[Illustration: Dinah]
The next morning Nigger Dick came to beat carpets, for ma was cleanin'
house; and Mitch and me were makin' garden, and talkin' to Nigger Dick.
He was the funniest nigger you ever saw and the best hearted, except
when he was drunk, then he was cross and mumbled to himself. His wife
was Dinah who wore circle ear-rings and used to cook for the Bransons
when they had lots of company. The Bransons were the richest people in
town and had lots of parrots and poodles, and Mrs. Branson et snuff.
They was from Virginia, ma said; and Mitch and I used to talk to Dinah
over the back fence when she was cookin' there. She wore a red bandanna
around her head, and she used to say, "Look heah, you boys, if you see
that nigger drinkin', you come and tell me, cuz I ain't goin' to live
with him no more if he drinks." Then she'd hand us out cookies or
somethin', and say go along.
Nigger Dick was singin':
Nicodemus was a slave of African birth,
Who was bought for a purse full of gold,
and beatin' carpets, and doin' whatever ma told him. She kept changing
her mind and would say: "Here, Dick, help me with this picture. Now you
can leave that and set out this geranium. Here, Dick, that can go for a
while, go down to the barn and bring up that barrel there and put this
stuff in it."
Dick knew ma, and bein' disorderly himself, didn't care what he did, or
whether he finished anything. So he kept saying, "Yes'm," "Yes'm," and
workin' away. So every time Dick got near us, we'd talk to him and get
him to tell us about his father which was a slave, or about Kentucky.
Little Billie was playin' near us, for Mitch was makin' him a little
onion bed, and Dick was ridin' Little Billie on his shoulder, and he was
as gay as a jay-bird and singin'. One of his songs was:
Oh, said a wood-pecker settin' on a tree,
I once courted a fair ladee.
She proved fickle and from me fled,
And ever since then my head's been red.
And "Babylon is Fallin'" was another of his songs, and "Angel Gabriel."
Mitch would rather be around where Nigger Dick was than any one. He
almost laughed himself sick that mornin'.
Well, we told Nigger Dick about catchin' Doc Lyon; and we took him
around to where I had been let down by the sheet, and showed him how I
had run and jumped the fence to get away. Nigger Dick began to act
awful mysterious and say, "You can't fool this nigger," and he kept
goin' back and forth from the window to the fence, lookin' at the
ground. And by and by he went and asked ma if he could go down town. He
wanted to see my pa about somethin'. So he went off, and Mitch and I
went on makin' garden, till ma came and set us to work buildin' a flower
bed. That was one trouble with ma, you no sooner got started on one
thing than she changed her mind and wanted you to do somethin' else.
"Never mind," said Mitch, "we're havin' fun, whatever it is. But what do
you suppose your pa meant by sayin' that that hill above the Old Salem
mill had given up more treasure than any place in the world? Who got it?
Now pa says that Linkern lived there onct and kept store, but he didn't
get it. He was so poor that he used to have welts on his legs from
wearin' the same buckskin pants. That's what pa says. So if he didn't
get the treasure, who did? It couldn't be Mr. Branson, for he got his
start raisin' onions and peddlin' 'em here in town. All the same, your
pa must have meant somethin'. But I tell you, Skeet, we've lost this
Saturday, and it's too far to go after school. So I say let's go out
there next Saturday--start early and prospect around as they say--look
the land over. And keep goin' till we clean the place up, like we did
Montgomery's woods."
Just then pa and Nigger Dick drove up. Pa had a shoe in his hand and
went and began to put the shoe in the prints where Doc Lyon had run from
the window to the fence. "It fits," says Dick, and laughed, and I said
to pa, "What you got, Doc Lyon's shoe?" And pa said, kind of gruff and
absent minded, "Yes." "Well," says I, "You don't need any shoe to tell
it was Doc Lyon that chased me." Pa didn't answer me. He said, "Come
on, Dick," and they started for the buggy. Ma came runnin' to the door
and said, "Where you goin', Dick? The carpets must be cleaned and laid."
"I don't know," says Dick, "I'm in the hands of the law." "Back after
while," said pa, as he gave the horse a tap with the whip and drove off.
Ma stood in the door and said: "No order, no system, never anything
done. It's just too discouraging. Just as I get Dick and have him well
started at work, your pa comes and takes him off." Then she turned to us
and said, "Don't work any more on the flower bed. Come with me. I want
you boys to build a chicken coop. The old hen must be shut up to-night,
and you must hurry." Mitch smiled a little, but we went into the back
yard and got some lath and made the coop.
Well, after while Nigger Dick came back. They had driven out to Bender's
place and put the shoe in the footprints out there, and sure enough they
fit and pa had gone to the jail and quizzed Doc Lyon about the fire and
he had confessed and told everything. And that wasn't all. "Why," said
Nigger Dick, "that Doc Lyon is the devil himself. He killed Nancy
Allen--Yes, he did. He says so. And that ain't all. He killed your dog,
Mitch. And even that ain't all; all these cows that got cut so they
couldn't give milk, he cut 'em--yes sir, that devil cut 'em. And your pa
is goin' to have him hanged. And that ain't all. If he'd got up-stairs
last night, he'd a killed your ma. Yes, sir. He's the awfulest devil in
this county. And you see when he used to go to Sunday School and walk
the streets readin' the Bible, he was just playin' possum. He'd sold
himself to the devil and he was tryin' to hide it."
I said to Mitch, "Was Injun Joe ever in jail?" Mitch said: "Skeet, you
don't act like sense sometimes. You know dern well he was in jail. How
could he get into court if he wasn't in jail? Don't you remember when
Tom was testifyin' agin him that he broke loose and jumped through the
court house window and escaped, and nobody ever saw him again until Tom
found his body at the door of McDougal's cave?"
