"Huck, it's biting off a chaw of tobacker! By George, THEY don't

chaw--they hain't got anything to chaw WITH. Huck!"

"I'm a-listening."

"It ain't a ghost at all. It's Jake Dunlap his own self!"

"Oh your granny!" I says.

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

"No."

"Or any sign of one?"

"No."

"Mighty good reason. Hadn't ever been any corpse there."

"Why, Tom, you know we heard--"

"Yes, we did--heard a howl or two. Does that prove anybody was killed?

Course it don't. And we seen four men run, then this one come walking out

and we took it for a ghost. No more ghost than you are. It was Jake

Dunlap his own self, and it's Jake Dunlap now. He's been and got his

hair cropped, the way he said he would, and he's playing himself for a

stranger, just the same as he said he would. Ghost? Hum!--he's as sound

as a nut."

Then I see it all, and how we had took too much for granted. I was

powerful glad he didn't get killed, and so was Tom, and we wondered which

he would like the best--for us to never let on to know him, or how? Tom

reckoned the best way would be to go and ask him. So he started; but I

kept a little behind, because I didn't know but it might be a ghost,

after all. When Tom got to where he was, he says:

"Me and Huck's mighty glad to see you again, and you needn't be afeared

we'll tell. And if you think it'll be safer for you if we don't let on

to know you when we run across you, say the word and you'll see you can

depend on us, and would ruther cut our hands off than get you into the

least little bit of danger."

First off he looked surprised to see us, and not very glad, either; but

as Tom went on he looked pleasanter, and when he was done he smiled, and

nodded his head several times, and made signs with his hands, and says:

"Goo-goo--goo-goo," the way deef and dummies does.

Just then we see some of Steve Nickerson's people coming that lived

t'other side of the prairie, so Tom says:

"You do it elegant; I never see anybody do it better. You're right; play

it on us, too; play it on us same as the others; it'll keep you in

practice and prevent you making blunders. We'll keep away from you and

let on we don't know you, but any time we can be any help, you just let

us know."

Then we loafed along past the Nickersons, and of course they asked if

that was the new stranger yonder, and where'd he come from, and what was

his name, and which communion was he, Babtis' or Methodis', and which

politics, Whig or Democrat, and how long is he staying, and all them

other questions that humans always asks when a stranger comes, and

animals does, too. But Tom said he warn't able to make anything out of

deef and dumb signs, and the same with goo-gooing. Then we watched them

go and bullyrag Jake; because we was pretty uneasy for him. Tom said it

would take him days to get so he wouldn't forget he was a deef and dummy

sometimes, and speak out before he thought. When we had watched long

enough to see that Jake was getting along all right and working his signs

very good, we loafed along again, allowing to strike the schoolhouse

about recess time, which was a three-mile tramp.

I was so disappointed not to hear Jake tell about the row in the

sycamores, and how near he come to getting killed, that I couldn't seem

to get over it, and Tom he felt the same, but said if we was in Jake's

fix we would want to go careful and keep still and not take any chances.

The boys and girls was all glad to see us again, and we had a real good

time all through recess. Coming to school the Henderson boys had come

across the new deef and dummy and told the rest; so all the scholars was

chuck full of him and couldn't talk about anything else, and was in a

sweat to get a sight of him because they hadn't ever seen a deef and

dummy in their lives, and it made a powerful excitement.

Tom said it was tough to have to keep mum now; said we would be heroes if

we could come out and tell all we knowed; but after all, it was still

more heroic to keep mum, there warn't two boys in a million could do it.

That was Tom Sawyer's idea about it, and reckoned there warn't anybody

could better it.

CHAPTER IX. FINDING OF JUBITER DUNLAP

IN the next two or three days Dummy he got to be powerful popular. He

went associating around with the neighbors, and they made much of him,

and was proud to have such a rattling curiosity among them. They had him

to breakfast, they had him to dinner, they had him to supper; they kept

him loaded up with hog and hominy, and warn't ever tired staring at him

and wondering over him, and wishing they knowed more about him, he was so

uncommon and romantic. His signs warn't no good; people couldn't

understand them and he prob'ly couldn't himself, but he done a sight of

goo-gooing, and so everybody was satisfied, and admired to hear him go

it. He toted a piece of slate around, and a pencil; and people wrote

questions on it and he wrote answers; but there warn't anybody could read

his writing but Brace Dunlap. Brace said he couldn't read it very good,

but he could manage to dig out the meaning most of the time. He said

Dummy said he belonged away off somers and used to be well off, but got

busted by swindlers which he had trusted, and was poor now, and hadn't

any way to make a living.

Everybody praised Brace Dunlap for being so good to that stranger. He

let him have a little log-cabin all to himself, and had his niggers take

care of it, and fetch him all the vittles he wanted.

Dummy was at our house some, because old Uncle Silas was so afflicted

himself, these days, that anybody else that was afflicted was a comfort

to him. Me and Tom didn't let on that we had knowed him before, and he

didn't let on that he had knowed us before. The family talked their

troubles out before him the same as if he wasn't there, but we reckoned

it wasn't any harm for him to hear what they said. Generly he didn't seem

to notice, but sometimes he did.

Well, two or three days went along, and everybody got to getting uneasy

about Jubiter Dunlap. Everybody was asking everybody if they had any

idea what had become of him. No, they hadn't, they said: and they shook

their heads and said there was something powerful strange about it.

Another and another day went by; then there was a report got around that

praps he was murdered. You bet it made a big stir! Everybody's tongue

was clacking away after that. Saturday two or three gangs turned out and

hunted the woods to see if they could run across his remainders. Me and

Tom helped, and it was noble good times and exciting. Tom he was so

brimful of it he couldn't eat nor rest. He said if we could find that

corpse we would be celebrated, and more talked about than if we got

drownded.

The others got tired and give it up; but not Tom Sawyer--that warn't his

style. Saturday night he didn't sleep any, hardly, trying to think up a

plan; and towards daylight in the morning he struck it. He snaked me out

of bed and was all excited, and says:

"Quick, Huck, snatch on your clothes--I've got it! Bloodhound!"

In two minutes we was tearing up the river road in the dark towards the

village. Old Jeff Hooker had a bloodhound, and Tom was going to borrow

him. I says:

"The trail's too old, Tom--and besides, it's rained, you know."

"It don't make any difference, Huck. If the body's hid in the woods

anywhere around the hound will find it. If he's been murdered and buried,

they wouldn't bury him deep, it ain't likely, and if the dog goes over

the spot he'll scent him, sure. Huck, we're going to be celebrated, sure

as you're born!"

He was just a-blazing; and whenever he got afire he was most likely to

get afire all over. That was the way this time. In two minutes he had

got it all ciphered out, and wasn't only just going to find the

corpse--no, he was going to get on the track of that murderer and hunt

HIM down, too; and not only that, but he was going to stick to him till

--"Well," I says, "you better find the corpse first; I reckon that's

a-plenty for to-day. For all we know, there AIN'T any corpse and nobody

hain't been murdered. That cuss could 'a' gone off somers and not been

killed at all."

That graveled him, and he says:

"Huck Finn, I never see such a person as you to want to spoil everything.

As long as YOU can't see anything hopeful in a thing, you won't let

anybody else. What good can it do you to throw cold water on that corpse

and get up that selfish theory that there ain't been any murder? None in

the world. I don't see how you can act so. I wouldn't treat you like

that, and you know it. Here we've got a noble good opportunity to make a

ruputation, and--"

"Oh, go ahead," I says. "I'm sorry, and I take it all back. I didn't

mean nothing. Fix it any way you want it. HE ain't any consequence to

me. If he's killed, I'm as glad of it as you are; and if he--"

"I never said anything about being glad; I only--"

"Well, then, I'm as SORRY as you are. Any way you druther have it, that

is the way I druther have it. He--"

"There ain't any druthers ABOUT it, Huck Finn; nobody said anything about

druthers. And as for--"

He forgot he was talking, and went tramping along, studying. He begun to

get excited again, and pretty soon he says:

"Huck, it'll be the bulliest thing that ever happened if we find the body

after everybody else has quit looking, and then go ahead and hunt up the

murderer. It won't only be an honor to us, but it'll be an honor to

Uncle Silas because it was us that done it. It'll set him up again, you

see if it don't."

But Old Jeff Hooker he throwed cold water on the whole business when we

got to his blacksmith shop and told him what we come for.

"You can take the dog," he says, "but you ain't a-going to find any

corpse, because there ain't any corpse to find. Everybody's quit looking,

and they're right. Soon as they come to think, they knowed there warn't

no corpse. And I'll tell you for why. What does a person kill another

person for, Tom Sawyer?--answer me that."

"Why, he--er--"

"Answer up! You ain't no fool. What does he kill him FOR?"

"Well, sometimes it's for revenge, and--"

"Wait. One thing at a time. Revenge, says you; and right you are. Now

who ever had anything agin that poor trifling no-account? Who do you

reckon would want to kill HIM?--that rabbit!"

Tom was stuck. I reckon he hadn't thought of a person having to have a

REASON for killing a person before, and now he sees it warn't likely

anybody would have that much of a grudge against a lamb like Jubiter

Dunlap. The blacksmith says, by and by:

"The revenge idea won't work, you see. Well, then, what's next? Robbery?

B'gosh, that must 'a' been it, Tom! Yes, sirree, I reckon we've struck it

this time. Some feller wanted his gallus-buckles, and so he--"

But it was so funny he busted out laughing, and just went on laughing and

laughing and laughing till he was 'most dead, and Tom looked so put out

and cheap that I knowed he was ashamed he had come, and he wished he

hadn't. But old Hooker never let up on him. He raked up everything a

person ever could want to kill another person about, and any fool could

see they didn't any of them fit this case, and he just made no end of fun

of the whole business and of the people that had been hunting the body;

and he said:

"If they'd had any sense they'd 'a' knowed the lazy cuss slid out because

he wanted a loafing spell after all this work. He'll come pottering back

in a couple of weeks, and then how'll you fellers feel? But, laws bless

you, take the dog, and go and hunt his remainders. Do, Tom."

Then he busted out, and had another of them forty-rod laughs of hisn.

Tom couldn't back down after all this, so he said, "All right, unchain

him;" and the blacksmith done it, and we started home and left that old

man laughing yet.

It was a lovely dog. There ain't any dog that's got a lovelier

disposition than a bloodhound, and this one knowed us and liked us. He

capered and raced around ever so friendly, and powerful glad to be free

and have a holiday; but Tom was so cut up he couldn't take any intrust in

him, and said he wished he'd stopped and thought a minute before he ever

started on such a fool errand. He said old Jeff Hooker would tell

everybody, and we'd never hear the last of it.

So we loafed along home down the back lanes, feeling pretty glum and not

talking. When we was passing the far corner of our tobacker field we

heard the dog set up a long howl in there, and we went to the place and

he was scratching the ground with all his might, and every now and then

canting up his head sideways and fetching another howl.

It was a long square, the shape of a grave; the rain had made it sink

down and show the shape. The minute we come and stood there we looked at

one another and never said a word. When the dog had dug down only a few

inches he grabbed something and pulled it up, and it was an arm and a

sleeve. Tom kind of gasped out, and says:

"Come away, Huck--it's found."

I just felt awful. We struck for the road and fetched the first men that

come along. They got a spade at the crib and dug out the body, and you

never see such an excitement. You couldn't make anything out of the

face, but you didn't need to. Everybody said:

"Poor Jubiter; it's his clothes, to the last rag!"

Some rushed off to spread the news and tell the justice of the peace and

have an inquest, and me and Tom lit out for the house. Tom was all afire

and 'most out of breath when we come tearing in where Uncle Silas and

Aunt Sally and Benny was. Tom sung out:

"Me and Huck's found Jubiter Dunlap's corpse all by ourselves with a

bloodhound, after everybody else had quit hunting and given it up; and if

it hadn't a been for us it never WOULD 'a' been found; and he WAS

murdered too--they done it with a club or something like that; and I'm

going to start in and find the murderer, next, and I bet I'll do it!"

Aunt Sally and Benny sprung up pale and astonished, but Uncle Silas fell

right forward out of his chair on to the floor and groans out:

"Oh, my God, you've found him NOW!"

CHAPTER X. THE ARREST OF UNCLE SILAS

THEM awful words froze us solid. We couldn't move hand or foot for as

much as half a minute. Then we kind of come to, and lifted the old man

up and got him into his chair, and Benny petted him and kissed him and

tried to comfort him, and poor old Aunt Sally she done the same; but,

poor things, they was so broke up and scared and knocked out of their

right minds that they didn't hardly know what they was about. With Tom

it was awful; it 'most petrified him to think maybe he had got his uncle

into a thousand times more trouble than ever, and maybe it wouldn't ever

happened if he hadn't been so ambitious to get celebrated, and let the

corpse alone the way the others done. But pretty soon he sort of come to

himself again and says:

"Uncle Silas, don't you say another word like that. It's dangerous, and

there ain't a shadder of truth in it."

Aunt Sally and Benny was thankful to hear him say that, and they said the

same; but the old man he wagged his head sorrowful and hopeless, and the

tears run down his face, and he says;

"No--I done it; poor Jubiter, I done it!"

