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in his very grasp, so to speak, and Tom's fingers would be twitching to
begin, Joe's pin would deftly head him off, and keep possession. At last
Tom could stand it no longer. The temptation was too strong. So he reached
out and lent a hand with his pin. Joe was angry in a moment. Said he:
"Tom, you let him alone."
"I only just want to stir him up a little, Joe."
"No, sir, it ain't fair; you just let him alone."
"Blame it, I ain't going to stir him much."
"Let him alone, I tell you."
"I won't!"
"You shall-he's on my side of the line."
"Look here, Joe Harper, whose is that tick?"
"I don't care whose tick he is-he's on my side of the line, and you
sha'n't touch him."
"Well, I'll just bet I will, though. He's my tick and I'll do what I
blame please with him, or die!"
A tremendous whack came down on Tom's shoulders, and its duplicate on
Joe's; and for the space of two minutes the dust continued to fly from the
two jackets and the whole school to enjoy it. The boys had been too
absorbed to notice the hush that had stolen upon the school awhile before
when the master came tiptoeing down the room and stood over them. He had
contemplated a good part of the performance before he contributed his bit
of variety to it.
When school broke up at noon, Tom flew to Becky Thatcher, and whispered
in her ear:
"Put on your bonnet and let on you're going home; and when you get to
the corner, give the rest of 'em the slip, and turn down through the lane
and come back. I'll go the other way and come it over 'em the same way."
So the one went off with one group of scholars, and the other with
another. In a little while the two met at the botTom of the lane, and when
they reached the school they had it all to themselves. Then they sat
together, with a slate before them, and Tom gave Becky the pencil and held
her hand in his, guiding it, and so created another surprising house. When
the interest in art began to wane, the two fell to talking. Tom was
swimming in bliss. He said:
"Do you love rats?"
"No! I hate them!"
"Well, I do, too-LIVE ones. But I mean dead ones, to swing round your
head with a string."
"No, I don't care for rats much, anyway. What I like is chewing-gum."
"Oh, I should say so! I wish I had some now."
"Do you? I've got some. I'll let you chew it awhile, but you must give
it back to me."
That was agreeable, so they chewed it turn about, and dangled their
legs against the bench in excess of contentment.
"Was you ever at a circus?" said Tom.
"Yes, and my pa's going to take me again some time, if I'm good."
"I been to the circus three or four times-lots of times. Church ain't
shucks to a circus. There's things going on at a circus all the time. I'm
going to be a clown in a circus when I grow up."
"Oh, are you! That will be nice. They're so lovely, all spotted up."
"Yes, that's so. And they get slathers of money-most a dollar a day,
Ben Rogers says. Say, Becky, was you ever engaged?"
"What's that?"
"Why, engaged to be married."
"No."
"Would you like to?"
"I reckon so. I don't know. What is it like?"
"Like? Why it ain't like anything. You only just tell a boy you won't
ever have anybody but him, ever ever ever, and then you kiss and that's
all. Anybody can do it."
"Kiss? What do you kiss for?"
"Why, that, you know, is to-well, they always do that."
"Everybody?"
"Why, yes, everybody that's in love with each other. Do you remember
what I wrote on the slate?"
"Ye-yes."
"What was it?"
"I sha'n't tell you."
"Shall I tell YOU?"
"Ye-yes-but some other time."
"No, now."
"No, not now-to-morrow."
"Oh, no, NOW. Please, Becky-I'll whisper it, I'll whisper it ever so
easy."
Becky hesitating, Tom took silence for consent, and passed his arm
about her waist and whispered the tale ever so softly, with his mouth
close to her ear. And then he added:
"Now you whisper it to me-just the same."
She resisted, for a while, and then said:
"You turn your face away so you can't see, and then I will. But you
mustn't ever tell anybody-WILL you, Tom? Now you won't, WILL you?"
"No, indeed, indeed I won't. Now, Becky."
He turned his face away. She bent timidly around till her breath
stirred his curls and whispered, "I-love-you!"
Then she sprang away and ran around and around the desks and benches,
with Tom after her, and took refuge in a corner at last, with her little
white apron to her face. Tom clasped her about her neck and pleaded:
"Now, Becky, it's all done-all over but the kiss. Don't you be afraid
of that-it ain't anything at all. Please, Becky." And he tugged at her
apron and the hands.
By and by she gave up, and let her hands drop; her face, all glowing
with the struggle, came up and submitted. Tom kissed the red lips and
said:
"Now it's all done, Becky. And always after this, you know, you ain't
ever to love anybody but me, and you ain't ever to marry anybody but me,
ever never and forever. Will you?"
"No, I'll never love anybody but you, Tom, and I'll never marry anybody
but you-and you ain't to ever marry anybody but me, either."
"Certainly. Of course. That's PART of it. And always coming to school
or when we're going home, you're to walk with me, when there ain't anybody
looking-and you choose me and I choose you at parties, because that's the
way you do when you're engaged."
"It's so nice. I never heard of it before."
"Oh, it's ever so gay! Why, me and Amy Lawrence-"
The big eyes told Tom his blunder and he stopped, confused.
"Oh, Tom! Then I ain't the first you've ever been engaged to!"
The child began to cry. Tom said:
"Oh, don't cry, Becky, I don't care for her any more."
"Yes, you do, Tom-you know you do."
Tom tried to put his arm about her neck, but she pushed him away and
turned her face to the wall, and went on crying. Tom tried again, with
soothing words in his mouth, and was repulsed again. Then his pride was
up, and he strode away and went outside. He stood about, restless and
uneasy, for a while, glancing at the door, every now and then, hoping she
would repent and come to find him. But she did not. Then he began to feel
badly and fear that he was in the wrong. It was a hard struggle with him
to make new advances, now, but he nerved himself to it and entered. She
was still standing back there in the corner, sobbing, with her face to the
wall. Tom's heart smote him. He went to her and stood a moment, not
knowing exactly how to proceed. Then he said hesitatingly:
"Becky, I-I don't care for anybody but you."
No reply-but sobs.
"Becky"-pleadingly. "Becky, won't you say something?"
More sobs.
Tom got out his chiefest jewel, a brass knob from the top of an
andiron, and passed it around her so that she could see it, and said:
"Please, Becky, won't you take it?"
She struck it to the floor. Then Tom marched out of the house and over
the hills and far away, to return to school no more that day. Presently
Becky began to suspect. She ran to the door; he was not in sight; she flew
around to the play-yard; he was not there. Then she called:
"Tom! Come back, Tom!"
She listened intently, but there was no answer. She had no companions
but silence and loneliness. So she sat down to cry again and upbraid
herself; and by this time the scholars began to gather again, and she had
to hide her griefs and still her broken heart and take up the cross of a
long, dreary, aching afternoon, with none among the strangers about her to
exchange sorrows with.
Tom dodged hither and thither through lanes until he was well out of
the track of returning scholars, and then fell into a moody jog. He
crossed a small "branch" two or three times, because of a prevailing
juvenile superstition that to cross water baffled pursuit. Half an hour
later he was disappearing behind the Douglas mansion on the summit of
Cardiff Hill, and the school-house was hardly distinguishable away off in
the valley behind him. He entered a dense wood, picked his pathless way to
the centre of it, and sat down on a mossy spot under a spreading oak.
There was not even a zephyr stirring; the dead noonday heat had even
stilled the songs of the birds; nature lay in a trance that was broken by
no sound but the occasional far-off hammering of a woodpecker, and this
seemed to render the pervading silence and sense of loneliness the more
profound. The boy's soul was steeped in melancholy; his feelings were in
happy accord with his surroundings. He sat long with his elbows on his
knees and his chin in his hands, meditating. It seemed to him that life
was but a trouble, at best, and he more than half envied Jimmy Hodges, so
lately released; it must be very peaceful, he thought, to lie and slumber
and dream forever and ever, with the wind whispering through the trees and
caressing the grass and the flowers over the grave, and nothing to bother
and grieve about, ever any more. If he only had a clean Sunday-school
record he could be willing to go, and be done with it all. Now as to this
girl. What had he done? Nothing. He had meant the best in the world, and
been treated like a dog-like a very dog. She would be sorry some day-maybe
when it was too late. Ah, if he could only die TEMPORARILY!
