Silas, and fret and worry him, and try to driveUncle Silas into doing him a hurt, so as to injure Uncle Silas with the people.And it done it. Everybody turned against him and said the meanest kind ofthings about him, and it graduly broke his heart—yes, and he was soworried and distressed that often he warn’t hardly in his right mind.

“Well, on that Saturday that we’ve had so much trouble about, twoof these witnesses here, Lem Beebe and Jim Lane, come along by where UncleSilas and Jubiter Dunlap was at work—and that much of what they’vesaid is true, the rest is lies. They didn’t hear Uncle Silas say he wouldkill Jubiter; they didn’t hear no blow struck; they didn’t see nodead man, and they didn’t see Uncle Silas hide anything in the bushes.Look at them now—how they set there, wishing they hadn’t been sohandy with their tongues; anyway, they’ll wish it before I get done.

“That same Saturday evening Bill and Jack Withers didsee one manlugging off another one. That much of what they said is true, and the rest islies. First off they thought it was a nigger stealing Uncle Silas’scorn—you notice it makes them look silly, now, to find out somebodyoverheard them say that. That’s because they found out by and by who itwas that was doing the lugging, and theyknow best why they swore herethat they took it for Uncle Silas by the gait—which itwasn’t, and they knowed it when they swore to that lie.

“A man out in the moonlight didsee a murdered person put underground in the tobacker field—but it wasn’t Uncle Silas that donethe burying. He was in his bed at that very time.

“Now, then, before I go on, I want to ask you if you’ve evernoticed this: that people, when they’re thinking deep, or whenthey’re worried, are most always doing something with their hands, andthey don’t know it, and don’t notice what it is their hands aredoing, some stroke their chins; some stroke their noses; some stroke upundertheir chin with their hand; some twirl a chain, some fumble abutton, then there’s some that draws a figure or a letter with theirfinger on their cheek, or under their chin or on their under lip. That’smyway. When I’m restless, or worried, or thinking hard, I drawcapital V’s on my cheek or on my under lip or under my chin, and neveranything butcapital V’s—and half the time I don’tnotice it and don’t know I’m doing it.”

That was odd. That is just what I do; only I make an O. And I could see peoplenodding to one another, same as they do when they mean“that’so.”

“Now, then, I’ll go on. That same Saturday—no, it was thenight before—there was a steamboat laying at Flagler’s Landing,forty miles above here, and it was raining and storming like the nation. Andthere was a thief aboard, and he had them two big di’monds that’sadvertised out here on this courthouse door; and he slipped ashore with hishand-bag and struck out into the dark and the storm, and he was a-hoping hecould get to this town all right and be safe. But he had two pals aboard theboat, hiding, and he knowed they was going to kill him the first chance theygot and take the di’monds; because all three stole them, and then thisfellow he got hold of them and skipped.

“Well, he hadn’t been gone more’n ten minutes before his palsfound it out, and they jumped ashore and lit out after him. Prob’ly theyburnt matches and found his tracks. Anyway, they dogged along after him all daySaturday and kept out of his sight; and towards sundown he come to the bunch ofsycamores down by Uncle Silas’s field, and he went in there to get adisguise out of his hand-bag and put it on before he showed himself here in thetown—and mind you he done that just a little after the time that UncleSilas was hitting Jubiter Dunlap over the head with a club—for hedidhit him.

“But the minute the pals see that thief slide into the bunch ofsycamores, they jumped out of the bushes and slid in after him.

“They fell on him and clubbed him to death.

“Yes, for all he screamed and howled so, they never had no mercy on him,but clubbed him to death. And two men that was running along the road heard himyelling that way, and they made a rush into the sycamore bunch—which waswhere they was bound for, anyway—and when the pals saw them they lit outand the two new men after them a-chasing them as tight as they could go. Butonly a minute or two—then these two new men slipped back very quiet intothe sycamores.

“Thenwhat did they do? I will tell you what they done. They foundwhere the thief had got his disguise out of his carpet-sack to put on; so oneof them strips and puts on that disguise.”

