Tom Sawyer, Detective - Mark Twain

T Well. It was the next spring after me and Tom Sawyer set our old nigger Jim free, the time he was chained up for a runaway slave down there

on Tom's uncle Silas's farm in Arkansas. The frost was working out of the ground and out of the air too, and it was getting closer and closer onto barefoot time every day, and next it would be marble time, and next MUMBLETYPEG and next tops and hoops, and next kites, and then right away it would be summer and going in a swimming It just makes a boy homesick to look ahead like that and see how far off summer is, yes, and it sets him to sighing and saddening around, And

there's something the matter with him, and you don't know what, but anyway, he gets out by himself and mopes and thinks, and mostly he hunts for a lonesome place high up on the hill in the edge of the woods, and sits there and looks away off on the big Mississippi down there, or reaching miles and miles around the points where the timber looks smoky and dim. It's so far

off and still, and everything's so solemn. It seems like everybody you've loved is dead and gone, and you most wish you was dead and gone too, and done with it all. Don't you know what that is? It's spring fever, that is what the name of it is. And when you've got it, you want, Oh you don't quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly

makes your heart ache. You want it. So it seems to you that mainly what you want is to get away, get away from the same old, tedious things you're so used to seeing and so tired of, and set something new. That is the idea. You want to go and be a wanderer. You want to go wandering far away to strange countries where everything is mysterious and wonderful and romantic. And if you can't do that, you'll put up with considerable less. You'll go anywhere you can go, just so

as to get away and be thankful of the chance too. Well, me and Tom Sawyer had the spring fever and had it bad too. But it weren't any use to think about Tom trying to get away, because, as he said, his aunt Polly wouldn't let him quit school and go trapsing off Somers wasting time. So we was pretty blue.

We were sitting on the front steps one day about sundown, talking this way, when out comes his aunt Polly with a letter in her hand and says, Tom, I reckon, you've got to pack up and go down to Arkansas. Your aunt Sally wants you. I most jumped out of my skin for joy. I reckoned Tom would fly at his aunt and hug her head off. But if you believe me, he sat there like a rock and never said a word. It made me fit to cry to see him act so foolish with such a noble chance

as this opening up. Why we might lose it if he didn't speak up and show he was thankful and grateful. But he sat there and studied and studied till I was that distressed. I didn't know what to do. And then he says, very calm, and I could have shot him for it. Well, he says, I'm right down, sorry, Aunt Polly, But I reckon, I got to be excused for the present. His Aunt Polly was knocked so stupid and so mad at the cold impudence of it, that she couldn't say a word for as much as half

a minute. And this gave me a chance to nudge Tom and whisper, ain't you got any sense spiling such a noble chance as this and throwing it away? But he warn't disturbed. He mumbled back, huck finn, do you want want me to let her see how bad I want to go? Why she'd begin to doubt right away, and imagine a lot of sickness and dangers and objections, and first you know she'd take it all back. You let me alone, I reckon, I know how to work her now. I never would have thought of that. But

he was right. Tom Sawyer was always right, the levelest head I ever see, and always at himself and ready for anything you might spring on him. By this time, his Aunt Polly was all straight again, and she let fly. She says, you'll be excused you will well, I never heard the like of it in all my days, the idea of you talking like that to me. Now take yourself off and pack your traps. And if I hear another word out of you about what you'll be excused from and what you won't, I lay I'll excuse you

with a hickory. She hit his head a thump with her thimble as we dodged by, and he led on to be whimpering. As we struck for the stairs up in his room. He hugged me. He was so out of his head for gladness because he was going traveling, and he says, before we get away, she'll wish she hadn't let me go, but she won't know any way to get around it now after what she said, her pride won't let her take it back. Tom was packed in ten minutes, all except what his aunt and Mary

would finish up for him. Then we waited ten more for her to get cooled down and sweet and gentle again. For Tom said it took her ten minutes to unruffle in times when half of her feathers was up, but twenty when they was all up, And this was one of the times when they was all up. Then we went down, being in a sweat, to know what the letter said. She was setting there in a brown study

with it laying in her lap. We sat down and she says they're in considerable trouble down there, and they think you and huck'll be a kind of diversion for them comfort. They say much of that they'll get out of you and Huck Finn. I reckon. There's a neighbor named Brace Dunlap that's been one to marry their benny for three months, and at last they told him point blank and once for all, he couldn't, so he has

soured on them, and they're worried about it. I reckon he's somebody they think they better be on the good side of, for they've tried to please him by hiring his no account brother to help on the farm when they can't hardly afford it and don't want him round anyhow. Who are the Dunlaps. They live about a mile from Uncle Silas's place. Aunt Polly. All the farmers live about a mile apart down there, and Brace Dunlap is a long sight richer than any of the others, and owns

a whole grist of niggers. He's a widower, thirty six years old, without any children, and is proud of his money and overbearing, and everybody is a little afraid of him. I judge he thought he could have any girl he wanted, just for the asking, and it must have set him back a good deal when he found he couldn't get Benny. Why Benny's only half as old as he is, and just as sweet and lovely he is. Well, you've seen her,

poor old uncle Silas. Why it's pitiful him trying to curry favor that way, so hard pushed and poor, and yet hiring that useless Jubiter Dunlap to please his ornery brother. What a name, Jubiter? Where'd he get it? It's only just a nickname, I reckon. They'd forgot his real name long before this. He's twenty seven now and has had it ever since the first time he ever went in swimming.

The school teacher's seen a round brown mole the size of a dime on his left leg above his knee, and four little bits of moles around it when he was naked, and he said it minded him of Jubiter and his moons, and the children thought it was funny, and so they got to calling him Jubiter. And he's Jubiter yet he's tall and lazy and sly and sneaky, and rather cowardly too, but kind of good natured and wears long brown hair and no beard, and hasn't got a cent and brace boards him for nothing and gives

him his old clothes to wear and despises him. Jubiter is a twin. What's the other twin like? Just exactly like Jubiter, so they say, used to was anyway, but he ain't been seen for seven years. He got to Robin when he was nineteen or twenty, and they jailed him, but he broke jail and got away up north here Somers. They used to hear about him robbing and burglaring now and then, but that was years ago. He's dead now, at least that's what they say. They don't hear about

him anymore. What was his name, Jake? There wasn't anything more said for a considerable while. The old lady was thinking. At last, she says, the thing that is mostly worrying your aunt Sally is the tempers that that man Jupiter gets your uncle into. Tom was astonished and so was I. Tom says, tempers, Uncle Silas Land, you must be joking. I didn't know he had any temper works him up into perfect rages. Your Aunt Sally's says, he acts as if he would really hit the man sometimes, Aunt Polly,

it beats anything I ever heard of. Why he's just as gentle as mush? Well, she's worried anyway, says your uncle Silas is like a changed man on account of all this quarreling, And the neighbors talk about it and lay all the blame on your uncle, of course, because he's a preacher and ain't got any business to quarrel. Your Aunt Sally says, he hates to go into the pulpit. He's so ashamed, and the people have begun to cool toward him. And he ain't as popular now as he

used to was. Well, ain't it strange? Why, Aunt Polly, he was always so good and kind and moony and absent minded and chuckle headed and lovable. Why he was just an angel? What can be the matter of him? Do you Reckon end of chapter one, Chapter two, Jake Dunlap we had powerful good luck because we got a chance in a stern wheeler from away north, which was bound for one of them by us or one horse

rivers away down Louisiana Way. And so we could go all the way down the Upper Mississippi and all the way down the Lower Mississippi to that farm in Arkansas without having to change steamboats at Saint Louis not so very much short of a thousand miles at one pull a pretty lonesome boat. There weren't but few passengers, and all old folks that set around wide apart, dozing, and was very quiet. We was four days getting out of

the Upper River because we got aground so much. But it weren't dull, couldn't be for boys that was traveling. Of course, from the very start me and Tom allowed that there was somebody sick in the stateroom next arn, because the meals was always toted in there by the waiters bye and bye. We asked about it, Tom did, and the waiters said he was a man, but he didn't look sick. Well, but ain't he sick? I don't know. Maybe he is, but appears to me he's just letting on.