But the elastic heart of youth cannot be compressed into one
constrained shape long at a time. Tom presently began to drift insensibly
back into the concerns of this life again. What if he turned his back,
now, and disappeared mysteriously? What if he went away-ever so far away,
into unknown countries beyond the seas-and never came back any more! How
would she feel then! The idea of being a clown recurred to him now, only
to fill him with disgust. For frivolity and jokes and spotted tights were
an offense, when they intruded themselves upon a spirit that was exalted
into the vague august realm of the romantic. No, he would be a soldier,
and return after long years, all war-worn and illustrious. No-better
still, he would join the Indians, and hunt buffaloes and go on the warpath
in the mountain ranges and the trackless great plains of the Far West, and
away in the future come back a great chief, bristling with feathers,
hideous with paint, and prance into Sundayschool, some drowsy summer
morning, with a bloodcurdling war-whoop, and sear the eyeballs of all his
companions with unappeasable envy. But no, there was something gaudier
even than this. He would be a pirate! That was it! NOW his future lay
plain before him, and glowing with unimaginable splendor. How his name
would fill the world, and make people shudder! How gloriously he would go
plowing the dancing seas, in his long, low, black-hulled racer, the Spirit
of the Storm, with his grisly flag flying at the fore! And at the zenith
of his fame, how he would suddenly appear at the old village and stalk
into church, brown and weather-beaten, in his black velvet doublet and
trunks, his great jack-boots, his crimson sash, his belt bristling with
horse-pistols, his crime-rusted cutlass at his side, his slouch hat with
waving plumes, his black flag unfurled, with the skull and crossbones on
it, and hear with swelling ecstasy the whisperings, "It's Tom Sawyer the
Pirate!-the Black Avenger of the Spanish Main!"
Yes, it was settled; his career was determined. He would run away from
home and enter upon it. He would start the very next morning. Therefore he
must now begin to get ready. He would collect his resources together. He
went to a rotten log near at hand and began to dig under one end of it
with his Barlow knife. He soon struck wood that sounded hollow. He put his
hand there and uttered this incantation impressively:
"What hasn't come here, come! What's here, stay here!"
Then he scraped away the dirt, and exposed a pine shingle. He took it
up and disclosed a shapely little treasure-house whose botTom and sides
were of shingles. In it lay a marble. Tom's astonishment was boundless! He
scratched his head with a perplexed air, and said:
"Well, that beats anything!"
Then he tossed the marble away pettishly, and stood cogitating. The
truth was, that a superstition of his had failed, here, which he and all
his comrades had always looked upon as infallible. If you buried a marble
with certain necessary incantations, and left it alone a fortnight, and
then opened the place with the incantation he had just used, you would
find that all the marbles you had ever lost had gathered themselves
together there, meantime, no matter how widely they had been separated.
But now, this thing had actually and unquestionably failed. Tom's whole
structure of faith was shaken to its foundations. He had many a time heard
of this thing succeeding but never of its failing before. It did not occur
to him that he had tried it several times before, himself, but could never
find the hiding-places afterward. He puzzled over the matter some time,
and finally decided that some witch had interfered and broken the charm.
He thought he would satisfy himself on that point; so he searched around
till he found a small sandy spot with a little funnel-shaped depression in
it. He laid himself down and put his mouth close to this depression and
called-
"Doodle-bug, doodle-bug, tell me what I want to know! Doodle-bug,
doodle-bug, tell me what I want to know!"
The sand began to work, and presently a small black bug appeared for a
second and then darted under again in a fright.
"He dasn't tell! So it WAS a witch that done it. I just knowed it."
He well knew the futility of trying to contend against witches, so he
gave up discouraged. But it occurred to him that he might as well have the
marble he had just thrown away, and therefore he went and made a patient
search for it. But he could not find it. Now he went back to his
treasure-house and carefully placed himself just as he had been standing
when he tossed the marble away; then he took another marble from his
pocket and tossed it in the same way, saying:
"Brother, go find your brother!"
He watched where it stopped, and went there and looked. But it must
have fallen short or gone too far; so he tried twice more. The last
repetition was successful. The two marbles lay within a foot of each
other.
Just here the blast of a toy tin trumpet came faintly down the green
aisles of the forest. Tom flung off his jacket and trousers, turned a
suspender into a belt, raked away some brush behind the rotten log,
disclosing a rude bow and arrow, a lath sword and a tin trumpet, and in a
moment had seized these things and bounded away, barelegged, with
fluttering shirt. He presently halted under a great elm, blew an answering
blast, and then began to tiptoe and look warily out, this way and that. He
said cautiously-to an imaginary company:
"Hold, my merry men! Keep hid till I blow."
Now appeared Joe Harper, as airily clad and elaborately armed as Tom.
Tom called:
"Hold! Who comes here into Sherwood Forest without my pass?"
"Guy of Guisborne wants no man's pass. Who art thou that-that-"
"Dares to hold such language," said Tom, prompting-for they talked "by
the book," from memory.
"Who art thou that dares to hold such language?"
"I, indeed! I am Robin Hood, as thy caitiff carcase soon shall know."
"Then art thou indeed that famous outlaw? Right gladly will I dispute
with thee the passes of the merry wood. Have at thee!"
They took their lath swords, dumped their other traps on the ground,
struck a fencing attitude, foot to foot, and began a grave, careful
combat, "two up and two down." Presently Tom said:
"Now, if you've got the hang, go it lively!"
So they "went it lively," panting and perspiring with the work. By and
by Tom shouted:
"Fall! fall! Why don't you fall?"
"I sha'n't! Why don't you fall yourself? You're getting the worst of
it."
"Why, that ain't anything. I can't fall; that ain't the way it is in
the book. The book says, 'Then with one back-handed stroke he slew poor
Guy of Guisborne.' You're to turn around and let me hit you in the back."
There was no getting around the authorities, so Joe turned, received
the whack and fell.
"Now," said Joe, getting up, "you got to let me kill YOU. That's fair."
"Why, I can't do that, it ain't in the book."
"Well, it's blamed mean-that's all."
"Well, say, Joe, you can be Friar Tuck or Much the miller's son, and
lam me with a quarter-staff; or I'll be the Sheriff of Nottingham and you
be Robin Hood a little while and kill me."
This was satisfactory, and so these adventures were carried out. Then
Tom became Robin Hood again, and was allowed by the treacherous nun to
bleed his strength away through his neglected wound. And at last Joe,
representing a whole tribe of weeping outlaws, dragged him sadly forth,
gave his bow into his feeble hands, and Tom said, "Where this arrow falls,
there bury poor Robin Hood under the greenwood tree." Then he shot the
arrow and fell back and would have died, but he lit on a nettle and sprang
up too gaily for a corpse.
The boys dressed themselves, hid their accoutrements, and went off
grieving that there were no outlaws any more, and wondering what modern
civilization could claim to have done to compensate for their loss. They
said they would rather be outlaws a year in Sherwood Forest than President
of the United States forever.
At half-past nine, that night, Tom and Sid were sent to bed, as usual.
They said their prayers, and Sid was soon asleep. Tom lay awake and
waited, in restless impatience. When it seemed to him that it must be
nearly daylight, he heard the clock strike ten! This was despair. He would
have tossed and fidgeted, as his nerves demanded, but he was afraid he
might wake Sid. So he lay still, and stared up into the dark. Everything
was dismally still. By and by, out of the stillness, little, scarcely
preceptible noises began to emphasize themselves. The ticking of the clock
began to bring itself into notice. Old beams began to crack mysteriously.
The stairs creaked faintly. Evidently spirits were abroad. A measured,
muffled snore issued from Aunt Polly's chamber. And now the tiresome
chirping of a cricket that no human ingenuity could locate, began. Next
the ghastly ticking of a deathwatch in the wall at the bed's head made Tom
shudder-it meant that somebody's days were numbered. Then the howl of a
far-off dog rose on the night air, and was answered by a fainter howl from
a remoter distance. Tom was in an agony. At last he was satisfied that
time had ceased and eternity begun; he began to doze, in spite of himself;
the clock chimed eleven, but he did not hear it. And then there came,
mingling with his half-formed dreams, a most melancholy caterwauling. The
raising of a neighboring window disturbed him. A cry of "Scat! you devil!"
and the crash of an empty bottle against the back of his aunt's woodshed
brought him wide awake, and a single minute later he was dressed and out
of the window and creeping along the roof of the "ell" on all fours. He
"meow'd" with caution once or twice, as he went; then jumped to the roof
of the woodshed and thence to the ground. Huckleberry Finn was there, with
his dead cat. The boys moved off and disappeared in the gloom. At the end
of half an hour they were wading through the tall grass of the graveyard.
