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Mark Twain. Tom Sawyer, Detective.
Марк Твен. Том Сойер - сыщик.
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Date: 18.09.2002
[Footnote: Strange as the incidents of this story are, they are not
inventions, but facts-even to the public confession of the accused. I take
them from an old-time Swedish criminal trial, change the actors, and
transfer the scenes to America. I have added some details, but only a
couple of them are important ones. - M. 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 Arkansaw. 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, he 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 sets there and looks away off on the big
Mississippi down there a-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 warn'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 traipsing off
somers wasting time; so we was pretty blue. We was setting 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 Arkansaw-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 set 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 set there
and studied and studied till I was that distressed I didn't know what to
do; then he says, very ca'm, and I could a 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 a half a minute, and
this gave me a chance to nudge Tom and whisper:
"Ain't you got any sense? Sp'iling such a noble chance as this and
throwing it away?"
But he warn't disturbed. He mumbled back:
"Huck Finn, do you 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 sicknesses and
dangers and objections, and first you know she'd take it all back. You
lemme alone; I reckon I know how to work her."
Now I never would 'a' 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 let
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's 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
set 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 wanting 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 around 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 as-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've 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 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 ruther 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 t'other twin like?"
"Just exactly like Jubiter-so they say; used to was, anyway, but he
hain't been seen for seven years. He got to robbing 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 any more."
"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 Jubiter 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 says; 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 hain'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?"
WE had powerful good luck; because we got a chance in a stern-wheeler
from away North which was bound for one of them bayous 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
Arkansaw without having to change steamboats at St. Louis; not so very
much short of a thousand miles at one pull.
A pretty lonesome boat; there warn'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 warn'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 to ourn, because the meals was always toted in there by
the waiters. By and by we asked about it-Tom did and the waiter said it
was a man, but he didn't look sick.
"Well, but AIN'T he sick?"
"I don't know; maybe he is, but 'pears to me he's just letting on."
"What makes you think that?"
"Because if he was sick he would pull his clothes off SOME time 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. If you'd lay out a
mystery and a pie before me and him, you wouldn't have to say take your
choice; it was a thing that would regulate itself. Because in my nature I
have 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 Elexandria, up on the Iowa line."
"What do you reckon he's a-playing?"
"I hain'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 a crack and sees who it is."
"By jimminy, it's int'resting! 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, indeedy! He's always behind it. He would block that game."
Tom studied over it, and then he says:
"Looky here. You lend me your apern and let me take him his breakfast
in the morning. I'll give you a quarter."
The boy was plenty willing enough, if the head steward wouldn't mind.
Tom says that's all right, he reckoned he could fix it with the head
steward; and he done it. He fixed it so as we could both go in with aperns
on and toting vittles.
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 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 aperns and got a couple of trays of
truck, and Tom he knocked on the door. The man opened it a crack, and then
he let us in and shut it quick. By Jackson, when we got a sight of him, we
'most dropped the trays! and Tom says:
"Why, Jubiter Dunlap, 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 et his breakfast. And he says:
"But I aint Jubiter 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 says:
"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 spit'n
image of Jubiter."
"Well, I'm Jake. But looky here, how do you come to know us Dunlaps?"
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
give 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 warn'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.
"Land!" he says, "it's like old times to hear all this tittle-tattle,
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 a mention,
once in a long time."
"The nation!" he says, surprised; "why is that?"
"Because they think you are dead long ago."
"No! Are you 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 keep mum-swear you'll never,
never tell on me. Oh, boys, be good to a poor devil that's being hunted
day and night, and dasn'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 it if he'd 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 hand-bag 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 naturalest-looking long brown whiskers and mustashes you
ever see. His own mother wouldn't 'a' knowed 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 cropped close to my head before I get there;
then 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 awhile, then he says:
"Well, of course me and Huck 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'd a 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. Presently 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 wiped the
sweat off of his face.
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 got 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 talking 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 warn't satisfied; we warn'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 had got away, but I never believed it. Go on."
Presently when Tom was describing another mangy, rough deck passenger,
he give that shiver again and says:
"That's him!-that's the other one. If it would 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 forrard,
and they take that chance to bribe somebody to keep watch on me-porter or
boots or somebody. If I was to slip ashore 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 St. Louis.
What we was after was a couple of noble big di'monds 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 di'monds 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 THEM 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 julery people know they've been
robbed yet. But it wouldn't be good sense to stay around St. Louis, of
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 done up the di'monds in a 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
down town, 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?"
"Cert'nly."
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 intrust, 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 di'monds amongst
three. If there'd been three-But never mind about that, there warn't
three. I loafed along the back streets 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 countrified suit of clothes, and
fetched them along back in a hand-bag; 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 in the world. It was only just a screwdriver-just a
wee little bit of a screwdriver."
"Well, I declare! What did 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 di'monds 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 di'monds betwixt three men. First we had supper, and then
tramped up and down the deck together smoking till most midnight; then we
went and set down in my stateroom and locked the doors and looked in the
piece of paper to see if the di'monds 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 di'monds and then towards the outside door, and I
understood. I reached and got the paper, and then we stood up and waited
perfectly still; Bud never stirred; I turned the key of the outside door
very soft and slow, then turned the knob the same way, and we went
tiptoeing out onto 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 in 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 sky-light. 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!' Hal 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 a-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 di'monds; and DO for him, too, if it warn'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 find-"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's hid the di'monds! You
look at this boot heel, now. See, it's bottomed 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 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 di'mond 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'nheads. He set there and
took his own time to unscrew his heelplates and cut out his plugs and
stick in the di'monds and screw on his plates again . He allowed we would
steal the bogus swag and wait all night for him to come up and get
drownded, and by George it's just what we done! I think it was powerful
smart."
