So I started for town in the wagon, and when I was half-way I see a
wagon coming, and sure enough it was Tom Sawyer, and I stopped and
waited till he come along. I says “Hold on!” and it stopped alongside,
and his mouth opened up like a trunk, and stayed so; and he swallowed
two or three times like a person that’s got a dry throat, and then
says:
“I hain’t ever done you no harm. You know that. So, then, what you
want to come back and ha’nt _me_ for?”
I says:
“I hain’t come back—I hain’t been _gone_.”
When he heard my voice it righted him up some, but he warn’t quite
satisfied yet. He says:
“Don’t you play nothing on me, because I wouldn’t on you. Honest
injun, you ain’t a ghost?”
“Honest injun, I ain’t,” I says.
“Well—I—I—well, that ought to settle it, of course; but I can’t
somehow seem to understand it no way. Looky here, warn’t you ever
murdered _at all?_”
“No. I warn’t ever murdered at all—I played it on them. You come in
here and feel of me if you don’t believe me.”
So he done it; and it satisfied him; and he was that glad to see me
again he didn’t know what to do. And he wanted to know all about it
right off, because it was a grand adventure, and mysterious, and so it
hit him where he lived. But I said, leave it alone till by and by; and
told his driver to wait, and we drove off a little piece, and I told
him the kind of a fix I was in, and what did he reckon we better do?
He said, let him alone a minute, and don’t disturb him. So he thought
and thought, and pretty soon he says:
“It’s all right; I’ve got it. Take my trunk in your wagon, and let on
it’s your’n; and you turn back and fool along slow, so as to get to
the house about the time you ought to; and I’ll go towards town a
piece, and take a fresh start, and get there a quarter or a half an
hour after you; and you needn’t let on to know me at first.”
I says:
“All right; but wait a minute. There’s one more thing—a thing that
_nobody_ don’t know but me. And that is, there’s a nigger here that
I’m a-trying to steal out of slavery, and his name is _Jim_—old Miss
Watson’s Jim.”
He says:
“What! Why, Jim is—”
He stopped and went to studying. I says:
“_I_ know what you’ll say. You’ll say it’s dirty, low-down business;
but what if it is? _I_’m low down; and I’m a-going to steal him, and I
want you keep mum and not let on. Will you?”
His eye lit up, and he says:
“I’ll _help_ you steal him!”
Well, I let go all holts then, like I was shot. It was the most
astonishing speech I ever heard—and I’m bound to say Tom Sawyer fell
considerable in my estimation. Only I couldn’t believe it. Tom Sawyer
a _nigger-stealer!_
“Oh, shucks!” I says; “you’re joking.”
“I ain’t joking, either.”
“Well, then,” I says, “joking or no joking, if you hear anything said
about a runaway nigger, don’t forget to remember that _you_ don’t know
nothing about him, and _I_ don’t know nothing about him.”
Then he took the trunk and put it in my wagon, and he drove off his
way and I drove mine. But of course I forgot all about driving slow on
accounts of being glad and full of thinking; so I got home a heap too
quick for that length of a trip. The old gentleman was at the door,
and he says:
“Why, this is wonderful! Whoever would ’a’ thought it was in that mare
to do it? I wish we’d ’a’ timed her. And she hain’t sweated a
hair—not a hair. It’s wonderful. Why, I wouldn’t take a hundred
dollars for that horse now—I wouldn’t, honest; and yet I’d ’a’ sold
her for fifteen before, and thought ’twas all she was worth.”
That’s all he said. He was the innocentest, best old soul I ever see.
But it warn’t surprising; because he warn’t only just a farmer, he was
a preacher, too, and had a little one-horse log church down back of
the plantation, which he built it himself at his own expense, for a
church and schoolhouse, and never charged nothing for his preaching,
and it was worth it, too. There was plenty other farmer-preachers like
that, and done the same way, down South.
In about half an hour Tom’s wagon drove up to the front stile, and
Aunt Sally she see it through the window, because it was only about
fifty yards, and says:
“Why, there’s somebody come! I wonder who ’tis? Why, I do believe it’s
a stranger. Jimmy” (that’s one of the children), “run and tell Lize to
put on another plate for dinner.”