What makes you think that, because if he was sick, he would pull his clothes off sometime or other. Don't you reckon? He would? Well, this one don't. At least he don't ever pull off his boots anyway. The mischief he don't, not even when he goes to bed. No, it was always nuts for Tom Sawyer. A mystery was But you'd lay out a mystery and a pie before me and him, and you wouldn't have to say, take

your choice. It was a thing that would regulate itself, because in my nature I always run to pie, whilst in his nature he has always run to mystery. People are made different, and it is the best way. Tom says to the waiter, what's the man's name, Phillips? Where'd he come aboard? I think he got aboard at Alexandria, up on the Iowa line. What do you reckon? He's a playing I ain't any notion. I never thought of it, I says to myself. Here's another one that runs to pie.

Anything peculiar about him, the way he acts or talks, No, nothing except he seems so scary and keeps his doors locked night and day both and when you knock, he won't let you in till he opens the door crack and sees who it is. By Jimmy, it's interesting. I'd like to get a look at him. Say the next time you're going in there, don't you reckon. You could spread the door and no, indeed, he he's always behind it.

He would block that game. Tom studied over it, and then he says, look a here, you lend me your apron. Let me take him his breakfast in the morning. I'll give you a quarter. The boy was plenty willing enough if the head Stewart wouldn't mind. Tom says, that's all right. He reckoned. He could fix it with the head Stewart, and he done it. He fixed it so as we could both go in with aprons on and toting victuals.

He didn't sleep much. He was in such a sweat to get in there and find out the mystery about Phillips. And moreover, he'd done a lot of guessing about it all night, which warn't no use. For if you are going to find out the facts of a thing, what's the sense in guessing out what ain't the facts and wasting ammunition. I didn't lose no sleep. I wouldn't give a dern to know what's the matter of Phillips, I says to myself. Well, in the morning, we put on the aprons and got a couple of trays of truck

and Tom he knocked on the door. The man opened at a crack, and then he let us in and shut it quick, pat Jackson. When we got sight of him, we most dropped the trays, and Tom says, why Jubiter's done Lap, where'd you come from? Well the man was astonished, of course, and first off he looked like he didn't know whether to be scared or glad or both or which. But finally he settled down to being glad, and then his color come back, though at first his face had

turned pretty white. So we got to talking together while he had his breakfast, and he says, but I ain't Jubeter Dunlap. I'd just as soon tell you who I am, though, if you'll swear to keep mum, for I ain't no Phillips either. Tom said, we'll keep Mum, but there ain't any need to tell who you are if you ain't Jubiter Dunlap. Why because if you ain't him, you're t'other twin, Jake, you're the spitting image of Jubiter. Well, I'm Jake, but

look here how do you come to know us? Done laps Tom told about the adventures we'd had down there at his uncle Silas's last summer. And when he see that there warn't anything about his folks or him either, for that matter, that we didn't know, he opened out and talked perfectly, free and candid. He never made any bones about his own case. Said he'd been a hard lot, was a hard lot yet and reckoned. He'd be a

hard lot plumb to the end. He said, of course, it was a dangerous life, and he gave a kind of gasp and set his head like a person that's listening. We didn't say anything, and so it was very still for a second or so, and there weren't no sounds but the screaking of the woodwork and the chug chugging

of the machinery down below. Then we got him comfortable again, telling him about his people, and how Brace's wife had been dead three years and Brace wanted to marry Benny and she shook him, and Jubiter was working for Uncle Silas, and him and Uncle Silas quarreling all the time. And then he let go and laughed. Lad. He says, it's like old times to hear all this tittle title and does me good. It's been seven years and more since I heard any How do they talk about me these days? Who?

The farmers and the family. Why they don't talk about you at all, at least only just to mention once in a long time the nation, He says, surprised. Why is that because they think you are dead long ago? No, you're speaking true, Honor Bright. Now he jumped up, excited, Honor Bright. There ain't anybody thinks you are alive. Then I'm saved. I'm saved. Sure, I'll go home. They'll hide me and save my life. You keep, mum swear you'll

mum swear you'll never never tell on me. Oh boys, be good to a poor devil it's being hunted day and night and doesn't show his face. I've never done you any harm. I'll never do you any as God is in the heavens. Swear you'll be good to me and help me save my life. We'd a swore if it had been a dog, and so we done it well. He couldn't love us enough for it or be grateful enough. Poor cuss. It was all he could do to keep

from hugging us. We talked along, and he got out a little handbag and begun to open it and told us to turn our backs. We done it, and when he told us to turn again, he was perfectly different to what he was before. He had on blue goggles and the naturalist look in, long brown whiskers and mustache as you ever see. His own mother wouldn't have known him. He asked us if he looked like his brother Jubiter. Now no, Tom said, there ain't anything left that's like

him except the long hair. All right, I'll get that crop close to my head before I get there, and him and Brace will keep my secret, and I'll live with them as being a stranger, and the neighbors won't ever guess me out. What do you think, Tom? He studied a while. Then he says, well, of course me and Hack are going to keep Mum there. But if you don't keep Mum yourself, there's going to be a little bit of a risk. It ain't much, maybe, but it's a little. I mean, if you talk, won't people

notice that your voice is just like Jubiter's? And mightn't it make them think of the twin they reckoned was dead? But maybe after all was hid all this time under another name by George. He says, you're a sharp one. You're perfectly right. I've got to play deef and dumb when there's a neighbor around. If I had just struck for home and forgot that little detail. However, I wasn't striking for home. I was breaking for any place where I could get away from these fellows that are after me.

Then I was going to put on this disguise and get some different clothes. And he jumped for the outside door and laid his ear against it and listened. Pale and kind of panting. He whispers, sounded like cocking a gun. Lord, what a life to lead. Then he sunk down in a chair, all limp and sick like, and wipe the sweat off his face. End of chapter two, Chapter three A Diamond Robbery. From that time out, we was with him most all the time, and one or t'other of

us slept in his upper berth. He said he had been so lonesome, and it was such a comfort to him to have company and somebody to talk to in his troubles. We was in a sweat to find out what his secret was. But Tom said the best way was not to seem anxious, then likely he would drop into it himself in one of his talks. But if we go to asking questions, he would get suspicious and

shet up his shell. It turned out just so. It warn't no trouble to see that he wanted to talk about it, but always along at first, he would scare away from it when he got on the very edge of it and go to talk about something else. The way it come about was this. He got to asking us kind of indifferent like about the passengers down on deck. We told him about them, but he weren't satisfied we weren't particular enough. He told us to describe them better.

Tom done it at last. When Tom was describing one of the roughest and raggedest ones, he gave a shiver and a gasp and says, oh, lordy, that's one of them. They're aboard. Sure, I just knowed it. I sort of hoped i'd got away, but I never believed it. Go on presently, when Tom was describing another mangy rough deck passenger, he gave that shiver again and says, that's him. That's the other one. If it'll only come a good black stormy night, and I could get ashore. You see, they've

got spies on me. They've got a right to come up and buy drinks at the bar yonder forward, and they take that chance to bribe somebody to keep watch on me. Porter or Boots or somebody. If I was to slip a shor or without anybody seeing me, they would know it inside of an hour. So then he got to wandering along, and pretty soon sure enough he was telling he was poking along through his ups and downs, and when he come to that place, he went right along. He says it was a confidence game. We played it

on a julery shop in Saint Louis. What we was after was a couple of noble big diamonds, as big as hazel nuts, which everybody was running to see. We was dressed up fine, and we played it on them in broad daylight. We ordered the diamonds sent to the hotel for us to see if we wanted to buy, and when we was examining them, we had paste counterfeits