It was dreadful to hear him say it. Then he went on and told about it,

and said it happened the day me and Tom come--along about sundown. He

said Jubiter pestered him and aggravated him till he was so mad he just

sort of lost his mind and grabbed up a stick and hit him over the head

with all his might, and Jubiter dropped in his tracks. Then he was scared

and sorry, and got down on his knees and lifted his head up, and begged

him to speak and say he wasn't dead; and before long he come to, and when

he see who it was holding his head, he jumped like he was 'most scared to

death, and cleared the fence and tore into the woods, and was gone. So

he hoped he wasn't hurt bad.

"But laws," he says, "it was only just fear that gave him that last

little spurt of strength, and of course it soon played out and he laid

down in the bush, and there wasn't anybody to help him, and he died."

Then the old man cried and grieved, and said he was a murderer and the

mark of Cain was on him, and he had disgraced his family and was going to

be found out and hung. But Tom said:

"No, you ain't going to be found out. You DIDN'T kill him. ONE lick

wouldn't kill him. Somebody else done it."

"Oh, yes," he says, "I done it--nobody else. Who else had anything

against him? Who else COULD have anything against him?"

He looked up kind of like he hoped some of us could mention somebody that

could have a grudge against that harmless no-account, but of course it

warn't no use--he HAD us; we couldn't say a word. He noticed that, and

he saddened down again, and I never see a face so miserable and so

pitiful to see. Tom had a sudden idea, and says:

"But hold on!--somebody BURIED him. Now who--"

He shut off sudden. I knowed the reason. It give me the cold shudders

when he said them words, because right away I remembered about us seeing

Uncle Silas prowling around with a long-handled shovel away in the night

that night. And I knowed Benny seen him, too, because she was talking

about it one day. The minute Tom shut off he changed the subject and

went to begging Uncle Silas to keep mum, and the rest of us done the

same, and said he MUST, and said it wasn't his business to tell on

himself, and if he kept mum nobody would ever know; but if it was found

out and any harm come to him it would break the family's hearts and kill

them, and yet never do anybody any good. So at last he promised. We was

all of us more comfortable, then, and went to work to cheer up the old

man. We told him all he'd got to do was to keep still, and it wouldn't

be long till the whole thing would blow over and be forgot. We all said

there wouldn't anybody ever suspect Uncle Silas, nor ever dream of such a

thing, he being so good and kind, and having such a good character; and

Tom says, cordial and hearty, he says:

"Why, just look at it a minute; just consider. Here is Uncle Silas, all

these years a preacher--at his own expense; all these years doing good

with all his might and every way he can think of--at his own expense, all

the time; always been loved by everybody, and respected; always been

peaceable and minding his own business, the very last man in this whole

deestrict to touch a person, and everybody knows it. Suspect HIM? Why,

it ain't any more possible than--"

"By authority of the State of Arkansaw, I arrest you for the murder of

Jubiter Dunlap!" shouts the sheriff at the door.

It was awful. Aunt Sally and Benny flung themselves at Uncle Silas,

screaming and crying, and hugged him and hung to him, and Aunt Sally said

go away, she wouldn't ever give him up, they shouldn't have him, and the

niggers they come crowding and crying to the door and--well, I couldn't

stand it; it was enough to break a person's heart; so I got out.

They took him up to the little one-horse jail in the village, and we all

went along to tell him good-bye; and Tom was feeling elegant, and says to

me, "We'll have a most noble good time and heaps of danger some dark

night getting him out of there, Huck, and it'll be talked about

everywheres and we will be celebrated;" but the old man busted that

scheme up the minute he whispered to him about it. He said no, it was his

duty to stand whatever the law done to him, and he would stick to the

jail plumb through to the end, even if there warn't no door to it. It

disappointed Tom and graveled him a good deal, but he had to put up with

it.

But he felt responsible and bound to get his uncle Silas free; and he

told Aunt Sally, the last thing, not to worry, because he was going to

turn in and work night and day and beat this game and fetch Uncle Silas

out innocent; and she was very loving to him and thanked him and said she

knowed he would do his very best. And she told us to help Benny take

care of the house and the children, and then we had a good-bye cry all

around and went back to the farm, and left her there to live with the

jailer's wife a month till the trial in October.

CHAPTER XI. TOM SAWYER DISCOVERS THE MURDERERS

WELL, that was a hard month on us all. Poor Benny, she kept up the best

she could, and me and Tom tried to keep things cheerful there at the

house, but it kind of went for nothing, as you may say. It was the same

up at the jail. We went up every day to see the old people, but it was

awful dreary, because the old man warn't sleeping much, and was walking

in his sleep considerable and so he got to looking fagged and miserable,

and his mind got shaky, and we all got afraid his troubles would break

him down and kill him. And whenever we tried to persuade him to feel

cheerfuler, he only shook his head and said if we only knowed what it was

to carry around a murderer's load in your heart we wouldn't talk that

way. Tom and all of us kept telling him it WASN'T murder, but just

accidental killing! but it never made any difference--it was murder, and

he wouldn't have it any other way. He actu'ly begun to come out plain

and square towards trial time and acknowledge that he TRIED to kill the

man. Why, that was awful, you know. It made things seem fifty times as

dreadful, and there warn't no more comfort for Aunt Sally and Benny. But

he promised he wouldn't say a word about his murder when others was

around, and we was glad of that.

Tom Sawyer racked the head off of himself all that month trying to plan

some way out for Uncle Silas, and many's the night he kept me up 'most

all night with this kind of tiresome work, but he couldn't seem to get on

the right track no way. As for me, I reckoned a body might as well give

it up, it all looked so blue and I was so downhearted; but he wouldn't.

He stuck to the business right along, and went on planning and thinking

and ransacking his head.

So at last the trial come on, towards the middle of October, and we was

all in the court. The place was jammed, of course. Poor old Uncle

Silas, he looked more like a dead person than a live one, his eyes was so

hollow and he looked so thin and so mournful. Benny she set on one side

of him and Aunt Sally on the other, and they had veils on, and was full

of trouble. But Tom he set by our lawyer, and had his finger in

everywheres, of course. The lawyer let him, and the judge let him. He

'most took the business out of the lawyer's hands sometimes; which was

well enough, because that was only a mud-turtle of a back-settlement

lawyer and didn't know enough to come in when it rains, as the saying is.

They swore in the jury, and then the lawyer for the prostitution got up

and begun. He made a terrible speech against the old man, that made him

moan and groan, and made Benny and Aunt Sally cry. The way HE told about

the murder kind of knocked us all stupid it was so different from the old

man's tale. He said he was going to prove that Uncle Silas was SEEN to

kill Jubiter Dunlap by two good witnesses, and done it deliberate, and

SAID he was going to kill him the very minute he hit him with the club;

and they seen him hide Jubiter in the bushes, and they seen that Jubiter

was stone-dead. And said Uncle Silas come later and lugged Jubiter down

into the tobacker field, and two men seen him do it. And said Uncle Silas

turned out, away in the night, and buried Jubiter, and a man seen him at

it.

I says to myself, poor old Uncle Silas has been lying about it because he

reckoned nobody seen him and he couldn't bear to break Aunt Sally's heart

and Benny's; and right he was: as for me, I would 'a' lied the same way,

and so would anybody that had any feeling, to save them such misery and

sorrow which THEY warn't no ways responsible for. Well, it made our

lawyer look pretty sick; and it knocked Tom silly, too, for a little

spell, but then he braced up and let on that he warn't worried--but I

knowed he WAS, all the same. And the people--my, but it made a stir

amongst them!

And when that lawyer was done telling the jury what he was going to

prove, he set down and begun to work his witnesses.

First, he called a lot of them to show that there was bad blood betwixt

Uncle Silas and the diseased; and they told how they had heard Uncle

Silas threaten the diseased, at one time and another, and how it got

worse and worse and everybody was talking about it, and how diseased got

afraid of his life, and told two or three of them he was certain Uncle

Silas would up and kill him some time or another.

Tom and our lawyer asked them some questions; but it warn't no use, they

stuck to what they said.

Next, they called up Lem Beebe, and he took the stand. It come into my

mind, then, how Lem and Jim Lane had come along talking, that time, about

borrowing a dog or something from Jubiter Dunlap; and that brought up the

blackberries and the lantern; and that brought up Bill and Jack Withers,

and how they passed by, talking about a nigger stealing Uncle Silas's

corn; and that fetched up our old ghost that come along about the same

time and scared us so--and here HE was too, and a privileged character,

on accounts of his being deef and dumb and a stranger, and they had fixed

him a chair inside the railing, where he could cross his legs and be

comfortable, whilst the other people was all in a jam so they couldn't

hardly breathe. So it all come back to me just the way it was that day;

and it made me mournful to think how pleasant it was up to then, and how

miserable ever since.

LEM BEEBE, sworn, said--"I was a-coming along, that day,

second of September, and Jim Lane was with me, and it was

towards sundown, and we heard loud talk, like quarrelling,

and we was very close, only the hazel bushes between (that's

along the fence); and we heard a voice say, 'I've told you

more'n once I'd kill you,' and knowed it was this prisoner's

voice; and then we see a club come up above the bushes and

down out of sight again, and heard a smashing thump and then

a groan or two: and then we crope soft to where we could

see, and there laid Jupiter Dunlap dead, and this prisoner

standing over him with the club; and the next he hauled the

dead man into a clump of bushes and hid him, and then we

stooped low, to be cut of sight, and got away."

Well, it was awful. It kind of froze everybody's blood to hear it, and

the house was 'most as still whilst he was telling it as if there warn't

nobody in it. And when he was done, you could hear them gasp and sigh,

all over the house, and look at one another the same as to say, "Ain't it

perfectly terrible--ain't it awful!"

Now happened a thing that astonished me. All the time the first

witnesses was proving the bad blood and the threats and all that, Tom

Sawyer was alive and laying for them; and the minute they was through, he

went for them, and done his level best to catch them in lies and spile

their testimony. But now, how different. When Lem first begun to talk,

and never said anything about speaking to Jubiter or trying to borrow a

dog off of him, he was all alive and laying for Lem, and you could see he

was getting ready to cross-question him to death pretty soon, and then I

judged him and me would go on the stand by and by and tell what we heard

him and Jim Lane say. But the next time I looked at Tom I got the cold

shivers. Why, he was in the brownest study you ever see--miles and miles

away. He warn't hearing a word Lem Beebe was saying; and when he got

through he was still in that brown-study, just the same. Our lawyer

joggled him, and then he looked up startled, and says, "Take the witness

if you want him. Lemme alone--I want to think."

Well, that beat me. I couldn't understand it. And Benny and her

mother--oh, they looked sick, they was so troubled. They shoved their

veils to one side and tried to get his eye, but it warn't any use, and I

couldn't get his eye either. So the mud-turtle he tackled the witness,

but it didn't amount to nothing; and he made a mess of it.

Then they called up Jim Lane, and he told the very same story over again,

exact. Tom never listened to this one at all, but set there thinking and

thinking, miles and miles away. So the mud-turtle went in alone again and

come out just as flat as he done before. The lawyer for the prostitution

looked very comfortable, but the judge looked disgusted. You see, Tom was

just the same as a regular lawyer, nearly, because it was Arkansaw law

for a prisoner to choose anybody he wanted to help his lawyer, and Tom

had had Uncle Silas shove him into the case, and now he was botching it

and you could see the judge didn't like it much. All that the mud-turtle

got out of Lem and Jim was this: he asked them:

"Why didn't you go and tell what you saw?"

"We was afraid we would get mixed up in it ourselves. And we was just

starting down the river a-hunting for all the week besides; but as soon

as we come back we found out they'd been searching for the body, so then

we went and told Brace Dunlap all about it."

"When was that?"

"Saturday night, September 9th."

The judge he spoke up and says:

"Mr. Sheriff, arrest these two witnesses on suspicions of being

accessionary after the fact to the murder."

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

"Your honor! I protest against this extraordi--"

"Set down!" says the judge, pulling his bowie and laying it on his

pulpit. "I beg you to respect the Court."

So he done it. Then he called Bill Withers.

BILL WITHERS, sworn, said: "I was coming along about sundown,

Saturday, September 2d, by the prisoner's field, and my

brother Jack was with me and we seen a man toting off

something heavy on his back and allowed it was a nigger

stealing corn; we couldn't see distinct; next we made out that

it was one man carrying another; and the way it hung, so kind

of limp, we judged it was somebody that was drunk; and by the

man's walk we said it was Parson Silas, and we judged he had

found Sam Cooper drunk in the road, which he was always trying

to reform him, and was toting him out of danger."

It made the people shiver to think of poor old Uncle Silas toting off the

diseased down to the place in his tobacker field where the dog dug up the

body, but there warn't much sympathy around amongst the faces, and I

heard one cuss say "'Tis the coldest blooded work I ever struck, lugging

a murdered man around like that, and going to bury him like a animal, and

him a preacher at that."

Tom he went on thinking, and never took no notice; so our lawyer took the

witness and done the best he could, and it was plenty poor enough.

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

Bill done.

And after him comes Brace Dunlap, and he was looking very mournful, and

most crying; and there was a rustle and a stir all around, and everybody

got ready to listen, and lost of the women folks said, "Poor cretur, poor

cretur," and you could see a many of them wiping their eyes.