It was a graveyard of the old-fashioned Western kind. It was on a hill,
about a mile and a half from the village. It had a crazy board fence
around it, which leaned inward in places, and outward the rest of the
time, but stood upright nowhere. Grass and weeds grew rank over the whole
cemetery. All the old graves were sunken in, there was not a Tombstone on
the place; round-topped, worm-eaten boards staggered over the graves,
leaning for support and finding none. "Sacred to the memory of" So-and-So
had been painted on them once, but it could no longer have been read, on
the most of them, now, even if there had been light.
A faint wind moaned through the trees, and Tom feared it might be the
spirits of the dead, complaining at being disturbed. The boys talked
little, and only under their breath, for the time and the place and the
pervading solemnity and silence oppressed their spirits. They found the
sharp new heap they were seeking, and ensconced themselves within the
protection of three great elms that grew in a bunch within a few feet of
the grave.
Then they waited in silence for what seemed a long time. The hooting of
a distant owl was all the sound that troubled the dead stillness. Tom's
reflections grew oppressive. He must force some talk. So he said in a
whisper:
"Hucky, do you believe the dead people like it for us to be here?"
Huckleberry whispered:
"I wisht I knowed. It's awful solemn like, AIN'T it?"
"I bet it is."
There was a considerable pause, while the boys canvassed this matter
inwardly. Then Tom whispered:
"Say, Hucky-do you reckon Hoss Williams hears us talking?"
"O' course he does. Least his sperrit does."
Tom, after a pause:
"I wish I'd said Mister Williams. But I never meant any harm. Everybody
calls him Hoss."
"A body can't be too partic'lar how they talk 'bout these-yer dead
people, Tom."
This was a damper, and conversation died again.
Presently Tom seized his comrade's arm and said:
"Sh!"
"What is it, Tom?" And the two clung together with beating hearts.
"Sh! There 'tis again! Didn't you hear it?"
"I-"
"There! Now you hear it."
"Lord, Tom, they're coming! They're coming, sure. What'll we do?"
"I dono. Think they'll see us?"
"Oh, Tom, they can see in the dark, same as cats. I wisht I hadn't
come."
"Oh, don't be afeard. I don't believe they'll bother us. We ain't doing
any harm. If we keep perfectly still, maybe they won't notice us at all."
"I'll try to, Tom, but, Lord, I'm all of a shiver."
"Listen!"
The boys bent their heads together and scarcely breathed. A muffled
sound of voices floated up from the far end of the graveyard.
"Look! See there!" whispered Tom. "What is it?"
"It's devil-fire. Oh, Tom, this is awful."
Some vague figures approached through the gloom, swinging an
old-fashioned tin lantern that freckled the ground with innumerable little
spangles of light. Presently Huckleberry whispered with a shudder:
"It's the devils sure enough. Three of 'em! Lordy, Tom, we're goners!
Can you pray?"
"I'll try, but don't you be afeard. They ain't going to hurt us. 'Now I
lay me down to sleep, I-'"
"Sh!"
"What is it, Huck?"
"They're HUMANS! One of 'em is, anyway. One of 'em's old Muff Potter's
voice."
"No-'tain't so, is it?"
"I bet I know it. Don't you stir nor budge. He ain't sharp enough to
notice us. Drunk, the same as usual, likely-blamed old rip!"
"All right, I'll keep still. Now they're stuck. Can't find it. Here
they come again. Now they're hot. Cold again. Hot again. Red hot! They're
p'inted right, this time. Say, Huck, I know another o' them voices; it's
Injun Joe."
"That's so-that murderin' half-breed! I'd druther they was devils a
dern sight. What kin they be up to?"
The whisper died wholly out, now, for the three men had reached the
grave and stood within a few feet of the boys' hiding-place.
"Here it is," said the third voice; and the owner of it held the
lantern up and revealed the face of young Doctor Robinson.
Potter and Injun Joe were carrying a handbarrow with a rope and a
couple of shovels on it. They cast down their load and began to open the
grave. The doctor put the lantern at the head of the grave and came and
sat down with his back against one of the elm trees. He was so close the
boys could have touched him.
"Hurry, men!" he said, in a low voice; "the moon might come out at any
moment."
They growled a response and went on digging. For some time there was no
noise but the grating sound of the spades discharging their freight of
mould and gravel. It was very monotonous. Finally a spade struck upon the
coffin with a dull woody accent, and within another minute or two the men
had hoisted it out on the ground. They pried off the lid with their
shovels, got out the body and dumped it rudely on the ground. The moon
drifted from behind the clouds and exposed the pallid face. The barrow was
got ready and the corpse placed on it, covered with a blanket, and bound
to its place with the rope. Potter took out a large spring-knife and cut
off the dangling end of the rope and then said:
"Now the cussed thing's ready, Sawbones, and you'll just out with
another five, or here she stays."
"That's the talk!" said Injun Joe.
"Look here, what does this mean?" said the doctor. "You required your
pay in advance, and I've paid you."
"Yes, and you done more than that," said Injun Joe, approaching the
doctor, who was now standing. "Five years ago you drove me away from your
father's kitchen one night, when I come to ask for something to eat, and
you said I warn't there for any good; and when I swore I'd get even with
you if it took a hundred years, your father had me jailed for a vagrant.
Did you think I'd forget? The Injun blood ain't in me for nothing. And now
I've GOT you, and you got to SETTLE, you know!"
He was threatening the doctor, with his fist in his face, by this time.
The doctor struck out suddenly and stretched the ruffian on the ground.
Potter dropped his knife, and exclaimed:
"Here, now, don't you hit my pard!" and the next moment he had grappled
with the doctor and the two were struggling with might and main, trampling
the grass and tearing the ground with their heels. Injun Joe sprang to his
feet, his eyes flaming with passion, snatched up Potter's knife, and went
creeping, catlike and stooping, round and round about the combatants,
seeking an opportunity. All at once the doctor flung himself free, seized
the heavy headboard of Williams' grave and felled Potter to the earth with
it-and in the same instant the half-breed saw his chance and drove the
knife to the hilt in the young man's breast. He reeled and fell partly
upon Potter, flooding him with his blood, and in the same moment the
clouds blotted out the dreadful spectacle and the two frightened boys went
speeding away in the dark.
Presently, when the moon emerged again, Injun Joe was standing over the
two forms, contemplating them. The doctor murmured inarticulately, gave a
long gasp or two and was still. The half-breed muttered:
"THAT score is settled-damn you."
Then he robbed the body. After which he put the fatal knife in Potter's
open right hand, and sat down on the dismantled coffin. Three-four-five
minutes passed, and then Potter began to stir and moan. His hand closed
upon the knife; he raised it, glanced at it, and let it fall, with a
shudder. Then he sat up, pushing the body from him, and gazed at it, and
then around him, confusedly. His eyes met Joe's.
"Lord, how is this, Joe?" he said.
"It's a dirty business," said Joe, without moving.
"What did you do it for?"
"I! I never done it!"
"Look here! That kind of talk won't wash."
Potter trembled and grew white.
"I thought I'd got sober. I'd no business to drink to-night. But it's
in my head yet-worse'n when we started here. I'm all in a muddle; can't
recollect anything of it, hardly. Tell me, Joe-HONEST, now, old feller-did
I do it? Joe, I never meant to-'pon my soul and honor, I never meant to,
Joe. Tell me how it was, Joe. Oh, it's awful-and him so young and
promising."
"Why, you two was scuffling, and he fetched you one with the headboard
and you fell flat; and then up you come, all reeling and staggering like,
and snatched the knife and jammed it into him, just as he fetched you
another awful clip-and here you've laid, as dead as a wedge til now."
"Oh, I didn't know what I was a-doing. I wish I may die this minute if
I did. It was all on account of the whiskey and the excitement, I reckon.
I never used a weepon in my life before, Joe. I've fought, but never with
weepons. They'll all say that. Joe, don't tell! Say you won't tell,
Joe-that's a good feller. I always liked you, Joe, and stood up for you,
too. Don't you remember? You WON'T tell, WILL you, Joe?" And the poor
creature dropped on his knees before the stolid murderer, and clasped his
appealing hands.
"No, you've always been fair and square with me, Muff Potter, and I
won't go back on you. There, now, that's as fair as a man can say."
"Oh, Joe, you're an angel. I'll bless you for this the longest day I
live." And Potter began to cry.
"Come, now, that's enough of that. This ain't any time for blubbering.