all ready. And then was the things that went back to the shop when we said the water wasn't quite fine enough for twelve thousand dollars twelve thousand dollars, Tom says, was they really worth all that money? Do you reckon every cent of it? And you fellows got away with them as easy as nothing. I don't reckon the juelery people know they've been robbed yet. But it wouldn't be good sense to stay round Saint Louis course, So we considered where we'd go. One was for going one way,

one another. So we throwed up heads or tails, and the Upper Mississippi won. We'd done up the diamonds in the paper and put our names on it, and put it in the keep of the hotel clerk and told him not to ever let either of us have it again without the others was on hand to see it done. Then we went downtown, each by his own self, because I reckon maybe we all had the same notion. I don't know for certain, but I reckon maybe we had

what notion Tom says, to rob the others? What one take everything after all of you had helped to get it. Certainly it disgusted Tom Sawyer, and he said it was the orneriest, low downest thing he ever heard of. But Jake Dunlap said it warn't unusual in the profession said, when a person was in that line of business, he'd got to look out for his own interest. There warn't

nobody else going to do it for him. And then he went on, he says, you see, the trouble was you couldn't divide up two diamonds amongst three if there'd been three. But never mind about that there warn't three. I loafed along the back street, studying and studying, and I says to myself, I'll hog them di'monds the first chance I get, and I'll have a disguise all ready, and i'll give the boys the slip, and when I'm safe away, i'll put it on and then let them

find me if they can. So I got the false whiskers and the goggles and this countryfied suit of clothes and fetched them along back in a handbag. And when I was passing a shop where they sell all sorts of things, I got a glimpse of one of my pals through the window. It was Bud Dixon. I was glad, you bet, I says to myself, I'll see what he buys. So I kept shady and watched. Now what do you reckon?

It was? He bought Whiskers said, I no goggles. No, oh, keep still, huck, Finn, can't you You're only just hendering all you can. What was it he bought, Jake, You'd never guess it in the world. It was only just a screwdriver, just a wee little bit of a screwdriver. Well, I declare, but what do he want with that? That's what I thought. It was curious? It clean stumped me.

I says to myself, what can he want with that thing? Well, when he come out, I stood back out of sight, and then tracked him to a second hand slop shop and see him buy a red flannel shirt and some old ragged clothes, just the ones he's got on now, as you've described. Then I went down to the wharf and hid my things aboard the up river boat that we had picked out, and then started back and had another streak of luck. I seen our other pal lay in his stock of old, rusty second handers. We got

the diamonds and went aboard the boat. But now we was up a stump, for we couldn't go to bed. We had to set up and watch one another. Pity. That was pity to put that kind of a strain on us, because there was bad blood between us from a couple of weeks back, and we was only friends in the way of business, bad anyway, seeing there was only two diamonds TwixT three men. First we had supper, and then tramped up and down the deck together, smoking

till most midnight. Then we went and sat down in my stateroom and locked the doors, and looked in the piece of paper to see if the diamonds was all right. Then laid it on the lower berth, right in full sight. And there we set and set, and by and by it got to be dreadful, hard to keep awake. At last, Bud Dixon he dropped off as soon as he was snoring, a good regular gait that was likely to last, and

had his chin on his breast and looked permanent. Hal Clayton nodded towards the diamonds and then towards the outside door, and I understood. I reached and got the paper, and then we stood up and waited perfectly still, but never stirred. I turned the key of the outside door very soft and slow, then turned the knob the same way, and we went tiptoe out on to the guard and shut

the door, very soft and gentle. There warn't nobody stirring anywhere, and the boat was slipping along, swift and steady through the big water and the smoky moonlight. We never said a word, but went straight up onto the hurricane deck and plumb back aft and set down on the end of the skylight. Both of us knowed what that meant, without having to explain to one another. Bud Dixon would wake up and miss the swag and would come straight for us, for he ain't afeard of anything or anybody.

That man ain't. He would come and we would heave him overboard or get killed trying. It made me shiver, because I ain't as brave as some people. But if I showed the white feather, well, I knowed better than do that. I kind of hoped the boat would land somers and we could skip ashore and not have to run the risk of this row. I was so scared of Bud Dixon, but she was an upper river tub and there warn't no real chance of that. Well, the time strung along and along, and that fellow never come.

Why it strung along till dawn begun to break, and still he never come. Thunder I says, what do you make out of this? Ain't it suspicious? Land Hell says, do you reckon? He's playing us? Open the paper? I done it, and by gracious, there warn't anything in it but a couple of little pieces of loaf sugar. That's the reason he could set there and snooze all night,

so comfortable. Smart well, I reckon he had had them two papers, all fixed and ready, and he had put one of them in place of t'other, right under our noses. We felt pretty cheap. But the thing to do straight off was to make a plan, and we done it. We would do up the paper again, just as it was, and slip in very elaborate and soft, and lay it on the bunk again, and let on we didn't know

about any trick, and hadn't any idea. He was laughing at us behind them bogus snores of his'n and we would stick by him, and the first night we was ashore, we would get him drunk and search him and get the diamonds and do for him too, if it weren't too risky, if we got the swag, we'd got to do for him, or he would hunt us down and do for us, sure, but I didn't have no real hope. I knowed we could get him drunk. He was always ready for that. But what's the good of it? You

might search him a year and never fight. Well, right there, I catched my breath and broke off my thought for an idea went ripping through my head that tore my brains to rags and land. But I felt gay and good. You see, I had had my boots off to unswell my feet, and just then I took up one of them to put it on, and I catched a glimpse of the heel bottom, and it just took my breath away. You remember about that puzzlesome little screwdriver, You bet I do,

says Tom, all excited. Well, when I catched that glimpse of that boot heel, the idea that went smashing through my head was I know where he'd hid the di'monds. You look at this boot heel. Now, see it's bottom with a steel plate, and the plate is fastened on with little screws. Now, there wasn't a screw about that feller anywhere but in his boot heels. So if he needed a screwdriver, I reckoned. I knowed why huck ain't

it bully, says Tom. Well, I got my boots on and we went down and slipped in and laid the paper of sugar on the berth, and sat down soft and sheepish, and went to listening to Bud Dixon's snore. Hal Clayton dropped off pretty soon, but I didn't. I wasn't ever so wide awake in my life. I was spying out from under the shade of my hat brim, searching the floor for leather. It took me a long time, and I begun to think maybe my guess was wrong,

But at last I struck it. It laid over by the bulkhead and was nearly the color of the carpet. It was a little round plug, about as thick as the end of your little finger. And I says to myself, there's a diamond in the nest you've come from. Before long I spied out the Plug's mate. Think of the smartness and coolness of that blatherskite. He put up that scheme on us and reasoned out what we would do, And we went ahead and done it perfectly exact, like

a couple of pudd'n heads. He sat there and took his own time to unscrew his heel plates and cut out his plugs and stick in the diamonds and screw on his plates again. He lowed, we would steal the bogus swag and wait all night for him to come up and get drowned and buy George. It's just what we'd done. I think it was powerful, smart. You bet your life it was, says Tom, just full of admiration.

End of Chapter three. Chapter four The three sleepers, well, all day we went through the humbug of watching one another, and it was pretty sickly business for two of us, and hard to act out. I can tell you about night. We landed at one of them little Missouri towns, high up toward Iowa, and had supper at the tavern, and got a room upstairs with a cot and a double bed in it. But I dumped my bag under a deal table in the dark hall while we was moving along it to bed, single file, me last, and the

landlord in lead. With a tallow candle. We had up a lot of whiskey and went to playing high low jack for dimes, and as soon as the whisky begun to take hold of bud, we stopped drinking, but we didn't let him stop. We loaded him till he fell out of his chair and laid there snoring. We was ready for business now. I said, we'd better pull our boots off and his'n too, and not make any noise. Then we could pull him and haul him round and

ransack him without any trouble. So we done it. I set my boots and buds side by side where they'd be handy. Then we stripped him and searched his seams and his pockets and his socks and inside of his boots and everything, and searched his bundle. Never found any diamonds. We found a screwdriver, and Hal says, oh, what do you reckon? He wanted with that? I said I didn't know, but when he wasn't looking, I hooked it. At last. Hal he looked beat and discouraged and said we'd got

to give it up. That was what I was waiting for. I says, there's one place we hain't searched. What place is that? He says, his stomach? By gracious, I never thought of that. Now we're on the home stretch to a dead moral certainty. How'll we manage well? I says, just stay by him till I turn out and hunt up a drug store, and I reckon, I'll fetch something that'll make them di'monds tired of the company their keeping.