Tom waited a little here, for some more “effect”—then hesays, very deliberate:

“The man that put on that dead man’s disguise was—JubiterDunlap!”

“Great Scott!” everybody shouted, all over the house, and old UncleSilas he looked perfectly astonished.

“Yes, it was Jubiter Dunlap. Not dead, you see. Then they pulled off thedead man’s boots and put Jubiter Dunlap’s old ragged shoes on thecorpse and put the corpse’s boots on Jubiter Dunlap. Then Jubiter Dunlapstayed where he was, and the other man lugged the dead body off in thetwilight; and after midnight he went to Uncle Silas’s house, and took hisold green work-robe off of the peg where it always hangs in the passage betwixtthe house and the kitchen and put it on, and stole the long-handled shovel andwent off down into the tobacker field and buried the murdered man.”

He stopped, and stood half a minute. Then—“And who do you reckonthe murdered man was?It was—JakeDunlap, the long-lostburglar!”

“Great Scott!”

“And the man that buried him was—BraceDunlap, hisbrother!”

“Great Scott!”

“And who do you reckon is this mowing idiot here that’s letting onall these weeks to be a deef and dumb stranger? It’s—JubiterDunlap!”

And there was the murdered man.

My land, they all busted out in a howl, and you never see the like of thatexcitement since the day you was born. And Tom he made a jump for Jubiter andsnaked off his goggles and his false whiskers, and there was the murdered man,sure enough, just as alive as anybody! And Aunt Sally and Benny they went tohugging and crying and kissing and smothering old Uncle Silas to that degree hewas more muddled and confused and mushed up in his mind than he ever wasbefore, and that is saying considerable. And next, people begun to yell:

“Tom Sawyer! Tom Sawyer! Shut up everybody, and let him go on! Go on, TomSawyer!”

Which made him feel uncommon bully.

Which made him feel uncommon bully, for it was nuts for Tom Sawyer to be apublic character that-away, and a hero, as he calls it. So when it was allquiet, he says:

“There ain’t much left, only this. When that man there, BruceDunlap, had most worried the life and sense out of Uncle Silas till at last heplumb lost his mind and hit this other blatherskite, his brother, with a club,I reckon he seen his chance. Jubiter broke for the woods to hide, and I reckonthe game was for him to slide out, in the night, and leave the country. ThenBrace would make everybody believe Uncle Silas killed him and hid his bodysomers; and that would ruin Uncle Silas and drive himout of thecountry—hang him, maybe; I dunno. But when they found their dead brotherin the sycamores without knowing him, because he was so battered up, they seethey had a better thing; disguise bothand bury Jake and dig him uppresently all dressed up in Jubiter’s clothes, and hire Jim Lane and BillWithers and the others to swear to some handy lies—which they done. Andthere they set, now, and I told them they would be looking sick before I gotdone, and that is the way they’re looking now.

“Well, me and Huck Finn here, we come down on the boat with the thieves,and the dead one told us all about the di’monds, and said the otherswould murder him if they got the chance; and we was going to help him all wecould. We was bound for the sycamores when we heard them killing him in there;but we was in there in the early morning after the storm and allowed nobodyhadn’t been killed, after all. And when we see Jubiter Dunlap herespreading around in the very same disguise Jake told us hewas going towear, we thought it was Jake his own self—and he was goo-gooing deef anddumb, and thatwas according to agreement.

“Well, me and Huck went on hunting for the corpse after the others quit,and we found it. And was proud, too; but Uncle Silas he knocked us crazy bytelling us hekilled the man. So we was mighty sorry we found the body,and was bound to save Uncle Silas’s neck if we could; and it was going tobe tough work, too, because he wouldn’t let us break him out of prisonthe way we done with our old nigger Jim.

