Tom was panting with his exertions by this time. He took a rest and

then swelled himself up and fetched a succession of admirable groans.

Sid snored on.

Tom was aggravated. He said, "Sid, Sid!" and shook him. This course

worked well, and Tom began to groan again. Sid yawned, stretched, then

brought himself up on his elbow with a snort, and began to stare at

Tom. Tom went on groaning. Sid said:

"Tom! Say, Tom!" [No response.] "Here, Tom! TOM! What is the matter,

Tom?" And he shook him and looked in his face anxiously.

Tom moaned out:

"Oh, don't, Sid. Don't joggle me."

"Why, what's the matter, Tom? I must call auntie."

"No--never mind. It'll be over by and by, maybe. Don't call anybody."

"But I must! DON'T groan so, Tom, it's awful. How long you been this

way?"

"Hours. Ouch! Oh, don't stir so, Sid, you'll kill me."

"Tom, why didn't you wake me sooner? Oh, Tom, DON'T! It makes my

flesh crawl to hear you. Tom, what is the matter?"

"I forgive you everything, Sid. [Groan.] Everything you've ever done

to me. When I'm gone--"

"Oh, Tom, you ain't dying, are you? Don't, Tom--oh, don't. Maybe--"

"I forgive everybody, Sid. [Groan.] Tell 'em so, Sid. And Sid, you

give my window-sash and my cat with one eye to that new girl that's

come to town, and tell her--"

But Sid had snatched his clothes and gone. Tom was suffering in

reality, now, so handsomely was his imagination working, and so his

groans had gathered quite a genuine tone.

Sid flew down-stairs and said:

"Oh, Aunt Polly, come! Tom's dying!"

"Dying!"

"Yes'm. Don't wait--come quick!"

"Rubbage! I don't believe it!"

But she fled up-stairs, nevertheless, with Sid and Mary at her heels.

And her face grew white, too, and her lip trembled. When she reached

the bedside she gasped out:

"You, Tom! Tom, what's the matter with you?"

"Oh, auntie, I'm--"

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

"Oh, auntie, my sore toe's mortified!"

The old lady sank down into a chair and laughed a little, then cried a

little, then did both together. This restored her and she said:

"Tom, what a turn you did give me. Now you shut up that nonsense and

climb out of this."

The groans ceased and the pain vanished from the toe. The boy felt a

little foolish, and he said:

"Aunt Polly, it SEEMED mortified, and it hurt so I never minded my

tooth at all."

"Your tooth, indeed! What's the matter with your tooth?"

"One of them's loose, and it aches perfectly awful."

"There, there, now, don't begin that groaning again. Open your mouth.

Well--your tooth IS loose, but you're not going to die about that.

Mary, get me a silk thread, and a chunk of fire out of the kitchen."

Tom said:

"Oh, please, auntie, don't pull it out. It don't hurt any more. I wish

I may never stir if it does. Please don't, auntie. I don't want to stay

home from school."

"Oh, you don't, don't you? So all this row was because you thought

you'd get to stay home from school and go a-fishing? Tom, Tom, I love

you so, and you seem to try every way you can to break my old heart

with your outrageousness." By this time the dental instruments were

ready. The old lady made one end of the silk thread fast to Tom's tooth

with a loop and tied the other to the bedpost. Then she seized the

chunk of fire and suddenly thrust it almost into the boy's face. The

tooth hung dangling by the bedpost, now.

But all trials bring their compensations. As Tom wended to school

after breakfast, he was the envy of every boy he met because the gap in

his upper row of teeth enabled him to expectorate in a new and

admirable way. He gathered quite a following of lads interested in the

exhibition; and one that had cut his finger and had been a centre of

fascination and homage up to this time, now found himself suddenly

without an adherent, and shorn of his glory. His heart was heavy, and

he said with a disdain which he did not feel that it wasn't anything to

spit like Tom Sawyer; but another boy said, "Sour grapes!" and he

wandered away a dismantled hero.

Shortly Tom came upon the juvenile pariah of the village, Huckleberry

Finn, son of the town drunkard. Huckleberry was cordially hated and

dreaded by all the mothers of the town, because he was idle and lawless

and vulgar and bad--and because all their children admired him so, and

delighted in his forbidden society, and wished they dared to be like

him. Tom was like the rest of the respectable boys, in that he envied

Huckleberry his gaudy outcast condition, and was under strict orders

not to play with him. So he played with him every time he got a chance.

Huckleberry was always dressed in the cast-off clothes of full-grown

men, and they were in perennial bloom and fluttering with rags. His hat

was a vast ruin with a wide crescent lopped out of its brim; his coat,

when he wore one, hung nearly to his heels and had the rearward buttons

far down the back; but one suspender supported his trousers; the seat

of the trousers bagged low and contained nothing, the fringed legs

dragged in the dirt when not rolled up.

Huckleberry came and went, at his own free will. He slept on doorsteps

in fine weather and in empty hogsheads in wet; he did not have to go to

school or to church, or call any being master or obey anybody; he could

go fishing or swimming when and where he chose, and stay as long as it

suited him; nobody forbade him to fight; he could sit up as late as he

pleased; he was always the first boy that went barefoot in the spring

and the last to resume leather in the fall; he never had to wash, nor

put on clean clothes; he could swear wonderfully. In a word, everything

that goes to make life precious that boy had. So thought every

harassed, hampered, respectable boy in St. Petersburg.

Tom hailed the romantic outcast:

"Hello, Huckleberry!"

"Hello yourself, and see how you like it."

"What's that you got?"

"Dead cat."

"Lemme see him, Huck. My, he's pretty stiff. Where'd you get him ?"

"Bought him off'n a boy."

"What did you give?"

"I give a blue ticket and a bladder that I got at the slaughter-house."

"Where'd you get the blue ticket?"

"Bought it off'n Ben Rogers two weeks ago for a hoop-stick."

"Say--what is dead cats good for, Huck?"

"Good for? Cure warts with."

"No! Is that so? I know something that's better."

"I bet you don't. What is it?"

"Why, spunk-water."

"Spunk-water! I wouldn't give a dern for spunk-water."

"You wouldn't, wouldn't you? D'you ever try it?"

"No, I hain't. But Bob Tanner did."

"Who told you so!"

"Why, he told Jeff Thatcher, and Jeff told Johnny Baker, and Johnny

told Jim Hollis, and Jim told Ben Rogers, and Ben told a nigger, and

the nigger told me. There now!"

"Well, what of it? They'll all lie. Leastways all but the nigger. I

don't know HIM. But I never see a nigger that WOULDN'T lie. Shucks! Now

you tell me how Bob Tanner done it, Huck."

"Why, he took and dipped his hand in a rotten stump where the

rain-water was."

"In the daytime?"

"Certainly."

"With his face to the stump?"

"Yes. Least I reckon so."

"Did he say anything?"

"I don't reckon he did. I don't know."

"Aha! Talk about trying to cure warts with spunk-water such a blame

fool way as that! Why, that ain't a-going to do any good. You got to go

all by yourself, to the middle of the woods, where you know there's a

spunk-water stump, and just as it's midnight you back up against the

stump and jam your hand in and say:

'Barley-corn, barley-corn, injun-meal shorts,

Spunk-water, spunk-water, swaller these warts,'

and then walk away quick, eleven steps, with your eyes shut, and then

turn around three times and walk home without speaking to anybody.

Because if you speak the charm's busted."

"Well, that sounds like a good way; but that ain't the way Bob Tanner

done."

"No, sir, you can bet he didn't, becuz he's the wartiest boy in this

town; and he wouldn't have a wart on him if he'd knowed how to work

spunk-water. I've took off thousands of warts off of my hands that way,

Huck. I play with frogs so much that I've always got considerable many

warts. Sometimes I take 'em off with a bean."

"Yes, bean's good. I've done that."

"Have you? What's your way?"

"You take and split the bean, and cut the wart so as to get some

blood, and then you put the blood on one piece of the bean and take and

dig a hole and bury it 'bout midnight at the crossroads in the dark of

the moon, and then you burn up the rest of the bean. You see that piece

that's got the blood on it will keep drawing and drawing, trying to

fetch the other piece to it, and so that helps the blood to draw the

wart, and pretty soon off she comes."

"Yes, that's it, Huck--that's it; though when you're burying it if you

say 'Down bean; off wart; come no more to bother me!' it's better.

That's the way Joe Harper does, and he's been nearly to Coonville and

most everywheres. But say--how do you cure 'em with dead cats?"

"Why, you take your cat and go and get in the graveyard 'long about

midnight when somebody that was wicked has been buried; and when it's

midnight a devil will come, or maybe two or three, but you can't see

'em, you can only hear something like the wind, or maybe hear 'em talk;

and when they're taking that feller away, you heave your cat after 'em

and say, 'Devil follow corpse, cat follow devil, warts follow cat, I'm

done with ye!' That'll fetch ANY wart."

"Sounds right. D'you ever try it, Huck?"

"No, but old Mother Hopkins told me."

"Well, I reckon it's so, then. Becuz they say she's a witch."

"Say! Why, Tom, I KNOW she is. She witched pap. Pap says so his own

self. He come along one day, and he see she was a-witching him, so he

took up a rock, and if she hadn't dodged, he'd a got her. Well, that

very night he rolled off'n a shed wher' he was a layin drunk, and broke

his arm."

"Why, that's awful. How did he know she was a-witching him?"

"Lord, pap can tell, easy. Pap says when they keep looking at you

right stiddy, they're a-witching you. Specially if they mumble. Becuz

when they mumble they're saying the Lord's Prayer backards."

"Say, Hucky, when you going to try the cat?"

"To-night. I reckon they'll come after old Hoss Williams to-night."

"But they buried him Saturday. Didn't they get him Saturday night?"

"Why, how you talk! How could their charms work till midnight?--and

THEN it's Sunday. Devils don't slosh around much of a Sunday, I don't

reckon."

"I never thought of that. That's so. Lemme go with you?"

"Of course--if you ain't afeard."

"Afeard! 'Tain't likely. Will you meow?"

"Yes--and you meow back, if you get a chance. Last time, you kep' me

a-meowing around till old Hays went to throwing rocks at me and says

'Dern that cat!' and so I hove a brick through his window--but don't

you tell."

"I won't. I couldn't meow that night, becuz auntie was watching me,

but I'll meow this time. Say--what's that?"

"Nothing but a tick."

"Where'd you get him?"

"Out in the woods."

"What'll you take for him?"

"I don't know. I don't want to sell him."

"All right. It's a mighty small tick, anyway."

"Oh, anybody can run a tick down that don't belong to them. I'm

satisfied with it. It's a good enough tick for me."

"Sho, there's ticks a plenty. I could have a thousand of 'em if I

wanted to."

"Well, why don't you? Becuz you know mighty well you can't. This is a

pretty early tick, I reckon. It's the first one I've seen this year."

"Say, Huck--I'll give you my tooth for him."

"Less see it."

Tom got out a bit of paper and carefully unrolled it. Huckleberry

viewed it wistfully. The temptation was very strong. At last he said:

"Is it genuwyne?"

Tom lifted his lip and showed the vacancy.

"Well, all right," said Huckleberry, "it's a trade."

Tom enclosed the tick in the percussion-cap box that had lately been

the pinchbug's prison, and the boys separated, each feeling wealthier

than before.

When Tom reached the little isolated frame schoolhouse, he strode in

briskly, with the manner of one who had come with all honest speed.

He hung his hat on a peg and flung himself into his seat with

business-like alacrity. The master, throned on high in his great

splint-bottom arm-chair, was dozing, lulled by the drowsy hum of study.

The interruption roused him.

"Thomas Sawyer!"

Tom knew that when his name was pronounced in full, it meant trouble.

"Sir!"

"Come up here. Now, sir, why are you late again, as usual?"