He said that's the ticket, and with him looking straight at me, I slid myself into buds boots instead of my own, and he never noticed. They was just a shade large for me, but that was considerable better than being too small. I got my bag as I went a groping through the hall, and in about a minute I was out the back way and stretching up the river road at a five mile gait, and not feeling so very bad. Neither walking on di'monds don't have no

such effect. When I had gone fifteen minutes, I says to myself, there's more'n a mile behind me, and everything quiet. Another five minutes and I says there's considerable more land behind me now, and there's a man back there that's begun to wonder what's the trouble. Another five and I says to myself, he's getting real uneasy. He's walking the floor. Now Another five and I says to myself there's two miles and a half behind me, and he's awful uneasy,

beginning to cuss. I reckon pretty soon, I says to myself. Forty minutes gone, he knows there's somethin up. Fifty minutes the truth's busting on him. Now he is reckoning. I found the diamonds whilst we was searching, and shoved them in my pocket and never let on. Yes, and he's starting out to hunt for me. He'll hunt for new tracks in the dust, and they'll as likely send him down. The river is up. Just then I see a man coming down on a mule, and before I thought, I

jumped into the bush. It was stupid. When he got abreast, he stopped and waited a little for me to come out, and then he rode on again. But I didn't feel gay any more, I says to myself. I've watched my chances by that I shall surely have if he meets up with hal Clayton. Well, about three in the morning, I fetched Alexandria and see this stern wheeler laying there, and was very glad because I felt perfectly safe. Now

you know, it was just daybreak. I went aboard and got this stateroom and put on these clothes and went up in the pilot house to watch, though I didn't reckon there was any need of it. I sat there and played with my diamonds and waited and waited for the boat to start. But she didn't. You see, they was mending her machinery, but I didn't know anything about it, not being very much used to steamboats. Well, to cut

the tail short. We never left there till plumb noon, and long before that, I was hid in this stateroom for before breakfast. I see a man coming away off that had a gate like hal Clayton's, and it made me just sick, I says to myself. If he finds out I'm aboard this boat, he's got me like a rat in a trap. All he's got to do is to have me watched and wait till I slip ashore,

thinking he is a thousand miles away. Then slip after me and dog me to a good place and make me give up the di'monds, and then he'll, oh, I know what he'll do. Ain't it awful? Awful? And now to think the other ones aboard too, Oh, ain't it hard? Luck? Boys? Ain't it hard? But you'll help save me, won't you? Oh? Boys? Be good to a poor devil that's being hunted to death, and save me. I'll worship the very ground you walk on.

We turned in and soothed him down and told him we would plan for him and help him, and he needn't be so feared, And so by and by he got to feeling kind of comfortable again, and unscrewed his heel plates and held up his diamonds this way and that, admiring them and loving them. And when the light struck into them, they was beautiful. Sure why they seemed to kind of bust and snap fire out all around, but

all the same, I judged he was a fool. If I had been him, I would have handed the diamonds to the pals and got them to go ashore and leave me alone. But he was made different. He said it was a whole fortune, and he couldn't bear the IDEA Twice we stopped to fix the machinery and lay it a good while once in the night, but it wasn't dark enough, and he was a feared to skip. But the third time we had to fix it there

was a better chance. We laid up at a country woodyard about forty mile above Uncle Silas's place a little after one at night, and it was thickening up and going to storm, so Jake he laid for a chance to slide. We began to take in wood. Pretty soon the rain come a drenching down and the wind blowed hard.

Of course, every boat hand fixed a gunnysack and put it on like a bonnet, the way they do when they are toting wood, and we got one for Jake, and he slipped down aft with his hand bag and come tramping forward just like the rest, and walked ashore with them. And when we see him pass out of the light of the torch basket and get swallowed up in the dark, we got our breath again and just felt great, full and splendid. But it wasn't for long.

Somebody told I reckon, for in about eight or ten minutes them two pals come tearing forward as tight as they could jump, and darted ashore and was gone. We waited plumb till dawn for them to come back, and kept hoping they would, but they never did. We was awful, sorry and low spirited. All the hope we had was that Jake had got such a start that they couldn't get on his track and he would get to his

brothers and hide there and be safe. He was going to take the river road and told us to find out if Brace and Jubiter was to home and no strangers there, and then slip out about sundown and tell him. Said he would wait for us in a little bunch of sycamores right back of Tom's uncle Silas's tobackerfield on

the river road, a lonesome place. We sat and talked a long time about his chances, and Tom said he was all right if the pals struck up the river instead of down, but it wasn't likely because maybe they knowed where he was from. More likely they would go right and dog him all day, him not suspecting, and kill him when it come duck and take the boots. So we was pretty sorrowful. End of Chapter four, Chapter five,

A Tragedy in the Woods. We didn't get done tinkering the machinery till away late in the afternoon, and so it was so close to sundown when we got home that we never stopped on our road, but made a break for the sycamores as tight as we could go to tell Jake what the delay was and have him wait till we could go to Braces and find out how things was there. It was getting pretty dim by the time we turned the corner of the woods, sweating and panting with that long run, and see the sycamores

thirty yards ahead of us. And just then we see a couple of men run into the bunch and heard two or three terrible screams for help. Poor Jake is killed, sure, we says. We was scared through and through and broke for the tobacco field and hid there, trembling so our clothes would hardly stay on. And just as we skipped in there, a couple of men went tearing by, and into the bunch they went, and in a second out jumps four men and took out up the road as

tight as they could go, too, chasing two. We laid down, kind of weak and sick and listened for more sounds, but didn't hear none for a good while. But just our hearts, we was thinking about that awful thing laying yonder in the sycamores, and it seemed like being that close to a ghost, and it give me the cold shudders.

The moon comes swellin up out of the ground, now powerful, big an round and bright behind a comb of trees, like a face looking through prison bars, and the black shatters an white places begun to creep around, and it was miserable, quiet and still, a night breezy and a graveyardy and scary. All of a sudden, Tom whispers, Look what's that? Don't, I says, don't take a person by surprise that way. I'm most ready to die anyway without you doing that. Look. I tell you it's something coming

out of the sycamores. Don't, Tom, it's terrible tall. Oh lordy, lordy, let's keep still. It's comin this way. He was so excited he could hardly get breath enough to whisper. I had to look. I couldn't help it. So now we was both on our knees with our chins on a fence rail and gazing yes, and gasping too. It was comin down the road, coming in the shatter of the trees, and you couldn't see it good, not till it was

pretty close to us. Then it stepped into a bright splotch of moonlight, and we sunk right down in our tracks. It was Jake Dunlap's ghost. That was what we said to ourselves. We couldn't stir for a minute or two. Then it was gone. We talked about it in low voices. Tom says, they're mostly dim and smoky, or like they've made out of fog. But this one wasn't. No, I says. I seen the goggles and the whiskers, perfectly plain, Yes,

and the very colors in them. Loud Country had Sunday clothes, plaid breeches, green and black cotton, velvet waistcoat, fire red and yaller squares, leather straps to the bottoms of the breech's legs, and one of them hanging unbuttoned. Yes. And that hat. What a hat for a ghost to wear? You see, it was the first season anybody wore that kind a black, stiff brimmed stovepipe, very high and not smooth, with a round top, just like a sugar loaf. Did you notice if its hair was the same, Huck, No,

seems to me I did. Then again, it seems to me I didn't. I didn't either, But it had its bag along. I noticed that, so did I. How can there be a ghost bag, Tom show, I wouldn't be as ignorant as that if I was. You huck Finn. Whatever a ghost has turns to ghost stuff. They've got to have their things like anybody else. You see it yourself that its clothes was turned to ghost stuff. Well, then wants to hander its bag from turning too. Of course had done it. That was reasonable. I couldn't find

no fault with it. Bill Withers and his brother Jack come along by talkin and Jack says what he reckon? He was totin. I don't know, but it was pretty heavy. Yes, all he could lug niggers stealing corn from old pysin Silas. I judged, so did I, and so I allowed. I wouldn't let on to see him. That's me too. Then they both laughed and went on out o hearing. It showed how unpopular old Uncle Silas had got to be. Now. They wouldn't a let a nigger steal anybody else's corn.