"Well," says I, "he might have been out on bail." "What's that?" said
Mitch. "I don't know," says I. "It's a way to keep from goin' to jail,
and since the book don't say that Injun Joe was in jail, I'll bet you he
never was. Poor old Muff Potter was in jail after the murder and he
didn't kill anybody. It was Injun Joe that did the killin'. And don't
you remember that Tom and Huck went to the jail one night and stood on
each other's backs so they could talk to Muff through the bars?" "I have
an idea," says Mitch, "let's go to the jail to-night and talk to Doc
Lyon. Your pa and Jasper Rutledge, the sheriff, are friends, and he
knows us. And besides, Joe Pink is in jail. Look at it: Joe Pink is Muff
Potter and Doc Lyon is Injun Joe, and we'll go to see 'em just like Tom
and Huck went to see Muff Potter. Only, as I said before, Skeet, you're
no more like Huck than my pa is like Nigger Dick."
"Well," says I, "it makes no difference. We'll go. For you can bet Doc
Lyon will never be free again, and we can look at him and ask him
questions, and see what he has to say."
We got down to the jail about dusk, and Mitch insisted on rollin' a barl
up to the window and climbin' up on it, so as to make it as much like
Tom Sawyer as possible. The window was too high for us to stand on each
other's backs. Just as we got the barl up, along comes Jasper Rutledge,
the sheriff, and he says, "Hey, what you boys doin'?" "We want to talk
to Doc Lyon," says I. "What about?" says he. "About my dog," says Mitch.
The sheriff looked at us curious for a minute and says, "If I let you
talk to him, will you promise not to tease him or get him mad?" "Yes,
Mr. Rutledge," both of us said. "Well then," said the sheriff, "don't
fool around with that barl; I'll let you inside the jail and you can
stand comfortable and talk to him." Mitch didn't know what to say to
this. He just toed the ground with his toe, and finally said, "We'd
rather stand on the barl, Mr. Rutledge." I knew what he meant. It
wouldn't be like Tom Sawyer to go inside. And the sheriff laughed and
said, "Well, I'll swan, have it your way. But mind you, I'm going to
hide and hear what is said, for I want to hear what he says about all
this devilish work. But if you tease him or say anything out of the way,
I'll stop it and drive you off."
So we promised and Mitch rolled the barl up to the winder and we both
stood on it and looked in. First thing we see was Joe Pink. He was in
there for bein' drunk, and beatin' his wife. And he went on to tell
about his life, how he'd most worked himself to death tryin' to support
her and the children, and how she couldn't cook, and how she never had
the meals ready, and how he'd come home so hungry he could eat glue, and
she'd be talkin' over the back fence with Laura Bates, and how he didn't
like her any more anyway, because she had lost most of her teeth, and
spluttered her words. Then he'd get drunk, he said, to forget. And just
then a voice said, "No drunkard shall enter the kingdom of heaven." It
was Doc Lyon in a separate place, behind another iron door. And Joe Pink
turned on him and said: "I suppose dog killers and house burners and
cow-cutters and murderers get in. They do, do they? Well, you can send
Joe Pink down to the devil. I don't want to go nowhere where you go--you
can bet on that."
[Illustration: Doc Lyon]
By this time we could see clear into the dark, and there stood Doc Lyon
quiet like, his hands holding the bars, awful white hands, and his eyes
bright like a snake's when it raises up to strike. Then Doc Lyon began
to talk. First he was talking about Mitch's dog. He said it wasn't
decent to have that dog around where children could see her, and that he
had killed her because God told him to. Then he began to talk the Bible
and talk about Ohalibah and say: "She doted on her lovers, on the
Assyrians, her neighbors, which were clothed with blue, governors and
rulers, all of them desirable young men, horsemen riding upon horses.
And I will set my jealousy against thee, and they shall deal with thee
in fury; they shall take away thy nose and thine ears; and thy residue
shall fall by the sword. They shall also strip thee of thy clothes and
take away thy fair jewels." And so he went on for a long time. And Mitch
whispered to me, "He's quoting from Ezekiel"--Mitch had heard his pa
read it to his ma and he knew it.
Then Doc Lyon went on to talk about my ma, and to say that he didn't
mean to kill her, but only to cut off her ears and her nose, because she
was too pretty, and was an abomination to the Lord because she was so
pretty, and the Lord had told him to do it. And then he said the Lord
had told him to remove Nancy Allen because she lived with Old Bender and
his wife, and it wasn't right. He was awful crazy; for if ever there was
a harmless old couple and a harmless old woman, it was the Benders and
Nancy Allen. And why did he want to kill her for livin' with the
Benders? She had to live sommers, and didn't have any home of her own.
We didn't have to say hardly a word--Doc Lyon just went on and told
about settin' Bender's house on fire to purify the abomination of the
dwelling, he said, where Nancy Allen had lived.
We heard enough and slid off the barl. Then Jasper Rutledge came out and
said: "Can you boys remember what he said? For that's a free confession
he made, and you must testify, and I will. There'll be a hangin' in this
jail, before the snow flies."
I was so scared and shook up that I was afraid to sleep alone. So as we
went by, I asked ma if I could stay all night with Mitch. She said
"yes." So when we got to Mitch's home, Mr. Miller was readin' to Mrs.
Miller about Linkern and the girls were playing like mad. We forgot
everything, until finally Mitch motioned to me and we went out-doors.
Mitch said: "I was goin' to have a funeral over Fanny, but I can't stand
it, Skeet. Let's just you and I bury her, here by the barn." So we dug a
grave and buried Fanny, and Mitch cried. And then we went into the house
and went to bed.