Tom was about to take refuge in a lie, when he saw two long tails of

yellow hair hanging down a back that he recognized by the electric

sympathy of love; and by that form was THE ONLY VACANT PLACE on the

girls' side of the schoolhouse. He instantly said:

"I STOPPED TO TALK WITH HUCKLEBERRY FINN!"

The master's pulse stood still, and he stared helplessly. The buzz of

study ceased. The pupils wondered if this foolhardy boy had lost his

mind. The master said:

"You--you did what?"

"Stopped to talk with Huckleberry Finn."

There was no mistaking the words.

"Thomas Sawyer, this is the most astounding confession I have ever

listened to. No mere ferule will answer for this offence. Take off your

jacket."

The master's arm performed until it was tired and the stock of

switches notably diminished. Then the order followed:

"Now, sir, go and sit with the girls! And let this be a warning to you."

The titter that rippled around the room appeared to abash the boy, but

in reality that result was caused rather more by his worshipful awe of

his unknown idol and the dread pleasure that lay in his high good

fortune. He sat down upon the end of the pine bench and the girl

hitched herself away from him with a toss of her head. Nudges and winks

and whispers traversed the room, but Tom sat still, with his arms upon

the long, low desk before him, and seemed to study his book.

By and by attention ceased from him, and the accustomed school murmur

rose upon the dull air once more. Presently the boy began to steal

furtive glances at the girl. She observed it, "made a mouth" at him and

gave him the back of her head for the space of a minute. When she

cautiously faced around again, a peach lay before her. She thrust it

away. Tom gently put it back. She thrust it away again, but with less

animosity. Tom patiently returned it to its place. Then she let it

remain. Tom scrawled on his slate, "Please take it--I got more." The

girl glanced at the words, but made no sign. Now the boy began to draw

something on the slate, hiding his work with his left hand. For a time

the girl refused to notice; but her human curiosity presently began to

manifest itself by hardly perceptible signs. The boy worked on,

apparently unconscious. The girl made a sort of noncommittal attempt to

see, but the boy did not betray that he was aware of it. At last she

gave in and hesitatingly whispered:

"Let me see it."

Tom partly uncovered a dismal caricature of a house with two gable

ends to it and a corkscrew of smoke issuing from the chimney. Then the

girl's interest began to fasten itself upon the work and she forgot

everything else. When it was finished, she gazed a moment, then

whispered:

"It's nice--make a man."

The artist erected a man in the front yard, that resembled a derrick.

He could have stepped over the house; but the girl was not

hypercritical; she was satisfied with the monster, and whispered:

"It's a beautiful man--now make me coming along."

Tom drew an hour-glass with a full moon and straw limbs to it and

armed the spreading fingers with a portentous fan. The girl said:

"It's ever so nice--I wish I could draw."

"It's easy," whispered Tom, "I'll learn you."

"Oh, will you? When?"

"At noon. Do you go home to dinner?"

"I'll stay if you will."

"Good--that's a whack. What's your name?"

"Becky Thatcher. What's yours? Oh, I know. It's Thomas Sawyer."

"That's the name they lick me by. I'm Tom when I'm good. You call me

Tom, will you?"

"Yes."

Now Tom began to scrawl something on the slate, hiding the words from

the girl. But she was not backward this time. She begged to see. Tom

said:

"Oh, it ain't anything."

"Yes it is."

"No it ain't. You don't want to see."

"Yes I do, indeed I do. Please let me."

"You'll tell."

"No I won't--deed and deed and double deed won't."

"You won't tell anybody at all? Ever, as long as you live?"

"No, I won't ever tell ANYbody. Now let me."

"Oh, YOU don't want to see!"

"Now that you treat me so, I WILL see." And she put her small hand

upon his and a little scuffle ensued, Tom pretending to resist in

earnest but letting his hand slip by degrees till these words were

revealed: "I LOVE YOU."

"Oh, you bad thing!" And she hit his hand a smart rap, but reddened

and looked pleased, nevertheless.

Just at this juncture the boy felt a slow, fateful grip closing on his

ear, and a steady lifting impulse. In that vise he was borne across the

house and deposited in his own seat, under a peppering fire of giggles

from the whole school. Then the master stood over him during a few

awful moments, and finally moved away to his throne without saying a

word. But although Tom's ear tingled, his heart was jubilant.

As the school quieted down Tom made an honest effort to study, but the

turmoil within him was too great. In turn he took his place in the

reading class and made a botch of it; then in the geography class and

turned lakes into mountains, mountains into rivers, and rivers into

continents, till chaos was come again; then in the spelling class, and

got "turned down," by a succession of mere baby words, till he brought

up at the foot and yielded up the pewter medal which he had worn with

ostentation for months.

CHAPTER VII

THE harder Tom tried to fasten his mind on his book, the more his

ideas wandered. So at last, with a sigh and a yawn, he gave it up. It

seemed to him that the noon recess would never come. The air was

utterly dead. There was not a breath stirring. It was the sleepiest of

sleepy days. The drowsing murmur of the five and twenty studying

scholars soothed the soul like the spell that is in the murmur of bees.

Away off in the flaming sunshine, Cardiff Hill lifted its soft green

sides through a shimmering veil of heat, tinted with the purple of

distance; a few birds floated on lazy wing high in the air; no other

living thing was visible but some cows, and they were asleep. Tom's

heart ached to be free, or else to have something of interest to do to

pass the dreary time. His hand wandered into his pocket and his face

lit up with a glow of gratitude that was prayer, though he did not know

it. Then furtively the percussion-cap box came out. He released the

tick and put him on the long flat desk. The creature probably glowed

with a gratitude that amounted to prayer, too, at this moment, but it

was premature: for when he started thankfully to travel off, Tom turned

him aside with a pin and made him take a new direction.

Tom's bosom friend sat next him, suffering just as Tom had been, and

now he was deeply and gratefully interested in this entertainment in an

instant. This bosom friend was Joe Harper. The two boys were sworn

friends all the week, and embattled enemies on Saturdays. Joe took a

pin out of his lapel and began to assist in exercising the prisoner.

The sport grew in interest momently. Soon Tom said that they were

interfering with each other, and neither getting the fullest benefit of

the tick. So he put Joe's slate on the desk and drew a line down the

middle of it from top to bottom.

"Now," said he, "as long as he is on your side you can stir him up and

I'll let him alone; but if you let him get away and get on my side,

you're to leave him alone as long as I can keep him from crossing over."

"All right, go ahead; start him up."

The tick escaped from Tom, presently, and crossed the equator. Joe

harassed him awhile, and then he got away and crossed back again. This

change of base occurred often. While one boy was worrying the tick with

absorbing interest, the other would look on with interest as strong,

the two heads bowed together over the slate, and the two souls dead to

all things else. At last luck seemed to settle and abide with Joe. The

tick tried this, that, and the other course, and got as excited and as

anxious as the boys themselves, but time and again just as he would

have victory in his very grasp, so to speak, and Tom's fingers would be

twitching to begin, Joe's pin would deftly head him off, and keep

possession. At last Tom could stand it no longer. The temptation was

too strong. So he reached out and lent a hand with his pin. Joe was

angry in a moment. Said he:

"Tom, you let him alone."

"I only just want to stir him up a little, Joe."

"No, sir, it ain't fair; you just let him alone."

"Blame it, I ain't going to stir him much."

"Let him alone, I tell you."

"I won't!"

"You shall--he's on my side of the line."

"Look here, Joe Harper, whose is that tick?"

"I don't care whose tick he is--he's on my side of the line, and you

sha'n't touch him."

"Well, I'll just bet I will, though. He's my tick and I'll do what I

blame please with him, or die!"

A tremendous whack came down on Tom's shoulders, and its duplicate on

Joe's; and for the space of two minutes the dust continued to fly from

the two jackets and the whole school to enjoy it. The boys had been too

absorbed to notice the hush that had stolen upon the school awhile

before when the master came tiptoeing down the room and stood over

them. He had contemplated a good part of the performance before he

contributed his bit of variety to it.

When school broke up at noon, Tom flew to Becky Thatcher, and

whispered in her ear:

"Put on your bonnet and let on you're going home; and when you get to

the corner, give the rest of 'em the slip, and turn down through the

lane and come back. I'll go the other way and come it over 'em the same

way."

So the one went off with one group of scholars, and the other with

another. In a little while the two met at the bottom of the lane, and

when they reached the school they had it all to themselves. Then they

sat together, with a slate before them, and Tom gave Becky the pencil

and held her hand in his, guiding it, and so created another surprising

house. When the interest in art began to wane, the two fell to talking.

Tom was swimming in bliss. He said:

"Do you love rats?"

"No! I hate them!"

"Well, I do, too--LIVE ones. But I mean dead ones, to swing round your

head with a string."

"No, I don't care for rats much, anyway. What I like is chewing-gum."

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

"Do you? I've got some. I'll let you chew it awhile, but you must give

it back to me."

That was agreeable, so they chewed it turn about, and dangled their

legs against the bench in excess of contentment.

"Was you ever at a circus?" said Tom.

"Yes, and my pa's going to take me again some time, if I'm good."

"I been to the circus three or four times--lots of times. Church ain't

shucks to a circus. There's things going on at a circus all the time.

I'm going to be a clown in a circus when I grow up."

"Oh, are you! That will be nice. They're so lovely, all spotted up."

"Yes, that's so. And they get slathers of money--most a dollar a day,

Ben Rogers says. Say, Becky, was you ever engaged?"

"What's that?"

"Why, engaged to be married."

"No."

"Would you like to?"

"I reckon so. I don't know. What is it like?"

"Like? Why it ain't like anything. You only just tell a boy you won't

ever have anybody but him, ever ever ever, and then you kiss and that's

all. Anybody can do it."

"Kiss? What do you kiss for?"

"Why, that, you know, is to--well, they always do that."

"Everybody?"

"Why, yes, everybody that's in love with each other. Do you remember

what I wrote on the slate?"

"Ye--yes."

"What was it?"

"I sha'n't tell you."

"Shall I tell YOU?"

"Ye--yes--but some other time."

"No, now."

"No, not now--to-morrow."

"Oh, no, NOW. Please, Becky--I'll whisper it, I'll whisper it ever so

easy."

Becky hesitating, Tom took silence for consent, and passed his arm

about her waist and whispered the tale ever so softly, with his mouth

close to her ear. And then he added:

"Now you whisper it to me--just the same."

She resisted, for a while, and then said:

"You turn your face away so you can't see, and then I will. But you

mustn't ever tell anybody--WILL you, Tom? Now you won't, WILL you?"

"No, indeed, indeed I won't. Now, Becky."

He turned his face away. She bent timidly around till her breath

stirred his curls and whispered, "I--love--you!"

Then she sprang away and ran around and around the desks and benches,

with Tom after her, and took refuge in a corner at last, with her

little white apron to her face. Tom clasped her about her neck and

pleaded:

"Now, Becky, it's all done--all over but the kiss. Don't you be afraid

of that--it ain't anything at all. Please, Becky." And he tugged at her

apron and the hands.

By and by she gave up, and let her hands drop; her face, all glowing

with the struggle, came up and submitted. Tom kissed the red lips and

said:

"Now it's all done, Becky. And always after this, you know, you ain't

ever to love anybody but me, and you ain't ever to marry anybody but

me, ever never and forever. Will you?"

"No, I'll never love anybody but you, Tom, and I'll never marry

anybody but you--and you ain't to ever marry anybody but me, either."

"Certainly. Of course. That's PART of it. And always coming to school

or when we're going home, you're to walk with me, when there ain't

anybody looking--and you choose me and I choose you at parties, because

that's the way you do when you're engaged."

"It's so nice. I never heard of it before."

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

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

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

The child began to cry. Tom said:

"Oh, don't cry, Becky, I don't care for her any more."

"Yes, you do, Tom--you know you do."