BRACE DUNLAP, sworn, said: "I was in considerable trouble a

long time about my poor brother, but I reckoned things warn't

near so bad as he made out, and I couldn't make myself believe

anybody would have the heart to hurt a poor harmless cretur

like that"--[by jings, I was sure I seen Tom give a kind of a

faint little start, and then look disappointed again]--"and

you know I COULDN'T think a preacher would hurt him--it warn't

natural to think such an onlikely thing--so I never paid much

attention, and now I sha'n't ever, ever forgive myself; for if

I had a done different, my poor brother would be with me this

day, and not laying yonder murdered, and him so harmless." He

kind of broke down there and choked up, and waited to get his

voice; and people all around said the most pitiful things, and

women cried; and it was very still in there, and solemn, and

old Uncle Silas, poor thing, he give a groan right out so

everybody heard him. Then Brace he went on, "Saturday,

September 2d, he didn't come home to supper. By-and-by I got a

little uneasy, and one of my niggers went over to this

prisoner's place, but come back and said he warn't there. So

I got uneasier and uneasier, and couldn't rest. I went to

bed, but I couldn't sleep; and turned out, away late in the

night, and went wandering over to this prisoner's place and

all around about there a good while, hoping I would run across

my poor brother, and never knowing he was out of his troubles

and gone to a better shore--" So he broke down and choked up

again, and most all the women was crying now. Pretty soon he

got another start and says: "But it warn't no use; so at last

I went home and tried to get some sleep, but couldn't. Well,

in a day or two everybody was uneasy, and they got to talking

about this prisoner's threats, and took to the idea, which I

didn't take no stock in, that my brother was murdered so they

hunted around and tried to find his body, but couldn't and

give it up. And so I reckoned he was gone off somers to have

a little peace, and would come back to us when his troubles

was kind of healed. But late Saturday night, the 9th, Lem

Beebe and Jim Lane come to my house and told me all--told me

the whole awful 'sassination, and my heart was broke. And THEN

I remembered something that hadn't took no hold of me at the

time, because reports said this prisoner had took to walking

in his sleep and doing all kind of things of no consequence,

not knowing what he was about. I will tell you what that

thing was that come back into my memory. Away late that awful

Saturday night when I was wandering around about this

prisoner's place, grieving and troubled, I was down by the

corner of the tobacker-field and I heard a sound like digging

in a gritty soil; and I crope nearer and peeped through the

vines that hung on the rail fence and seen this prisoner

SHOVELING--shoveling with a long-handled shovel--heaving earth

into a big hole that was most filled up; his back was to me,

but it was bright moonlight and I knowed him by his old green

baize work-gown with a splattery white patch in the middle of

the back like somebody had hit him with a snowball. HE WAS

BURYING THE MAN HE'D MURDERED!"

And he slumped down in his chair crying and sobbing, and 'most everybody

in the house busted out wailing, and crying, and saying, "Oh, it's

awful--awful--horrible! and there was a most tremendous excitement, and

you couldn't hear yourself think; and right in the midst of it up jumps

old Uncle Silas, white as a sheet, and sings out:

"IT'S TRUE, EVERY WORD--I MURDERED HIM IN COLD BLOOD!"

By Jackson, it petrified them! People rose up wild all over the house,

straining and staring for a better look at him, and the judge was

hammering with his mallet and the sheriff yelling "Order--order in the

court--order!"

And all the while the old man stood there a-quaking and his eyes

a-burning, and not looking at his wife and daughter, which was clinging

to him and begging him to keep still, but pawing them off with his hands

and saying he WOULD clear his black soul from crime, he WOULD heave off

this load that was more than he could bear, and he WOULDN'T bear it

another hour! And then he raged right along with his awful tale,

everybody a-staring and gasping, judge, jury, lawyers, and everybody, and

Benny and Aunt Sally crying their hearts out. And by George, Tom Sawyer

never looked at him once! Never once--just set there gazing with all his

eyes at something else, I couldn't tell what. And so the old man raged

right along, pouring his words out like a stream of fire:

"I killed him! I am guilty! But I never had the notion in my life to hurt

him or harm him, spite of all them lies about my threatening him, till

the very minute I raised the club--then my heart went cold!--then the

pity all went out of it, and I struck to kill! In that one moment all my

wrongs come into my mind; all the insults that that man and the scoundrel

his brother, there, had put upon me, and how they laid in together to

ruin me with the people, and take away my good name, and DRIVE me to some

deed that would destroy me and my family that hadn't ever done THEM no

harm, so help me God! And they done it in a mean revenge--for why?

Because my innocent pure girl here at my side wouldn't marry that rich,

insolent, ignorant coward, Brace Dunlap, who's been sniveling here over a

brother he never cared a brass farthing for--"[I see Tom give a jump and

look glad THIS time, to a dead certainty]"--and in that moment I've told

you about, I forgot my God and remembered only my heart's bitterness, God

forgive me, and I struck to kill. In one second I was miserably

sorry--oh, filled with remorse; but I thought of my poor family, and I

MUST hide what I'd done for their sakes; and I did hide that corpse in

the bushes; and presently I carried it to the tobacker field; and in the

deep night I went with my shovel and buried it where--"

Up jumps Tom and shouts:

"NOW, I've got it!" and waves his hand, oh, ever so fine and starchy,

towards the old man, and says:

"Set down! A murder WAS done, but you never had no hand in it!"

Well, sir, you could a heard a pin drop. And the old man he sunk down

kind of bewildered in his seat and Aunt Sally and Benny didn't know it,

because they was so astonished and staring at Tom with their mouths open

and not knowing what they was about. And the whole house the same. I

never seen people look so helpless and tangled up, and I hain't ever seen

eyes bug out and gaze without a blink the way theirn did. Tom says,

perfectly ca'm:

"Your honor, may I speak?"

"For God's sake, yes--go on!" says the judge, so astonished and mixed up

he didn't know what he was about hardly.

Then Tom he stood there and waited a second or two--that was for to work

up an "effect," as he calls it--then he started in just as ca'm as ever,

and says:

"For about two weeks now there's been a little bill sticking on the front

of this courthouse offering two thousand dollars reward for a couple of

big di'monds--stole at St. Louis. Them di'monds is worth twelve thousand

dollars. But never mind about that till I get to it. Now about this

murder. I will tell you all about it--how it happened--who done it--every

DEtail."

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

worth.

"This man here, Brace Dunlap, that's been sniveling so about his dead

brother that YOU know he never cared a straw for, wanted to marry that

young girl there, and she wouldn't have him. So he told Uncle Silas he

would make him sorry. Uncle Silas knowed how powerful he was, and how

little chance he had against such a man, and he was scared and worried,

and done everything he could think of to smooth him over and get him to

be good to him: he even took his no-account brother Jubiter on the farm

and give him wages and stinted his own family to pay them; and Jubiter

done everything his brother could contrive to insult Uncle Silas, and

fret and worry him, and try to drive Uncle Silas into doing him a hurt,

so as to injure Uncle Silas with the people. And it done it. Everybody

turned against him and said the meanest kind of things about him, and it

graduly broke his heart--yes, and he was so worried and distressed that

often he warn't hardly in his right mind.

"Well, on that Saturday that we've had so much trouble about, two of

these witnesses here, Lem Beebe and Jim Lane, come along by where Uncle

Silas and Jubiter Dunlap was at work--and that much of what they've said

is true, the rest is lies. They didn't hear Uncle Silas say he would kill

Jubiter; they didn't hear no blow struck; they didn't see no dead man,

and they didn't see Uncle Silas hide anything in the bushes. Look at them

now--how they set there, wishing they hadn't been so handy with their

tongues; anyway, they'll wish it before I get done.

"That same Saturday evening Bill and Jack Withers DID see one man lugging

off another one. That much of what they said is true, and the rest is

lies. First off they thought it was a nigger stealing Uncle Silas's

corn--you notice it makes them look silly, now, to find out somebody

overheard them say that. That's because they found out by and by who it

was that was doing the lugging, and THEY know best why they swore here

that they took it for Uncle Silas by the gait--which it WASN'T, and they

knowed it when they swore to that lie.

"A man out in the moonlight DID see a murdered person put under ground in

the tobacker field--but it wasn't Uncle Silas that done the burying. He

was in his bed at that very time.

"Now, then, before I go on, I want to ask you if you've ever noticed

this: that people, when they're thinking deep, or when they're worried,

are most always doing something with their hands, and they don't know it,

and don't notice what it is their hands are doing, some stroke their

chins; some stroke their noses; some stroke up UNDER their chin with

their hand; some twirl a chain, some fumble a button, then there's some

that draws a figure or a letter with their finger on their cheek, or

under their chin or on their under lip. That's MY way. When I'm

restless, or worried, or thinking hard, I draw capital V's on my cheek or

on my under lip or under my chin, and never anything BUT capital V's--and

half the time I don't notice it and don't know I'm doing it."

That was odd. That is just what I do; only I make an O. And I could see

people nodding to one another, same as they do when they mean "THAT's

so."

"Now, then, I'll go on. That same Saturday--no, it was the night

before--there was a steamboat laying at Flagler's Landing, forty miles

above here, and it was raining and storming like the nation. And there

was a thief aboard, and he had them two big di'monds that's advertised

out here on this courthouse door; and he slipped ashore with his hand-bag

and struck out into the dark and the storm, and he was a-hoping he could

get to this town all right and be safe. But he had two pals aboard the

boat, hiding, and he knowed they was going to kill him the first chance

they got and take the di'monds; because all three stole them, and then

this fellow he got hold of them and skipped.

"Well, he hadn't been gone more'n ten minutes before his pals found it

out, and they jumped ashore and lit out after him. Prob'ly they burnt

matches and found his tracks. Anyway, they dogged along after him all

day Saturday and kept out of his sight; and towards sundown he come to

the bunch of sycamores down by Uncle Silas's field, and he went in there

to get a disguise out of his hand-bag and put it on before he showed

himself here in the town--and mind you he done that just a little after

the time that Uncle Silas was hitting Jubiter Dunlap over the head with a

club--for he DID hit him.

"But the minute the pals see that thief slide into the bunch of

sycamores, they jumped out of the bushes and slid in after him.

"They fell on him and clubbed him to death.

"Yes, for all he screamed and howled so, they never had no mercy on him,

but clubbed him to death. And two men that was running along the road

heard him yelling that way, and they made a rush into the syca-i more

bunch--which was where they was bound for, anyway--and when the pals saw

them they lit out and the two new men after them a-chasing them as tight

as they could go. But only a minute or two--then these two new men

slipped back very quiet into the sycamores.

"THEN what did they do? I will tell you what they done. They found where

the thief had got his disguise out of his carpet-sack to put on; so one

of them strips and puts on that disguise."

Tom waited a little here, for some more "effect"--then he says, very

deliberate:

"The man that put on that dead man's disguise was--JUBITER DUNLAP!"

"Great Scott!" everybody shouted, all over the house, and old Uncle Silas

he looked perfectly astonished.

"Yes, it was Jubiter Dunlap. Not dead, you see. Then they pulled off

the dead man's boots and put Jubiter Dunlap's old ragged shoes on the

corpse and put the corpse's boots on Jubiter Dunlap. Then Jubiter Dunlap

stayed where he was, and the other man lugged the dead body off in the

twilight; and after midnight he went to Uncle Silas's house, and took his

old green work-robe off of the peg where it always hangs in the passage

betwixt the house and the kitchen and put it on, and stole the

long-handled shovel and went off down into the tobacker field and buried

the murdered man."

He stopped, and stood half a minute. Then--"And who do you reckon the

murdered man WAS? It was--JAKE Dunlap, the long-lost burglar!"

"Great Scott!"

"And the man that buried him was--BRACE Dunlap, his brother!"

"Great Scott!"

"And who do you reckon is this mowing idiot here that's letting on all

these weeks to be a deef and dumb stranger? It's--JUBITER Dunlap!"

My land, they all busted out in a howl, and you never see the like of

that excitement since the day you was born. And Tom he made a jump for

Jubiter and snaked off his goggles and his false whiskers, and there was

the murdered man, sure enough, just as alive as anybody! And Aunt Sally

and Benny they went to hugging and crying and kissing and smothering old

Uncle Silas to that degree he was more muddled and confused and mushed up

in his mind than he ever was before, and that is saying considerable.

And next, people begun to yell:

"Tom Sawyer! Tom Sawyer! Shut up everybody, and let him go on! Go on, Tom

Sawyer!"

Which made him feel uncommon bully, for it was nuts for Tom Sawyer to be

a public character that-away, and a hero, as he calls it. So when it was

all quiet, he says:

"There ain't much left, only this. When that man there, Bruce Dunlap,

had most worried the life and sense out of Uncle Silas till at last he

plumb lost his mind and hit this other blatherskite, his brother, with a

club, I reckon he seen his chance. Jubiter broke for the woods to hide,

and I reckon the game was for him to slide out, in the night, and leave

the country. Then Brace would make everybody believe Uncle Silas killed

him and hid his body somers; and that would ruin Uncle Silas and drive

HIM out of the country--hang him, maybe; I dunno. But when they found

their dead brother in the sycamores without knowing him, because he was

so battered up, they see they had a better thing; disguise BOTH and bury

Jake and dig him up presently all dressed up in Jubiter's clothes, and

hire Jim Lane and Bill Withers and the others to swear to some handy

lies--which they done. And there they set, now, and I told them they

would be looking sick before I got done, and that is the way they're

looking now.