An never done anything to him. We heard some more voices mumbling along towards us and getting louder, and sometimes the cackle of a laugh. It was Lem Beebe and Jim Lane. Jim Lane says, hoo, Joe better dunlap. Yes, Oh, I don't know, I reckon, So I seen him spadin' up some ground along about an hour ago, just before sundown him An the parson said he guessed he wouldn't go to night, but we have his dog if we wanted him too. Tired, I reckon, yes, works so hard,

Oh you bet. They cackled at that and went on by. Tom said we'd better jump out and tag along with them, because they was going our way and it wouldn't be comfortable to run across the ghost all by ourselves. So we'd done it and got home all right. That night was the second of September, a Saturday. I shan't ever forget it. You'll see why pretty soon. End of chapter five.

Chapter six plans to secure the diamonds. We tramped along behind Jim and Lim till we come to the back style where old Jim's cabin was that he was captivated in the time we set him free, And here come the dogs piling around us to say howdie. And there was the lights of the house too, so we weren't afeared anymore, and was going to climb over, but Tom says, hold on, sit down here a minute. By George, what's

the matter? Says? I matter enough? He says, wasn't you expecting we would be the first to tell the family who it is that's been killed Yonder and the sycamores, and all about them rapscallions that done it, and about the diamonds they've smooched off of the corpse, and paint it up fine, and have the glory of being the

ones that knows a lot more about it than anyone else. Why, of course it wouldn't be you, Tom Sawyer, if you was to let such a chance go by, I reckon it ain't goin to suffer none for lack of paint, I says, when you started to scollop the facts. Well, now, he says, perfectly calm. What would you say if I was to tell you I ain't goin to start it at all? I was astonished to hear him talk, so I says, I'd say it's a lie. You ain't in earnest, Tom Sawyer. You'll soon see was the ghost barefooted? No

he wasn't. What of it? You wait, I'll show you what. Did it have its boots on? Yes? I seen them? Plain swear it. Yes, I swear it? So do I? Now do you know what that means? No? What does it mean means? That them thieves didn't get the diamonds. Jimminy, what makes you think that? I don't only think it, I know it didn't. The breeches and goggles and whiskers and handbag and every blessed thing turned to ghost stuff.

Everything it had on turn, didn't it. It shows that the reason its boots turned too was because it still had them on after it started to go hatting around. And if that ain't proof that them blathers skites didn't get the boots, I'd like to know what you'd call proof think of that now. I never see such a head as that boy had. Why I had eyes and I could see things, but they never meant nothing to me.

But Tom Sawyer was different. When Tom Sawyer seen a thing, it just got up on its hind legs and talked to him, told him everything it knowed. I'd never see such a head Tom Sawyer, I says. I'll say it again, as I've said it many a time before. I ain't fittin to black your boots. But that's all right, that's neither here nor there. God Almighty made us all, and some he give eyes that's blind, and some he gives eyes that can see, and I reckon, it ain't none

of our look out what he'd done it for? It's all right, or he'd have fixed it some other way. And go on, I see plenty plain enough now that them thieves didn't get away with the diamonds. Why didn't they do? You reckon? Because they got chased away by them other two men before they could pull the boots off the corpse. That's so, I see it now. But look a here, Tom, Why ain't we to go and tell about it? Oh? Shucks, huck finn, can't you see

look at it? What's it going to happen? There's going to be an inquest in the mornin' Them two men will tell how they heard the yells and rushed there just in time to not save the stranger. Then the jury'll twaddle and twaddle and twaddle, and finally they'll fetch in a verdict that he got shot or stock or busted over the head with something and come to his death by the inspiration of God. And after they've buried him, they'll auction off his things for to pay the expenses.

And then's our chance, how Tom buy the boots for two dollars? Well, it most took my breath, my land. Why, tom, we'll get the di'monds. You bet some day there'll be a big reward offered for them. A thousand dollars. Sure, that's our money. Now we'll trot in and see the folks. And mind you, we don't know anything about any murder, or any di'monds or any thieves. And don't you forget that. I had to sigh a little over the way he had got it fixed. I'd have sold them di'monds, yes, sir,

for twelve thousand dollars, but I didn't say anything. It wouldn't have done any good. I says, But what are we going to tell your aunt? Sally has made us so long getting down here from the village. Tom Oh, I'll leave that to you, he says, I reckon, you can explain it somehow. He was always just that strict and delicate. He never would tell a lie himself. We struck across the big yard, noticing this, that and the other thing that was so familiar, and we so glad

to see it again. And when we got to the roofed big passageway betwixt the double log house and the kitchen part, there was everything hanging on the wall, just as it used to was even to Uncle Silas's old faded green baize working gown with the hood to it and raggedy white patch between the shoulders that always looked like somebody had hit him with a snowball. And then

we lifted the latch and walked in. Aunt Sally. She was just a rippin and a tearin' around, and the children was huddled in one corner, and the old man, he was huddled in the other and praying for help in time of need. She jumped for us with joy and tears running down her face, and give us a whacking box on the ear, and then hugged us and kissed us and boxed us again, and just couldn't seem to get enough of it. She was so glad to see us, and she says, where have you been? A

loafin two? You good for nothin' trash. I've been that worried about you. I didn't know what to do your traps has been here ever so long, and I've had supper cooked fresh about four times so as to have it hot and good when you come. Till at last my patience has just plumb war out an I declare, I I why I could skin you alive. You must be starving, poor things. Sit down, Sit down, everybody, don't lose no more time. It was good to be there again, behind all that noble corn pone and spare ribs and

everything that you could ever want in this world. Old uncle silas he peeled off one of his bulliest old time blessings with as many layers to it as an onion. And whilst the angels was hauling in the slack of it, I was trying to study up what to say about what kept us so long? When our plates was all loadened and we'd a got a going, she asked me, and I says, well, you see, missus, huck Finn, Since when am I missus to you? Have I ever been

stingy of cuffs or kisses for you? Since the day you stood in this room and I took you for Tom Sawyer and blessed God for sending you to me. Though you told me four thousand lies, and I believed every one of them like a simpleton call me Aunt

Sally like you always done. So I'd done it, and I says, well, me and Tom allowed we would come along a foot and take a smell of the woods, and we run across lem Beebee and Jim Lane, and they asked us to go with them black bearing tonight and said they could borrow Jubiter Dunlap's dog because he had told them just that minute. Where did they see him? Says the old man. And when I looked up to see how he come to take an interest in a little thing like that, his eyes was just burning into me.

He was that eager. It surprised me, so it kind of throwed me off. But I pulled myself together again and says it was when we was spading up some ground along with you, towards sundown or along there. He only said hmm in a kind of a disappointed way, and didn't take no more interest. So I went on, I says, well, then, as I was a saying that'll do you needn't go no further, it was Aunt Sally. She was boring right into me with her eyes and

very indignant. Hut finn. She says, how'd them men come to talk about going a black berrying in September in this region? I see I had slipped up, and I couldn't say a word. She waited, still a gazing at me. Then she says, and how'd they come to strike that idiot idea of going a blackberrying in the night? Well they are They told us they had a lantern, and oh shut up, do look here? What was they going to do with the dog? Hunt blackberries with it? I think, man?