Tom tried to put his arm about her neck, but she pushed him away and

turned her face to the wall, and went on crying. Tom tried again, with

soothing words in his mouth, and was repulsed again. Then his pride was

up, and he strode away and went outside. He stood about, restless and

uneasy, for a while, glancing at the door, every now and then, hoping

she would repent and come to find him. But she did not. Then he began

to feel badly and fear that he was in the wrong. It was a hard struggle

with him to make new advances, now, but he nerved himself to it and

entered. She was still standing back there in the corner, sobbing, with

her face to the wall. Tom's heart smote him. He went to her and stood a

moment, not knowing exactly how to proceed. Then he said hesitatingly:

"Becky, I--I don't care for anybody but you."

No reply--but sobs.

"Becky"--pleadingly. "Becky, won't you say something?"

More sobs.

Tom got out his chiefest jewel, a brass knob from the top of an

andiron, and passed it around her so that she could see it, and said:

"Please, Becky, won't you take it?"

She struck it to the floor. Then Tom marched out of the house and over

the hills and far away, to return to school no more that day. Presently

Becky began to suspect. She ran to the door; he was not in sight; she

flew around to the play-yard; he was not there. Then she called:

"Tom! Come back, Tom!"

She listened intently, but there was no answer. She had no companions

but silence and loneliness. So she sat down to cry again and upbraid

herself; and by this time the scholars began to gather again, and she

had to hide her griefs and still her broken heart and take up the cross

of a long, dreary, aching afternoon, with none among the strangers

about her to exchange sorrows with.

CHAPTER VIII

TOM dodged hither and thither through lanes until he was well out of

the track of returning scholars, and then fell into a moody jog. He

crossed a small "branch" two or three times, because of a prevailing

juvenile superstition that to cross water baffled pursuit. Half an hour

later he was disappearing behind the Douglas mansion on the summit of

Cardiff Hill, and the schoolhouse was hardly distinguishable away off

in the valley behind him. He entered a dense wood, picked his pathless

way to the centre of it, and sat down on a mossy spot under a spreading

oak. There was not even a zephyr stirring; the dead noonday heat had

even stilled the songs of the birds; nature lay in a trance that was

broken by no sound but the occasional far-off hammering of a

woodpecker, and this seemed to render the pervading silence and sense

of loneliness the more profound. The boy's soul was steeped in

melancholy; his feelings were in happy accord with his surroundings. He

sat long with his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands,

meditating. It seemed to him that life was but a trouble, at best, and

he more than half envied Jimmy Hodges, so lately released; it must be

very peaceful, he thought, to lie and slumber and dream forever and

ever, with the wind whispering through the trees and caressing the

grass and the flowers over the grave, and nothing to bother and grieve

about, ever any more. If he only had a clean Sunday-school record he

could be willing to go, and be done with it all. Now as to this girl.

What had he done? Nothing. He had meant the best in the world, and been

treated like a dog--like a very dog. She would be sorry some day--maybe

when it was too late. Ah, if he could only die TEMPORARILY!

But the elastic heart of youth cannot be compressed into one

constrained shape long at a time. Tom presently began to drift

insensibly back into the concerns of this life again. What if he turned

his back, now, and disappeared mysteriously? What if he went away--ever

so far away, into unknown countries beyond the seas--and never came

back any more! How would she feel then! The idea of being a clown

recurred to him now, only to fill him with disgust. For frivolity and

jokes and spotted tights were an offense, when they intruded themselves

upon a spirit that was exalted into the vague august realm of the

romantic. No, he would be a soldier, and return after long years, all

war-worn and illustrious. No--better still, he would join the Indians,

and hunt buffaloes and go on the warpath in the mountain ranges and the

trackless great plains of the Far West, and away in the future come

back a great chief, bristling with feathers, hideous with paint, and

prance into Sunday-school, some drowsy summer morning, with a

bloodcurdling war-whoop, and sear the eyeballs of all his companions

with unappeasable envy. But no, there was something gaudier even than

this. He would be a pirate! That was it! NOW his future lay plain

before him, and glowing with unimaginable splendor. How his name would

fill the world, and make people shudder! How gloriously he would go

plowing the dancing seas, in his long, low, black-hulled racer, the

Spirit of the Storm, with his grisly flag flying at the fore! And at

the zenith of his fame, how he would suddenly appear at the old village

and stalk into church, brown and weather-beaten, in his black velvet

doublet and trunks, his great jack-boots, his crimson sash, his belt

bristling with horse-pistols, his crime-rusted cutlass at his side, his

slouch hat with waving plumes, his black flag unfurled, with the skull

and crossbones on it, and hear with swelling ecstasy the whisperings,

"It's Tom Sawyer the Pirate!--the Black Avenger of the Spanish Main!"

Yes, it was settled; his career was determined. He would run away from

home and enter upon it. He would start the very next morning. Therefore

he must now begin to get ready. He would collect his resources

together. He went to a rotten log near at hand and began to dig under

one end of it with his Barlow knife. He soon struck wood that sounded

hollow. He put his hand there and uttered this incantation impressively:

"What hasn't come here, come! What's here, stay here!"

Then he scraped away the dirt, and exposed a pine shingle. He took it

up and disclosed a shapely little treasure-house whose bottom and sides

were of shingles. In it lay a marble. Tom's astonishment was boundless!

He scratched his head with a perplexed air, and said:

"Well, that beats anything!"

Then he tossed the marble away pettishly, and stood cogitating. The

truth was, that a superstition of his had failed, here, which he and

all his comrades had always looked upon as infallible. If you buried a

marble with certain necessary incantations, and left it alone a

fortnight, and then opened the place with the incantation he had just

used, you would find that all the marbles you had ever lost had

gathered themselves together there, meantime, no matter how widely they

had been separated. But now, this thing had actually and unquestionably

failed. Tom's whole structure of faith was shaken to its foundations.

He had many a time heard of this thing succeeding but never of its

failing before. It did not occur to him that he had tried it several

times before, himself, but could never find the hiding-places

afterward. He puzzled over the matter some time, and finally decided

that some witch had interfered and broken the charm. He thought he

would satisfy himself on that point; so he searched around till he

found a small sandy spot with a little funnel-shaped depression in it.

He laid himself down and put his mouth close to this depression and

called--

"Doodle-bug, doodle-bug, tell me what I want to know! Doodle-bug,

doodle-bug, tell me what I want to know!"

The sand began to work, and presently a small black bug appeared for a

second and then darted under again in a fright.

"He dasn't tell! So it WAS a witch that done it. I just knowed it."

He well knew the futility of trying to contend against witches, so he

gave up discouraged. But it occurred to him that he might as well have

the marble he had just thrown away, and therefore he went and made a

patient search for it. But he could not find it. Now he went back to

his treasure-house and carefully placed himself just as he had been

standing when he tossed the marble away; then he took another marble

from his pocket and tossed it in the same way, saying:

"Brother, go find your brother!"

He watched where it stopped, and went there and looked. But it must

have fallen short or gone too far; so he tried twice more. The last

repetition was successful. The two marbles lay within a foot of each

other.

Just here the blast of a toy tin trumpet came faintly down the green

aisles of the forest. Tom flung off his jacket and trousers, turned a

suspender into a belt, raked away some brush behind the rotten log,

disclosing a rude bow and arrow, a lath sword and a tin trumpet, and in

a moment had seized these things and bounded away, barelegged, with

fluttering shirt. He presently halted under a great elm, blew an

answering blast, and then began to tiptoe and look warily out, this way

and that. He said cautiously--to an imaginary company:

"Hold, my merry men! Keep hid till I blow."

Now appeared Joe Harper, as airily clad and elaborately armed as Tom.

Tom called:

"Hold! Who comes here into Sherwood Forest without my pass?"

"Guy of Guisborne wants no man's pass. Who art thou that--that--"

"Dares to hold such language," said Tom, prompting--for they talked

"by the book," from memory.

"Who art thou that dares to hold such language?"

"I, indeed! I am Robin Hood, as thy caitiff carcase soon shall know."

"Then art thou indeed that famous outlaw? Right gladly will I dispute

with thee the passes of the merry wood. Have at thee!"

They took their lath swords, dumped their other traps on the ground,

struck a fencing attitude, foot to foot, and began a grave, careful

combat, "two up and two down." Presently Tom said:

"Now, if you've got the hang, go it lively!"

So they "went it lively," panting and perspiring with the work. By and

by Tom shouted:

"Fall! fall! Why don't you fall?"

"I sha'n't! Why don't you fall yourself? You're getting the worst of

it."

"Why, that ain't anything. I can't fall; that ain't the way it is in

the book. The book says, 'Then with one back-handed stroke he slew poor

Guy of Guisborne.' You're to turn around and let me hit you in the

back."

There was no getting around the authorities, so Joe turned, received

the whack and fell.

"Now," said Joe, getting up, "you got to let me kill YOU. That's fair."

"Why, I can't do that, it ain't in the book."

"Well, it's blamed mean--that's all."

"Well, say, Joe, you can be Friar Tuck or Much the miller's son, and

lam me with a quarter-staff; or I'll be the Sheriff of Nottingham and

you be Robin Hood a little while and kill me."

This was satisfactory, and so these adventures were carried out. Then

Tom became Robin Hood again, and was allowed by the treacherous nun to

bleed his strength away through his neglected wound. And at last Joe,

representing a whole tribe of weeping outlaws, dragged him sadly forth,

gave his bow into his feeble hands, and Tom said, "Where this arrow

falls, there bury poor Robin Hood under the greenwood tree." Then he

shot the arrow and fell back and would have died, but he lit on a

nettle and sprang up too gaily for a corpse.

The boys dressed themselves, hid their accoutrements, and went off

grieving that there were no outlaws any more, and wondering what modern

civilization could claim to have done to compensate for their loss.

They said they would rather be outlaws a year in Sherwood Forest than

President of the United States forever.

CHAPTER IX

AT half-past nine, that night, Tom and Sid were sent to bed, as usual.

They said their prayers, and Sid was soon asleep. Tom lay awake and

waited, in restless impatience. When it seemed to him that it must be

nearly daylight, he heard the clock strike ten! This was despair. He

would have tossed and fidgeted, as his nerves demanded, but he was

afraid he might wake Sid. So he lay still, and stared up into the dark.

Everything was dismally still. By and by, out of the stillness, little,

scarcely perceptible noises began to emphasize themselves. The ticking

of the clock began to bring itself into notice. Old beams began to

crack mysteriously. The stairs creaked faintly. Evidently spirits were

abroad. A measured, muffled snore issued from Aunt Polly's chamber. And

now the tiresome chirping of a cricket that no human ingenuity could

locate, began. Next the ghastly ticking of a deathwatch in the wall at

the bed's head made Tom shudder--it meant that somebody's days were

numbered. Then the howl of a far-off dog rose on the night air, and was

answered by a fainter howl from a remoter distance. Tom was in an

agony. At last he was satisfied that time had ceased and eternity

begun; he began to doze, in spite of himself; the clock chimed eleven,

but he did not hear it. And then there came, mingling with his

half-formed dreams, a most melancholy caterwauling. The raising of a

neighboring window disturbed him. A cry of "Scat! you devil!" and the

crash of an empty bottle against the back of his aunt's woodshed

brought him wide awake, and a single minute later he was dressed and

out of the window and creeping along the roof of the "ell" on all

fours. He "meow'd" with caution once or twice, as he went; then jumped

to the roof of the woodshed and thence to the ground. Huckleberry Finn

was there, with his dead cat. The boys moved off and disappeared in the

gloom. At the end of half an hour they were wading through the tall

grass of the graveyard.