"Well, me and Huck Finn here, we come down on the boat with the thieves,

and the dead one told us all about the di'monds, and said the others

would murder him if they got the chance; and we was going to help him all

we could. We was bound for the sycamores when we heard them killing him

in there; but we was in there in the early morning after the storm and

allowed nobody hadn't been killed, after all. And when we see Jubiter

Dunlap here spreading around in the very same disguise Jake told us HE

was going to wear, we thought it was Jake his own self--and he was

goo-gooing deef and dumb, and THAT was according to agreement.

"Well, me and Huck went on hunting for the corpse after the others quit,

and we found it. And was proud, too; but Uncle Silas he knocked us crazy

by telling us HE killed the man. So we was mighty sorry we found the

body, and was bound to save Uncle Silas's neck if we could; and it was

going to be tough work, too, because he wouldn't let us break him out of

prison the way we done with our old nigger Jim.

"I done everything I could the whole month to think up some way to save

Uncle Silas, but I couldn't strike a thing. So when we come into court

to-day I come empty, and couldn't see no chance anywheres. But by and by

I had a glimpse of something that set me thinking--just a little wee

glimpse--only that, and not enough to make sure; but it set me thinking

hard--and WATCHING, when I was only letting on to think; and by and by,

sure enough, when Uncle Silas was piling out that stuff about HIM killing

Jubiter Dunlap, I catched that glimpse again, and this time I jumped up

and shut down the proceedings, because I KNOWED Jubiter Dunlap was

a-setting here before me. I knowed him by a thing which I seen him

do--and I remembered it. I'd seen him do it when I was here a year ago."

He stopped then, and studied a minute--laying for an "effect"--I knowed

it perfectly well. Then he turned off like he was going to leave the

platform, and says, kind of lazy and indifferent:

"Well, I believe that is all."

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

"What WAS it you seen him do? Stay where you are, you little devil! You

think you are going to work a body up till his mouth's a-watering and

stop there? What WAS it he done?"

That was it, you see--he just done it to get an "effect"; you couldn't

'a' pulled him off of that platform with a yoke of oxen.

"Oh, it wasn't anything much," he says. "I seen him looking a little

excited when he found Uncle Silas was actuly fixing to hang himself for a

murder that warn't ever done; and he got more and more nervous and

worried, I a-watching him sharp but not seeming to look at him--and all

of a sudden his hands begun to work and fidget, and pretty soon his left

crept up and HIS FINGER DRAWED A CROSS ON HIS CHEEK, and then I HAD him!"

Well, then they ripped and howled and stomped and clapped their hands

till Tom Sawyer was that proud and happy he didn't know what to do with

himself.

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

"My boy, did you SEE all the various details of this strange conspiracy

and tragedy that you've been describing?"

"No, your honor, I didn't see any of them."

"Didn't see any of them! Why, you've told the whole history straight

through, just the same as if you'd seen it with your eyes. How did you

manage that?"

Tom says, kind of easy and comfortable:

"Oh, just noticing the evidence and piecing this and that together, your

honor; just an ordinary little bit of detective work; anybody could 'a'

done it."

"Nothing of the kind! Not two in a million could 'a' done it. You are a

very remarkable boy."

Then they let go and give Tom another smashing round, and he--well, he

wouldn't 'a' sold out for a silver mine. Then the judge says:

"But are you certain you've got this curious history straight?"

"Perfectly, your honor. Here is Brace Dunlap--let him deny his share of

it if he wants to take the chance; I'll engage to make him wish he hadn't

said anything...... Well, you see HE'S pretty quiet. And his brother's

pretty quiet, and them four witnesses that lied so and got paid for it,

they're pretty quiet. And as for Uncle Silas, it ain't any use for him

to put in his oar, I wouldn't believe him under oath!"

Well, sir, that fairly made them shout; and even the judge he let go and

laughed. Tom he was just feeling like a rainbow. When they was done

laughing he looks up at the judge and says:

"Your honor, there's a thief in this house."

"A thief?"

"Yes, sir. And he's got them twelve-thousand-dollar di'monds on him."

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

"Which is him? which is him? p'int him out!"

And the judge says:

"Point him out, my lad. Sheriff, you will arrest him. Which one is it?"

Tom says:

"This late dead man here--Jubiter Dunlap."

Then there was another thundering let-go of astonishment and excitement;

but Jubiter, which was astonished enough before, was just fairly

putrified with astonishment this time. And he spoke up, about half

crying, and says:

"Now THAT'S a lie. Your honor, it ain't fair; I'm plenty bad enough

without that. I done the other things--Brace he put me up to it, and

persuaded me, and promised he'd make me rich, some day, and I done it,

and I'm sorry I done it, and I wisht I hadn't; but I hain't stole no

di'monds, and I hain't GOT no di'monds; I wisht I may never stir if it

ain't so. The sheriff can search me and see."

Tom says:

"Your honor, it wasn't right to call him a thief, and I'll let up on that

a little. He did steal the di'monds, but he didn't know it. He stole

them from his brother Jake when he was laying dead, after Jake had stole

them from the other thieves; but Jubiter didn't know he was stealing

them; and he's been swelling around here with them a month; yes, sir,

twelve thousand dollars' worth of di'monds on him--all that riches, and

going around here every day just like a poor man. Yes, your honor, he's

got them on him now."

The judge spoke up and says:

"Search him, sheriff."

Well, sir, the sheriff he ransacked him high and low, and everywhere:

searched his hat, socks, seams, boots, everything--and Tom he stood there

quiet, laying for another of them effects of hisn. Finally the sheriff

he give it up, and everybody looked disappointed, and Jubiter says:

"There, now! what'd I tell you?"

And the judge says:

"It appears you were mistaken this time, my boy."

Then Tom took an attitude and let on to be studying with all his might,

and scratching his head. Then all of a sudden he glanced up chipper, and

says:

"Oh, now I've got it! I'd forgot."

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

"Will somebody be good enough to lend me a little small screwdriver?

There was one in your brother's hand-bag that you smouched, Jubiter. but

I reckon you didn't fetch it with you."

"No, I didn't. I didn't want it, and I give it away."

"That's because you didn't know what it was for."

Jubiter had his boots on again, by now, and when the thing Tom wanted was

passed over the people's heads till it got to him, he says to Jubiter:

"Put up your foot on this chair." And he kneeled down and begun to

unscrew the heel-plate, everybody watching; and when he got that big

di'mond out of that boot-heel and held it up and let it flash and blaze

and squirt sunlight everwhichaway, it just took everybody's breath; and

Jubiter he looked so sick and sorry you never see the like of it. And

when Tom held up the other di'mond he looked sorrier than ever. Land! he

was thinking how he would 'a' skipped out and been rich and independent

in a foreign land if he'd only had the luck to guess what the screwdriver

was in the carpet-bag for.

Well, it was a most exciting time, take it all around, and Tom got cords

of glory. The judge took the di'monds, and stood up in his pulpit, and

cleared his throat, and shoved his spectacles back on his head, and says:

"I'll keep them and notify the owners; and when they send for them it

will be a real pleasure to me to hand you the two thousand dollars, for

you've earned the money--yes, and you've earned the deepest and most

sincerest thanks of this community besides, for lifting a wronged and

innocent family out of ruin and shame, and saving a good and honorable

man from a felon's death, and for exposing to infamy and the punishment

of the law a cruel and odious scoundrel and his miserable creatures!"

Well, sir, if there'd been a brass band to bust out some music, then, it

would 'a' been just the perfectest thing I ever see, and Tom Sawyer he

said the same.

Then the sheriff he nabbed Brace Dunlap and his crowd, and by and by next

month the judge had them up for trial and jailed the whole lot. And

everybody crowded back to Uncle Silas's little old church, and was ever

so loving and kind to him and the family and couldn't do enough for them;

and Uncle Silas he preached them the blamedest jumbledest idiotic sermons

you ever struck, and would tangle you up so you couldn't find your way

home in daylight; but the people never let on but what they thought it

was the clearest and brightest and elegantest sermons that ever was; and

they would set there and cry, for love and pity; but, by George, they

give me the jim-jams and the fan-tods and caked up what brains I had, and

turned them solid; but by and by they loved the old man's intellects back

into him again, and he was as sound in his skull as ever he was, which

ain't no flattery, I reckon. And so the whole family was as happy as

birds, and nobody could be gratefuler and lovinger than what they was to

Tom Sawyer; and the same to me, though I hadn't done nothing. And when

the two thousand dollars come, Tom give half of it to me, and never told

anybody so, which didn't surprise me, because I knowed him.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

FOLLOWING

THE EQUATOR

A JOURNEY AROUND THE WORLD

BY

MARK TWAIN

SAMUEL L. CLEMENS

HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT

THIS BOOK

Is affectionately inscribed to

MY YOUNG FRIEND

HARRY ROGERS

WITH RECOGNITION

OF WHAT HE IS, AND APPREHENSION OF WHAT HE MAY BECOME

UNLESS HE FORM HIMSELF A LITTLE MORE CLOSELY

UPON THE MODEL OF

THE AUTHOR.

THE PUDD'NHEAD MAXIMS.

THESE WISDOMS ARE FOR THE LURING OF YOUTH TOWARD

HIGH MORAL ALTITUDES. THE AUTHOR DID NOT

GATHER THEM FROM PRACTICE, BUT FROM

OBSERVATION. TO BE GOOD IS NOBLE;

BUT TO SHOW OTHERS HOW

TO BE GOOD IS NOBLER

AND NO TROUBLE.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I.

The Party--Across America to Vancouver--On Board the Warrimo--Steamer

Chairs-The Captain-Going Home under a Cloud--A Gritty Purser--The

Brightest Passenger--Remedy for Bad Habits--The Doctor and the Lumbago

--A Moral Pauper--Limited Smoking--Remittance-men.

CHAPTER II.

Change of Costume--Fish, Snake, and Boomerang Stories--Tests of Memory

--A Brahmin Expert--General Grant's Memory--A Delicately Improper Tale

CHAPTER III.

Honolulu--Reminiscences of the Sandwich Islands--King Liholiho and His

Royal Equipment--The Tabu--The Population of the Island--A Kanaka Diver

--Cholera at Honolulu--Honolulu; Past and Present--The Leper Colony

CHAPTER IV.

Leaving Honolulu--Flying-fish--Approaching the Equator--Why the Ship Went

Slow--The Front Yard of the Ship--Crossing the Equator--Horse Billiards

or Shovel Board--The Waterbury Watch--Washing Decks--Ship Painters--The

Great Meridian--The Loss of a Day--A Babe without a Birthday

CHAPTER V.

A lesson in Pronunciation--Reverence for Robert Burns--The Southern

Cross--Troublesome Constellations--Victoria for a Name--Islands on the

Map--Alofa and Fortuna--Recruiting for the Queensland Plantations

--Captain Warren's NoteBook--Recruiting not thoroughly Popular

CHAPTER VI.

Missionaries Obstruct Business--The Sugar Planter and the Kanaka--The

Planter's View--Civilizing the Kanaka The Missionary's View--The Result

--Repentant Kanakas--Wrinkles--The Death Rate in Queensland

CHAPTER VII.

The Fiji Islands--Suva--The Ship from Duluth--Going Ashore--Midwinter in

Fiji--Seeing the Governor--Why Fiji was Ceded to England--Old time

Fijians--Convicts among the Fijians--A Case Where Marriage was a Failure

Immortality with Limitations

CHAPTER VIII.

A Wilderness of Islands--Two Men without a Country--A Naturalist from New

Zealand--The Fauna of Australasia--Animals, Insects, and Birds--The

Ornithorhynchus--Poetry and Plagiarism

CHAPTER IX.

Close to Australia--Porpoises at Night--Entrance to Sydney Harbor--The

Loss of the Duncan Dunbar--The Harbor--The City of Sydney--Spring-time in

Australia--The Climate--Information for Travelers--The Size of Australia

--A Dust-Storm and Hot Wind

CHAPTER X.

The Discovery of Australia--Transportation of Convicts--Discipline

--English Laws, Ancient and Modern--Flogging Prisoners to Death--Arrival of

Settlers--New South Wales Corps--Rum Currency--Intemperance Everywhere

$100,000 for One Gallon of Rum--Development of the Country--Immense

Resources

CHAPTER XI.

Hospitality of English-speaking People--Writers and their Gratitude--Mr.

Gane and the Panegyrics--Population of Sydney An English City with

American Trimming--"Squatters"--Palaces and Sheep Kingdoms--Wool and

Mutton--Australians and Americans--Costermonger Pronunciation--England is

"Home"--Table Talk--English and Colonial Audiences 124

CHAPTER XII.

Mr. X., a Missionary--Why Christianity Makes Slow Progress in India--A

Large Dream--Hindoo Miracles and Legends--Sampson and Hanuman--The

Sandstone Ridge--Where are the Gates?

CHAPTER XIII.

Public Works in Australasia--Botanical Garden of Sydney--Four Special

Socialties--The Government House--A Governor and His Functions--The

Admiralty House--The Tour of the Harbor--Shark Fishing--Cecil Rhodes'

Shark and his First Fortune--Free Board for Sharks.

CHAPTER XIV.

Bad Health--To Melbourne by Rail--Maps Defective--The Colony of Victoria

--A Round-trip Ticket from Sydney--Change Cars, from Wide to Narrow

Gauge, a Peculiarity at Albury--Customs-fences--"My Word"--The Blue

Mountains--Rabbit Piles--Government R. R. Restaurants--Duchesses for

Waiters--"Sheep-dip"--Railroad Coffee--Things Seen and Not Seen

CHAPTER XV.