“I done everything I could the whole month to think up some way to saveUncle Silas, but I couldn’t strike a thing. So when we come into courtto-day I come empty, and couldn’t see no chance anywheres. But by and byI had a glimpse of something that set me thinking—just a little weeglimpse—only that, and not enough to make sure; but it set me thinkinghard—and watching, when I was only letting on to think; and by andby, sure enough, when Uncle Silas was piling out that stuff about himkilling Jubiter Dunlap, I catched that glimpse again, and this time I jumped upand shut down the proceedings, because I knowedJubiter Dunlap wasa-setting here before me. I knowed him by a thing which I seen him do—andI remembered it. I’d seen him do it when I was here a year ago.”

He stopped then, and studied a minute—laying for an“effect”—I knowed it perfectly well. Then he turned off likehe was going to leave the platform, and says, kind of lazy and indifferent:

“Well, I believe that is all.”

Why, you never heard such a howl!—and it come from the whole house:

“What wasit you seen him do? Stay where you are, you littledevil! You think you are going to work a body up till his mouth’sa-watering and stop there? What wasit he done?”

That was it, you see—he just done it to get an “effect”; youcouldn’t ’a’ pulled him off of that platform with a yoke ofoxen.

“Oh, it wasn’t anything much,” he says. “I seen himlooking a little excited when he found Uncle Silas was actually fixing to hanghimself for a murder that warn’t ever done; and he got more and morenervous and worried, I a-watching him sharp but not seeming to look athim—and all of a sudden his hands begun to work and fidget, and prettysoon his left crept up and his finger drawed a cross on his cheek, andthen I hadhim!”

Well, then they ripped and howled and stomped and clapped their hands till TomSawyer was that proud and happy he didn’t know what to do with himself.

And then the judge he looked down over his pulpit and says:

“My boy, did you seeall the various details of this strangeconspiracy and tragedy that you’ve been describing?”

“No, your honor, I didn’t see any of them.”

“Didn’t see any of them! Why, you’ve told the whole historystraight through, just the same as if you’d seen it with your eyes. Howdid you manage that?”

Tom says, kind of easy and comfortable:

“Oh, just noticing the evidence and piecing this and that together, yourhonor; just an ordinary little bit of detective work; anybody could’a’ done it.”

“Nothing of the kind! Not two in a million could ’a’ done it.You are a very remarkable boy.”

Then they let go and give Tom another smashing round, and he—well, hewouldn’t ’a’ sold out for a silver mine. Then the judge says:

“But are you certain you’ve got this curious historystraight?”

“Perfectly, your honor. Here is Brace Dunlap—let him deny his shareof it if he wants to take the chance; I’ll engage to make him wish hehadn’t said anything...... Well, you see he’spretty quiet.And his brother’s pretty quiet, and them four witnesses that lied so andgot paid for it, they’re pretty quiet. And as for Uncle Silas, itain’t any use for him to put in his oar, I wouldn’t believe himunder oath!”

Well, sir, that fairly made them shout; and even the judge he let go andlaughed. Tom he was just feeling like a rainbow. When they was done laughing helooks up at the judge and says:

“Your honor, there’s a thief in this house.”

“A thief?”

“Yes, sir. And he’s got them twelve-thousand-dollar di’mondson him.”

By gracious, but it made a stir! Everybody went shouting:

“Which is him? which is him? p’int him out!”

And the judge says:

“Point him out, my lad. Sheriff, you will arrest him. Which one isit?”

Tom says:

“This late dead man here—Jubiter Dunlap.”

Then there was another thundering let-go of astonishment and excitement; butJubiter, which was astonished enough before, was just fairly putrified withastonishment this time. And he spoke up, about half crying, and says:

“Now that’sa lie. Your honor, it ain’t fair;I’m plenty bad enough without that. I done the other things—Bracehe put me up to it, and persuaded me, and promised he’d make me rich,some day, and I done it, and I’m sorry I done it, and I wisht Ihadn’t; but I hain’t stole no di’monds, and I hain’tgotno di’monds; I wisht I may never stir if it ain’t so.The sheriff can search me and see.”