It was a graveyard of the old-fashioned Western kind. It was on a

hill, about a mile and a half from the village. It had a crazy board

fence around it, which leaned inward in places, and outward the rest of

the time, but stood upright nowhere. Grass and weeds grew rank over the

whole cemetery. All the old graves were sunken in, there was not a

tombstone on the place; round-topped, worm-eaten boards staggered over

the graves, leaning for support and finding none. "Sacred to the memory

of" So-and-So had been painted on them once, but it could no longer

have been read, on the most of them, now, even if there had been light.

A faint wind moaned through the trees, and Tom feared it might be the

spirits of the dead, complaining at being disturbed. The boys talked

little, and only under their breath, for the time and the place and the

pervading solemnity and silence oppressed their spirits. They found the

sharp new heap they were seeking, and ensconced themselves within the

protection of three great elms that grew in a bunch within a few feet

of the grave.

Then they waited in silence for what seemed a long time. The hooting

of a distant owl was all the sound that troubled the dead stillness.

Tom's reflections grew oppressive. He must force some talk. So he said

in a whisper:

"Hucky, do you believe the dead people like it for us to be here?"

Huckleberry whispered:

"I wisht I knowed. It's awful solemn like, AIN'T it?"

"I bet it is."

There was a considerable pause, while the boys canvassed this matter

inwardly. Then Tom whispered:

"Say, Hucky--do you reckon Hoss Williams hears us talking?"

"O' course he does. Least his sperrit does."

Tom, after a pause:

"I wish I'd said Mister Williams. But I never meant any harm.

Everybody calls him Hoss."

"A body can't be too partic'lar how they talk 'bout these-yer dead

people, Tom."

This was a damper, and conversation died again.

Presently Tom seized his comrade's arm and said:

"Sh!"

"What is it, Tom?" And the two clung together with beating hearts.

"Sh! There 'tis again! Didn't you hear it?"

"I--"

"There! Now you hear it."

"Lord, Tom, they're coming! They're coming, sure. What'll we do?"

"I dono. Think they'll see us?"

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

come."

"Oh, don't be afeard. I don't believe they'll bother us. We ain't

doing any harm. If we keep perfectly still, maybe they won't notice us

at all."

"I'll try to, Tom, but, Lord, I'm all of a shiver."

"Listen!"

The boys bent their heads together and scarcely breathed. A muffled

sound of voices floated up from the far end of the graveyard.

"Look! See there!" whispered Tom. "What is it?"

"It's devil-fire. Oh, Tom, this is awful."

Some vague figures approached through the gloom, swinging an

old-fashioned tin lantern that freckled the ground with innumerable

little spangles of light. Presently Huckleberry whispered with a

shudder:

"It's the devils sure enough. Three of 'em! Lordy, Tom, we're goners!

Can you pray?"

"I'll try, but don't you be afeard. They ain't going to hurt us. 'Now

I lay me down to sleep, I--'"

"Sh!"

"What is it, Huck?"

"They're HUMANS! One of 'em is, anyway. One of 'em's old Muff Potter's

voice."

"No--'tain't so, is it?"

"I bet I know it. Don't you stir nor budge. He ain't sharp enough to

notice us. Drunk, the same as usual, likely--blamed old rip!"

"All right, I'll keep still. Now they're stuck. Can't find it. Here

they come again. Now they're hot. Cold again. Hot again. Red hot!

They're p'inted right, this time. Say, Huck, I know another o' them

voices; it's Injun Joe."

"That's so--that murderin' half-breed! I'd druther they was devils a

dern sight. What kin they be up to?"

The whisper died wholly out, now, for the three men had reached the

grave and stood within a few feet of the boys' hiding-place.

"Here it is," said the third voice; and the owner of it held the

lantern up and revealed the face of young Doctor Robinson.

Potter and Injun Joe were carrying a handbarrow with a rope and a

couple of shovels on it. They cast down their load and began to open

the grave. The doctor put the lantern at the head of the grave and came

and sat down with his back against one of the elm trees. He was so

close the boys could have touched him.

"Hurry, men!" he said, in a low voice; "the moon might come out at any

moment."

They growled a response and went on digging. For some time there was

no noise but the grating sound of the spades discharging their freight

of mould and gravel. It was very monotonous. Finally a spade struck

upon the coffin with a dull woody accent, and within another minute or

two the men had hoisted it out on the ground. They pried off the lid

with their shovels, got out the body and dumped it rudely on the

ground. The moon drifted from behind the clouds and exposed the pallid

face. The barrow was got ready and the corpse placed on it, covered

with a blanket, and bound to its place with the rope. Potter took out a

large spring-knife and cut off the dangling end of the rope and then

said:

"Now the cussed thing's ready, Sawbones, and you'll just out with

another five, or here she stays."

"That's the talk!" said Injun Joe.

"Look here, what does this mean?" said the doctor. "You required your

pay in advance, and I've paid you."

"Yes, and you done more than that," said Injun Joe, approaching the

doctor, who was now standing. "Five years ago you drove me away from

your father's kitchen one night, when I come to ask for something to

eat, and you said I warn't there for any good; and when I swore I'd get

even with you if it took a hundred years, your father had me jailed for

a vagrant. Did you think I'd forget? The Injun blood ain't in me for

nothing. And now I've GOT you, and you got to SETTLE, you know!"

He was threatening the doctor, with his fist in his face, by this

time. The doctor struck out suddenly and stretched the ruffian on the

ground. Potter dropped his knife, and exclaimed:

"Here, now, don't you hit my pard!" and the next moment he had

grappled with the doctor and the two were struggling with might and

main, trampling the grass and tearing the ground with their heels.

Injun Joe sprang to his feet, his eyes flaming with passion, snatched

up Potter's knife, and went creeping, catlike and stooping, round and

round about the combatants, seeking an opportunity. All at once the

doctor flung himself free, seized the heavy headboard of Williams'

grave and felled Potter to the earth with it--and in the same instant

the half-breed saw his chance and drove the knife to the hilt in the

young man's breast. He reeled and fell partly upon Potter, flooding him

with his blood, and in the same moment the clouds blotted out the

dreadful spectacle and the two frightened boys went speeding away in

the dark.

Presently, when the moon emerged again, Injun Joe was standing over

the two forms, contemplating them. The doctor murmured inarticulately,

gave a long gasp or two and was still. The half-breed muttered:

"THAT score is settled--damn you."

Then he robbed the body. After which he put the fatal knife in

Potter's open right hand, and sat down on the dismantled coffin. Three

--four--five minutes passed, and then Potter began to stir and moan. His

hand closed upon the knife; he raised it, glanced at it, and let it

fall, with a shudder. Then he sat up, pushing the body from him, and

gazed at it, and then around him, confusedly. His eyes met Joe's.

"Lord, how is this, Joe?" he said.

"It's a dirty business," said Joe, without moving.

"What did you do it for?"

"I! I never done it!"

"Look here! That kind of talk won't wash."

Potter trembled and grew white.

"I thought I'd got sober. I'd no business to drink to-night. But it's

in my head yet--worse'n when we started here. I'm all in a muddle;

can't recollect anything of it, hardly. Tell me, Joe--HONEST, now, old

feller--did I do it? Joe, I never meant to--'pon my soul and honor, I

never meant to, Joe. Tell me how it was, Joe. Oh, it's awful--and him

so young and promising."

"Why, you two was scuffling, and he fetched you one with the headboard

and you fell flat; and then up you come, all reeling and staggering

like, and snatched the knife and jammed it into him, just as he fetched

you another awful clip--and here you've laid, as dead as a wedge til

now."

"Oh, I didn't know what I was a-doing. I wish I may die this minute if

I did. It was all on account of the whiskey and the excitement, I

reckon. I never used a weepon in my life before, Joe. I've fought, but

never with weepons. They'll all say that. Joe, don't tell! Say you

won't tell, Joe--that's a good feller. I always liked you, Joe, and

stood up for you, too. Don't you remember? You WON'T tell, WILL you,

Joe?" And the poor creature dropped on his knees before the stolid

murderer, and clasped his appealing hands.

"No, you've always been fair and square with me, Muff Potter, and I

won't go back on you. There, now, that's as fair as a man can say."

"Oh, Joe, you're an angel. I'll bless you for this the longest day I

live." And Potter began to cry.

"Come, now, that's enough of that. This ain't any time for blubbering.

You be off yonder way and I'll go this. Move, now, and don't leave any

tracks behind you."

Potter started on a trot that quickly increased to a run. The

half-breed stood looking after him. He muttered:

"If he's as much stunned with the lick and fuddled with the rum as he

had the look of being, he won't think of the knife till he's gone so

far he'll be afraid to come back after it to such a place by himself

--chicken-heart!"

Two or three minutes later the murdered man, the blanketed corpse, the

lidless coffin, and the open grave were under no inspection but the

moon's. The stillness was complete again, too.

CHAPTER X

THE two boys flew on and on, toward the village, speechless with

horror. They glanced backward over their shoulders from time to time,

apprehensively, as if they feared they might be followed. Every stump

that started up in their path seemed a man and an enemy, and made them

catch their breath; and as they sped by some outlying cottages that lay

near the village, the barking of the aroused watch-dogs seemed to give

wings to their feet.

"If we can only get to the old tannery before we break down!"

whispered Tom, in short catches between breaths. "I can't stand it much

longer."

Huckleberry's hard pantings were his only reply, and the boys fixed

their eyes on the goal of their hopes and bent to their work to win it.

They gained steadily on it, and at last, breast to breast, they burst

through the open door and fell grateful and exhausted in the sheltering

shadows beyond. By and by their pulses slowed down, and Tom whispered:

"Huckleberry, what do you reckon'll come of this?"

"If Doctor Robinson dies, I reckon hanging'll come of it."

"Do you though?"

"Why, I KNOW it, Tom."

Tom thought a while, then he said:

"Who'll tell? We?"

"What are you talking about? S'pose something happened and Injun Joe

DIDN'T hang? Why, he'd kill us some time or other, just as dead sure as

we're a laying here."

"That's just what I was thinking to myself, Huck."

"If anybody tells, let Muff Potter do it, if he's fool enough. He's

generally drunk enough."

Tom said nothing--went on thinking. Presently he whispered:

"Huck, Muff Potter don't know it. How can he tell?"

"What's the reason he don't know it?"

"Because he'd just got that whack when Injun Joe done it. D'you reckon

he could see anything? D'you reckon he knowed anything?"

"By hokey, that's so, Tom!"

"And besides, look-a-here--maybe that whack done for HIM!"

"No, 'taint likely, Tom. He had liquor in him; I could see that; and

besides, he always has. Well, when pap's full, you might take and belt

him over the head with a church and you couldn't phase him. He says so,

his own self. So it's the same with Muff Potter, of course. But if a

man was dead sober, I reckon maybe that whack might fetch him; I dono."

After another reflective silence, Tom said:

"Hucky, you sure you can keep mum?"

"Tom, we GOT to keep mum. You know that. That Injun devil wouldn't

make any more of drownding us than a couple of cats, if we was to

squeak 'bout this and they didn't hang him. Now, look-a-here, Tom, less

take and swear to one another--that's what we got to do--swear to keep

mum."

"I'm agreed. It's the best thing. Would you just hold hands and swear

that we--"

"Oh no, that wouldn't do for this. That's good enough for little

rubbishy common things--specially with gals, cuz THEY go back on you

anyway, and blab if they get in a huff--but there orter be writing

'bout a big thing like this. And blood."

Tom's whole being applauded this idea. It was deep, and dark, and

awful; the hour, the circumstances, the surroundings, were in keeping

with it. He picked up a clean pine shingle that lay in the moonlight,

took a little fragment of "red keel" out of his pocket, got the moon on

his work, and painfully scrawled these lines, emphasizing each slow

down-stroke by clamping his tongue between his teeth, and letting up

the pressure on the up-strokes. [See next page.]

"Huck Finn and

Tom Sawyer swears

they will keep mum

about This and They

wish They may Drop

down dead in Their

Tracks if They ever

Tell and Rot."