You be off yonder way and I'll go this. Move, now, and don't leave any
tracks behind you."
Potter started on a trot that quickly increased to a run. The
half-breed stood looking after him. He muttered:
"If he's as much stunned with the lick and fuddled with the rum as he
had the look of being, he won't think of the knife till he's gone so far
he'll be afraid to come back after it to such a place by
himself-chicken-heart!"
Two or three minutes later the murdered man, the blanketed corpse, the
lidless coffin, and the open grave were under no inspection but the
moon's. The stillness was complete again, too.
The two boys flew on and on, toward the village, speechless with
horror. They glanced backward over their shoulders from time to time,
apprehensively, as if they feared they might be followed. Every stump that
started up in their path seemed a man and an enemy, and made them catch
their breath; and as they sped by some outlying cottages that lay near the
village, the barking of the aroused watch-dogs seemed to give wings to
their feet.
"If we can only get to the old tannery before we break down!" whispered
Tom, in short catches between breaths. "I can't stand it much longer."
Huckleberry's hard pantings were his only reply, and the boys fixed
their eyes on the goal of their hopes and bent to their work to win it.
They gained steadily on it, and at last, breast to breast, they burst
through the open door and fell grateful and exhausted in the sheltering
shadows beyond. By and by their pulses slowed down, and Tom whispered:
"Huckleberry, what do you reckon'll come of this?"
"If Doctor Robinson dies, I reckon hanging'll come of it."
"Do you though?"
"Why, I KNOW it, Tom."
Tom thought a while, then he said:
"Who'll tell? We?"
"What are you talking about? S'pose something happened and Injun Joe
DIDN'T hang? Why, he'd kill us some time or other, just as dead sure as
we're a laying here."
"That's just what I was thinking to myself, Huck."
"If anybody tells, let Muff Potter do it, if he's fool enough. He's
generally drunk enough."
Tom said nothing-went on thinking. Presently he whispered:
"Huck, Muff Potter don't know it. How can he tell?"
"What's the reason he don't know it?"
"Because he'd just got that whack when Injun Joe done it. D'you reckon
he could see anything? D'you reckon he knowed anything?"
"By hokey, that's so, Tom!"
"And besides, look-a-here-maybe that whack done for HIM!"
"No, 'taint likely, Tom. He had liquor in him; I could see that; and
besides, he always has. Well, when pap's full, you might take and belt him
over the head with a church and you couldn't phase him. He says so, his
own self. So it's the same with Muff Potter, of course. But if a man was
dead sober, I reckon maybe that whack might fetch him; I dono."
After another reflective silence, Tom said:
"Hucky, you sure you can keep mum?"
"Tom, we GOT to keep mum. You know that. That Injun devil wouldn't make
any more of drownding us than a couple of cats, if we was to squeak 'bout
this and they didn't hang him. Now, look-a-here, Tom, less take and swear
to one another-that's what we got to do-swear to keep mum."
"I'm agreed. It's the best thing. Would you just hold hands and swear
that we-"
"Oh no, that wouldn't do for this. That's good enough for little
rubbishy common things-specially with gals, cuz THEY go back on you
anyway, and blab if they get in a huff-but there orter be writing 'bout a
big thing like this. And blood."
Tom's whole being applauded this idea. It was deep, and dark, and
awful; the hour, the circumstances, the surroundings, were in keeping with
it. He picked up a clean pine shingle that lay in the moonlight, took a
little fragment of "red keel" out of his pocket, got the moon on his work,
and painfully scrawled these lines, emphasizing each slow down-stroke by
clamping his tongue between his teeth, and letting up the pressure on the
up-strokes. [See next page.]
Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer swears they will
keep mum about This and They wish They may
Drop down dead in Their Tracks if They ever
Tell and Rot.
Huckleberry was filled with admiration of Tom's facility in writing,
and the sublimity of his language. He at once took a pin from his lapel
and was going to prick his flesh, but Tom said:
"Hold on! Don't do that. A pin's brass. It might have verdigrease on it."
"What's verdigrease?"
"It's p'ison. That's what it is. You just swaller some of it
once-you'll see."
So Tom unwound the thread from one of his needles, and each boy pricked
the ball of his thumb and squeezed out a drop of blood. In time, after
many squeezes, Tom managed to sign his initials, using the ball of his
little finger for a pen. Then he showed Huckleberry how to make an H and
an F, and the oath was complete. They buried the shingle close to the
wall, with some dismal ceremonies and incantations, and the fetters that
bound their tongues were considered to be locked and the key thrown away.
A figure crept stealthily through a break in the other end of the
ruined building, now, but they did not notice it.
"Tom," whispered Huckleberry, "does this keep us from EVER
telling-ALWAYS?"
"Of course it does. It don't make any difference WHAT happens, we got
to keep mum. We'd drop down dead-don't YOU know that?"
"Yes, I reckon that's so."
They continued to whisper for some little time. Presently a dog set up
a long, lugubrious howl just outside-within ten feet of them. The boys
clasped each other suddenly, in an agony of fright.
"Which of us does he mean?" gasped Huckleberry.
"I dono-peep through the crack. Quick!"
"No, YOU, Tom!"
"I can't-I can't DO it, Huck!"
"Please, Tom. There 'tis again!"
"Oh, lordy, I'm thankful!" whispered Tom. "I know his voice. It's Bull
Harbison." *
[* If Mr. Harbison owned a slave named Bull, Tom would have spoken of
him as "Harbison's Bull," but a son or a dog of that name was "Bull
Harbison."]
"Oh, that's good-I tell you, Tom, I was most scared to death; I'd a bet
anything it was a STRAY dog."
The dog howled again. The boys' hearts sank once more.
"Oh, my! that ain't no Bull Harbison!" whispered Huckleberry. "DO, Tom!"
Tom, quaking with fear, yielded, and put his eye to the crack. His
whisper was hardly audible when he said:
"Oh, Huck, IT S A STRAY DOG!"
"Quick, Tom, quick! Who does he mean?"
"Huck, he must mean us both-we're right together."
"Oh, Tom, I reckon we're goners. I reckon there ain't no mistake 'bout
where I'LL go to. I been so wicked."
"Dad fetch it! This comes of playing hookey and doing everything a
feller's told NOT to do. I might a been good, like Sid, if I'd a tried-but
no, I wouldn't, of course. But if ever I get off this time, I lay I'll
just WALLER in Sunday-schools!" And Tom began to snuffle a little.
"YOU bad!" and Huckleberry began to snuffle too. "Consound it, Tom
Sawyer, you're just old pie, 'longside o' what I am. Oh, LORDY, lordy,
lordy, I wisht I only had half your chance."
Tom choked off and whispered:
"Look, Hucky, look! He's got his BACK to us!"
Hucky looked, with joy in his heart.
"Well, he has, by jingoes! Did he before?"
"Yes, he did. But I, like a fool, never thought. Oh, this is bully, you
know. NOW who can he mean?"
The howling stopped. Tom pricked up his ears.
"Sh! What's that?" he whispered.
"Sounds like-like hogs grunting. No-it's somebody snoring, Tom."
"That IS it! Where 'bouts is it, Huck?"
"I bleeve it's down at 'tother end. Sounds so, anyway. Pap used to
sleep there, sometimes, 'long with the hogs, but laws bless you, he just
lifts things when HE snores. Besides, I reckon he ain't ever coming back
to this town any more."
The spirit of adventure rose in the boys' souls once more.
"Hucky, do you das't to go if I lead?"
"I don't like to, much. Tom, s'pose it's Injun Joe!"
Tom quailed. But presently the temptation rose up strong again and the
boys agreed to try, with the understanding that they would take to their
heels if the snoring stopped. So they went tiptoeing stealthily down, the
one behind the other. When they had got to within five steps of the
snorer, Tom stepped on a stick, and it broke with a sharp snap. The man
moaned, writhed a little, and his face came into the moonlight. It was
Muff Potter. The boys' hearts had stood still, and their hopes too, when
the man moved, but their fears passed away now. They tiptoed out, through
the broken weather-boarding, and stopped at a little distance to exchange
a parting word. That long, lugubrious howl rose on the night air again!
They turned and saw the strange dog standing within a few feet of where
Potter was lying, and FACING Potter, with his nose pointing heavenward.
"Oh, geeminy, it's HIM!" exclaimed both boys, in a breath.
"Say, Tom-they say a stray dog come howling around Johnny Miller's
house, 'bout midnight, as much as two weeks ago; and a whippoorwill come
in and lit on the banisters and sung, the very same evening; and there
ain't anybody dead there yet."