Wagga-Wagga--The Tichborne Claimant--A Stock Mystery--The Plan of the

Romance--The Realization--The Henry Bascom Mystery--Bascom Hall--The

Author's Death and Funeral

CHAPTER XVI.

Melbourne and its Attractions--The Melbourne Cup Races--Cup Day--Great

Crowds--Clothes Regardless of Cost--The Australian Larrikin--Is He Dead?

Australian Hospitality--Melbourne Wool-brokers--The Museums--The Palaces

--The Origin of Melbourne

CHAPTER XVII.

The British Empire--Its Exports and Imports--The Trade of Australia--To

Adelaide--Broken Hill Silver Mine--A Roundabout road--The Scrub and its

Possibilities for the Novelist--The Aboriginal Tracker--A Test Case--How

Does One Cow-Track Differ from Another?

CHAPTER XVIII.

Gum Trees--Unsociable Trees--Gorse and Broom--A universal Defect--An

Adventurer--Wanted L200, got L20,000,000--A Vast Land Scheme--The

Smash-up--The Corpse Got Up and Danced--A Unique Business by One Man

--Buying the Kangaroo Skin--The Approach to Adelaide--Everything Comes to

Him who Waits--A Healthy Religious sphere--What is the Matter with the

Specter?

CHAPTER XIX.

The Botanical Gardens--Contributions from all Countries--The

Zoological Gardens of Adelaide--The Laughing Jackass--The Dingo--A

Misnamed Province--Telegraphing from Melbourne to San Francisco--A Mania

for Holidays--The Temperature--The Death Rate--Celebration of the

Reading of the Proclamation of 1836--Some old Settlers at the

Commemoration--Their Staying Powers--The Intelligence of the Aboriginal

--The Antiquity of the Boomerang

CHAPTER XX.

A Caller--A Talk about Old Times--The Fox Hunt--An Accurate Judgment of

an Idiot--How We Passed the Custom Officers in Italy

CHAPTER XXI.

The "Weet-Weet"--Keeping down the Population--Victoria--Killing the

Aboriginals--Pioneer Days in Queensland--Material for a Drama--The Bush

--Pudding with Arsenic Revenge--A Right Spirit but a Wrong Method--Death of

Donga Billy

CHAPTER XXII.

Continued Description of Aboriginals--Manly Qualities--Dodging Balls

--Feats of Spring--Jumping--Where the Kangaroo Learned its Art 'Well

Digging--Endurance--Surgery--Artistic Abilities--Fennimore Cooper's Last

Chance--Australian Slang

CHAPTER XXIII.

To Horsham (Colony of Victoria)--Description of Horsham--At the Hotel

--Pepper Tree-The Agricultural College, Forty Pupils--High Temperature

--Width of Road in Chains, Perches, etc.--The Bird with a Forgettable

Name--The Magpie and the Lady--Fruit Trees--Soils--Sheep Shearing--To Stawell

--Gold Mining Country--$75,000 per Month Income and able to Keep House

--Fine Grapes and Wine--The Dryest Community on Earth--The Three Sisters

--Gum Trees and Water

CHAPTER XXIV.

Road to Ballarat--The City--Great Gold Strike, 1851--Rush for Australia

--"Great Nuggets"--Taxation--Revolt and Victory--Peter Lalor and the

Eureka Stockade--"Pencil Mark"--Fine Statuary at Ballarat--Population

--Ballarat English

CHAPTER XXV.

Bound for Bendigo--The Priest at Castlemaine--Time Saved by Walking

--Description of Bendigo--A Valuable Nugget--Perseverence and Success

--Mr. Blank and His Influence--Conveyance of an Idea--I Had to Like the

Irishman--Corrigan Castle, and the Mark Twain Club--My Bascom Mystery

Solved

CHAPTER XXVI.

Where New Zealand Is--But Few Know--Things People Think They Know--The

Yale Professor and His Visitor from N. Z.

CHAPTER XXVII.

The South Pole Swell--Tasmania--Extermination of the Natives--The Picture

Proclamation--The Conciliator--The Formidable Sixteen

CHAPTER XXVIII.

When the Moment Comes the Man Appears--Why Ed. Jackson called on

Commodore Vanderbilt--Their Interview--Welcome to the Child of His Friend

--A Big Time but under Inspection--Sent on Important Business--A Visit to

the Boys on the Boat

CHAPTER XXIX:

Tasmania, Early Days--Description of the Town of Hobart--An Englishman's

Love of Home Surroundings--Neatest City on Earth--The Museum--A Parrot

with an Acquired Taste--Glass Arrow Beads--Refuge for the Indigent too

healthy

CHAPTER XXX.

Arrival at Bluff, N. Z.--Where the Rabbit Plague Began--The Natural Enemy

of the Rabbit--Dunedin--A Lovely Town--Visit to Dr. Hockin--His Museum

--A Liquified Caterpillar--The Unperfected Tape Worm--The Public Museum and

Picture

CHAPTER XXXI. The Express Train--"A Hell of a Hotel at Maryborough"

--Clocks and Bells--Railroad Service.

CHAPTER XXXII.

Description of the Town of Christ Church--A Fine Museum--Jade-stone

Trinkets--The Great Man--The First Maori in New Zealand--Women Voters

--"Person" in New Zealand Law Includes Woman--Taming an Ornithorhynchus

--A Voyage in the 'Flora' from Lyttelton--Cattle Stalls for Everybody

--A Wonderful Time.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

The Town of Nelson--"The Mongatapu Murders," the Great Event of the Town

--Burgess' Confession--Summit of Mount Eden--Rotorua and the Hot Lakes

and Geysers--Thermal Springs District--Kauri Gum--Tangariwa Mountains

CHAPTER XXXIV.

The Bay of Gisborne--Taking in Passengers by the Yard Arm--The Green

Ballarat Fly--False Teeth--From Napier to Hastings by the Ballarat Fly

Train--Kauri Trees--A Case of Mental Telegraphy

CHAPTER XXXV.

Fifty Miles in Four Hours--Comfortable Cars--Town of Wauganui--Plenty of

Maoris--On the Increase--Compliments to the Maoris--The Missionary Ways

all Wrong--The Tabu among the Maoris--A Mysterious Sign--Curious

War-monuments--Wellington

CHAPTER XXXVI.

The Poems of Mrs. Moore--The Sad Fate of William Upson--A Fellow Traveler

Imitating the Prince of Wales--A Would-be Dude--Arrival at Sydney

--Curious Town Names with Poem

CHAPTER XXXVII.

From Sydney for Ceylon--A Lascar Crew--A Fine Ship--Three Cats and a

Basket of Kittens--Dinner Conversations--Veuve Cliquot Wine--At Anchor in

King George's Sound Albany Harbor--More Cats--A Vulture on Board--Nearing

the Equator again--Dressing for Dinner--Ceylon, Hotel Bristol--Servant

Brampy--A Feminine Man--Japanese Jinriksha or Cart--Scenes in Ceylon--A

Missionary School--Insincerity of Clothes

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

Steamer Rosettes to Bombay--Limes 14 cents a Barrel--Bombay, a Bewitching

City--Descriptions of People and Dress--Woman as a Road Decoration

--India, the Land of Dreams and Romance--Fourteen Porters to Carry Baggage

--Correcting a Servant--Killing a Slave--Arranging a Bedroom--Three Hours'

Work and a Terrible Racket--The Bird of Birds, the Indian Crow

CHAPTER XXXIX.

God Vishnu, 108 Names--Change of Titles or Hunting for an Heir--Bombay as

a Kaleidoscope--The Native's Man Servant--Servants' Recommendations--How

Manuel got his Name and his English--Satan--A Visit from God

CHAPTER XL.

The Government House at Malabar Point--Mansion of Kumar Shri Samatsin Hji

Bahadur--The Indian Princess--A Difficult Game--Wardrobe and Jewels

--Ceremonials--Decorations when Leaving--The Towers of Silence--A Funeral

CHAPTER XLI.

Jain Temple--Mr. Roychand's Bungalow--A Decorated Six-Gun Prince--Human

Fireworks--European Dress, Past and Present--Complexions--Advantages with

the Zulu--Festivities at the Bungalow-Nautch Dancers--Entrance of the

Prince--Address to the Prince

CHAPTER XLII.

A Hindoo Betrothal, midnight, Sleepers on the ground, Home of the Bride

of Twelve Years Dressed as a Boy--Illumination Nautch Girls--Imitating

Snakes--Later--Illuminated Porch Filled with Sleepers--The Plague

CHAPTER XLIII

Murder Trial in Bombay--Confidence Swindlers--Some Specialities of India

--The Plague, Juggernaut, Suttee, etc.--Everything on Gigantic Scale

--India First in Everything--80 States, more Custom Houses than Cats--Rich

Ground for Thug Society

CHAPTER XLIV.

Thug Book--Supplies for Traveling, Bedding, and other Freight--Scene at

Railway Station--Making Way for White Man--Waiting Passengers, High and

Low Caste, Touch in the cars--Our Car--Beds made up--Dreaming of Thugs

--Baroda--Meet Friends--Indian Well--The Old Town--Narrow Streets--A Mad

Elephant

CHAPTER XLV.

Elephant Riding--Howdahs--The New Palace--The Prince's Excursion--Gold

and Silver Artillery--A Vice-royal Visit--Remarkable Dog--The Bench Show

--Augustin Daly's Back Door--Fakeer

CHAPTER XLVI.

The Thugs--Government Efforts to Exterminate them--Choking a Victim A

Fakeer Spared--Thief Strangled

CHAPTER XLVII.

Thugs, Continued--Record of Murders--A Joy of Hunting and Killing Men

--Gordon Gumming--Killing an Elephant--Family Affection among Thugs

--Burial Places

CHAPTER XLVIII.

Starting for Allahabad--Lower Berths in Sleepers--Elderly Ladies have

Preference of Berths--An American Lady Takes One Anyhow--How Smythe Lost

his Berth--How He Got Even--The Suttee

CHAPTER XLIX.

Pyjamas--Day Scene in India--Clothed in a Turban and a Pocket

Handkerchief--Land Parceled Out--Established Village Servants--Witches in

Families--Hereditary Midwifery--Destruction of Girl Babies--Wedding

Display--Tiger-Persuader--Hailstorm Discourages--The Tyranny of the

Sweeper--Elephant Driver--Water Carrier--Curious Rivers--Arrival at

Allahabad--English Quarter--Lecture Hall Like a Snowstorm--Private

Carriages--A Milliner--Early Morning--The Squatting Servant--A Religious

Fair

CHAPTER L.

On the Road to Benares--Dust and Waiting--The Bejeweled Crowd--A Native

Prince and his Guard--Zenana Lady--The Extremes of Fashion--The Hotel at

Benares--An Annex a Mile Away--Doors in India--The Peepul Tree--Warning

against Cold Baths--A Strange Fruit--Description of Benares--The

Beginning of Creation--Pilgrims to Benares--A Priest with a Good Business

Stand--Protestant Missionary--The Trinity Brahma, Shiva, and Vishnu

--Religion the Business at Benares

CHAPTER LI.

Benares a Religious Temple--A Guide for Pilgrims to Save Time in Securing

Salvation

CHAPTER LII.

A Curious Way to Secure Salvation--The Banks of the Ganges--Architecture

Represents Piety--A Trip on the River--Bathers and their Costumes

--Drinking the Water--A Scientific Test of the Nasty Purifier--Hindoo Faith

in the Ganges--A Cremation--Remembrances of the Suttee--All Life Sacred

Except Human Life--The Goddess Bhowanee, and the Sacrificers--Sacred

Monkeys--Ugly Idols Everywhere--Two White Minarets--A Great View with a

Monkey in it--A Picture on the Water

CHAPTER LIII.

Still in Benares--Another Living God--Why Things are Wonderful--Sri 108

Utterly Perfect--How He Came so--Our Visit to Sri--A Friendly Deity

Exchanging Autographs and Books--Sri's Pupil--An Interesting Man

--Reverence and Irreverence--Dancing in a Sepulchre

CHAPTER LIV.

Rail to Calcutta--Population--The "City of Palaces"--A Fluted

Candle-stick--Ochterlony--Newspaper Correspondence--Average Knowledge of

Countries--A Wrong Idea of Chicago--Calcutta and the Black Hole

--Description of the Horrors--Those Who Lived--The Botanical Gardens--The

Afternoon Turnout--Grand Review--Military Tournament--Excursion on the

Hoogly--The Museum--What Winter Means Calcutta

CHAPTER LV

On the Road Again--Flannels in Order--Across Country--From Greenland's

Icy Mountain--Swapping Civilization--No Field women in India--How it is

in Other Countries--Canvas-covered Cars--The Tiger Country--My First Hunt

Some Elephants Get Away--The Plains of India--The Ghurkas--Women for

Pack-Horses--A Substitute for a Cab--Darjeeling--The Hotel--The Highest

Thing in the Himalayas--The Club--Kinchinjunga and Mt. Everest

--Thibetans--The Prayer Wheel--People Going to the Bazar

CHAPTER LVI.

On the Road Again--The Hand-Car--A Thirty-five-mile Slide--The Banyan

Tree--A Dramatic Performance--The Railroad--The Half-way House--The Brain

Fever Bird--The Coppersmith Bird--Nightingales and Cue Owls

CHAPTER LVII.