Huckleberry was filled with admiration of Tom's facility in writing,

and the sublimity of his language. He at once took a pin from his lapel

and was going to prick his flesh, but Tom said:

"Hold on! Don't do that. A pin's brass. It might have verdigrease on

it."

"What's verdigrease?"

"It's p'ison. That's what it is. You just swaller some of it once

--you'll see."

So Tom unwound the thread from one of his needles, and each boy

pricked the ball of his thumb and squeezed out a drop of blood. In

time, after many squeezes, Tom managed to sign his initials, using the

ball of his little finger for a pen. Then he showed Huckleberry how to

make an H and an F, and the oath was complete. They buried the shingle

close to the wall, with some dismal ceremonies and incantations, and

the fetters that bound their tongues were considered to be locked and

the key thrown away.

A figure crept stealthily through a break in the other end of the

ruined building, now, but they did not notice it.

"Tom," whispered Huckleberry, "does this keep us from EVER telling

--ALWAYS?"

"Of course it does. It don't make any difference WHAT happens, we got

to keep mum. We'd drop down dead--don't YOU know that?"

"Yes, I reckon that's so."

They continued to whisper for some little time. Presently a dog set up

a long, lugubrious howl just outside--within ten feet of them. The boys

clasped each other suddenly, in an agony of fright.

"Which of us does he mean?" gasped Huckleberry.

"I dono--peep through the crack. Quick!"

"No, YOU, Tom!"

"I can't--I can't DO it, Huck!"

"Please, Tom. There 'tis again!"

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

Harbison." *

[* If Mr. Harbison owned a slave named Bull, Tom would have spoken of

him as "Harbison's Bull," but a son or a dog of that name was "Bull

Harbison."]

"Oh, that's good--I tell you, Tom, I was most scared to death; I'd a

bet anything it was a STRAY dog."

The dog howled again. The boys' hearts sank once more.

"Oh, my! that ain't no Bull Harbison!" whispered Huckleberry. "DO, Tom!"

Tom, quaking with fear, yielded, and put his eye to the crack. His

whisper was hardly audible when he said:

"Oh, Huck, IT S A STRAY DOG!"

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

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

"Oh, Tom, I reckon we're goners. I reckon there ain't no mistake 'bout

where I'LL go to. I been so wicked."

"Dad fetch it! This comes of playing hookey and doing everything a

feller's told NOT to do. I might a been good, like Sid, if I'd a tried

--but no, I wouldn't, of course. But if ever I get off this time, I lay

I'll just WALLER in Sunday-schools!" And Tom began to snuffle a little.

"YOU bad!" and Huckleberry began to snuffle too. "Consound it, Tom

Sawyer, you're just old pie, 'longside o' what I am. Oh, LORDY, lordy,

lordy, I wisht I only had half your chance."

Tom choked off and whispered:

"Look, Hucky, look! He's got his BACK to us!"

Hucky looked, with joy in his heart.

"Well, he has, by jingoes! Did he before?"

"Yes, he did. But I, like a fool, never thought. Oh, this is bully,

you know. NOW who can he mean?"

The howling stopped. Tom pricked up his ears.

"Sh! What's that?" he whispered.

"Sounds like--like hogs grunting. No--it's somebody snoring, Tom."

"That IS it! Where 'bouts is it, Huck?"

"I bleeve it's down at 'tother end. Sounds so, anyway. Pap used to

sleep there, sometimes, 'long with the hogs, but laws bless you, he

just lifts things when HE snores. Besides, I reckon he ain't ever

coming back to this town any more."

The spirit of adventure rose in the boys' souls once more.

"Hucky, do you das't to go if I lead?"

"I don't like to, much. Tom, s'pose it's Injun Joe!"

Tom quailed. But presently the temptation rose up strong again and the

boys agreed to try, with the understanding that they would take to

their heels if the snoring stopped. So they went tiptoeing stealthily

down, the one behind the other. When they had got to within five steps

of the snorer, Tom stepped on a stick, and it broke with a sharp snap.

The man moaned, writhed a little, and his face came into the moonlight.

It was Muff Potter. The boys' hearts had stood still, and their hopes

too, when the man moved, but their fears passed away now. They tiptoed

out, through the broken weather-boarding, and stopped at a little

distance to exchange a parting word. That long, lugubrious howl rose on

the night air again! They turned and saw the strange dog standing

within a few feet of where Potter was lying, and FACING Potter, with

his nose pointing heavenward.

"Oh, geeminy, it's HIM!" exclaimed both boys, in a breath.

"Say, Tom--they say a stray dog come howling around Johnny Miller's

house, 'bout midnight, as much as two weeks ago; and a whippoorwill

come in and lit on the banisters and sung, the very same evening; and

there ain't anybody dead there yet."

"Well, I know that. And suppose there ain't. Didn't Gracie Miller fall

in the kitchen fire and burn herself terrible the very next Saturday?"

"Yes, but she ain't DEAD. And what's more, she's getting better, too."

"All right, you wait and see. She's a goner, just as dead sure as Muff

Potter's a goner. That's what the niggers say, and they know all about

these kind of things, Huck."

Then they separated, cogitating. When Tom crept in at his bedroom

window the night was almost spent. He undressed with excessive caution,

and fell asleep congratulating himself that nobody knew of his

escapade. He was not aware that the gently-snoring Sid was awake, and

had been so for an hour.

When Tom awoke, Sid was dressed and gone. There was a late look in the

light, a late sense in the atmosphere. He was startled. Why had he not

been called--persecuted till he was up, as usual? The thought filled

him with bodings. Within five minutes he was dressed and down-stairs,

feeling sore and drowsy. The family were still at table, but they had

finished breakfast. There was no voice of rebuke; but there were

averted eyes; there was a silence and an air of solemnity that struck a

chill to the culprit's heart. He sat down and tried to seem gay, but it

was up-hill work; it roused no smile, no response, and he lapsed into

silence and let his heart sink down to the depths.

After breakfast his aunt took him aside, and Tom almost brightened in

the hope that he was going to be flogged; but it was not so. His aunt

wept over him and asked him how he could go and break her old heart so;

and finally told him to go on, and ruin himself and bring her gray

hairs with sorrow to the grave, for it was no use for her to try any

more. This was worse than a thousand whippings, and Tom's heart was

sorer now than his body. He cried, he pleaded for forgiveness, promised

to reform over and over again, and then received his dismissal, feeling

that he had won but an imperfect forgiveness and established but a

feeble confidence.

He left the presence too miserable to even feel revengeful toward Sid;

and so the latter's prompt retreat through the back gate was

unnecessary. He moped to school gloomy and sad, and took his flogging,

along with Joe Harper, for playing hookey the day before, with the air

of one whose heart was busy with heavier woes and wholly dead to

trifles. Then he betook himself to his seat, rested his elbows on his

desk and his jaws in his hands, and stared at the wall with the stony

stare of suffering that has reached the limit and can no further go.

His elbow was pressing against some hard substance. After a long time

he slowly and sadly changed his position, and took up this object with

a sigh. It was in a paper. He unrolled it. A long, lingering, colossal

sigh followed, and his heart broke. It was his brass andiron knob!

This final feather broke the camel's back.

CHAPTER XI

CLOSE upon the hour of noon the whole village was suddenly electrified

with the ghastly news. No need of the as yet undreamed-of telegraph;

the tale flew from man to man, from group to group, from house to

house, with little less than telegraphic speed. Of course the

schoolmaster gave holiday for that afternoon; the town would have

thought strangely of him if he had not.

A gory knife had been found close to the murdered man, and it had been

recognized by somebody as belonging to Muff Potter--so the story ran.

And it was said that a belated citizen had come upon Potter washing

himself in the "branch" about one or two o'clock in the morning, and

that Potter had at once sneaked off--suspicious circumstances,

especially the washing which was not a habit with Potter. It was also

said that the town had been ransacked for this "murderer" (the public

are not slow in the matter of sifting evidence and arriving at a

verdict), but that he could not be found. Horsemen had departed down

all the roads in every direction, and the Sheriff "was confident" that

he would be captured before night.

All the town was drifting toward the graveyard. Tom's heartbreak

vanished and he joined the procession, not because he would not a

thousand times rather go anywhere else, but because an awful,

unaccountable fascination drew him on. Arrived at the dreadful place,

he wormed his small body through the crowd and saw the dismal

spectacle. It seemed to him an age since he was there before. Somebody

pinched his arm. He turned, and his eyes met Huckleberry's. Then both

looked elsewhere at once, and wondered if anybody had noticed anything

in their mutual glance. But everybody was talking, and intent upon the

grisly spectacle before them.

"Poor fellow!" "Poor young fellow!" "This ought to be a lesson to

grave robbers!" "Muff Potter'll hang for this if they catch him!" This

was the drift of remark; and the minister said, "It was a judgment; His

hand is here."

Now Tom shivered from head to heel; for his eye fell upon the stolid

face of Injun Joe. At this moment the crowd began to sway and struggle,

and voices shouted, "It's him! it's him! he's coming himself!"

"Who? Who?" from twenty voices.

"Muff Potter!"

"Hallo, he's stopped!--Look out, he's turning! Don't let him get away!"

People in the branches of the trees over Tom's head said he wasn't

trying to get away--he only looked doubtful and perplexed.

"Infernal impudence!" said a bystander; "wanted to come and take a

quiet look at his work, I reckon--didn't expect any company."

The crowd fell apart, now, and the Sheriff came through,

ostentatiously leading Potter by the arm. The poor fellow's face was

haggard, and his eyes showed the fear that was upon him. When he stood

before the murdered man, he shook as with a palsy, and he put his face

in his hands and burst into tears.

"I didn't do it, friends," he sobbed; "'pon my word and honor I never

done it."

"Who's accused you?" shouted a voice.

This shot seemed to carry home. Potter lifted his face and looked

around him with a pathetic hopelessness in his eyes. He saw Injun Joe,

and exclaimed:

"Oh, Injun Joe, you promised me you'd never--"

"Is that your knife?" and it was thrust before him by the Sheriff.

Potter would have fallen if they had not caught him and eased him to

the ground. Then he said:

"Something told me 't if I didn't come back and get--" He shuddered;

then waved his nerveless hand with a vanquished gesture and said, "Tell

'em, Joe, tell 'em--it ain't any use any more."

Then Huckleberry and Tom stood dumb and staring, and heard the

stony-hearted liar reel off his serene statement, they expecting every

moment that the clear sky would deliver God's lightnings upon his head,

and wondering to see how long the stroke was delayed. And when he had

finished and still stood alive and whole, their wavering impulse to

break their oath and save the poor betrayed prisoner's life faded and

vanished away, for plainly this miscreant had sold himself to Satan and

it would be fatal to meddle with the property of such a power as that.

"Why didn't you leave? What did you want to come here for?" somebody

said.

"I couldn't help it--I couldn't help it," Potter moaned. "I wanted to

run away, but I couldn't seem to come anywhere but here." And he fell

to sobbing again.

Injun Joe repeated his statement, just as calmly, a few minutes

afterward on the inquest, under oath; and the boys, seeing that the

lightnings were still withheld, were confirmed in their belief that Joe

had sold himself to the devil. He was now become, to them, the most

balefully interesting object they had ever looked upon, and they could

not take their fascinated eyes from his face.

They inwardly resolved to watch him nights, when opportunity should

offer, in the hope of getting a glimpse of his dread master.

Injun Joe helped to raise the body of the murdered man and put it in a

wagon for removal; and it was whispered through the shuddering crowd

that the wound bled a little! The boys thought that this happy

circumstance would turn suspicion in the right direction; but they were

disappointed, for more than one villager remarked:

"It was within three feet of Muff Potter when it done it."

Tom's fearful secret and gnawing conscience disturbed his sleep for as

much as a week after this; and at breakfast one morning Sid said:

"Tom, you pitch around and talk in your sleep so much that you keep me

awake half the time."