Everybody made a rush for the front door, because, of course, a
stranger don’t come _every_ year, and so he lays over the
yaller-fever, for interest, when he does come. Tom was over the stile
and starting for the house; the wagon was spinning up the road for the
village, and we was all bunched in the front door. Tom had his store
clothes on, and an audience—and that was always nuts for Tom Sawyer.
In them circumstances it warn’t no trouble to him to throw in an
amount of style that was suitable. He warn’t a boy to meeky along up
that yard like a sheep; no, he come ca’m and important, like the ram.
When he got a-front of us he lifts his hat ever so gracious and
dainty, like it was the lid of a box that had butterflies asleep in it
and he didn’t want to disturb them, and says:
“Mr. Archibald Nichols, I presume?”
“No, my boy,” says the old gentleman, “I’m sorry to say ’t your driver
has deceived you; Nichols’s place is down a matter of three mile more.
Come in, come in.”
Tom he took a look back over his shoulder, and says, “Too late—he’s
out of sight.”
“Yes, he’s gone, my son, and you must come in and eat your dinner with
us; and then we’ll hitch up and take you down to Nichols’s.”
“Oh, I _can’t_ make you so much trouble; I couldn’t think of it. I’ll
walk—I don’t mind the distance.”
“But we won’t _let_ you walk—it wouldn’t be Southern hospitality to
do it. Come right in.”
“Oh, _do_,” says Aunt Sally; “it ain’t a bit of trouble to us, not a
bit in the world. You must stay. It’s a long, dusty three mile, and we
_can’t_ let you walk. And, besides, I’ve already told ’em to put on
another plate when I see you coming; so you mustn’t disappoint us.
Come right in and make yourself at home.”
So Tom he thanked them very hearty and handsome, and let himself be
persuaded, and come in; and when he was in he said he was a stranger
from Hicksville, Ohio, and his name was William Thompson—and he made
another bow.
Well, he run on, and on, and on, making up stuff about Hicksville and
everybody in it he could invent, and I getting a little nervious, and
wondering how this was going to help me out of my scrape; and at last,
still talking along, he reached over and kissed Aunt Sally right on
the mouth, and then settled back again in his chair comfortable, and
was going on talking; but she jumped up and wiped it off with the back
of her hand, and says:
“You owdacious puppy!”
He looked kind of hurt, and says:
“I’m surprised at you, m’am.”
“You’re s’rp—Why, what do you reckon _I_ am? I’ve a good notion to
take and—Say, what do you mean by kissing me?”
He looked kind of humble, and says:
“I didn’t mean nothing, m’am. I didn’t mean no harm. I—I—thought
you’d like it.”
“Why, you born fool!” She took up the spinning-stick, and it looked
like it was all she could do to keep from giving him a crack with it.
“What made you think I’d like it?”
“Well, I don’t know. Only, they—they—told me you would.”
“_They_ told you I would. Whoever told you’s _another_ lunatic. I
never heard the beat of it. Who’s _they?_”
“Why, everybody. They all said so, m’am.”
It was all she could do to hold in; and her eyes snapped, and her
fingers worked like she wanted to scratch him; and she says:
“Who’s ’everybody’? Out with their names, or ther’ll be an idiot
short.”
He got up and looked distressed, and fumbled his hat, and says:
“I’m sorry, and I warn’t expecting it. They told me to. They all told
me to. They all said, kiss her; and said she’d like it. They all said
it—every one of them. But I’m sorry, m’am, and I won’t do it no
more—I won’t, honest.”
“You won’t, won’t you? Well, I sh’d _reckon_ you won’t!”
“No’m, I’m honest about it; I won’t ever do it again—till you ask
me.”
“Till I _ask_ you! Well, I never see the beat of it in my born days! I
lay you’ll be the Methusalem-numskull of creation before ever _I_ ask
you—or the likes of you.”
“Well,” he says, “it does surprise me so. I can’t make it out,
somehow. They said you would, and I thought you would. But—” He
stopped and looked around slow, like he wished he could run across a
friendly eye somewheres, and fetched up on the old gentleman’s, and
says, “Didn’t _you_ think she’d like me to kiss her, sir?”
“Why, no; I—I—well, no, I b’lieve I didn’t.”
Then he looks on around the same way to me, and says:
“Tom, didn’t _you_ think Aunt Sally ’d open out her arms and say, ’Sid
Sawyer—’”
“My land!” she says, breaking in and jumping for him, “you impudent
young rascal, to fool a body so—” and was going to hug him, but he
fended her off, and says:
“No, not till you’ve asked me first.”