India the Most Extraordinary Country on Earth--Nothing Forgotten--The

Land of Wonders--Annual Statistics Everywhere about Violence--Tiger vs.

Man--A Handsome Fight--Annual Man Killing and Tiger Killing--Other

Animals--Snakes--Insurance and Snake Tables--The Cobra Bite--Muzaffurpore

--Dinapore--A Train that Stopped for Gossip--Six Hours for Thirty-five

Miles--A Rupee to the Engineer--Ninety Miles an Hour--Again to Benares,

the Piety Hive To Lucknow

CHAPTER LVIII.

The Great Mutiny--The Massacre in Cawnpore--Terrible Scenes in Lucknow

--The Residency--The Siege

CHAPTER LIX.

A Visit to the Residency--Cawnpore--The Adjutant Bird and the Hindoo

Corpse--The Tai Mahal--The True Conception--The Ice Storm--True Gems

--Syrian Fountains--An Exaggerated Niagara

CHAPTER LX.

To Lahore--The Governor's Elephant--Taking a Ride-No Danger from

Collision--Rawal Pindi--Back to Delhi--An Orientalized Englishman

--Monkeys and the Paint-pot--Monkey Crying over my Note-book--Arrival at

Jeypore--In Rajputana--Watching Servants--The Jeypore Hotel--Our Old and

New Satan--Satan as a Liar--The Museum--A Street Show--Blocks of Houses

--A Religious Procession

CHAPTER LXI.

Methods in American Deaf and Dumb Asylums--Methods in the Public Schools

--A Letter from a youth in Punjab--Highly Educated Service--A Damage to

the Country--A Little Book from Calcutta--Writing Poor English

--Embarrassed by a Beggar Girl--A Specimen Letter--An Application for

Employment--A Calcutta School Examination--Two Samples of

Literature

CHAPTER LXII.

Sail from Calcutta to Madras--Thence to Ceylon--Thence for Mauritius

--The Indian Ocean--Our Captain's Peculiarity The Scot Has one too--The

Flying-fish that Went Hunting in the Field--Fined for Smuggling--Lots of

pets on Board--The Color of the Sea--The Most Important Member of

Nature's Family--The Captain's Story of Cold Weather--Omissions in the

Ship's Library--Washing Decks--Pyjamas on Deck--The Cat's Toilet--No

Interest in the Bulletin--Perfect Rest--The Milky Way and the Magellan

Clouds--Mauritius--Port Louis--A Hot Country--Under French Control

--A Variety of People and Complexions--Train to Curepipe--A Wonderful

Office-holder--The Wooden Peg Ornament--The Prominent Historical Event of

Mauritius--"Paul and Virginia"--One of Virginia's Wedding Gifts--Heaven

Copied after Mauritius--Early History of Mauritius--Quarantines

--Population of all Kinds--What the World Consists of--Where Russia and

Germany are--A Picture of Milan Cathedral--Newspapers--The Language--Best

Sugar in the World--Literature of Mauritius

CHAPTER LXIII.

Port Louis--Matches no Good--Good Roads--Death Notices--Why European

Nations Rob Each Other--What Immigrants to Mauritius Do--Population

--Labor Wages--The Camaron--The Palmiste and other Eatables--Monkeys--The

Cyclone of 1892--Mauritius a Sunday Landscape

CHAPTER LXIV.

The Steamer "Arundel Castle"--Poor Beds in Ships--The Beds in Noah's Ark

--Getting a Rest in Europe--Ship in Sight--Mozambique Channel--The

Engineer and the Band--Thackeray's "Madagascar"--Africanders Going Home

--Singing on the After Deck--An Out-of-Place Story--Dynamite Explosion in

Johannesburg--Entering Delagoa Bay--Ashore--A Hot Winter--Small Town--No

Sights--No Carriages--Working Women--Barnum's Purchase of Shakespeare's

Birthplace, Jumbo, and the Nelson Monument--Arrival at Durban

CHAPTER LXV.

Royal Hotel Durban--Bells that Did not Ring--Early Inquiries for Comforts

--Change of Temperature after Sunset-Rickhaws--The Hotel Chameleon

--Natives not out after the Bell--Preponderance of Blacks in Natal--Hair

Fashions in Natal--Zulus for Police--A Drive round the Berea--The Cactus

and other Trees--Religion a Vital Matter--Peculiar Views about Babies

--Zulu Kings--A Trappist Monastery--Transvaal Politics--Reasons why the

Trouble came About

CHAPTER LXVI.

Jameson over the Border--His Defeat and Capture--Sent to England for

Trial--Arrest of Citizens by the Boers--Commuted sentences--Final Release

of all but Two--Interesting Days for a Stranger--Hard to Understand

Either Side--What the Reformers Expected to Accomplish--How They Proposed

to do it--Testimonies a Year Later--A "Woman's Part"--The Truth of the

South African Situation--"Jameson's Ride"--A Poem

CHAPTER LXVIL

Jameson's Raid--The Reform Committee's Difficult Task--Possible Plans

--Advice that Jameson Ought to Have--The War of 1881 and its Lessons

--Statistics of Losses of the Combatants--Jameson's Battles--Losses on Both

Sides--The Military Errors--How the Warfare Should Have Been Carried on

to Be Successful

CHAPTER LXVIII.

Judicious Mr. Rhodes--What South Africa Consists of--Johannesburg--The

Gold Mines--The Heaven of American Engineers--What the Author Knows about

Mining--Description of the Boer--What Should be Expected of Him--What Was

A Dizzy Jump for Rhodes--Taxes--Rhodesian Method of Reducing Native

Population--Journeying in Cape Colony--The Cars--The Country--The

Weather--Tamed Blacks--Familiar Figures in King William's Town--Boer

Dress--Boer Country Life--Sleeping Accommodations--The Reformers in Boer

Prison--Torturing a Black Prisoner

CHAPTER LXIX.

An Absorbing Novelty--The Kimberley Diamond Mines--Discovery of Diamonds

--The Wronged Stranger--Where the Gems Are--A Judicious Change of

Boundary--Modern Machinery and Appliances--Thrilling Excitement in

Finding a Diamond--Testing a Diamond--Fences--Deep Mining by Natives in

the Compound--Stealing--Reward for the Biggest Diamond--A Fortune in

Wine--The Great Diamond--Office of the De Beer Co.--Sorting the Gems

--Cape Town--The Most Imposing Man in British Provinces--Various Reasons

for his Supremacy--How He Makes Friends

CONCLUSION.

Table Rock--Table Bay--The Castle--Government and Parliament--The Club

--Dutch Mansions and their Hospitality--Dr. John Barry and his Doings--On

the Ship Norman--Madeira--Arrived in Southampton

FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR

CHAPTER I.

A man may have no bad habits and have worse.

--Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.

The starting point of this lecturing-trip around the world was Paris,

where we had been living a year or two.

We sailed for America, and there made certain preparations. This took

but little time. Two members of my family elected to go with me. Also a

carbuncle. The dictionary says a carbuncle is a kind of jewel. Humor is

out of place in a dictionary.

We started westward from New York in midsummer, with Major Pond to manage

the platform-business as far as the Pacific. It was warm work, all the

way, and the last fortnight of it was suffocatingly smoky, for in Oregon

and Columbia the forest fires were raging. We had an added week of smoke

at the seaboard, where we were obliged awhile for our ship. She had been

getting herself ashore in the smoke, and she had to be docked and

repaired.

We sailed at last; and so ended a snail-paced march across the continent,

which had lasted forty days.

We moved westward about mid-afternoon over a rippled and summer sea; an

enticing sea, a clean and cool sea, and apparently a welcome sea to all

on board; it certainly was to the distressful dustings and smokings and

swelterings of the past weeks. The voyage would furnish a three-weeks

holiday, with hardly a break in it. We had the whole Pacific Ocean in

front of us, with nothing to do but do nothing and be comfortable. The

city of Victoria was twinkling dim in the deep heart of her smoke-cloud,

and getting ready to vanish and now we closed the field-glasses and sat

down on our steamer chairs contented and at peace. But they went to

wreck and ruin under us and brought us to shame before all the

passengers. They had been furnished by the largest furniture-dealing

house in Victoria, and were worth a couple of farthings a dozen, though

they had cost us the price of honest chairs. In the Pacific and Indian

Oceans one must still bring his own deck-chair on board or go without,

just as in the old forgotten Atlantic times--those Dark Ages of sea

travel.

Ours was a reasonably comfortable ship, with the customary sea-going fare

--plenty of good food furnished by the Deity and cooked by the devil.

The discipline observable on board was perhaps as good as it is anywhere

in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. The ship was not very well arranged

for tropical service; but that is nothing, for this is the rule for ships

which ply in the tropics. She had an over-supply of cockroaches, but

this is also the rule with ships doing business in the summer seas--at

least such as have been long in service. Our young captain was a very

handsome man, tall and perfectly formed, the very figure to show up a

smart uniform's best effects. He was a man of the best intentions and

was polite and courteous even to courtliness. There was a soft and

finish about his manners which made whatever place he happened to be in

seem for the moment a drawing room. He avoided the smoking room. He had

no vices. He did not smoke or chew tobacco or take snuff; he did not

swear, or use slang or rude, or coarse, or indelicate language, or make

puns, or tell anecdotes, or laugh intemperately, or raise his voice above

the moderate pitch enjoined by the canons of good form. When he gave an

order, his manner modified it into a request. After dinner he and his

officers joined the ladies and gentlemen in the ladies' saloon, and

shared in the singing and piano playing, and helped turn the music. He

had a sweet and sympathetic tenor voice, and used it with taste and

effect the music he played whist there, always with the same partner and

opponents, until the ladies' bedtime. The electric lights burned there

as late as the ladies and their friends might desire; but they were not

allowed to burn in the smoking-room after eleven. There were many laws

on the ship's statute book of course; but so far as I could see, this and

one other were the only ones that were rigidly enforced. The captain

explained that he enforced this one because his own cabin adjoined the

smoking-room, and the smell of tobacco smoke made him sick. I did not

see how our smoke could reach him, for the smoking-room and his cabin

were on the upper deck, targets for all the winds that blew; and besides

there was no crack of communication between them, no opening of any sort

in the solid intervening bulkhead. Still, to a delicate stomach even

imaginary smoke can convey damage.

The captain, with his gentle nature, his polish, his sweetness, his moral

and verbal purity, seemed pathetically out of place in his rude and

autocratic vocation. It seemed another instance of the irony of fate.

He was going home under a cloud. The passengers knew about his trouble,

and were sorry for him. Approaching Vancouver through a narrow and

difficult passage densely befogged with smoke from the forest fires, he

had had the ill-luck to lose his bearings and get his ship on the rocks.

A matter like this would rank merely as an error with you and me; it

ranks as a crime with the directors of steamship companies. The captain

had been tried by the Admiralty Court at Vancouver, and its verdict had

acquitted him of blame. But that was insufficient comfort. A sterner

court would examine the case in Sydney--the Court of Directors, the lords

of a company in whose ships the captain had served as mate a number of

years. This was his first voyage as captain.

The officers of our ship were hearty and companionable young men, and

they entered into the general amusements and helped the passengers pass

the time. Voyages in the Pacific and Indian Oceans are but pleasure

excursions for all hands. Our purser was a young Scotchman who was

equipped with a grit that was remarkable. He was an invalid, and looked

it, as far as his body was concerned, but illness could not subdue his

spirit. He was full of life, and had a gay and capable tongue. To all

appearances he was a sick man without being aware of it, for he did not

talk about his ailments, and his bearing and conduct were those of a

person in robust health; yet he was the prey, at intervals, of ghastly

sieges of pain in his heart. These lasted many hours, and while the

attack continued he could neither sit nor lie. In one instance he stood

on his feet twenty-four hours fighting for his life with these sharp

agonies, and yet was as full of life and cheer and activity

the next day as if nothing had happened.

The brightest passenger in the ship, and the most interesting and

felicitous talker, was a young Canadian who was not able to let the

whisky bottle alone. He was of a rich and powerful family, and could have

had a distinguished career and abundance of effective help toward it if

he could have conquered his appetite for drink; but he could not do it,

so his great equipment of talent was of no use to him. He had often taken

the pledge to drink no more, and was a good sample of what that sort of

unwisdom can do for a man--for a man with anything short of an iron will.

The system is wrong in two ways: it does not strike at the root of the

trouble, for one thing, and to make a pledge of any kind is to declare

war against nature; for a pledge is a chain that is always clanking and

reminding the wearer of it that he is not a free man.

I have said that the system does not strike at the root of the trouble,

and I venture to repeat that. The root is not the drinking, but the

desire to drink. These are very different things. The one merely

requires will--and a great deal of it, both as to bulk and staying

capacity--the other merely requires watchfulness--and for no long time.

The desire of course precedes the act, and should have one's first

attention; it can do but little good to refuse the act over and over

again, always leaving the desire unmolested, unconquered; the desire will

continue to assert itself, and will be almost sure to win in the long

run. When the desire intrudes, it should be at once banished out of the

mind. One should be on the watch for it all the time--otherwise it will

get in. It must be taken in time and not allowed to get a lodgment. A

desire constantly repulsed for a fortnight should die, then. That should

cure the drinking habit. The system of refusing the mere act of

drinking, and leaving the desire in full force, is unintelligent war

tactics, it seems to me. I used to take pledges--and soon violate them.