Tom says:

“Your honor, it wasn’t right to call him a thief, and I’lllet up on that a little. He did steal the di’monds, but he didn’tknow it. He stole them from his brother Jake when he was laying dead, afterJake had stole them from the other thieves; but Jubiter didn’t know hewas stealing them; and he’s been swelling around here with them a month;yes, sir, twelve thousand dollars’ worth of di’monds onhim—all that riches, and going around here every day just like a poorman. Yes, your honor, he’s got them on him now.”

The judge spoke up and says:

“Search him, sheriff.”

Searched his seams and his pockets and his socks.

Well, sir, the sheriff he ransacked him high and low, and everywhere: searchedhis hat, socks, seams, boots, everything—and Tom he stood there quiet,laying for another of them effects of hisn. Finally the sheriff he give it up,and everybody looked disappointed, and Jubiter says:

“There, now! what’d I tell you?”

And the judge says:

“It appears you were mistaken this time, my boy.”

Then Tom took an attitude and let on to be studying with all his might, andscratching his head. Then all of a sudden he glanced up chipper, and says:

“Oh, now I’ve got it! I’d forgot.”

Which was a lie, and I knowed it. Then he says:

“Will somebody be good enough to lend me a little small screwdriver?There was one in your brother’s hand-bag that you smouched, Jubiter, butI reckon you didn’t fetch it with you.”

“No, I didn’t. I didn’t want it, and I give it away.”

“That’s because you didn’t know what it was for.”

Jubiter had his boots on again, by now, and when the thing Tom wanted waspassed over the people’s heads till it got to him, he says to Jubiter:

“Put up your foot on this chair.” And he kneeled down and begun tounscrew the heel-plate, everybody watching; and when he got that bigdi’mond out of that boot-heel and held it up and let it flash and blazeand squirt sunlight everwhichaway, it just took everybody’s breath; andJubiter he looked so sick and sorry you never see the like of it. And when Tomheld up the other di’mond he looked sorrier than ever. Land! he wasthinking how he would ’a’ skipped out and been rich and independentin a foreign land if he’d only had the luck to guess what the screwdriverwas in the carpet-bag for.

Well, it was a most exciting time, take it all around, and Tom got cords ofglory. The judge took the di’monds, and stood up in his pulpit, andcleared his throat, and shoved his spectacles back on his head, and says:

“I’ll keep them and notify the owners; and when they send for themit will be a real pleasure to me to hand you the two thousand dollars, foryou’ve earned the money—yes, and you’ve earned the deepestand most sincerest thanks of this community besides, for lifting a wronged andinnocent family out of ruin and shame, and saving a good and honorable man froma felon’s death, and for exposing to infamy and the punishment of the lawa cruel and odious scoundrel and his miserable creatures!”

Well, sir, if there’d been a brass band to bust out some music, then, itwould ’a’ been just the perfectest thing I ever see, and Tom Sawyerhe said the same.

Then the sheriff he nabbed Brace Dunlap and his crowd, and by and by next monththe judge had them up for trial and jailed the whole lot. And everybody crowdedback to Uncle Silas’s little old church, and was ever so loving and kindto him and the family and couldn’t do enough for them; and Uncle Silas hepreached them the blamedest jumbledest idiotic sermons you ever struck, andwould tangle you up so you couldn’t find your way home in daylight; butthe people never let on but what they thought it was the clearest and brightestand elegantest sermons that ever was; and they would set there and cry, forlove and pity; but, by George, they give me the jim-jams and the fan-tods andcaked up what brains I had, and turned them solid; but by and by they loved theold man’s intellects back into him again, and he was as sound in hisskull as ever he was, which ain’t no flattery, I reckon. And so the wholefamily was as happy as birds, and nobody could be gratefuler and lovinger thanwhat they was to Tom Sawyer; and the same to me, though I hadn’t donenothing. And when the two thousand dollars come, Tom give half of it to me, andnever told anybody so, which didn’t surprise me, because I knowed him.

Tom, give half of it to me.

Related articles