So she didn’t lose no time, but asked him; and hugged him and kissed
him over and over again, and then turned him over to the old man, and
he took what was left. And after they got a little quiet again she
says:
“Why, dear me, I never see such a surprise. We warn’t looking for
_you_ at all, but only Tom. Sis never wrote to me about anybody coming
but him.”
“It’s because it warn’t _intended_ for any of us to come but Tom,” he
says; “but I begged and begged, and at the last minute she let me
come, too; so, coming down the river, me and Tom thought it would be a
first-rate surprise for him to come here to the house first, and for
me to by and by tag along and drop in, and let on to be a stranger.
But it was a mistake, Aunt Sally. This ain’t no healthy place for a
stranger to come.”
“No—not impudent whelps, Sid. You ought to had your jaws boxed; I
hain’t been so put out since I don’t know when. But I don’t care, I
don’t mind the terms—I’d be willing to stand a thousand such jokes to
have you here. Well, to think of that performance! I don’t deny it, I
was most putrified with astonishment when you give me that smack.”
We had dinner out in that broad open passage betwixt the house and the
kitchen; and there was things enough on that table for seven
families—and all hot, too; none of your flabby, tough meat that’s
laid in a cupboard in a damp cellar all night and tastes like a hunk
of old cold cannibal in the morning. Uncle Silas he asked a pretty
long blessing over it, but it was worth it; and it didn’t cool it a
bit, neither, the way I’ve seen them kind of interruptions do lots of
times.
There was a considerable good deal of talk all the afternoon, and me
and Tom was on the lookout all the time; but it warn’t no use, they
didn’t happen to say nothing about any runaway nigger, and we was
afraid to try to work up to it. But at supper, at night, one of the
little boys says:
“Pa, mayn’t Tom and Sid and me go to the show?”
“No,” says the old man, “I reckon there ain’t going to be any; and you
couldn’t go if there was; because the runaway nigger told Burton and
me all about that scandalous show, and Burton said he would tell the
people; so I reckon they’ve drove the owdacious loafers out of town
before this time.”
So there it was!—but _I_ couldn’t help it. Tom and me was to sleep in
the same room and bed; so, being tired, we bid good night and went up
to bed right after supper, and clumb out of the window and down the
lightning-rod, and shoved for the town; for I didn’t believe anybody
was going to give the king and the duke a hint, and so if I didn’t
hurry up and give them one they’d get into trouble sure.
On the road Tom he told me all about how it was reckoned I was
murdered, and how pap disappeared pretty soon, and didn’t come back no
more, and what a stir there was when Jim run away; and I told Tom all
about our “Royal Nonesuch” rapscallions, and as much of the raft
voyage as I had time to; and as we struck into the town and up through
the middle of it—it was as much as half after eight then—here comes
a raging rush of people with torches, and an awful whooping and
yelling, and banging tin pans and blowing horns; and we jumped to one
side to let them go by; and as they went by I see they had the king
and the duke astraddle of a rail—that is, I knowed it _was_ the king
and the duke, though they was all over tar and feathers, and didn’t
look like nothing in the world that was human—just looked like a
couple of monstrous big soldier-plumes. Well, it made me sick to see
it; and I was sorry for them poor pitiful rascals, it seemed like I
couldn’t ever feel any hardness against them any more in the world. It
was a dreadful thing to see. Human beings _can_ be awful cruel to one
another.
We see we was too late—couldn’t do no good. We asked some stragglers
about it, and they said everybody went to the show looking very
innocent; and laid low and kept dark till the poor old king was in the
middle of his cavortings on the stage; then somebody give a signal,
and the house rose up and went for them.
So we poked along back home, and I warn’t feeling so brash as I was
before, but kind of ornery, and humble, and to blame, somehow—though
_I_ hadn’t done nothing. But that’s always the way; it don’t make no
difference whether you do right or wrong, a person’s conscience ain’t
got no sense, and just goes for him _anyway._ If I had a yaller dog
that didn’t know no more than a person’s conscience does I would pison
him. It takes up more room than all the rest of a person’s insides,
and yet ain’t no good, nohow. Tom Sawyer he says the same.