"Well, I know that. And suppose there ain't. Didn't Gracie Miller fall
in the kitchen fire and burn herself terrible the very next Saturday?"
"Yes, but she ain't DEAD. And what's more, she's getting better, too."
"All right, you wait and see. She's a goner, just as dead sure as Muff
Potter's a goner. That's what the niggers say, and they know all about
these kind of things, Huck."
Then they separated, cogitating. When Tom crept in at his bedroom
window the night was almost spent. He undressed with excessive caution,
and fell asleep congratulating himself that nobody knew of his escapade.
He was not aware that the gently-snoring Sid was awake, and had been so
for an hour.
When Tom awoke, Sid was dressed and gone. There was a late look in the
light, a late sense in the atmosphere. He was startled. Why had he not
been called-persecuted till he was up, as usual? The thought filled him
with bodings. Within five minutes he was dressed and down-stairs, feeling
sore and drowsy. The family were still at table, but they had finished
breakfast. There was no voice of rebuke; but there were averted eyes;
there was a silence and an air of solemnity that struck a chill to the
culprit's heart. He sat down and tried to seem gay, but it was up-hill
work; it roused no smile, no response, and he lapsed into silence and let
his heart sink down to the depths.
After breakfast his aunt took him aside, and Tom almost brightened in
the hope that he was going to be flogged; but it was not so. His aunt wept
over him and asked him how he could go and break her old heart so; and
finally told him to go on, and ruin himself and bring her gray hairs with
sorrow to the grave, for it was no use for her to try any more. This was
worse than a thousand whippings, and Tom's heart was sorer now than his
body. He cried, he pleaded for forgiveness, promised to reform over and
over again, and then received his dismissal, feeling that he had won but
an imperfect forgiveness and established but a feeble confidence.
He left the presence too miserable to even feel revengeful toward Sid;
and so the latter's prompt retreat through the back gate was unnecessary.
He moped to school gloomy and sad, and took his flogging, along with Joe
Harper, for playing hookey the day before, with the air of one whose heart
was busy with heavier woes and wholly dead to trifles. Then he betook
himself to his seat, rested his elbows on his desk and his jaws in his
hands, and stared at the wall with the stony stare of suffering that has
reached the limit and can no further go. His elbow was pressing against
some hard substance. After a long time he slowly and sadly changed his
position, and took up this object with a sigh. It was in a paper. He
unrolled it. A long, lingering, colossal sigh followed, and his heart
broke. It was his brass andiron knob!
This final feather broke the camel's back.
Close upon the hour of noon the whole village was suddenly electrified
with the ghastly news. No need of the as yet undreamed-of telegraph; the
tale flew from man to man, from group to group, from house to house, with
little less than telegraphic speed. Of course the schoolmaster gave
holiday for that afternoon; the town would have thought strangely of him
if he had not.
A gory knife had been found close to the murdered man, and it had been
recognized by somebody as belonging to Muff Potter-so the story ran. And
it was said that a belated citizen had come upon Potter washing himself in
the "branch" about one or two o'clock in the morning, and that Potter had
at once sneaked off-suspicious circumstances, especially the washing which
was not a habit with Potter. It was also said that the town had been
ransacked for this "murderer" (the public are not slow in the matter of
sifting evidence and arriving at a verdict), but that he could not be
found. Horsemen had departed down all the roads in every direction, and
the Sheriff "was confident" that he would be captured before night.
All the town was drifting toward the graveyard. Tom's heartbreak
vanished and he joined the procession, not because he would not a thousand
times rather go anywhere else, but because an awful, unaccountable
fascination drew him on. Arrived at the dreadful place, he wormed his
small body through the crowd and saw the dismal spectacle. It seemed to
him an age since he was there before. Somebody pinched his arm. He turned,
and his eyes met Huckleberry's. Then both looked elsewhere at once, and
wondered if anybody had noticed anything in their mutual glance. But
everybody was talking, and intent upon the grisly spectacle before them.
"Poor fellow!" "Poor young fellow!" "This ought to be a lesson to grave
robbers!" "Muff Potter'll hang for this if they catch him!" This was the
drift of remark; and the minister said, "It was a judgment; His hand is
here."
Now Tom shivered from head to heel; for his eye fell upon the stolid
face of Injun Joe. At this moment the crowd began to sway and struggle,
and voices shouted, "It's him! it's him! he's coming himself!"
"Who? Who?" from twenty voices.
"Muff Potter!"
"Hallo, he's stopped!-Look out, he's turning! Don't let him get away!"
People in the branches of the trees over Tom's head said he wasn't
trying to get away-he only looked doubtful and perplexed.
"Infernal impudence!" said a bystander; "wanted to come and take a
quiet look at his work, I reckon-didn't expect any company."
The crowd fell apart, now, and the Sheriff came through, ostentatiously
leading Potter by the arm. The poor fellow's face was haggard, and his
eyes showed the fear that was upon him. When he stood before the murdered
man, he shook as with a palsy, and he put his face in his hands and burst
into tears.
"I didn't do it, friends," he sobbed; "'pon my word and honor I never
done it."
"Who's accused you?" shouted a voice.
This shot seemed to carry home. Potter lifted his face and looked
around him with a pathetic hopelessness in his eyes. He saw Injun Joe, and
exclaimed:
"Oh, Injun Joe, you promised me you'd never-"
"Is that your knife?" and it was thrust before him by the Sheriff.
Potter would have fallen if they had not caught him and eased him to
the ground. Then he said:
"Something told me 't if I didn't come back and get-" He shuddered;
then waved his nerveless hand with a vanquished gesture and said, "Tell
'em, Joe, tell 'em-it ain't any use any more."
Then Huckleberry and Tom stood dumb and staring, and heard the
stony-hearted liar reel off his serene statement, they expecting every
moment that the clear sky would deliver God's lightnings upon his head,
and wondering to see how long the stroke was delayed. And when he had
finished and still stood alive and whole, their wavering impulse to break
begin, Joe's pin would deftly head him off, and keep possession. At last
Tom could stand it no longer. The temptation was too strong. So he reached
out and lent a hand with his pin. Joe was angry in a moment. Said he:
"Tom, you let him alone."
"I only just want to stir him up a little, Joe."
"No, sir, it ain't fair; you just let him alone."
"Blame it, I ain't going to stir him much."
"Let him alone, I tell you."
"I won't!"
"You shall-he's on my side of the line."
"Look here, Joe Harper, whose is that tick?"
"I don't care whose tick he is-he's on my side of the line, and you
sha'n't touch him."
"Well, I'll just bet I will, though. He's my tick and I'll do what I
blame please with him, or die!"
A tremendous whack came down on Tom's shoulders, and its duplicate on
Joe's; and for the space of two minutes the dust continued to fly from the
two jackets and the whole school to enjoy it. The boys had been too
absorbed to notice the hush that had stolen upon the school awhile before
when the master came tiptoeing down the room and stood over them. He had
contemplated a good part of the performance before he contributed his bit
of variety to it.
When school broke up at noon, Tom flew to Becky Thatcher, and whispered
in her ear:
"Put on your bonnet and let on you're going home; and when you get to
the corner, give the rest of 'em the slip, and turn down through the lane
and come back. I'll go the other way and come it over 'em the same way."
So the one went off with one group of scholars, and the other with
another. In a little while the two met at the botTom of the lane, and when
they reached the school they had it all to themselves. Then they sat
together, with a slate before them, and Tom gave Becky the pencil and held
her hand in his, guiding it, and so created another surprising house. When
the interest in art began to wane, the two fell to talking. Tom was
swimming in bliss. He said:
"Do you love rats?"
"No! I hate them!"
"Well, I do, too-LIVE ones. But I mean dead ones, to swing round your
head with a string."
"No, I don't care for rats much, anyway. What I like is chewing-gum."
"Oh, I should say so! I wish I had some now."
"Do you? I've got some. I'll let you chew it awhile, but you must give
it back to me."
That was agreeable, so they chewed it turn about, and dangled their
legs against the bench in excess of contentment.
"Was you ever at a circus?" said Tom.
"Yes, and my pa's going to take me again some time, if I'm good."
"I been to the circus three or four times-lots of times. Church ain't
shucks to a circus. There's things going on at a circus all the time. I'm
going to be a clown in a circus when I grow up."
"Oh, are you! That will be nice. They're so lovely, all spotted up."