They naw, Tom Sawyer, what kind of a lie are you fixing your mouth to contribute to this mess of rubbage? Speak out? And I warn you before you begin that I don't believe a word of it. You and Huck's been up to something, you know, business to I know it perfect well, I know you, both of you. Now you explained that dog and then blackberries and the lantern and the rest of that rot And mind you talk as straight as a string, d'ye hear? Tom? He looked

considerable hurt and says, very dignified. It is a pity if Huck is to be talked to that way, just from making a little bit of a mistake that anybody could make. What mistake has he made? Why only the mistake of saying blackberries, when, of course he meant strawberries, Tom Sawyer, I lay, if you aggravate me a little more, I'll Aunt Sally, without knowing it, and of course without

intending it, you are in the wrong. If you'd have studied natural history the way you walked to you would know that all over the world except just here in Arkansas, they always hunt strawberries with a dog and a lantern. But she busted in on him there and just piled into him and snowed him under. She was so mad she couldn't get the words out fast enough, and she gushed them out in one everlasting fresh That was what

Tom Sawyer was after. He allowed to work her up and get her started, and then leave her alone and let her burn herself out. Then she would be so aggravated with that subject that she wouldn't say another word about it, nor let anybody else. Well, it happened just so when she was tuckered out and had to hold up, he says, quite calm, and yet all the same, Aunt Sally shut up. She says, I don't want to hear

another word out of you. So we was perfectly safe then and didn't have no more trouble about that delay. Tom done it elegant. End of chapter six, Chapter seven, A Night's Vigil Banny. She was looking pretty sober, and she sighed some now and then, but pretty soon she got to asking about Mary and Sid and Tom's Aunt Polly, and then Aunt Sally's clouds cleared off, and she got in a good humor and joined in on the questions and was her lovingest, best self. And so the rest

of the supper went along, gay and pleasant. But the old man he didn't take any hand hardly, and was absent minded and restless, and done a considerable amount of sighing, And it was kind of heartbreaking to see him so sad and troubled and worried by and by a spell after supper come a nigger and knocked on the door and put his head in with his old straw hat in his hand, bowing and scraping, and said his Mar's brace was out at the style, and wanted his brother,

and was getting tired waiting supper for him, and would Mars Silas please tell him where he was? I never see Uncle Silas speak up so sharp and fractious before he says, am I his brother's keeper? And then he kind of wilted together and looked like he wished he hadn't spoken so, and then he says, very gentle, but you needn't say that. Billy. I was took sudden and irritable, and I ain't very well these days, and not hardly responsible.

Tell him he ain't he And when the nigger was gone, he got up and walked the floor backwards and forwards, mumbling and muttering to himself and plowing his hands through his hair. It was real pitiful to see him, aunt Sally, she whispered to us, and told us not to take notice of him. It embarrassed him. She said he was always thinking and thinking since these troubles come on, And she allowed he didn't more'n bout half know what he

was about when the thinking spells was on him. And she said he walked in his sleep considerable more now than he used to, and sometimes wandered around over the house and even outdoors in his sleep. And if we catched him at it, we must let him alone and not disturb him, she said, she reckoned it didn't do no harm, and maybe it done him good. She said Benny was the only one that was much help to

him these days. Said Benny appeared to know just when to try to soothe him and when to leave him alone. So he kept on tramping up and down the floor and muttering till by and by he begun to look pretty tired. Then, Benny, she went and snuggled up to his side, and put one hand in his and one arm around his waist, and walked with him, and he smiled down on her and reached down and kissed her, and so little by little the trouble went out of his face, and she persuaded him off to his room.

They had very petting ways together, and it was uncommon pretty to see Aunt Sally. She was busy getting the children ready for bed, So by and by it got dull and tedious, and me and Tom took a turn in the moonlight and fetched up in the watermelon patch and et one and had a good deal of talk. And Tom said he'd bet the quarreling was all Jubiter's fault, and he was going to be on hand the first time he got a chance and see, and if it was so, he was going to do his level best

to get Uncle Silas to turn him off. And so we talked and smoked and stuffed watermelons much as two hours, and then it was pretty late, and when we got back the house was quiet and dark, and everybody gone to bed. Tom he always seen everything, and now he see that the old green baize work gown was gone, and said it wasn't gone when he went out, so he allowed it was curious, and then we went up

to bed. We could hear Benny stirring round in her room, which was next time, and judged she was worried a good deal about her father and couldn't sleep. We found we couldn't either, so we set up a long time and smoked and talked in a low voice and felt pretty dull and downhearted. We talked the murderer and the ghost over and over again and got so creepy and crawley we couldn't get sleepy. Nohow and no way bye bye. When it was away late in the night and all

the sounds was late sounds and solemn. Tom nudged me and whispers to me, look and I'd done it. And there we see a man poking around in the yard like he didn't know just what he wanted to do, but it was pretty dim and we couldn't see him good. Then he started for the style, and as he went over it, the moon came out strong and he had a long handled shovel over his shoulder, and we see the white patch on the old workgown. So Tom says, he's walking in his sleep. I wish we was allowed

to follow him and see where he's going to. There he's turned down by the tobacco field, out of sight. Now it's a dreadful pity. He can't rest no better. We waited a long time, but he didn't come back anymore, or if he did, he'd come around the other way. So at last we was tuckered out and went to

sleep and had nightmares, a million of them. But before dawn we was awake again because meantime a storm had come up and been raging, and the thunder and lightning was awful, and the wind was a thrashing the trees around, and the rain was driving down and slanting sheets, and the gullies was running rivers. Tom says, lookye here, huck, I'll tell you one thing that's mighty curious. Up to the time we went out last night, the family hadn't

heard about Jake Dunlap being murdered. Now, the men that chased Hal Clayton and Bud Dixon away would spread the thing around in half an hour, and neighbor that heard it would shin out and fly around from one farm to' other and try to be the first to tell the news. Land. They don't have such a big thing as that to tell twice in thirty year, Huck, it's

mighty strange. I don't understand it. So then he was in a fidget for the rain to let up so we could turn out and run across some of the people and see if they would say anything about it to us. And he said, if they did, we must be horribly surprised and shocked. We was out and gone a minute the rain stopped. It was just broad day.

Then we loafed along up the road and now and then met a person and stopped and said howdy, and told them when we come, and how we left the folks at home, and how long we was going to stay and all that. But none of them said a word about that thing, which was just astonishing, and no mistake. Tom said he believed if we went to the sycamores, we would find that body laying there, solitary and alone,

and not a soul around. Said he believed the men chased the thieves so far into the woods that the thieves. Probably I've seen a good chance and turned on them at last, and maybe they all killed each other, and so there wasn't anybody left to tell. First renowed gabbling along that way. We was right at the sycamores. The cold chills trickled down my back, and I wouldn't budge another step for all Tom's persuading, But he couldn't hold in.

He'd got to see if the boots were safe on that body yet, so he crope in and the next minute out he comes again, with his eyes bulging. He was so excited and says, Huck, it's gone. I was astonished. I says, Tom, you don't meet it. It's gone. Sure, there ain't a sign of it. The ground has trampled some, but if there was any blood, it's all washed away by the storm, for it's all puddles and slush in there. At last, I gave in and went and took a look myself, and it was just as Tom said. There

wasn't a sign of a corpse. Turn it, I says, the di'monds is gone. Don't you reckon? The thieves slunk back and lugged him off. Tom looks like it. It just does now where'd they hide him? Do you reckon? I don't know, I says, disgusted. And what's more, I don't care. They've got the boots, and that's all I cared about. He'll lay around these woods a long time before I hunt him up. Tom didn't feel no more interest in him, neither, only curiosity to know what come

of him. But he said we'd lay low and keep dark, and it wouldn't belonged till the dogs or somebody roused him out. We went back home to breakfast. Ever so bothered and put out and disappointed and swindled. I warn't ever so down on a corpse before end of chapter seven, Chapter eight, talking with the ghost, it warn't very cheerful at breakfast. Aunt Sally she looked old and tired and let the children snarl and s fuss at one another, and didn't seem to notice it was going on, which

wasn't her usual style. Me and Tom had plenty to think about without talking. Benny, she looked like she hadn't had much sleep, and whenever she'd lift her head a little and steal a look towards her father, you could see there was tears in her eyes. And as for the old man. His thing stayed on his plate and got cold without him knowing they was there. I reckon, for he was thinking and thinking all the time, and

never said a word, and never read a bite. By and by when it was stillest, that nigger's head was poked in at the door again, and he said his Mar's brace was getting powerful, uneasy about Mars Jubiter, which hadn't come home yet, and would Mars Silas please. He was looking at Uncle Silas, and he stopped there like the rest of his words was froze. For Uncle Silas.