My will was not strong, and I could not help it. And then, to be tied in

any way naturally irks an otherwise free person and makes him chafe in

his bonds and want to get his liberty. But when I finally ceased from

taking definite pledges, and merely resolved that I would kill an

injurious desire, but leave myself free to resume the desire and the

habit whenever I should choose to do so, I had no more trouble. In five

days I drove out the desire to smoke and was not obliged to keep watch

after that; and I never experienced any strong desire to smoke again. At

the end of a year and a quarter of idleness I began to write a book, and

presently found that the pen was strangely reluctant to go. I tried a

smoke to see if that would help me out of the difficulty. It did. I

smoked eight or ten cigars and as many pipes a day for five months;

finished the book, and did not smoke again until a year had gone by and

another book had to be begun.

I can quit any of my nineteen injurious habits at any time, and without

discomfort or inconvenience. I think that the Dr. Tanners and those

others who go forty days without eating do it by resolutely keeping out

the desire to eat, in the beginning, and that after a few hours the

desire is discouraged and comes no more.

Once I tried my scheme in a large medical way. I had been confined to my

bed several days with lumbago. My case refused to improve. Finally the

doctor said,--

"My remedies have no fair chance. Consider what they have to fight,

besides the lumbago. You smoke extravagantly, don't you?"

"Yes."

"You take coffee immoderately?"

"Yes."

"And some tea?"

"Yes."

"You eat all kinds of things that are dissatisfied with each other's

company?"

"Yes."

"You drink two hot Scotches every night?"

"Yes."

"Very well, there you see what I have to contend against. We can't make

progress the way the matter stands. You must make a reduction in these

things; you must cut down your consumption of them considerably for some

days."

"I can't, doctor."

"Why can't you."

"I lack the will-power. I can cut them off entirely, but I can't merely

moderate them."

He said that that would answer, and said he would come around in

twenty-four hours and begin work again. He was taken ill himself and

could not come; but I did not need him. I cut off all those things for

two days and nights; in fact, I cut off all kinds of food, too, and all

drinks except water, and at the end of the forty-eight hours the lumbago

was discouraged and left me. I was a well man; so I gave thanks and took

to those delicacies again.

It seemed a valuable medical course, and I recommended it to a lady. She

had run down and down and down, and had at last reached a point where

medicines no longer had any helpful effect upon her. I said I knew I

could put her upon her feet in a week. It brightened her up, it filled

her with hope, and she said she would do everything I told her to do. So

I said she must stop swearing and drinking, and smoking and eating for

four days, and then she would be all right again. And it would have

happened just so, I know it; but she said she could not stop swearing,

and smoking, and drinking, because she had never done those things. So

there it was. She had neglected her habits, and hadn't any. Now that

they would have come good, there were none in stock. She had nothing to

fall back on. She was a sinking vessel, with no freight in her to throw

over lighten ship withal. Why, even one or two little bad habits could

have saved her, but she was just a moral pauper. When she could have

acquired them she was dissuaded by her parents, who were ignorant people

though reared in the best society, and it was too late to begin now. It

seemed such a pity; but there was no help for it. These things ought to

be attended to while a person is young; otherwise, when age and disease

come, there is nothing effectual to fight them with.

When I was a youth I used to take all kinds of pledges, and do my best to

keep them, but I never could, because I didn't strike at the root of the

habit--the desire; I generally broke down within the month. Once I tried

limiting a habit. That worked tolerably well for a while. I pledged

myself to smoke but one cigar a day. I kept the cigar waiting until

bedtime, then I had a luxurious time with it. But desire persecuted me

every day and all day long; so, within the week I found myself hunting

for larger cigars than I had been used to smoke; then larger ones still,

and still larger ones. Within the fortnight I was getting cigars made

for me--on a yet larger pattern. They still grew and grew in size.

Within the month my cigar had grown to such proportions that I could have

used it as a crutch. It now seemed to me that a one-cigar limit was no

real protection to a person, so I knocked my pledge on the head and

resumed my liberty.

To go back to that young Canadian. He was a "remittance man," the first

one I had ever seen or heard of. Passengers explained the term to me.

They said that dissipated ne'er-do-wells belonging to important families

in England and Canada were not cast off by their people while there was

any hope of reforming them, but when that last hope perished at last, the

ne'er-do-well was sent abroad to get him out of the way. He was shipped

off with just enough money in his pocket--no, in the purser's pocket--for

the needs of the voyage--and when he reached his destined port he would

find a remittance awaiting him there. Not a large one, but just enough

to keep him a month. A similar remittance would come monthly thereafter.

It was the remittance-man's custom to pay his month's board and lodging

straightway--a duty which his landlord did not allow him to forget--then

spree away the rest of his money in a single night, then brood and mope

and grieve in idleness till the next remittance came. It is a pathetic

life.

We had other remittance-men on board, it was said. At least they said

they were R. M.'s. There were two. But they did not resemble the

Canadian; they lacked his tidiness, and his brains, and his gentlemanly

ways, and his resolute spirit, and his humanities and generosities. One

of them was a lad of nineteen or twenty, and he was a good deal of a

ruin, as to clothes, and morals, and general aspect. He said he was a

scion of a ducal house in England, and had been shipped to Canada for the

house's relief, that he had fallen into trouble there, and was now being

shipped to Australia. He said he had no title. Beyond this remark he

was economical of the truth. The first thing he did in Australia was to

get into the lockup, and the next thing he did was to proclaim himself an

earl in the police court in the morning and fail to prove it.

CHAPTER II.

When in doubt, tell the truth.

--Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.

About four days out from Victoria we plunged into hot weather, and all

the male passengers put on white linen clothes. One or two days later we

crossed the 25th parallel of north latitude, and then, by order, the

officers of the ship laid away their blue uniforms and came out in white

linen ones. All the ladies were in white by this time. This prevalence

of snowy costumes gave the promenade deck an invitingly cool, and

cheerful and picnicky aspect.

From my diary:

There are several sorts of ills in the world from which a person can

never escape altogether, let him journey as far as he will. One escapes

from one breed of an ill only to encounter another breed of it. We have

come far from the snake liar and the fish liar, and there was rest and

peace in the thought; but now we have reached the realm of the boomerang

liar, and sorrow is with us once more. The first officer has seen a man

try to escape from his enemy by getting behind a tree; but the enemy sent

his boomerang sailing into the sky far above and beyond the tree; then it

turned, descended, and killed the man. The Australian passenger has seen

this thing done to two men, behind two trees--and by the one arrow. This

being received with a large silence that suggested doubt, he buttressed

it with the statement that his brother once saw the boomerang kill a bird

away off a hundred yards and bring it to the thrower. But these are ills

which must be borne. There is no other way.

The talk passed from the boomerang to dreams--usually a fruitful subject,

afloat or ashore--but this time the output was poor. Then it passed to

instances of extraordinary memory--with better results. Blind Tom, the

negro pianist, was spoken of, and it was said that he could accurately

play any piece of music, howsoever long and difficult, after hearing it

once; and that six months later he could accurately play it again,

without having touched it in the interval. One of the most striking of

the stories told was furnished by a gentleman who had served on the staff

of the Viceroy of India. He read the details from his note-book, and

explained that he had written them down, right after the consummation of

the incident which they described, because he thought that if he did not

put them down in black and white he might presently come to think he had

dreamed them or invented them.

The Viceroy was making a progress, and among the shows offered by the

Maharajah of Mysore for his entertainment was a memory-exhibition.

The Viceroy and thirty gentlemen of his suite sat in a row, and the

memory-expert, a high-caste Brahmin, was brought in and seated on the

floor in front of them. He said he knew but two languages, the English

and his own, but would not exclude any foreign tongue from the tests to

be applied to his memory. Then he laid before the assemblage his program

--a sufficiently extraordinary one. He proposed that one gentleman

should give him one word of a foreign sentence, and tell him its place in

the sentence. He was furnished with the French word 'est', and was told

it was second in a sentence of three words. The next, gentleman gave him

the German word 'verloren' and said it was the third in a sentence of

four words. He asked the next gentleman for one detail in a sum in

addition; another for one detail in a sum of subtraction; others for

single details in mathematical problems of various kinds; he got them.

Intermediates gave him single words from sentences in Greek, Latin,

Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and other languages, and told him their

places in the sentences. When at last everybody had furnished him a

single rag from a foreign sentence or a figure from a problem, he went

over the ground again, and got a second word and a second figure and was

told their places in the sentences and the sums; and so on and so on. He

went over the ground again and again until he had collected all the parts

of the sums and all the parts of the sentences--and all in disorder, of

course, not in their proper rotation. This had occupied two hours.

The Brahmin now sat silent and thinking, a while, then began and repeated

all the sentences, placing the words in their proper order, and untangled

the disordered arithmetical problems and gave accurate answers to them

all.

In the beginning he had asked the company to throw almonds at him during

the two hours, he to remember how many each gentleman had thrown; but

none were thrown, for the Viceroy said that the test would be a

sufficiently severe strain without adding that burden to it.

General Grant had a fine memory for all kinds of things, including even

names and faces, and I could have furnished an instance of it if I had

thought of it. The first time I ever saw him was early in his first term

as President. I had just arrived in Washington from the Pacific coast, a

stranger and wholly unknown to the public, and was passing the White

House one morning when I met a friend, a Senator from Nevada. He asked

me if I would like to see the President. I said I should be very glad;

so we entered. I supposed that the President would be in the midst of a

crowd, and that I could look at him in peace and security from a

distance, as another stray cat might look at another king. But it was in

the morning, and the Senator was using a privilege of his office which I

had not heard of--the privilege of intruding upon the Chief Magistrate's

working hours. Before I knew it, the Senator and I were in the presence,

and there was none there but we three. General Grant got slowly up from

his table, put his pen down, and stood before me with the iron expression

of a man who had not smiled for seven years, and was not intending to

smile for another seven. He looked me steadily in the eyes--mine lost

confidence and fell. I had never confronted a great man before, and was

in a miserable state of funk and inefficiency. The Senator said:--

"Mr. President, may I have the privilege of introducing Mr. Clemens?"

The President gave my hand an unsympathetic wag and dropped it. He did

not say a word but just stood. In my trouble I could not think of

anything to say, I merely wanted to resign. There was an awkward pause,

a dreary pause, a horrible pause. Then I thought of something, and

looked up into that unyielding face, and said timidly:--

"Mr. President, I--I am embarrassed. Are you?"

His face broke--just a little--a wee glimmer, the momentary flicker of a

summer-lightning smile, seven years ahead of time--and I was out and gone

as soon as it was.

Ten years passed away before I saw him the second time. Meantime I was

become better known; and was one of the people appointed to respond to

toasts at the banquet given to General Grant in Chicago--by the Army of

the Tennessee when he came back from his tour around the world. I

arrived late at night and got up late in the morning. All the corridors

of the hotel were crowded with people waiting to get a glimpse of General

Grant when he should pass to the place whence he was to review the great

procession. I worked my way by the suite of packed drawing-rooms, and at

the corner of the house I found a window open where there was a roomy

platform decorated with flags, and carpeted. I stepped out on it, and

saw below me millions of people blocking all the streets, and other

millions caked together in all the windows and on all the house-tops

around. These masses took me for General Grant, and broke into volcanic

explosions and cheers; but it was a good place to see the procession, and

I stayed. Presently I heard the distant blare of military music, and far

up the street I saw the procession come in sight, cleaving its way

through the huzzaing multitudes, with Sheridan, the most martial

figure of the War, riding at its head in the dress uniform of a

Lieutenant-General.

And now General Grant, arm-in-arm with Major Carter Harrison, stepped out

on the platform, followed two and two by the badged and uniformed

reception committee. General Grant was looking exactly as he had looked

upon that trying occasion of ten years before--all iron and bronze

self-possession. Mr. Harrison came over and led me to the General and

formally introduced me. Before I could put together the proper remark,

General Grant said--

"Mr. Clemens, I am not embarrassed. Are you?"--and that little

seven-year smile twinkled across his face again.

Seventeen years have gone by since then, and to-day, in New York, the

streets are a crush of people who are there to honor the remains of the

great soldier as they pass to their final resting-place under the

monument; and the air is heavy with dirges and the boom of artillery, and

all the millions of America are thinking of the man who restored the

Union and the flag, and gave to democratic government a new lease of

life, and, as we may hope and do believe, a permanent place among the

beneficent institutions of men.

We had one game in the ship which was a good time-passer--at least it was

at night in the smoking-room when the men were getting freshened up from

the day's monotonies and dullnesses. It was the completing of

non-complete stories. That is to say, a man would tell all of a story

except the finish, then the others would try to supply the ending out of

their own invention. When every one who wanted a chance had had it, the

man who had introduced the story would give it its original ending--then

you could take your choice. Sometimes the new endings turned out to be

better than the old one. But the story which called out the most

persistent and determined and ambitious effort was one which had no

ending, and so there was nothing to compare the new-made endings with.

The man who told it said he could furnish the particulars up to a certain

point only, because that was as much of the tale as he knew. He had read

it in a volume of `sketches twenty-five years ago, and was interrupted

before the end was reached. He would give any one fifty dollars who

would finish the story to the satisfaction of a jury to be appointed by

ourselves. We appointed a jury and wrestled with the tale. We invented

plenty of endings, but the jury voted them all down. The jury was right.