"Yes, that's so. And they get slathers of money-most a dollar a day,
Ben Rogers says. Say, Becky, was you ever engaged?"
"What's that?"
"Why, engaged to be married."
"No."
"Would you like to?"
"I reckon so. I don't know. What is it like?"
"Like? Why it ain't like anything. You only just tell a boy you won't
ever have anybody but him, ever ever ever, and then you kiss and that's
all. Anybody can do it."
"Kiss? What do you kiss for?"
"Why, that, you know, is to-well, they always do that."
"Everybody?"
"Why, yes, everybody that's in love with each other. Do you remember
what I wrote on the slate?"
"Ye-yes."
"What was it?"
"I sha'n't tell you."
"Shall I tell YOU?"
"Ye-yes-but some other time."
"No, now."
"No, not now-to-morrow."
"Oh, no, NOW. Please, Becky-I'll whisper it, I'll whisper it ever so
easy."
Becky hesitating, Tom took silence for consent, and passed his arm
about her waist and whispered the tale ever so softly, with his mouth
close to her ear. And then he added:
"Now you whisper it to me-just the same."
She resisted, for a while, and then said:
"You turn your face away so you can't see, and then I will. But you
mustn't ever tell anybody-WILL you, Tom? Now you won't, WILL you?"
"No, indeed, indeed I won't. Now, Becky."
He turned his face away. She bent timidly around till her breath
stirred his curls and whispered, "I-love-you!"
Then she sprang away and ran around and around the desks and benches,
with Tom after her, and took refuge in a corner at last, with her little
white apron to her face. Tom clasped her about her neck and pleaded:
"Now, Becky, it's all done-all over but the kiss. Don't you be afraid
of that-it ain't anything at all. Please, Becky." And he tugged at her
apron and the hands.
By and by she gave up, and let her hands drop; her face, all glowing
with the struggle, came up and submitted. Tom kissed the red lips and
said:
"Now it's all done, Becky. And always after this, you know, you ain't
ever to love anybody but me, and you ain't ever to marry anybody but me,
ever never and forever. Will you?"
"No, I'll never love anybody but you, Tom, and I'll never marry anybody
but you-and you ain't to ever marry anybody but me, either."
"Certainly. Of course. That's PART of it. And always coming to school
or when we're going home, you're to walk with me, when there ain't anybody
looking-and you choose me and I choose you at parties, because that's the
way you do when you're engaged."
"It's so nice. I never heard of it before."
"Oh, it's ever so gay! Why, me and Amy Lawrence-"
The big eyes told Tom his blunder and he stopped, confused.
"Oh, Tom! Then I ain't the first you've ever been engaged to!"
The child began to cry. Tom said:
"Oh, don't cry, Becky, I don't care for her any more."
"Yes, you do, Tom-you know you do."
Tom tried to put his arm about her neck, but she pushed him away and
turned her face to the wall, and went on crying. Tom tried again, with
soothing words in his mouth, and was repulsed again. Then his pride was
up, and he strode away and went outside. He stood about, restless and
uneasy, for a while, glancing at the door, every now and then, hoping she
would repent and come to find him. But she did not. Then he began to feel
badly and fear that he was in the wrong. It was a hard struggle with him
to make new advances, now, but he nerved himself to it and entered. She
was still standing back there in the corner, sobbing, with her face to the
wall. Tom's heart smote him. He went to her and stood a moment, not
knowing exactly how to proceed. Then he said hesitatingly:
"Becky, I-I don't care for anybody but you."
No reply-but sobs.
"Becky"-pleadingly. "Becky, won't you say something?"
More sobs.
Tom got out his chiefest jewel, a brass knob from the top of an
andiron, and passed it around her so that she could see it, and said:
"Please, Becky, won't you take it?"
She struck it to the floor. Then Tom marched out of the house and over
the hills and far away, to return to school no more that day. Presently
Becky began to suspect. She ran to the door; he was not in sight; she flew
around to the play-yard; he was not there. Then she called:
"Tom! Come back, Tom!"
She listened intently, but there was no answer. She had no companions
but silence and loneliness. So she sat down to cry again and upbraid
herself; and by this time the scholars began to gather again, and she had
to hide her griefs and still her broken heart and take up the cross of a
long, dreary, aching afternoon, with none among the strangers about her to
exchange sorrows with.
Tom dodged hither and thither through lanes until he was well out of
the track of returning scholars, and then fell into a moody jog. He
crossed a small "branch" two or three times, because of a prevailing
juvenile superstition that to cross water baffled pursuit. Half an hour
later he was disappearing behind the Douglas mansion on the summit of
Cardiff Hill, and the school-house was hardly distinguishable away off in
the valley behind him. He entered a dense wood, picked his pathless way to
the centre of it, and sat down on a mossy spot under a spreading oak.
There was not even a zephyr stirring; the dead noonday heat had even
stilled the songs of the birds; nature lay in a trance that was broken by
no sound but the occasional far-off hammering of a woodpecker, and this
seemed to render the pervading silence and sense of loneliness the more
profound. The boy's soul was steeped in melancholy; his feelings were in
happy accord with his surroundings. He sat long with his elbows on his
knees and his chin in his hands, meditating. It seemed to him that life
was but a trouble, at best, and he more than half envied Jimmy Hodges, so
lately released; it must be very peaceful, he thought, to lie and slumber
and dream forever and ever, with the wind whispering through the trees and
caressing the grass and the flowers over the grave, and nothing to bother
and grieve about, ever any more. If he only had a clean Sunday-school
record he could be willing to go, and be done with it all. Now as to this
girl. What had he done? Nothing. He had meant the best in the world, and
been treated like a dog-like a very dog. She would be sorry some day-maybe
when it was too late. Ah, if he could only die TEMPORARILY!
But the elastic heart of youth cannot be compressed into one
constrained shape long at a time. Tom presently began to drift insensibly
back into the concerns of this life again. What if he turned his back,
now, and disappeared mysteriously? What if he went away-ever so far away,
into unknown countries beyond the seas-and never came back any more! How
would she feel then! The idea of being a clown recurred to him now, only
to fill him with disgust. For frivolity and jokes and spotted tights were
an offense, when they intruded themselves upon a spirit that was exalted
into the vague august realm of the romantic. No, he would be a soldier,
and return after long years, all war-worn and illustrious. No-better
still, he would join the Indians, and hunt buffaloes and go on the warpath
in the mountain ranges and the trackless great plains of the Far West, and
away in the future come back a great chief, bristling with feathers,
hideous with paint, and prance into Sundayschool, some drowsy summer
morning, with a bloodcurdling war-whoop, and sear the eyeballs of all his
companions with unappeasable envy. But no, there was something gaudier
even than this. He would be a pirate! That was it! NOW his future lay
plain before him, and glowing with unimaginable splendor. How his name
would fill the world, and make people shudder! How gloriously he would go
plowing the dancing seas, in his long, low, black-hulled racer, the Spirit
of the Storm, with his grisly flag flying at the fore! And at the zenith
of his fame, how he would suddenly appear at the old village and stalk
into church, brown and weather-beaten, in his black velvet doublet and
trunks, his great jack-boots, his crimson sash, his belt bristling with
horse-pistols, his crime-rusted cutlass at his side, his slouch hat with
waving plumes, his black flag unfurled, with the skull and crossbones on
it, and hear with swelling ecstasy the whisperings, "It's Tom Sawyer the
Pirate!-the Black Avenger of the Spanish Main!"
Yes, it was settled; his career was determined. He would run away from
home and enter upon it. He would start the very next morning. Therefore he
must now begin to get ready. He would collect his resources together. He
went to a rotten log near at hand and began to dig under one end of it
with his Barlow knife. He soon struck wood that sounded hollow. He put his
hand there and uttered this incantation impressively:
"What hasn't come here, come! What's here, stay here!"
Then he scraped away the dirt, and exposed a pine shingle. He took it
up and disclosed a shapely little treasure-house whose botTom and sides
were of shingles. In it lay a marble. Tom's astonishment was boundless! He
scratched his head with a perplexed air, and said:
"Well, that beats anything!"
Then he tossed the marble away pettishly, and stood cogitating. The
truth was, that a superstition of his had failed, here, which he and all
his comrades had always looked upon as infallible. If you buried a marble
with certain necessary incantations, and left it alone a fortnight, and
then opened the place with the incantation he had just used, you would
find that all the marbles you had ever lost had gathered themselves
together there, meantime, no matter how widely they had been separated.