Tom blanched and dropped his eyes.

"It's a bad sign," said Aunt Polly, gravely. "What you got on your

mind, Tom?"

"Nothing. Nothing 't I know of." But the boy's hand shook so that he

spilled his coffee.

"And you do talk such stuff," Sid said. "Last night you said, 'It's

blood, it's blood, that's what it is!' You said that over and over. And

you said, 'Don't torment me so--I'll tell!' Tell WHAT? What is it

you'll tell?"

Everything was swimming before Tom. There is no telling what might

have happened, now, but luckily the concern passed out of Aunt Polly's

face and she came to Tom's relief without knowing it. She said:

"Sho! It's that dreadful murder. I dream about it most every night

myself. Sometimes I dream it's me that done it."

Mary said she had been affected much the same way. Sid seemed

satisfied. Tom got out of the presence as quick as he plausibly could,

and after that he complained of toothache for a week, and tied up his

jaws every night. He never knew that Sid lay nightly watching, and

frequently slipped the bandage free and then leaned on his elbow

listening a good while at a time, and afterward slipped the bandage

back to its place again. Tom's distress of mind wore off gradually and

the toothache grew irksome and was discarded. If Sid really managed to

make anything out of Tom's disjointed mutterings, he kept it to himself.

It seemed to Tom that his schoolmates never would get done holding

inquests on dead cats, and thus keeping his trouble present to his

mind. Sid noticed that Tom never was coroner at one of these inquiries,

though it had been his habit to take the lead in all new enterprises;

he noticed, too, that Tom never acted as a witness--and that was

strange; and Sid did not overlook the fact that Tom even showed a

marked aversion to these inquests, and always avoided them when he

could. Sid marvelled, but said nothing. However, even inquests went out

of vogue at last, and ceased to torture Tom's conscience.

Every day or two, during this time of sorrow, Tom watched his

opportunity and went to the little grated jail-window and smuggled such

small comforts through to the "murderer" as he could get hold of. The

jail was a trifling little brick den that stood in a marsh at the edge

of the village, and no guards were afforded for it; indeed, it was

seldom occupied. These offerings greatly helped to ease Tom's

conscience.

The villagers had a strong desire to tar-and-feather Injun Joe and

ride him on a rail, for body-snatching, but so formidable was his

character that nobody could be found who was willing to take the lead

in the matter, so it was dropped. He had been careful to begin both of

his inquest-statements with the fight, without confessing the

grave-robbery that preceded it; therefore it was deemed wisest not

to try the case in the courts at present.

CHAPTER XII

ONE of the reasons why Tom's mind had drifted away from its secret

troubles was, that it had found a new and weighty matter to interest

itself about. Becky Thatcher had stopped coming to school. Tom had

struggled with his pride a few days, and tried to "whistle her down the

wind," but failed. He began to find himself hanging around her father's

house, nights, and feeling very miserable. She was ill. What if she

should die! There was distraction in the thought. He no longer took an

interest in war, nor even in piracy. The charm of life was gone; there

was nothing but dreariness left. He put his hoop away, and his bat;

there was no joy in them any more. His aunt was concerned. She began to

try all manner of remedies on him. She was one of those people who are

infatuated with patent medicines and all new-fangled methods of

producing health or mending it. She was an inveterate experimenter in

these things. When something fresh in this line came out she was in a

fever, right away, to try it; not on herself, for she was never ailing,

but on anybody else that came handy. She was a subscriber for all the

"Health" periodicals and phrenological frauds; and the solemn ignorance

they were inflated with was breath to her nostrils. All the "rot" they

contained about ventilation, and how to go to bed, and how to get up,

and what to eat, and what to drink, and how much exercise to take, and

what frame of mind to keep one's self in, and what sort of clothing to

wear, was all gospel to her, and she never observed that her

health-journals of the current month customarily upset everything they

had recommended the month before. She was as simple-hearted and honest

as the day was long, and so she was an easy victim. She gathered

together her quack periodicals and her quack medicines, and thus armed

with death, went about on her pale horse, metaphorically speaking, with

"hell following after." But she never suspected that she was not an

angel of healing and the balm of Gilead in disguise, to the suffering

neighbors.

The water treatment was new, now, and Tom's low condition was a

windfall to her. She had him out at daylight every morning, stood him

up in the woodshed and drowned him with a deluge of cold water; then

she scrubbed him down with a towel like a file, and so brought him to;

then she rolled him up in a wet sheet and put him away under blankets

till she sweated his soul clean and "the yellow stains of it came

through his pores"--as Tom said.

Yet notwithstanding all this, the boy grew more and more melancholy

and pale and dejected. She added hot baths, sitz baths, shower baths,

and plunges. The boy remained as dismal as a hearse. She began to

assist the water with a slim oatmeal diet and blister-plasters. She

calculated his capacity as she would a jug's, and filled him up every

day with quack cure-alls.

Tom had become indifferent to persecution by this time. This phase

filled the old lady's heart with consternation. This indifference must

be broken up at any cost. Now she heard of Pain-killer for the first

time. She ordered a lot at once. She tasted it and was filled with

gratitude. It was simply fire in a liquid form. She dropped the water

treatment and everything else, and pinned her faith to Pain-killer. She

gave Tom a teaspoonful and watched with the deepest anxiety for the

result. Her troubles were instantly at rest, her soul at peace again;

for the "indifference" was broken up. The boy could not have shown a

wilder, heartier interest, if she had built a fire under him.

Tom felt that it was time to wake up; this sort of life might be

romantic enough, in his blighted condition, but it was getting to have

too little sentiment and too much distracting variety about it. So he

thought over various plans for relief, and finally hit pon that of

professing to be fond of Pain-killer. He asked for it so often that he

became a nuisance, and his aunt ended by telling him to help himself

and quit bothering her. If it had been Sid, she would have had no

misgivings to alloy her delight; but since it was Tom, she watched the

bottle clandestinely. She found that the medicine did really diminish,

but it did not occur to her that the boy was mending the health of a

crack in the sitting-room floor with it.

One day Tom was in the act of dosing the crack when his aunt's yellow

cat came along, purring, eying the teaspoon avariciously, and begging

for a taste. Tom said:

"Don't ask for it unless you want it, Peter."

But Peter signified that he did want it.

"You better make sure."

Peter was sure.

"Now you've asked for it, and I'll give it to you, because there ain't

anything mean about me; but if you find you don't like it, you mustn't

blame anybody but your own self."

Peter was agreeable. So Tom pried his mouth open and poured down the

Pain-killer. Peter sprang a couple of yards in the air, and then

delivered a war-whoop and set off round and round the room, banging

against furniture, upsetting flower-pots, and making general havoc.

Next he rose on his hind feet and pranced around, in a frenzy of

enjoyment, with his head over his shoulder and his voice proclaiming

his unappeasable happiness. Then he went tearing around the house again

spreading chaos and destruction in his path. Aunt Polly entered in time

to see him throw a few double summersets, deliver a final mighty

hurrah, and sail through the open window, carrying the rest of the

flower-pots with him. The old lady stood petrified with astonishment,

peering over her glasses; Tom lay on the floor expiring with laughter.

"Tom, what on earth ails that cat?"

"I don't know, aunt," gasped the boy.

"Why, I never see anything like it. What did make him act so?"

"Deed I don't know, Aunt Polly; cats always act so when they're having

a good time."

"They do, do they?" There was something in the tone that made Tom

apprehensive.

"Yes'm. That is, I believe they do."

"You DO?"

"Yes'm."

The old lady was bending down, Tom watching, with interest emphasized

by anxiety. Too late he divined her "drift." The handle of the telltale

teaspoon was visible under the bed-valance. Aunt Polly took it, held it

up. Tom winced, and dropped his eyes. Aunt Polly raised him by the

usual handle--his ear--and cracked his head soundly with her thimble.

"Now, sir, what did you want to treat that poor dumb beast so, for?"

"I done it out of pity for him--because he hadn't any aunt."

"Hadn't any aunt!--you numskull. What has that got to do with it?"

"Heaps. Because if he'd had one she'd a burnt him out herself! She'd a

roasted his bowels out of him 'thout any more feeling than if he was a

human!"

Aunt Polly felt a sudden pang of remorse. This was putting the thing

in a new light; what was cruelty to a cat MIGHT be cruelty to a boy,

too. She began to soften; she felt sorry. Her eyes watered a little,

and she put her hand on Tom's head and said gently:

"I was meaning for the best, Tom. And, Tom, it DID do you good."

Tom looked up in her face with just a perceptible twinkle peeping

through his gravity.

"I know you was meaning for the best, aunty, and so was I with Peter.

It done HIM good, too. I never see him get around so since--"

"Oh, go 'long with you, Tom, before you aggravate me again. And you

try and see if you can't be a good boy, for once, and you needn't take

any more medicine."

Tom reached school ahead of time. It was noticed that this strange

thing had been occurring every day latterly. And now, as usual of late,

he hung about the gate of the schoolyard instead of playing with his

comrades. He was sick, he said, and he looked it. He tried to seem to

be looking everywhere but whither he really was looking--down the road.

Presently Jeff Thatcher hove in sight, and Tom's face lighted; he gazed

a moment, and then turned sorrowfully away. When Jeff arrived, Tom

accosted him; and "led up" warily to opportunities for remark about

Becky, but the giddy lad never could see the bait. Tom watched and

watched, hoping whenever a frisking frock came in sight, and hating the

owner of it as soon as he saw she was not the right one. At last frocks

ceased to appear, and he dropped hopelessly into the dumps; he entered

the empty schoolhouse and sat down to suffer. Then one more frock

passed in at the gate, and Tom's heart gave a great bound. The next

instant he was out, and "going on" like an Indian; yelling, laughing,

chasing boys, jumping over the fence at risk of life and limb, throwing

handsprings, standing on his head--doing all the heroic things he could

conceive of, and keeping a furtive eye out, all the while, to see if

Becky Thatcher was noticing. But she seemed to be unconscious of it

all; she never looked. Could it be possible that she was not aware that

he was there? He carried his exploits to her immediate vicinity; came

war-whooping around, snatched a boy's cap, hurled it to the roof of the

schoolhouse, broke through a group of boys, tumbling them in every

direction, and fell sprawling, himself, under Becky's nose, almost

upsetting her--and she turned, with her nose in the air, and he heard

her say: "Mf! some people think they're mighty smart--always showing

off!"

Tom's cheeks burned. He gathered himself up and sneaked off, crushed

and crestfallen.

CHAPTER XIII

TOM'S mind was made up now. He was gloomy and desperate. He was a

forsaken, friendless boy, he said; nobody loved him; when they found

out what they had driven him to, perhaps they would be sorry; he had

tried to do right and get along, but they would not let him; since

nothing would do them but to be rid of him, let it be so; and let them

blame HIM for the consequences--why shouldn't they? What right had the

friendless to complain? Yes, they had forced him to it at last: he

would lead a life of crime. There was no choice.

By this time he was far down Meadow Lane, and the bell for school to

"take up" tinkled faintly upon his ear. He sobbed, now, to think he

should never, never hear that old familiar sound any more--it was very

hard, but it was forced on him; since he was driven out into the cold

world, he must submit--but he forgave them. Then the sobs came thick

and fast.

Just at this point he met his soul's sworn comrade, Joe Harper

--hard-eyed, and with evidently a great and dismal purpose in his heart.

Plainly here were "two souls with but a single thought." Tom, wiping

his eyes with his sleeve, began to blubber out something about a

resolution to escape from hard usage and lack of sympathy at home by

roaming abroad into the great world never to return; and ended by

hoping that Joe would not forget him.

But it transpired that this was a request which Joe had just been

going to make of Tom, and had come to hunt him up for that purpose. His

mother had whipped him for drinking some cream which he had never

tasted and knew nothing about; it was plain that she was tired of him

and wished him to go; if she felt that way, there was nothing for him

to do but succumb; he hoped she would be happy, and never regret having

driven her poor boy out into the unfeeling world to suffer and die.

