THE BALLOON ASCENSION
Well, Tom got up one thing after another, but they all had tender spots
about ’em somewheres, and he had to shove ’em aside. So at last he was
about in despair. Then the St. Louis papers begun to talk a good deal
about the balloon that was going to sail to Europe, and Tom sort of
thought he wanted to go down and see what it looked like, but couldn’t
make up his mind. But the papers went on talking, and so he allowed
that maybe if he didn’t go he mightn’t ever have another chance to see
a balloon; and next, he found out that Nat Parsons was going down to
see it, and that decided him, of course. He wasn’t going to have Nat
Parsons coming back bragging about seeing the balloon, and him having
to listen to it and keep quiet. So he wanted me and Jim to go too, and
we went.
It was a noble big balloon, and had wings and fans and all sorts of
things, and wasn’t like any balloon you see in pictures. It was away
out toward the edge of town, in a vacant lot, corner of Twelfth street;
and there was a big crowd around it, making fun of it, and making fun
of the man,—a lean pale feller with that soft kind of moonlight in his
eyes, you know,—and they kept saying it wouldn’t go. It made him hot to
hear them, and he would turn on them and shake his fist and say they
was animals and blind, but some day they would find they had stood face
to face with one of the men that lifts up nations and makes
civilizations, and was too dull to know it; and right here on this spot
their own children and grandchildren would build a monument to him that
would outlast a thousand years, but his name would outlast the
monument. And then the crowd would burst out in a laugh again, and yell
at him, and ask him what was his name before he was married, and what
he would take to not do it, and what was his sister’s cat’s
grandmother’s name, and all the things that a crowd says when they’ve
got hold of a feller that they see they can plague. Well, some things
they said _was_ funny,—yes, and mighty witty too, I ain’t denying
that,—but all the same it warn’t fair nor brave, all them people
pitching on one, and they so glib and sharp, and him without any gift
of talk to answer back with. But, good land! what did he want to sass
back for? You see, it couldn’t do him no good, and it was just nuts for
them. They _had_ him, you know. But that was his way. I reckon he
couldn’t help it; he was made so, I judge. He was a good enough sort of
cretur, and hadn’t no harm in him, and was just a genius, as the papers
said, which wasn’t his fault. We can’t all be sound: we’ve got to be
the way we’re made. As near as I can make out, geniuses think they know
it all, and so they won’t take people’s advice, but always go their own
way, which makes everybody forsake them and despise them, and that is
perfectly natural. If they was humbler, and listened and tried to
learn, it would be better for them.
The part the professor was in was like a boat, and was big and roomy,
and had water-tight lockers around the inside to keep all sorts of
things in, and a body could sit on them, and make beds on them, too. We
went aboard, and there was twenty people there, snooping around and
examining, and old Nat Parsons was there, too. The professor kept
fussing around getting ready, and the people went ashore, drifting out
one at a time, and old Nat he was the last. Of course it wouldn’t do to
let him go out behind _us_. We mustn’t budge till he was gone, so we
could be last ourselves.
But he was gone now, so it was time for us to follow. I heard a big
shout, and turned around—the city was dropping from under us like a
shot! It made me sick all through, I was so scared. Jim turned gray and
couldn’t say a word, and Tom didn’t say nothing, but looked excited.
The city went on dropping down, and down, and down; but we didn’t seem
to be doing nothing but just hang in the air and stand still. The
houses got smaller and smaller, and the city pulled itself together,
closer and closer, and the men and wagons got to looking like ants and
bugs crawling around, and the streets like threads and cracks; and then
it all kind of melted together, and there wasn’t any city any more it
was only a big scar on the earth, and it seemed to me a body could see
up the river and down the river about a thousand miles, though of
course it wasn’t so much. By and by the earth was a ball—just a round
ball, of a dull color, with shiny stripes wriggling and winding around
over it, which was rivers. The Widder Douglas always told me the earth
was round like a ball, but I never took any stock in a lot of them
superstitions o’ hers, and of course I paid no attention to that one,
because I could see myself that the world was the shape of a plate, and
flat. I used to go up on the hill, and take a look around and prove it
for myself, because I reckon the best way to get a sure thing on a fact
is to go and examine for yourself, and not take anybody’s say-so. But I
had to give in now that the widder was right. That is, she was right as
to the rest of the world, but she warn’t right about the part our
village is in; that part is the shape of a plate, and flat, I take my
oath!
The professor had been quiet all this time, as if he was asleep; but he
broke loose now, and he was mighty bitter. He says something like this:
“Idiots! They said it wouldn’t go; and they wanted to examine it, and
spy around and get the secret of it out of me. But I beat them. Nobody
knows the secret but me. Nobody knows what makes it move but me; and
it’s a new power—a new power, and a thousand times the strongest in the
earth! Steam’s foolishness to it! They said I couldn’t go to Europe. To
Europe! Why, there’s power aboard to last five years, and feed for
three months. They are fools! What do they know about it? Yes, and they
said my air-ship was flimsy. Why, she’s good for fifty years! I can
sail the skies all my life if I want to, and steer where I please,
though they laughed at that, and said I couldn’t. Couldn’t steer! Come
here, boy; we’ll see. You press these buttons as I tell you.”