But now, this thing had actually and unquestionably failed. Tom's whole
structure of faith was shaken to its foundations. He had many a time heard
of this thing succeeding but never of its failing before. It did not occur
to him that he had tried it several times before, himself, but could never
find the hiding-places afterward. He puzzled over the matter some time,
and finally decided that some witch had interfered and broken the charm.
He thought he would satisfy himself on that point; so he searched around
till he found a small sandy spot with a little funnel-shaped depression in
it. He laid himself down and put his mouth close to this depression and
called-
"Doodle-bug, doodle-bug, tell me what I want to know! Doodle-bug,
doodle-bug, tell me what I want to know!"
The sand began to work, and presently a small black bug appeared for a
second and then darted under again in a fright.
"He dasn't tell! So it WAS a witch that done it. I just knowed it."
He well knew the futility of trying to contend against witches, so he
gave up discouraged. But it occurred to him that he might as well have the
marble he had just thrown away, and therefore he went and made a patient
search for it. But he could not find it. Now he went back to his
treasure-house and carefully placed himself just as he had been standing
when he tossed the marble away; then he took another marble from his
pocket and tossed it in the same way, saying:
"Brother, go find your brother!"
He watched where it stopped, and went there and looked. But it must
have fallen short or gone too far; so he tried twice more. The last
repetition was successful. The two marbles lay within a foot of each
other.
Just here the blast of a toy tin trumpet came faintly down the green
aisles of the forest. Tom flung off his jacket and trousers, turned a
suspender into a belt, raked away some brush behind the rotten log,
disclosing a rude bow and arrow, a lath sword and a tin trumpet, and in a
moment had seized these things and bounded away, barelegged, with
fluttering shirt. He presently halted under a great elm, blew an answering
blast, and then began to tiptoe and look warily out, this way and that. He
said cautiously-to an imaginary company:
"Hold, my merry men! Keep hid till I blow."
Now appeared Joe Harper, as airily clad and elaborately armed as Tom.
Tom called:
"Hold! Who comes here into Sherwood Forest without my pass?"
"Guy of Guisborne wants no man's pass. Who art thou that-that-"
"Dares to hold such language," said Tom, prompting-for they talked "by
the book," from memory.
"Who art thou that dares to hold such language?"
"I, indeed! I am Robin Hood, as thy caitiff carcase soon shall know."
"Then art thou indeed that famous outlaw? Right gladly will I dispute
with thee the passes of the merry wood. Have at thee!"
They took their lath swords, dumped their other traps on the ground,
struck a fencing attitude, foot to foot, and began a grave, careful
combat, "two up and two down." Presently Tom said:
"Now, if you've got the hang, go it lively!"
So they "went it lively," panting and perspiring with the work. By and
by Tom shouted:
"Fall! fall! Why don't you fall?"
"I sha'n't! Why don't you fall yourself? You're getting the worst of
it."
"Why, that ain't anything. I can't fall; that ain't the way it is in
the book. The book says, 'Then with one back-handed stroke he slew poor
Guy of Guisborne.' You're to turn around and let me hit you in the back."
There was no getting around the authorities, so Joe turned, received
the whack and fell.
"Now," said Joe, getting up, "you got to let me kill YOU. That's fair."
"Why, I can't do that, it ain't in the book."
"Well, it's blamed mean-that's all."
"Well, say, Joe, you can be Friar Tuck or Much the miller's son, and
lam me with a quarter-staff; or I'll be the Sheriff of Nottingham and you
be Robin Hood a little while and kill me."
This was satisfactory, and so these adventures were carried out. Then
Tom became Robin Hood again, and was allowed by the treacherous nun to
bleed his strength away through his neglected wound. And at last Joe,
representing a whole tribe of weeping outlaws, dragged him sadly forth,
gave his bow into his feeble hands, and Tom said, "Where this arrow falls,
there bury poor Robin Hood under the greenwood tree." Then he shot the
arrow and fell back and would have died, but he lit on a nettle and sprang
up too gaily for a corpse.
The boys dressed themselves, hid their accoutrements, and went off
grieving that there were no outlaws any more, and wondering what modern
civilization could claim to have done to compensate for their loss. They
said they would rather be outlaws a year in Sherwood Forest than President
of the United States forever.
At half-past nine, that night, Tom and Sid were sent to bed, as usual.
They said their prayers, and Sid was soon asleep. Tom lay awake and
waited, in restless impatience. When it seemed to him that it must be
nearly daylight, he heard the clock strike ten! This was despair. He would
have tossed and fidgeted, as his nerves demanded, but he was afraid he
might wake Sid. So he lay still, and stared up into the dark. Everything
was dismally still. By and by, out of the stillness, little, scarcely
preceptible noises began to emphasize themselves. The ticking of the clock
began to bring itself into notice. Old beams began to crack mysteriously.
The stairs creaked faintly. Evidently spirits were abroad. A measured,
muffled snore issued from Aunt Polly's chamber. And now the tiresome
chirping of a cricket that no human ingenuity could locate, began. Next
the ghastly ticking of a deathwatch in the wall at the bed's head made Tom
shudder-it meant that somebody's days were numbered. Then the howl of a
far-off dog rose on the night air, and was answered by a fainter howl from
a remoter distance. Tom was in an agony. At last he was satisfied that
time had ceased and eternity begun; he began to doze, in spite of himself;
the clock chimed eleven, but he did not hear it. And then there came,
mingling with his half-formed dreams, a most melancholy caterwauling. The
raising of a neighboring window disturbed him. A cry of "Scat! you devil!"
and the crash of an empty bottle against the back of his aunt's woodshed
brought him wide awake, and a single minute later he was dressed and out
of the window and creeping along the roof of the "ell" on all fours. He
"meow'd" with caution once or twice, as he went; then jumped to the roof
of the woodshed and thence to the ground. Huckleberry Finn was there, with
his dead cat. The boys moved off and disappeared in the gloom. At the end
of half an hour they were wading through the tall grass of the graveyard.
It was a graveyard of the old-fashioned Western kind. It was on a hill,
about a mile and a half from the village. It had a crazy board fence
around it, which leaned inward in places, and outward the rest of the
time, but stood upright nowhere. Grass and weeds grew rank over the whole
cemetery. All the old graves were sunken in, there was not a Tombstone on
the place; round-topped, worm-eaten boards staggered over the graves,
leaning for support and finding none. "Sacred to the memory of" So-and-So
had been painted on them once, but it could no longer have been read, on
the most of them, now, even if there had been light.
A faint wind moaned through the trees, and Tom feared it might be the
spirits of the dead, complaining at being disturbed. The boys talked
little, and only under their breath, for the time and the place and the
pervading solemnity and silence oppressed their spirits. They found the
sharp new heap they were seeking, and ensconced themselves within the
protection of three great elms that grew in a bunch within a few feet of
the grave.
Then they waited in silence for what seemed a long time. The hooting of
a distant owl was all the sound that troubled the dead stillness. Tom's
reflections grew oppressive. He must force some talk. So he said in a
whisper:
"Hucky, do you believe the dead people like it for us to be here?"
Huckleberry whispered:
"I wisht I knowed. It's awful solemn like, AIN'T it?"
"I bet it is."
There was a considerable pause, while the boys canvassed this matter
inwardly. Then Tom whispered:
"Say, Hucky-do you reckon Hoss Williams hears us talking?"
"O' course he does. Least his sperrit does."
Tom, after a pause:
"I wish I'd said Mister Williams. But I never meant any harm. Everybody
calls him Hoss."
"A body can't be too partic'lar how they talk 'bout these-yer dead
people, Tom."
This was a damper, and conversation died again.
Presently Tom seized his comrade's arm and said:
"Sh!"
"What is it, Tom?" And the two clung together with beating hearts.
"Sh! There 'tis again! Didn't you hear it?"
"I-"
"There! Now you hear it."
"Lord, Tom, they're coming! They're coming, sure. What'll we do?"
"I dono. Think they'll see us?"
"Oh, Tom, they can see in the dark, same as cats. I wisht I hadn't
come."
"Oh, don't be afeard. I don't believe they'll bother us. We ain't doing
any harm. If we keep perfectly still, maybe they won't notice us at all."
"I'll try to, Tom, but, Lord, I'm all of a shiver."
"Listen!"
The boys bent their heads together and scarcely breathed. A muffled
sound of voices floated up from the far end of the graveyard.
"Look! See there!" whispered Tom. "What is it?"
"It's devil-fire. Oh, Tom, this is awful."