He rose up shaky and steadied himself, leaning his fingers on the table, and he was panting, and his eyes was set on the nigga, and he kept swallowing and put his other hand up to his throat a couple of times, and at last he got his words started and says, does he does he think? What does he think? Tell him? Tell him? Then he sunk down in his chair and weak and says, so as you could hardly

hear him, go away, go away. Nigga looked scared and cleared out, and we all felt well, I don't know how we felt it, but it was awful with the old man panting there, and his eyes set and looking like a person that was dying. None of us could budge. But Benny she slid around, soft, with her tears running down, and stood by his side, and nestled his old gray head up against her, and begun to stroke it and pet it with her hands, and nodded to us to go away. And we done it, going out, very quiet,

like the dead was there. Me and Tom struck out for the woods, mighty solemn, and saying, how different it was now to what it was last summer when we was here, and everything was so peaceful and happy, and everybody thought so much of Uncle Silas, and he was so cheerful and simple hearted and putting headed and good. And now look at him. If he hadn't lost his mind, he wasn't much short of it. That was what we allowed. It was a most lovely day, now, bright and sunshiny.

And the further and further we went over the hills towards the prairie, the lovelier and lovelier the trees an flowers got to be, and the more it seemed strange and somehow wrong that there had to be trouble in such a world as this, And then all of a sudden I catched my breath and grabbed Tom's arm, and all my livers and lungs an things fell down in my legs. There it is, I says. We jumped back behind a bus, shivering, and Tom says, sh don't make a noise. It was settin on a log right in

the edge of a little prairie thinkin. I tried to get Tom to come away, but he wouldn't. I doesn't budge him by myself. He said we mightn't ever get another chance to see one. An he was goin to look his fill at this one if he died for it. So I looked too, though it give me the fan TODs to do it. Tom he had to talk, and he talked low. He says, poor Jakie, it's got all its things on, just as he said he would. Now you see what we wasn't certain about. It's it's not

long now the way it was. It's got it cropped close to its head the way he said he would. HU can never see anything look any more naturaler than what it does, nor I neither. I says I'd recognize it anywheres, so would I. It looks perfectly solid and genuine, just the way it done before it died. So we kept gazing. Pretty soon, Tom says, Huck, there's something mighty curious about this one, don't you know? It oughtn't to

be going around in the daytime. That's so, Tom, I never heard the like of it before, No, sir, they don't ever come out. Only at night, and then not till after twelve. There's something wrong about this one, now, you mark my words. I don't believe it's got any right to be around in the daytime, But don't it look natural? Jake was going to play deef and dumb here, so the neighbors wouldn't know his voice. Do you reckon?

It would do that if we was to holler at it. Lordy, Tom don't talk, So if you was to holler at I'd die in my tracks, don't you worry. I ain't going to holler at it. Look, Huck, it's a scratch in its head, don't you see? Well? What of it? Why this? What's the sense of it scratching its head? There ain't anything there to itch. Its head is made out of fog or something like that, and can't itch a fog can't itch. Any fool knows that. Well, then if it don't itch and can't itch, what the nation

is it scratching it for? Ain't it just habit? Don't you reckon? No, sir, I don't. I ain't a bit satisfied about the way this one acts. I've a blame good notion. It's a bogus one. I have as sure as I'm a sitting here, because if it, Huck, well, what's the matter now? You can't see the bushes through it? Well? Tom, it's so sure, it's as solid as a cow. Ah sort of begin to think, Huck, it's biting off a chaw off tobaccer by George. They don't chaw, they ain't

got anything to chaw with. Uck, I'm listenin. He ain't a ghost at all. It's Jake Dunlap his own self. Oh you're granny, I says Cuck. 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 see four men run, Then this one come walkin' out an 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. M 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 is 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 if 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 rather cut our hands off than get you into the least little bit of danger. First off, he looked surprised to see us, 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, gool gool ghoul the

way beef and dummies does. Just then we see some of Steve Nickerson's people coming that lived to other side of the prairie. So Tom says, you'd do it elegant. I never see anybody do it. 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 anytime 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 Baptists or Methodist? And which politics Whig or Democrat? And how long is he staying and all them other questions that humans always ask when a stranger comes and animals does too, but Tom said he weren't able to make anything out of

deef and dumb signs, and the same with googooing. 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 and 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. And weren't two boys and a million could do it. That was Tom Sawyer's idea about it, and I reckoned there warn't anybody could better it. End of chapter eight. Chapter nine finding of Jubiter Dunlop. 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 probably couldn't himself, But he did his sight of good 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 a way 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 knittas take care of it and fetch him all of it'lls he wanted. Dummy was at our house some because old 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

known 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. Generally he didn't seem to notice, but sometimes he did well. Two or three days when long 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 perhaps he was murdered. He'd 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 brim full 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 drowned. 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, snatch on your clothes. I've got it, bloodhound. In two minutes we was tearin up the river road in the dark,

towards the village. Old Jeff Hooker had a bloodhound and Tom was goin to borrow him. I says, the trail's too old, Tom, An, 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 an buried, they wouldn't bury him deep. It ain't likely. An. If the dog goes over the spot, he'll send him. Sure, Huck, we're going to be celebrated.

Sure as you're born. He was just a blazing and whenever he got a fire, he was most likely to get a fire all over. That was the way this time. In two minutes he got it all ciphered out an 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 goin to stick to him till well. I says, you better find the corpse first. I reckon, that's a plenty for today. For all we know, there ain't any corpse,

and nobody hain't been murdered. That Cuss could have gone all summer's 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 the 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 reputation, and I'll go ahead. I says, I'm sorry, and I take it all back. I didn't mean nothing, fix it any way you wanted. He ain't any consequence to me. If he's killed, I'm as glad of it as you are. And if I never said anything about being glad, I only well, then I'm as sorry as you are. Anyway you'd rather have it, that is the way I'd rather

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 began 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 oh, Jeff Hooker, he throwed cold water on the whole business when we got to his blacksmith's 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 know 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? Uh? Answer up? He ain't no fool. What did 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 whoever had anything again, that poor trifling no accountant, 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 Jupiter Dunlap. The blacksmith says, by and bye, the revenge idea won't work. You see, Well then what's next? Robbery? But gosh, that must have been it Tom, Yes, sir, I reckon, we've struck. At this time some feller wanted his Gallas buckles, and so he bet 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 had had any sense, they'd have knowed. The lazy cuss slid out because he

wanted a loaf and spell after all this work. He'll come pottering back in a couple of weeks and then how 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 row laughs of his. 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 position and 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 interest 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 tobacco 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 ever 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 somethinulled 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 that Sally and Benny was. Tom sung out. Me and Hucks found Jubiter Dunlap's corpse all by ourselves with a bloodhound, after everybody else had quit hunting and give it up. And if it hadn't

been for us, it never would have been found. And he was murdered too. They'd done it with a club or something like that. 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 onto the floor and groans out, oh my god, you've found him now. End of chapter nine chapter ten, 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 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 shatter 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'd done it, poor Jubiter, I'd done it. It was dreadful to hear him say it. Then he went on and told about it, and said it happened to 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 too, 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 by 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 an hung. But Tom said, no, you ain't goin to be found out.