He made Tom steer the ship all about and every which way, and learnt
him the whole thing in nearly no time; and Tom said it was perfectly
easy. He made him fetch the ship down ’most to the earth, and had him
spin her along so close to the Illinois prairies that a body could talk
to the farmers, and hear everything they said perfectly plain; and he
flung out printed bills to them that told about the balloon, and said
it was going to Europe. Tom got so he could steer straight for a tree
till he got nearly to it, and then dart up and skin right along over
the top of it. Yes, and he showed Tom how to land her; and he done it
first-rate, too, and set her down in the prairies as soft as wool. But
the minute we started to skip out the professor says, “No, you don’t!”
and shot her up in the air again. It was awful. I begun to beg, and so
did Jim; but it only give his temper a rise, and he begun to rage
around and look wild out of his eyes, and I was scared of him.
Well, then he got on to his troubles again, and mourned and grumbled
about the way he was treated, and couldn’t seem to git over it, and
especially people’s saying his ship was flimsy. He scoffed at that, and
at their saying she warn’t simple and would be always getting out of
order. Get out of order! That graveled him; he said that she couldn’t
any more get out of order than the solar sister.
[Illustration: “He said he would sail his balloon around the world”]
He got worse and worse, and I never see a person take on so. It give me
the cold shivers to see him, and so it did Jim. By and by he got to
yelling and screaming, and then he swore the world shouldn’t ever have
his secret at all now, it had treated him so mean. He said he would
sail his balloon around the globe just to show what he could do, and
then he would sink it in the sea, and sink us all along with it, too.
Well, it was the awfulest fix to be in, and here was night coming on!
[Illustration: “And here was night coming on!”]
He give us something to eat, and made us go to the other end of the
boat, and he laid down on a locker, where he could boss all the works,
and put his old pepper-box revolver under his head, and said if anybody
come fooling around there trying to land her, he would kill him.
We set scrunched up together, and thought considerable, but didn’t say
much—only just a word once in a while when a body had to say something
or bust, we was so scared and worried. The night dragged along slow and
lonesome. We was pretty low down, and the moonshine made everything
soft and pretty, and the farmhouses looked snug and homeful, and we
could hear the farm sounds, and wished we could be down there; but,
laws! we just slipped along over them like a ghost, and never left a
track.
Away in the night, when all the sounds was late sounds, and the air had
a late feel, and a late smell, too—about a two-o’clock feel, as near as
I could make out—Tom said the professor was so quiet this time he must
be asleep, and we’d better—
“Better what?” I says in a whisper, and feeling sick all over, because
I knowed what he was thinking about.
“Better slip back there and tie him, and land the ship,” he says.
I says: “No, sir! Don’ you budge, Tom Sawyer.”
And Jim—well, Jim was kind o’ gasping, he was so scared. He says:
“Oh, Mars Tom, _don’t!_ Ef you teches him, we’s gone—we’s gone sho’! I
ain’t gwine anear him, not for nothin’ in dis worl’. Mars Tom, he’s
plumb crazy.”
Tom whispers and says—“That’s _why_ we’ve got to do something. If he
wasn’t crazy I wouldn’t give shucks to be anywhere but here; you
couldn’t hire me to get out—now that I’ve got used to this balloon and
over the scare of being cut loose from the solid ground—if he was in
his right mind. But it’s no good politics, sailing around like this
with a person that’s out of his head, and says he’s going round the
world and then drown us all. We’ve _got_ to do something, I tell you,
and do it before he wakes up, too, or we mayn’t ever get another
chance. Come!”
But it made us turn cold and creepy just to think of it, and we said we
wouldn’t budge. So Tom was for slipping back there by himself to see if
he couldn’t get at the steering-gear and land the ship. We begged and
begged him not to, but it warn’t no use; so he got down on his hands
and knees, and begun to crawl an inch at a time, we a-holding our
breath and watching. After he got to the middle of the boat he crept
slower than ever, and it did seem like years to me. But at last we see
him get to the professor’s head, and sort of raise up soft and look a
good spell in his face and listen. Then we see him begin to inch along
again toward the professor’s feet where the steering-buttons was. Well,
he got there all safe, and was reaching slow and steady toward the
buttons, but he knocked down something that made a noise, and we see
him slump down flat an’ soft in the bottom, and lay still. The
professor stirred, and says, “What’s that?” But everybody kept dead
still and quiet, and he begun to mutter and mumble and nestle, like a
person that’s going to wake up, and I thought I was going to die, I was
so worried and scared.
Then a cloud slid over the moon, and I ’most cried, I was so glad. She
buried herself deeper and deeper into the cloud, and it got so dark we
couldn’t see Tom. Then it began to sprinkle rain, and we could hear the
professor fussing at his ropes and things and abusing the weather. We
was afraid every minute he would touch Tom, and then we would be
goners, and no help; but Tom was already on his way back, and when we
felt his hands on our knees my breath stopped sudden, and my heart fell
down ’mongst my other works, because I couldn’t tell in the dark but it
might be the professor! which I thought it _was_.
Dear! I was so glad to have him back that I was just as near happy as a
person could be that was up in the air that way with a deranged man.
You can’t land a balloon in the dark, and so I hoped it would keep on
raining, for I didn’t want Tom to go meddling any more and make us so
awful uncomfortable. Well, I got my wish. It drizzled and drizzled
along the rest of the night, which wasn’t long, though it did seem so;
and at daybreak it cleared, and the world looked mighty soft and gray
and pretty, and the forests and fields so good to see again, and the
horses and cattle standing sober and thinking. Next, the sun come
a-blazing up gay and splendid, and then we began to feel rusty and
stretchy, and first we knowed we was all asleep.