It was a tale which the author of it may possibly have completed

satisfactorily, and if he really had that good fortune I would like to

know what the ending was. Any ordinary man will find that the story's

strength is in its middle, and that there is apparently no way to

transfer it to the close, where of course it ought to be. In substance

the storiette was as follows:

John Brown, aged thirty-one, good, gentle, bashful, timid, lived in a

quiet village in Missouri. He was superintendent of the Presbyterian

Sunday-school. It was but a humble distinction; still, it was his only

official one, and he was modestly proud of it and was devoted to its work

and its interests. The extreme kindliness of his nature was recognized

by all; in fact, people said that he was made entirely out of good

impulses and bashfulness; that he could always be counted upon for help

when it was needed, and for bashfulness both when it was needed and when

it wasn't.

Mary Taylor, twenty-three, modest, sweet, winning, and in character and

person beautiful, was all in all to him. And he was very nearly all in

all to her. She was wavering, his hopes were high. Her mother had been

in opposition from the first. But she was wavering, too; he could

see it. She was being touched by his warm interest in her two

charity-proteges and by his contributions toward their support. These

were two forlorn and aged sisters who lived in a log hut in a lonely

place up a cross road four miles from Mrs. Taylor's farm. One of the

sisters was crazy, and sometimes a little violent, but not often.

At last the time seemed ripe for a final advance, and Brown gathered his

courage together and resolved to make it. He would take along a

contribution of double the usual size, and win the mother over; with her

opposition annulled, the rest of the conquest would be sure and prompt.

He took to the road in the middle of a placid Sunday afternoon in the

soft Missourian summer, and he was equipped properly for his mission. He

was clothed all in white linen, with a blue ribbon for a necktie, and he

had on dressy tight boots. His horse and buggy were the finest that the

livery stable could furnish. The lap robe was of white linen, it was

new, and it had a hand-worked border that could not be rivaled in that

region for beauty and elaboration.

When he was four miles out on the lonely road and was walking his horse

over a wooden bridge, his straw hat blew off and fell in the creek, and

floated down and lodged against a bar. He did not quite know what to do.

He must have the hat, that was manifest; but how was he to get it?

Then he had an idea. The roads were empty, nobody was stirring. Yes, he

would risk it. He led the horse to the roadside and set it to cropping

the grass; then he undressed and put his clothes in the buggy, petted the

horse a moment to secure its compassion and its loyalty, then hurried to

the stream. He swam out and soon had the hat. When he got to the top of

the bank the horse was gone!

His legs almost gave way under him. The horse was walking leisurely

along the road. Brown trotted after it, saying, "Whoa, whoa, there's a

good fellow;" but whenever he got near enough to chance a jump for the

buggy, the horse quickened its pace a little and defeated him. And so

this went on, the naked man perishing with anxiety, and expecting every

moment to see people come in sight. He tagged on and on, imploring the

horse, beseeching the horse, till he had left a mile behind him, and was

closing up on the Taylor premises; then at last he was successful, and

got into the buggy. He flung on his shirt, his necktie, and his coat;

then reached for--but he was too late; he sat suddenly down and pulled up

the lap-robe, for he saw some one coming out of the gate--a woman; he

thought. He wheeled the horse to the left, and struck briskly up the

cross-road. It was perfectly straight, and exposed on both sides; but

there were woods and a sharp turn three miles ahead, and he was very

grateful when he got there. As he passed around the turn he slowed down

to a walk, and reached for his tr---- too late again.

He had come upon Mrs. Enderby, Mrs. Glossop, Mrs. Taylor, and Mary.

They were on foot, and seemed tired and excited. They came at once to

the buggy and shook hands, and all spoke at once, and said eagerly and

earnestly, how glad they were that he was come, and how fortunate it was.

And Mrs. Enderby said, impressively:

"It looks like an accident, his coming at such a time; but let no one

profane it with such a name; he was sent--sent from on high."

They were all moved, and Mrs. Glossop said in an awed voice:

"Sarah Enderby, you never said a truer word in your life. This is no

accident, it is a special Providence. He was sent. He is an angel--an

angel as truly as ever angel was--an angel of deliverance. I say angel,

Sarah Enderby, and will have no other word. Don't let any one ever say

to me again, that there's no such thing as special Providences; for if

this isn't one, let them account for it that can."

"I know it's so," said Mrs. Taylor, fervently. "John Brown, I could

worship you; I could go down on my knees to you. Didn't something tell

you?--didn't you feel that you were sent? I could kiss the hem of your

laprobe."

He was not able to speak; he was helpless with shame and fright. Mrs.

Taylor went on:

"Why, just look at it all around, Julia Glossop. Any person can see the

hand of Providence in it. Here at noon what do we see? We see the smoke

rising. I speak up and say, 'That's the Old People's cabin afire.'

Didn't I, Julia Glossop?"

"The very words you said, Nancy Taylor. I was as close to you as I am

now, and I heard them. You may have said hut instead of cabin, but in

substance it's the same. And you were looking pale, too."

"Pale? I was that pale that if--why, you just compare it with this

laprobe. Then the next thing I said was, 'Mary Taylor, tell the hired

man to rig up the team-we'll go to the rescue.' And she said, 'Mother,

don't you know you told him he could drive to see his people, and stay

over Sunday?' And it was just so. I declare for it, I had forgotten it.

'Then,' said I, 'we'll go afoot.' And go we did. And found Sarah

Enderby on the road."

"And we all went together," said Mrs. Enderby. "And found the cabin set

fire to and burnt down by the crazy one, and the poor old things so old

and feeble that they couldn't go afoot. And we got them to a shady place

and made them as comfortable as we could, and began to wonder which way

to turn to find some way to get them conveyed to Nancy Taylor's house.

And I spoke up and said--now what did I say? Didn't I say, 'Providence

will provide'?"

"Why sure as you live, so you did! I had forgotten it."

"So had I," said Mrs. Glossop and Mrs. Taylor; "but you certainly said

it. Now wasn't that remarkable?"

"Yes, I said it. And then we went to Mr. Moseley's, two miles, and all

of them were gone to the camp meeting over on Stony Fork; and then we

came all the way back, two miles, and then here, another mile--and

Providence has provided. You see it yourselves"

They gazed at each other awe-struck, and lifted their hands and said in

unison:

"It's per-fectly wonderful."

"And then," said Mrs. Glossop, "what do you think we had better do let

Mr. Brown drive the Old People to Nancy Taylor's one at a time, or put

both of them in the buggy, and him lead the horse?"

Brown gasped.

"Now, then, that's a question," said Mrs. Enderby. "You see, we are all

tired out, and any way we fix it it's going to be difficult. For if Mr.

Brown takes both of them, at least one of us must, go back to help him,

for he can't load them into the buggy by himself, and they so helpless."

"That is so," said Mrs. Taylor. "It doesn't look-oh, how would this do?

--one of us drive there with Mr. Brown, and the rest of you go along to

my house and get things ready. I'll go with him. He and I together can

lift one of the Old People into the buggy; then drive her to my house

and----

"But who will take care of the other one?" said Mrs. Enderby. "We

musn't leave her there in the woods alone, you know--especially the crazy

one. There and back is eight miles, you see."

They had all been sitting on the grass beside the buggy for a while, now,

trying to rest their weary bodies. They fell silent a moment or two, and

struggled in thought over the baffling situation; then Mrs. Enderby

brightened and said:

"I think I've got the idea, now. You see, we can't walk any more. Think

what we've done: four miles there, two to Moseley's, is six, then back to

here--nine miles since noon, and not a bite to eat; I declare I don't see

how we've done it; and as for me, I am just famishing. Now, somebody's

got to go back, to help Mr. Brown--there's no getting mound that; but

whoever goes has got to ride, not walk. So my idea is this: one of us to

ride back with Mr. Brown, then ride to Nancy Taylor's house with one of

the Old People, leaving Mr. Brown to keep the other old one company, you

all to go now to Nancy's and rest and wait; then one of you drive back

and get the other one and drive her to Nancy's, and Mr. Brown walk."

"Splendid!" they all cried. "Oh, that will do--that will answer

perfectly." And they all said that Mrs. Enderby had the best head for

planning, in the company; and they said that they wondered that they

hadn't thought of this simple plan themselves. They hadn't meant to take

back the compliment, good simple souls, and didn't know they had done it.

After a consultation it was decided that Mrs. Enderby should drive back

with Brown, she being entitled to the distinction because she had

invented the plan. Everything now being satisfactorily arranged and

settled, the ladies rose, relieved and happy, and brushed down their

gowns, and three of them started homeward; Mrs. Enderby set her foot on

the buggy-step and was about to climb in, when Brown found a remnant of

his voice and gasped out--

"Please Mrs. Enderby, call them back--I am very weak; I can't walk, I

can't, indeed."

"Why, dear Mr. Brown! You do look pale; I am ashamed of myself that I

didn't notice it sooner. Come back-all of you! Mr. Brown is not well.

Is there anything I can do for you, Mr. Brown?--I'm real sorry. Are you

in pain?"

"No, madam, only weak; I am not sick, but only just weak--lately; not

long, but just lately."

The others came back, and poured out their sympathies and commiserations,

and were full of self-reproaches for not having noticed how pale he was.

And they at once struck out a new plan, and soon agreed that it was by

far the best of all. They would all go to Nancy Taylor's house and see

to Brown's needs first. He could lie on the sofa in the parlor, and

while Mrs. Taylor and Mary took care of him the other two ladies would

take the buggy and go and get one of the Old People, and leave one of

themselves with the other one, and----

By this time, without any solicitation, they were at the horse's head and

were beginning to turn him around. The danger was imminent, but Brown

found his voice again and saved himself. He said--

"But ladies, you are overlooking something which makes the plan

impracticable. You see, if you bring one of them home, and one remains

behind with the other, there will be three persons there when one of you

comes back for that other, for some one must drive the buggy back, and

three can't come home in it."

They all exclaimed, "Why, sure-ly, that is so!" and they were, all

perplexed again.

"Dear, dear, what can we do?" said Mrs. Glossop; "it is the most

mixed-up thing that ever was. The fox and the goose and the corn and

things-- Oh, dear, they are nothing to it."

They sat wearily down once more, to further torture their tormented heads

for a plan that would work. Presently Mary offered a plan; it was her

first effort. She said:

"I am young and strong, and am refreshed, now. Take Mr. Brown to our

house, and give him help--you see how plainly he needs it. I will go

back and take care of the Old People; I can be there in twenty minutes.

You can go on and do what you first started to do--wait on the main road

at our house until somebody comes along with a wagon; then send and bring

away the three of us. You won't have to wait long; the farmers will soon

be coming back from town, now. I will keep old Polly patient and cheered

up--the crazy one doesn't need it."

This plan was discussed and accepted; it seemed the best that could be

done, in the circumstances, and the Old People must be getting

discouraged by this time.

Brown felt relieved, and was deeply thankful. Let him once get to the

main road and he would find a way to escape.

Then Mrs. Taylor said:

"The evening chill will be coming on, pretty soon, and those poor old

burnt-out things will need some kind of covering. Take the lap-robe with

you, dear."

"Very well, Mother, I will."

She stepped to the buggy and put out her hand to take it----

That was the end of the tale. The passenger who told it said that when

he read the story twenty-five years ago in a train he was interrupted at

that point--the train jumped off a bridge.

At first we thought we could finish the story quite easily, and we set to

work with confidence; but it soon began to appear that it was not a

simple thing, but difficult and baffling. This was on account of Brown's

character--great generosity and kindliness, but complicated with unusual

shyness and diffidence, particularly in the presence of ladies. There

was his love for Mary, in a hopeful state but not yet secure--just in a

condition, indeed, where its affair must be handled with great tact, and

no mistakes made, no offense given. And there was the mother wavering,

half willing-by adroit and flawless diplomacy to be won over, now, or

perhaps never at all. Also, there were the helpless Old People yonder in

the woods waiting-their fate and Brown's happiness to be determined by

what Brown should do within the next two seconds. Mary was reaching for

the lap-robe; Brown must decide-there was no time to be lost.

Of course none but a happy ending of the story would be accepted by the

jury; the finish must find Brown in high credit with the ladies, his

behavior without blemish, his modesty unwounded, his character for self

sacrifice maintained, the Old People rescued through him, their

benefactor, all the party proud of him, happy in him, his praises on all

their tongues.

We tried to arrange this, but it was beset with persistent and

irreconcilable difficulties. We saw that Brown's shyness would not allow

him to give up the lap-robe. This would offend Mary and her mother; and

it would surprise the other ladies, partly because this stinginess toward

the suffering Old People would be out of character with Brown, and partly

because he was a special Providence and could not properly act so. If

asked to explain his conduct, his shyness would not allow him to tell the

truth, and lack of invention and practice would find him incapable of

contriving a lie that would wash. We worked at the troublesome problem

until three in the morning.

Meantime Mary was still reaching for the lap-robe. We gave it up, and

decided to let her continue to reach. It is the reader's privilege to

determine for himself how the thing came out.

CHAPTER III.

It is more trouble to make a maxim than it is to do right.

--Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.

On the seventh day out we saw a dim vast bulk standing up out of the

wastes of the Pacific and knew that that spectral promontory was Diamond

Head, a piece of this world which I had not seen before for twenty-nine

years. So we were nearing Honolulu, the capital city of the Sandwich

Islands--those islands which to me were Paradise; a Paradise which I had

been longing all those years to see again. Not any other thing in the

world could have stirred me as the sight of that great rock did.