As the two boys walked sorrowing along, they made a new compact to

stand by each other and be brothers and never separate till death

relieved them of their troubles. Then they began to lay their plans.

Joe was for being a hermit, and living on crusts in a remote cave, and

dying, some time, of cold and want and grief; but after listening to

Tom, he conceded that there were some conspicuous advantages about a

life of crime, and so he consented to be a pirate.

Three miles below St. Petersburg, at a point where the Mississippi

River was a trifle over a mile wide, there was a long, narrow, wooded

island, with a shallow bar at the head of it, and this offered well as

a rendezvous. It was not inhabited; it lay far over toward the further

shore, abreast a dense and almost wholly unpeopled forest. So Jackson's

Island was chosen. Who were to be the subjects of their piracies was a

matter that did not occur to them. Then they hunted up Huckleberry

Finn, and he joined them promptly, for all careers were one to him; he

was indifferent. They presently separated to meet at a lonely spot on

the river-bank two miles above the village at the favorite hour--which

was midnight. There was a small log raft there which they meant to

capture. Each would bring hooks and lines, and such provision as he

could steal in the most dark and mysterious way--as became outlaws. And

before the afternoon was done, they had all managed to enjoy the sweet

glory of spreading the fact that pretty soon the town would "hear

something." All who got this vague hint were cautioned to "be mum and

wait."

About midnight Tom arrived with a boiled ham and a few trifles,

and stopped in a dense undergrowth on a small bluff overlooking the

meeting-place. It was starlight, and very still. The mighty river lay

like an ocean at rest. Tom listened a moment, but no sound disturbed the

quiet. Then he gave a low, distinct whistle. It was answered from under

the bluff. Tom whistled twice more; these signals were answered in the

same way. Then a guarded voice said:

"Who goes there?"

"Tom Sawyer, the Black Avenger of the Spanish Main. Name your names."

"Huck Finn the Red-Handed, and Joe Harper the Terror of the Seas." Tom

had furnished these titles, from his favorite literature.

"'Tis well. Give the countersign."

Two hoarse whispers delivered the same awful word simultaneously to

the brooding night:

"BLOOD!"

Then Tom tumbled his ham over the bluff and let himself down after it,

tearing both skin and clothes to some extent in the effort. There was

an easy, comfortable path along the shore under the bluff, but it

lacked the advantages of difficulty and danger so valued by a pirate.

The Terror of the Seas had brought a side of bacon, and had about worn

himself out with getting it there. Finn the Red-Handed had stolen a

skillet and a quantity of half-cured leaf tobacco, and had also brought

a few corn-cobs to make pipes with. But none of the pirates smoked or

"chewed" but himself. The Black Avenger of the Spanish Main said it

would never do to start without some fire. That was a wise thought;

matches were hardly known there in that day. They saw a fire

smouldering upon a great raft a hundred yards above, and they went

stealthily thither and helped themselves to a chunk. They made an

imposing adventure of it, saying, "Hist!" every now and then, and

suddenly halting with finger on lip; moving with hands on imaginary

dagger-hilts; and giving orders in dismal whispers that if "the foe"

stirred, to "let him have it to the hilt," because "dead men tell no

tales." They knew well enough that the raftsmen were all down at the

village laying in stores or having a spree, but still that was no

excuse for their conducting this thing in an unpiratical way.

They shoved off, presently, Tom in command, Huck at the after oar and

Joe at the forward. Tom stood amidships, gloomy-browed, and with folded

arms, and gave his orders in a low, stern whisper:

"Luff, and bring her to the wind!"

"Aye-aye, sir!"

"Steady, steady-y-y-y!"

"Steady it is, sir!"

"Let her go off a point!"

"Point it is, sir!"

As the boys steadily and monotonously drove the raft toward mid-stream

it was no doubt understood that these orders were given only for

"style," and were not intended to mean anything in particular.

"What sail's she carrying?"

"Courses, tops'ls, and flying-jib, sir."

"Send the r'yals up! Lay out aloft, there, half a dozen of ye

--foretopmaststuns'l! Lively, now!"

"Aye-aye, sir!"

"Shake out that maintogalans'l! Sheets and braces! NOW my hearties!"

"Aye-aye, sir!"

"Hellum-a-lee--hard a port! Stand by to meet her when she comes! Port,

port! NOW, men! With a will! Stead-y-y-y!"

"Steady it is, sir!"

The raft drew beyond the middle of the river; the boys pointed her

head right, and then lay on their oars. The river was not high, so

there was not more than a two or three mile current. Hardly a word was

said during the next three-quarters of an hour. Now the raft was

passing before the distant town. Two or three glimmering lights showed

where it lay, peacefully sleeping, beyond the vague vast sweep of

star-gemmed water, unconscious of the tremendous event that was happening.

The Black Avenger stood still with folded arms, "looking his last" upon

the scene of his former joys and his later sufferings, and wishing

"she" could see him now, abroad on the wild sea, facing peril and death

with dauntless heart, going to his doom with a grim smile on his lips.

It was but a small strain on his imagination to remove Jackson's Island

beyond eyeshot of the village, and so he "looked his last" with a

broken and satisfied heart. The other pirates were looking their last,

too; and they all looked so long that they came near letting the

current drift them out of the range of the island. But they discovered

the danger in time, and made shift to avert it. About two o'clock in

the morning the raft grounded on the bar two hundred yards above the

head of the island, and they waded back and forth until they had landed

their freight. Part of the little raft's belongings consisted of an old

sail, and this they spread over a nook in the bushes for a tent to

shelter their provisions; but they themselves would sleep in the open

air in good weather, as became outlaws.

They built a fire against the side of a great log twenty or thirty

steps within the sombre depths of the forest, and then cooked some

bacon in the frying-pan for supper, and used up half of the corn "pone"

stock they had brought. It seemed glorious sport to be feasting in that

wild, free way in the virgin forest of an unexplored and uninhabited

island, far from the haunts of men, and they said they never would

return to civilization. The climbing fire lit up their faces and threw

its ruddy glare upon the pillared tree-trunks of their forest temple,

and upon the varnished foliage and festooning vines.

When the last crisp slice of bacon was gone, and the last allowance of

corn pone devoured, the boys stretched themselves out on the grass,

filled with contentment. They could have found a cooler place, but they

would not deny themselves such a romantic feature as the roasting

camp-fire.

"AIN'T it gay?" said Joe.

"It's NUTS!" said Tom. "What would the boys say if they could see us?"

"Say? Well, they'd just die to be here--hey, Hucky!"

"I reckon so," said Huckleberry; "anyways, I'm suited. I don't want

nothing better'n this. I don't ever get enough to eat, gen'ally--and

here they can't come and pick at a feller and bullyrag him so."

"It's just the life for me," said Tom. "You don't have to get up,

mornings, and you don't have to go to school, and wash, and all that

blame foolishness. You see a pirate don't have to do ANYTHING, Joe,

when he's ashore, but a hermit HE has to be praying considerable, and

then he don't have any fun, anyway, all by himself that way."

"Oh yes, that's so," said Joe, "but I hadn't thought much about it,

you know. I'd a good deal rather be a pirate, now that I've tried it."

"You see," said Tom, "people don't go much on hermits, nowadays, like

they used to in old times, but a pirate's always respected. And a

hermit's got to sleep on the hardest place he can find, and put

sackcloth and ashes on his head, and stand out in the rain, and--"

"What does he put sackcloth and ashes on his head for?" inquired Huck.

"I dono. But they've GOT to do it. Hermits always do. You'd have to do

that if you was a hermit."

"Dern'd if I would," said Huck.

"Well, what would you do?"

"I dono. But I wouldn't do that."

"Why, Huck, you'd HAVE to. How'd you get around it?"

"Why, I just wouldn't stand it. I'd run away."

"Run away! Well, you WOULD be a nice old slouch of a hermit. You'd be

a disgrace."

The Red-Handed made no response, being better employed. He had

finished gouging out a cob, and now he fitted a weed stem to it, loaded

it with tobacco, and was pressing a coal to the charge and blowing a

cloud of fragrant smoke--he was in the full bloom of luxurious

contentment. The other pirates envied him this majestic vice, and

secretly resolved to acquire it shortly. Presently Huck said:

"What does pirates have to do?"

Tom said:

"Oh, they have just a bully time--take ships and burn them, and get

the money and bury it in awful places in their island where there's

ghosts and things to watch it, and kill everybody in the ships--make

'em walk a plank."

"And they carry the women to the island," said Joe; "they don't kill

the women."

"No," assented Tom, "they don't kill the women--they're too noble. And

the women's always beautiful, too.

"And don't they wear the bulliest clothes! Oh no! All gold and silver

and di'monds," said Joe, with enthusiasm.

"Who?" said Huck.

"Why, the pirates."

Huck scanned his own clothing forlornly.

"I reckon I ain't dressed fitten for a pirate," said he, with a

regretful pathos in his voice; "but I ain't got none but these."

But the other boys told him the fine clothes would come fast enough,

after they should have begun their adventures. They made him understand

that his poor rags would do to begin with, though it was customary for

wealthy pirates to start with a proper wardrobe.

Gradually their talk died out and drowsiness began to steal upon the

eyelids of the little waifs. The pipe dropped from the fingers of the

Red-Handed, and he slept the sleep of the conscience-free and the

weary. The Terror of the Seas and the Black Avenger of the Spanish Main

had more difficulty in getting to sleep. They said their prayers

inwardly, and lying down, since there was nobody there with authority

to make them kneel and recite aloud; in truth, they had a mind not to

say them at all, but they were afraid to proceed to such lengths as

that, lest they might call down a sudden and special thunderbolt from

heaven. Then at once they reached and hovered upon the imminent verge

of sleep--but an intruder came, now, that would not "down." It was

conscience. They began to feel a vague fear that they had been doing

wrong to run away; and next they thought of the stolen meat, and then

the real torture came. They tried to argue it away by reminding

conscience that they had purloined sweetmeats and apples scores of

times; but conscience was not to be appeased by such thin

plausibilities; it seemed to them, in the end, that there was no

getting around the stubborn fact that taking sweetmeats was only

"hooking," while taking bacon and hams and such valuables was plain

simple stealing--and there was a command against that in the Bible. So

they inwardly resolved that so long as they remained in the business,

their piracies should not again be sullied with the crime of stealing.

Then conscience granted a truce, and these curiously inconsistent

pirates fell peacefully to sleep.

CHAPTER XIV

WHEN Tom awoke in the morning, he wondered where he was. He sat up and

rubbed his eyes and looked around. Then he comprehended. It was the

cool gray dawn, and there was a delicious sense of repose and peace in

the deep pervading calm and silence of the woods. Not a leaf stirred;

not a sound obtruded upon great Nature's meditation. Beaded dewdrops

stood upon the leaves and grasses. A white layer of ashes covered the

fire, and a thin blue breath of smoke rose straight into the air. Joe

and Huck still slept.