"You bet your life it was!" says Tom, just full of admiration.
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 the lead with a tallow candle. We had up a lot of
whisky, 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 better pull our boots off,
and his'n too, and not make any noise, then we could pull him and haul him
around and ransack him without any trouble. So we done it. I set my boots
and Bud's side by side, where they'd be handy. Then we stripped him and
searched his seams and his pockets and his socks and the inside of his
boots, and everything, and searched his bundle. Never found any di'monds.
We found the screwdriver, and Hal says, "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 homestretch, 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 they're keeping."
"He said that's the ticket, and with him looking straight at me I slid
myself into Bud's 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 mile 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 something up! Fifty
minutes-the truth's a-busting on him now! he is reckoning I found the
di'monds 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 as 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; then he rode on again. But I didn't
feel gay any more. I says to myself I've botched my chances by that; I
surely have, if he meets up with Hal Clayton.
"Well, about three in the morning I fetched Elexandria 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 set there and
played with my di'monds 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 tale 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 gait 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-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 one's 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 afeard; and so by and by he got to
feeling kind of comfortable again, and unscrewed his heelplates and held
up his di'monds 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 a handed the di'monds to them 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 laid a good while, once in
the night; but it wasn't dark enough, and he was afeard 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 begun to take in wood. Pretty soon the rain come
a-drenching down, and the wind blowed hard. Of course every boat-hand
fixed a gunny sack 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 forrard 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
grateful and splendid. But it wasn't for long. Somebody told, I reckon;
for in about eight or ten minutes them two pals come tearing forrard 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 brother's 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 tobacker field on the river
road, a lonesome place.
We set 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 dark, and take the boots. So we was pretty sorrowful.
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 Brace's 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 tobacker 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, two 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 of
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 come
a-swelling up out of the ground, now, powerful big and round and bright,
behind a comb of trees, like a face looking through prison bars, and the
black shadders and white places begun to creep around, and it was
miserable quiet and still and night-breezy and 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 a-coming 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 coming down
the road-coming in the shadder 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're 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 countrified Sunday clothes-plaid
breeches, green and black-"
"Cotton velvet westcot, fire-red and yaller squares-"
"Leather straps to the bottoms of the breeches legs and one of them
hanging unbottoned-"
"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
sitff-brim stove-pipe, 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?"
"Sho! 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, yourself, that its clothes was turned
to ghost-stuff. Well, then, what's to hender its bag from turning, too? Of
course it done it."
That was reasonable. I couldn't find no fault with it. Bill Withers and
his brother Jack come along by, talking, and Jack says:
"What do you reckon he was toting?"
"I dunno; but it was pretty heavy."
"Yes, all he could lug. Nigger stealing corn from old Parson 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 of 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 and never done anything to him.
We heard some more voices mumbling along towards us and getting louder,
and sometimes a cackle of a laugh. It was Lem Beebe and Jim Lane. Jim Lane
says:
"Who?-Jubiter Dunlap?"
"Yes."
"Oh, I don't know. I reckon so. I seen him spading up some ground along
about an hour ago, just before sundown-him and the parson. Said he guessed
he wouldn't go to-night, but we could 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 better jump out and
tag along after them, because they was going our way and it wouldn't be
comfortable to run across the ghost all by ourselves. So we done it, and
got home all right.
That night was the second of September-a Saturday. I sha'n't ever
forget it. You'll see why, pretty soon .
WE tramped along behind Jim and Lem till we come to the back stile
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 howdy, and there was
the lights of the house, too; so we warn't afeard any more, and was going
to climb over, but Tom says:
"Hold on; set 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 in the sycamores,
and all about them rapscallions that done it, and about the di'monds
they've smouched 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 anybody 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 going to suffer none for lack of paint,"
I says, "when you start in to scollop the facts."
"Well, now," he says, perfectly ca'm, "what would you say if I was to
tell you I ain't going to start in 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, it 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 DI'MONDS."
"Jimminy! What makes you think that?"
"I don't only think it, I know it. Didn't the breeches and goggles and
whiskers and hand-bag and every blessed thing turn to ghost-stuff?
Everything it had on turned, didn't it? It shows that the reason its boots
turned too was because it still had them on after it started to go
ha'nting around, and if that ain't proof that them blatherskites 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 never see
such a head.
"Tom Sawyer," I says, "I'll say it again as I've said it a many a time
before: I ain't fitten to black your boots. But that's all right-that's
neither here nor there. God Almighty made us all, and some He gives eyes
that's blind, and some He gives eyes that can see, and I reckon it ain't
none of our lookout what He done it for; it's all right, or He'd 'a' fixed
it some other way. Go on-I see plenty plain enough, now, that them thieves
didn't get way with the di'monds. Why didn't they, do you reckon?"
"Because they got chased away by them other two men before they could
pull the boots off of the corpse."
"That's so! I see it now. But looky here, Tom, why ain't we to go and
tell about it?"