You didn't kill him. One lick wouldn't kill him. Somebody else done it? Oh, yes, he says, I'd done it. Nobody else who wells 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 count. 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 gave 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's seeing 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, no one 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 for God. 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 every Anne respected, always been peaceable and minding his own business. The very last man in this whole district to touch a person, and everybody knows it. Suspect him. Why it ain't any more possible than by thirty of

the State of Arkansas. I arrest you for the murder of Jupiter 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 goodbye. 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 an 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. End of chapter ten, chapter eleven, 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 look in fact 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 actively begun to out playing and squared towards trial time and acknowledged that he tried to kill the man.

Why that was awful, you know, it made things seem fifty times as dreadful, and there weren'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 as 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 were

so hollow, and he looked so thin and so mournful. Benny, she sat 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 led 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 tail. 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 tobacco 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's 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 allied 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 us stir amongst them. And when that lawyer was done telling the jury what he was going to prove, he sat 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 Limb 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 ghosts had 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 coming along that day tewod September and Jim Lane was with me, and it was towards sundown, and we heard loud talk like quarreling, and we was very close only the hazel bushes between that's a long the fence, and we heard a voice say, I told you more than once, I'd kill you, and

knowed it was this prisoner's voice. And then we see a club come up the bushes and down out of sight again, and heard a smashing thump and then a groan or two, and then we croped soft to where we could see, and there laid Jubiter 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. Man 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 weren'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, he eat it perfectly terrible. He did

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 and lies an spy their testimony. But now, how different when lemb 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 Lemb and you could see he was getting ready to cross question him to death pretty soon. And then I judged him and me he would go on to 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 an 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, let me 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 true 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 Arkansas 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 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 ninth. The judge he spoke up and says, mister 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 extraordinary sit down, says the judge, pulling his bowie and laying it on his pulpit. I beg you to respect the court. So he done it, and he called Bill Withers. Bill Withers sworn said, I was coming along about sundown Saturday, September seventh 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 nigga stealing corn. 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. He made the people shiver to think of poor old Uncle Silas toting off the diseased down to the place in his tobacco field where the dog dug up the body. But there warn't much sympathy around amongst the faces. And I heard one cuss says, the coldest blooded work I ever struck, lugging and murdered man around like that, and going to bury him like an 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 lots of the women folks said, poor critter, poor critter, and you could see many of

them wiping their eyes. Brace Dunlap swore and said, I was in considerable trouble a long time about my poor brother, But I reckon things weren'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 critter like that. By Jings, I was sure I seen Tom give that kind of a faint little start, and then looked disappointed again. And you know, I couldn't think a preacher would hurt him.

It warn't natural to think such an unlikely thing. So I never paid much attention. And now I shout, ever ever forgive myself, for if I had a done different, my poor brother would be with me this day, and not lying yonder murdered, and him so harmless he can't have 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 gave a groan right out, so everybody heard him then brace he went. On Saturday, September second, 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 wouldn't run across my poor brother, and never knowing he was out of his troubles 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 there weren'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 summers to have a little peace and would come back to us when his troubles was kind

of healed. But late Saturday night, the ninth, 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 kinds 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 tobaccer 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 worked down 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 murder. 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 in his eyes are 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 staring and gasping, Judge, jury, lawyers and everybody, and Benny and Aunt Sally crying their hearts out 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 duty, 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, and 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'd done it in a mean revenge. For why because my innocent, pure girl here at my side wouldn't marry that rich, insolent, ignorant cowered brace Dunlap, who's been sniveling here over a brother he never cared to brace 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 I'm miserably sorry, oh,

filled with remorse. But I thought of my poor family, and I must hide what I had done for their sakes. And I did hide that corpse in the bushes, and presently I carried it to the tobacco 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 that says, sit down, A murder was done, but you never had no hand in it. Well, sir,

you could hurt 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 were 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 hate ever seen eyes bug out and gaze without a blink the way there and did Tom says perfectly, Tom, you're writer, May I speak

for goodness sakes? 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 to work up and effect, as he calls it. Then he started in just as calm 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 diamonds stole at Saint Louis. Then diamonds 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 down 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. And 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 gradly 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, lam him Beebe and Jim Lane come along by where Uncle Silas and Jubiter Dunlap was at work, and that much of what they said is true, the rest is lies. They didn't hear Uncle Silas say he would kill Jubiter. They didn't hear no blows 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 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 gate, 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 underground in the tobacco field. But it wasn't Uncle Silas that had done the baring. 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 underlip 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 aw That is just what I do. Only I make an oh. 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's 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 court house door. And he slipped ashore with his hand bag and struck out into the dark in the storm. And he was a hoping he could get to this town all right

an 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 a 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. Probably

they'd 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 handbag and put it on before he showed himself here in the town. And mind you, he'd done that just a little after the time that Uncle Silas was hitting Jubiter Dunlap over the head with the club, for he did

hit him. But the minute the pal 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 sycamore bunch, which was

where they was bound for anyway. And when the pals saw them, they lit out, and the two men after them at 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'd 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 Dad, 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 the peg where it all was 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 tobacco 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 began 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 way, 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, Brace Dunlap, had most worried the life and sense out of Uncle Silas, till at last he plumb lost his mind and hit this

other Blatherskype his brother with a club. I reckon, he's seen his chance. Jupiter 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 summers, and that would ruin Uncle Silas and drive him out of the country hang him maybe, I don't know. But when they found their dead brother and the sycamores without knowing him, because he was so battered up,

they see they had a better thing. Disguise both and barry 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 sat 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 diamonds 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 loud 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 his own self, and he was googooing 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 bye and bye. 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 bye. 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 settin 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. Wow, you never heard such a howl, and it come from the whole house. What was it you seen him do? Stay where you were,

you little devil. You think you were going to work a body up till his mouth 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 have pulled him off that platform with a yoke of oxen. Oh it wasn't anything much, he says. I've seen him looking a little excited when he found Uncle Silas was actually fixing to hang himself for a murder that warn't ever done. And he got more and more nervous and worried.

I 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 across 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, had jamage 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 have done it, nothing of the kind, not

two in a million could have done it. You are a very remarkable boy. Then they let go and give Tom another smashing round, and he well, he wouldn't 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 then 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

dollars diamonds on him, by gracious. But it made a stir. Everybody went shouting, witch is him? Witch is him? Pint 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, no, that's a lie, your honor, it ain't fire. I have plenty bad enough without that. I'd done the other things. Brace he put me up to it and persuaded me and promised he'd make me rich someday, and I'd done it, and I'm sorry i'd done it, and I wished I hadn't, but I ain't stole no diamonds, and I ain't got no di'monds. I wished 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 diamonds, 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 diamonds 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 his Finally the if he give it up, and everybody looked disappointed, and Jubiter says, they are now what I tell you, And the judge says, it appears you were mistaken this time, my bar Then Tom took

an attitude and led 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 noted it. Then he says, will somebody be good enough to lend me a little small screwdriver? There was one in your brother's handbag that you smooched, 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 boot on this chair, and he kneeled down and begun to unscrew the heel plate, everybody watching. And when he got that big diamond out of that boot, heel and held it up and let it flash and blaze and squirt sunlight every which way. 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 diamond, he looked sorrier than ever land. He was thinking how he would have skipped out and been rich and independent in a foreign country if he'd only had the luck to guess what the screwdriver was in the carpet bag. For well, it was the most exciting time to take it all round, and Tom got cords

of glory. The judge took the diamonds 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 sincereous thanks of

this community. He 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's been a brass band to bust out some music, then it would have been just the perfectest thing I

ever see. And Tom Sawry he said the same. Then the sheriff he now braced Dunlap in his crowd, and by and by next month the judge had them up for trial and jailed a 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 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'd give me the jim jambs and the fan TODs and caked up my 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 and his skull as he ever was, which ain't no flattery, I reckon.

And so the whole family was as happy as birds, and nobody could be gratefuller 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. End of Chapter eleven and end of Tom Sawyer Detective