Now, far away in the woods a bird called; another answered; presently

the hammering of a woodpecker was heard. Gradually the cool dim gray of

the morning whitened, and as gradually sounds multiplied and life

manifested itself. The marvel of Nature shaking off sleep and going to

work unfolded itself to the musing boy. A little green worm came

crawling over a dewy leaf, lifting two-thirds of his body into the air

from time to time and "sniffing around," then proceeding again--for he

was measuring, Tom said; and when the worm approached him, of its own

accord, he sat as still as a stone, with his hopes rising and falling,

by turns, as the creature still came toward him or seemed inclined to

go elsewhere; and when at last it considered a painful moment with its

curved body in the air and then came decisively down upon Tom's leg and

began a journey over him, his whole heart was glad--for that meant that

he was going to have a new suit of clothes--without the shadow of a

doubt a gaudy piratical uniform. Now a procession of ants appeared,

from nowhere in particular, and went about their labors; one struggled

manfully by with a dead spider five times as big as itself in its arms,

and lugged it straight up a tree-trunk. A brown spotted lady-bug

climbed the dizzy height of a grass blade, and Tom bent down close to

it and said, "Lady-bug, lady-bug, fly away home, your house is on fire,

your children's alone," and she took wing and went off to see about it

--which did not surprise the boy, for he knew of old that this insect was

credulous about conflagrations, and he had practised upon its

simplicity more than once. A tumblebug came next, heaving sturdily at

its ball, and Tom touched the creature, to see it shut its legs against

its body and pretend to be dead. The birds were fairly rioting by this

time. A catbird, the Northern mocker, lit in a tree over Tom's head,

and trilled out her imitations of her neighbors in a rapture of

enjoyment; then a shrill jay swept down, a flash of blue flame, and

stopped on a twig almost within the boy's reach, cocked his head to one

side and eyed the strangers with a consuming curiosity; a gray squirrel

and a big fellow of the "fox" kind came skurrying along, sitting up at

intervals to inspect and chatter at the boys, for the wild things had

probably never seen a human being before and scarcely knew whether to

be afraid or not. All Nature was wide awake and stirring, now; long

lances of sunlight pierced down through the dense foliage far and near,

and a few butterflies came fluttering upon the scene.

Tom stirred up the other pirates and they all clattered away with a

shout, and in a minute or two were stripped and chasing after and

tumbling over each other in the shallow limpid water of the white

sandbar. They felt no longing for the little village sleeping in the

distance beyond the majestic waste of water. A vagrant current or a

slight rise in the river had carried off their raft, but this only

gratified them, since its going was something like burning the bridge

between them and civilization.

They came back to camp wonderfully refreshed, glad-hearted, and

ravenous; and they soon had the camp-fire blazing up again. Huck found

a spring of clear cold water close by, and the boys made cups of broad

oak or hickory leaves, and felt that water, sweetened with such a

wildwood charm as that, would be a good enough substitute for coffee.

While Joe was slicing bacon for breakfast, Tom and Huck asked him to

hold on a minute; they stepped to a promising nook in the river-bank

and threw in their lines; almost immediately they had reward. Joe had

not had time to get impatient before they were back again with some

handsome bass, a couple of sun-perch and a small catfish--provisions

enough for quite a family. They fried the fish with the bacon, and were

astonished; for no fish had ever seemed so delicious before. They did

not know that the quicker a fresh-water fish is on the fire after he is

caught the better he is; and they reflected little upon what a sauce

open-air sleeping, open-air exercise, bathing, and a large ingredient

of hunger make, too.

They lay around in the shade, after breakfast, while Huck had a smoke,

and then went off through the woods on an exploring expedition. They

tramped gayly along, over decaying logs, through tangled underbrush,

among solemn monarchs of the forest, hung from their crowns to the

ground with a drooping regalia of grape-vines. Now and then they came

upon snug nooks carpeted with grass and jeweled with flowers.

They found plenty of things to be delighted with, but nothing to be

astonished at. They discovered that the island was about three miles

long and a quarter of a mile wide, and that the shore it lay closest to

was only separated from it by a narrow channel hardly two hundred yards

wide. They took a swim about every hour, so it was close upon the

middle of the afternoon when they got back to camp. They were too

hungry to stop to fish, but they fared sumptuously upon cold ham, and

then threw themselves down in the shade to talk. But the talk soon

began to drag, and then died. The stillness, the solemnity that brooded

in the woods, and the sense of loneliness, began to tell upon the

spirits of the boys. They fell to thinking. A sort of undefined longing

crept upon them. This took dim shape, presently--it was budding

homesickness. Even Finn the Red-Handed was dreaming of his doorsteps

and empty hogsheads. But they were all ashamed of their weakness, and

none was brave enough to speak his thought.

For some time, now, the boys had been dully conscious of a peculiar

sound in the distance, just as one sometimes is of the ticking of a

clock which he takes no distinct note of. But now this mysterious sound

became more pronounced, and forced a recognition. The boys started,

glanced at each other, and then each assumed a listening attitude.

There was a long silence, profound and unbroken; then a deep, sullen

boom came floating down out of the distance.

"What is it!" exclaimed Joe, under his breath.

"I wonder," said Tom in a whisper.

"'Tain't thunder," said Huckleberry, in an awed tone, "becuz thunder--"

"Hark!" said Tom. "Listen--don't talk."

They waited a time that seemed an age, and then the same muffled boom

troubled the solemn hush.

"Let's go and see."

They sprang to their feet and hurried to the shore toward the town.

They parted the bushes on the bank and peered out over the water. The

little steam ferryboat was about a mile below the village, drifting

with the current. Her broad deck seemed crowded with people. There were

a great many skiffs rowing about or floating with the stream in the

neighborhood of the ferryboat, but the boys could not determine what

the men in them were doing. Presently a great jet of white smoke burst

from the ferryboat's side, and as it expanded and rose in a lazy cloud,

that same dull throb of sound was borne to the listeners again.

"I know now!" exclaimed Tom; "somebody's drownded!"

"That's it!" said Huck; "they done that last summer, when Bill Turner

got drownded; they shoot a cannon over the water, and that makes him

come up to the top. Yes, and they take loaves of bread and put

quicksilver in 'em and set 'em afloat, and wherever there's anybody

that's drownded, they'll float right there and stop."

"Yes, I've heard about that," said Joe. "I wonder what makes the bread

do that."

"Oh, it ain't the bread, so much," said Tom; "I reckon it's mostly

what they SAY over it before they start it out."

"But they don't say anything over it," said Huck. "I've seen 'em and

they don't."

"Well, that's funny," said Tom. "But maybe they say it to themselves.

Of COURSE they do. Anybody might know that."

The other boys agreed that there was reason in what Tom said, because

an ignorant lump of bread, uninstructed by an incantation, could not be

expected to act very intelligently when set upon an errand of such

gravity.

"By jings, I wish I was over there, now," said Joe.

"I do too" said Huck "I'd give heaps to know who it is."

The boys still listened and watched. Presently a revealing thought

flashed through Tom's mind, and he exclaimed:

"Boys, I know who's drownded--it's us!"

They felt like heroes in an instant. Here was a gorgeous triumph; they

were missed; they were mourned; hearts were breaking on their account;

tears were being shed; accusing memories of unkindness to these poor

lost lads were rising up, and unavailing regrets and remorse were being

indulged; and best of all, the departed were the talk of the whole

town, and the envy of all the boys, as far as this dazzling notoriety

was concerned. This was fine. It was worth while to be a pirate, after

all.

As twilight drew on, the ferryboat went back to her accustomed

business and the skiffs disappeared. The pirates returned to camp. They

were jubilant with vanity over their new grandeur and the illustrious

trouble they were making. They caught fish, cooked supper and ate it,

and then fell to guessing at what the village was thinking and saying

about them; and the pictures they drew of the public distress on their

account were gratifying to look upon--from their point of view. But

when the shadows of night closed them in, they gradually ceased to

talk, and sat gazing into the fire, with their minds evidently

wandering elsewhere. The excitement was gone, now, and Tom and Joe

could not keep back thoughts of certain persons at home who were not

enjoying this fine frolic as much as they were. Misgivings came; they

grew troubled and unhappy; a sigh or two escaped, unawares. By and by

Joe timidly ventured upon a roundabout "feeler" as to how the others

might look upon a return to civilization--not right now, but--

Tom withered him with derision! Huck, being uncommitted as yet, joined

in with Tom, and the waverer quickly "explained," and was glad to get

out of the scrape with as little taint of chicken-hearted homesickness

clinging to his garments as he could. Mutiny was effectually laid to

rest for the moment.

As the night deepened, Huck began to nod, and presently to snore. Joe

followed next. Tom lay upon his elbow motionless, for some time,

watching the two intently. At last he got up cautiously, on his knees,

and went searching among the grass and the flickering reflections flung

by the camp-fire. He picked up and inspected several large

semi-cylinders of the thin white bark of a sycamore, and finally chose

two which seemed to suit him. Then he knelt by the fire and painfully

wrote something upon each of these with his "red keel"; one he rolled up

and put in his jacket pocket, and the other he put in Joe's hat and

removed it to a little distance from the owner. And he also put into the

hat certain schoolboy treasures of almost inestimable value--among them

a lump of chalk, an India-rubber ball, three fishhooks, and one of that

kind of marbles known as a "sure 'nough crystal." Then he tiptoed his

way cautiously among the trees till he felt that he was out of hearing,

and straightway broke into a keen run in the direction of the sandbar.

CHAPTER XV

A FEW minutes later Tom was in the shoal water of the bar, wading

toward the Illinois shore. Before the depth reached his middle he was

half-way over; the current would permit no more wading, now, so he

struck out confidently to swim the remaining hundred yards. He swam

quartering upstream, but still was swept downward rather faster than he

had expected. However, he reached the shore finally, and drifted along

till he found a low place and drew himself out. He put his hand on his

jacket pocket, found his piece of bark safe, and then struck through

the woods, following the shore, with streaming garments. Shortly before

ten o'clock he came out into an open place opposite the village, and

saw the ferryboat lying in the shadow of the trees and the high bank.

Everything was quiet under the blinking stars. He crept down the bank,

watching with all his eyes, slipped into the water, swam three or four

strokes and climbed into the skiff that did "yawl" duty at the boat's

stern. He laid himself down under the thwarts and waited, panting.

Presently the cracked bell tapped and a voice gave the order to "cast

off." A minute or two later the skiff's head was standing high up,

against the boat's swell, and the voyage was begun. Tom felt happy in

his success, for he knew it was the boat's last trip for the night. At

the end of a long twelve or fifteen minutes the wheels stopped, and Tom

slipped overboard and swam ashore in the dusk, landing fifty yards

downstream, out of danger of possible stragglers.

He flew along unfrequented alleys, and shortly found himself at his

aunt's back fence. He climbed over, approached the "ell," and looked in

at the sitting-room window, for a light was burning there. There sat

Aunt Polly, Sid, Mary, and Joe Harper's mother, grouped together,

talking. They were by the bed, and the bed was between them and the

door. Tom went to the door and began to softly lift the latch; then he

pressed gently and the door yielded a crack; he continued pushing

cautiously, and quaking every time it creaked, till he judged he might

squeeze through on his knees; so he put his head through and began,

warily.

"What makes the candle blow so?" said Aunt Polly. Tom hurried up.

"Why, that door's open, I believe. Why, of course it is. No end of

strange things now. Go 'long and shut it, Sid."

Tom disappeared under the bed just in time. He lay and "breathed"

himself for a time, and then crept to where he could almost touch his

aunt's foot.

"But as I was saying," said Aunt Polly, "he warn't BAD, so to say

--only mischEEvous. Only just giddy, and harum-scarum, you know. He

warn't any more responsible than a colt. HE never meant any harm, and

he was the best-hearted boy that ever was"--and she began to cry.

"It was just so with my Joe--always full of his devilment, and up to

every kind of mischief, but he was just as unselfish and kind as he

could be--and laws bless me, to think I went and whipped him for taking

that cream, never once recollecting that I throwed it out myself

because it was sour, and I never to see him again in this world, never,

never, never, poor abused boy!" And Mrs. Harper sobbed as if her heart

would break.

"I hope Tom's better off where he is," said Sid, "but if he'd been

better in some ways--"

"SID!" Tom felt the glare of the old lady's eye, though he could not

see it. "Not a word against my Tom, now that he's gone! God'll take

care of HIM--never you trouble YOURself, sir! Oh, Mrs. Harper, I don't

know how to give him up! I don't know how to give him up! He was such a

comfort to me, although he tormented my old heart out of me, 'most."