Some vague figures approached through the gloom, swinging an
old-fashioned tin lantern that freckled the ground with innumerable little
spangles of light. Presently Huckleberry whispered with a shudder:
"It's the devils sure enough. Three of 'em! Lordy, Tom, we're goners!
Can you pray?"
"I'll try, but don't you be afeard. They ain't going to hurt us. 'Now I
lay me down to sleep, I-'"
"Sh!"
"What is it, Huck?"
"They're HUMANS! One of 'em is, anyway. One of 'em's old Muff Potter's
voice."
"No-'tain't so, is it?"
"I bet I know it. Don't you stir nor budge. He ain't sharp enough to
notice us. Drunk, the same as usual, likely-blamed old rip!"
"All right, I'll keep still. Now they're stuck. Can't find it. Here
they come again. Now they're hot. Cold again. Hot again. Red hot! They're
p'inted right, this time. Say, Huck, I know another o' them voices; it's
Injun Joe."
"That's so-that murderin' half-breed! I'd druther they was devils a
dern sight. What kin they be up to?"
The whisper died wholly out, now, for the three men had reached the
grave and stood within a few feet of the boys' hiding-place.
"Here it is," said the third voice; and the owner of it held the
lantern up and revealed the face of young Doctor Robinson.
Potter and Injun Joe were carrying a handbarrow with a rope and a
couple of shovels on it. They cast down their load and began to open the
grave. The doctor put the lantern at the head of the grave and came and
sat down with his back against one of the elm trees. He was so close the
boys could have touched him.
"Hurry, men!" he said, in a low voice; "the moon might come out at any
moment."
They growled a response and went on digging. For some time there was no
noise but the grating sound of the spades discharging their freight of
mould and gravel. It was very monotonous. Finally a spade struck upon the
coffin with a dull woody accent, and within another minute or two the men
had hoisted it out on the ground. They pried off the lid with their
shovels, got out the body and dumped it rudely on the ground. The moon
drifted from behind the clouds and exposed the pallid face. The barrow was
got ready and the corpse placed on it, covered with a blanket, and bound
to its place with the rope. Potter took out a large spring-knife and cut
off the dangling end of the rope and then said:
"Now the cussed thing's ready, Sawbones, and you'll just out with
another five, or here she stays."
"That's the talk!" said Injun Joe.
"Look here, what does this mean?" said the doctor. "You required your
pay in advance, and I've paid you."
"Yes, and you done more than that," said Injun Joe, approaching the
doctor, who was now standing. "Five years ago you drove me away from your
father's kitchen one night, when I come to ask for something to eat, and
you said I warn't there for any good; and when I swore I'd get even with
you if it took a hundred years, your father had me jailed for a vagrant.
Did you think I'd forget? The Injun blood ain't in me for nothing. And now
I've GOT you, and you got to SETTLE, you know!"
He was threatening the doctor, with his fist in his face, by this time.
The doctor struck out suddenly and stretched the ruffian on the ground.
Potter dropped his knife, and exclaimed:
"Here, now, don't you hit my pard!" and the next moment he had grappled
with the doctor and the two were struggling with might and main, trampling
the grass and tearing the ground with their heels. Injun Joe sprang to his
feet, his eyes flaming with passion, snatched up Potter's knife, and went
creeping, catlike and stooping, round and round about the combatants,
seeking an opportunity. All at once the doctor flung himself free, seized
the heavy headboard of Williams' grave and felled Potter to the earth with
it-and in the same instant the half-breed saw his chance and drove the
knife to the hilt in the young man's breast. He reeled and fell partly
upon Potter, flooding him with his blood, and in the same moment the
clouds blotted out the dreadful spectacle and the two frightened boys went
speeding away in the dark.
Presently, when the moon emerged again, Injun Joe was standing over the
two forms, contemplating them. The doctor murmured inarticulately, gave a
long gasp or two and was still. The half-breed muttered:
"THAT score is settled-damn you."
Then he robbed the body. After which he put the fatal knife in Potter's
open right hand, and sat down on the dismantled coffin. Three-four-five
minutes passed, and then Potter began to stir and moan. His hand closed
upon the knife; he raised it, glanced at it, and let it fall, with a
shudder. Then he sat up, pushing the body from him, and gazed at it, and
then around him, confusedly. His eyes met Joe's.
"Lord, how is this, Joe?" he said.
"It's a dirty business," said Joe, without moving.
"What did you do it for?"
"I! I never done it!"
"Look here! That kind of talk won't wash."
Potter trembled and grew white.
"I thought I'd got sober. I'd no business to drink to-night. But it's
in my head yet-worse'n when we started here. I'm all in a muddle; can't
recollect anything of it, hardly. Tell me, Joe-HONEST, now, old feller-did
I do it? Joe, I never meant to-'pon my soul and honor, I never meant to,
Joe. Tell me how it was, Joe. Oh, it's awful-and him so young and
promising."
"Why, you two was scuffling, and he fetched you one with the headboard
and you fell flat; and then up you come, all reeling and staggering like,
and snatched the knife and jammed it into him, just as he fetched you
another awful clip-and here you've laid, as dead as a wedge til now."
"Oh, I didn't know what I was a-doing. I wish I may die this minute if
I did. It was all on account of the whiskey and the excitement, I reckon.
I never used a weepon in my life before, Joe. I've fought, but never with
weepons. They'll all say that. Joe, don't tell! Say you won't tell,
Joe-that's a good feller. I always liked you, Joe, and stood up for you,
too. Don't you remember? You WON'T tell, WILL you, Joe?" And the poor
creature dropped on his knees before the stolid murderer, and clasped his
appealing hands.
"No, you've always been fair and square with me, Muff Potter, and I
won't go back on you. There, now, that's as fair as a man can say."
"Oh, Joe, you're an angel. I'll bless you for this the longest day I
live." And Potter began to cry.
"Come, now, that's enough of that. This ain't any time for blubbering.
You be off yonder way and I'll go this. Move, now, and don't leave any
tracks behind you."
Potter started on a trot that quickly increased to a run. The
half-breed stood looking after him. He muttered:
"If he's as much stunned with the lick and fuddled with the rum as he
had the look of being, he won't think of the knife till he's gone so far
he'll be afraid to come back after it to such a place by
himself-chicken-heart!"
Two or three minutes later the murdered man, the blanketed corpse, the
lidless coffin, and the open grave were under no inspection but the
moon's. The stillness was complete again, too.
The two boys flew on and on, toward the village, speechless with
horror. They glanced backward over their shoulders from time to time,
apprehensively, as if they feared they might be followed. Every stump that
started up in their path seemed a man and an enemy, and made them catch
their breath; and as they sped by some outlying cottages that lay near the
village, the barking of the aroused watch-dogs seemed to give wings to
their feet.
"If we can only get to the old tannery before we break down!" whispered
Tom, in short catches between breaths. "I can't stand it much longer."
Huckleberry's hard pantings were his only reply, and the boys fixed
their eyes on the goal of their hopes and bent to their work to win it.
They gained steadily on it, and at last, breast to breast, they burst
through the open door and fell grateful and exhausted in the sheltering
shadows beyond. By and by their pulses slowed down, and Tom whispered:
"Huckleberry, what do you reckon'll come of this?"
"If Doctor Robinson dies, I reckon hanging'll come of it."
"Do you though?"
"Why, I KNOW it, Tom."
Tom thought a while, then he said:
"Who'll tell? We?"
"What are you talking about? S'pose something happened and Injun Joe
DIDN'T hang? Why, he'd kill us some time or other, just as dead sure as
we're a laying here."
"That's just what I was thinking to myself, Huck."
"If anybody tells, let Muff Potter do it, if he's fool enough. He's
generally drunk enough."
Tom said nothing-went on thinking. Presently he whispered:
"Huck, Muff Potter don't know it. How can he tell?"
"What's the reason he don't know it?"
"Because he'd just got that whack when Injun Joe done it. D'you reckon
he could see anything? D'you reckon he knowed anything?"
"By hokey, that's so, Tom!"
"And besides, look-a-here-maybe that whack done for HIM!"
"No, 'taint likely, Tom. He had liquor in him; I could see that; and
besides, he always has. Well, when pap's full, you might take and belt him
over the head with a church and you couldn't phase him. He says so, his
own self. So it's the same with Muff Potter, of course. But if a man was
dead sober, I reckon maybe that whack might fetch him; I dono."
After another reflective silence, Tom said:
"Hucky, you sure you can keep mum?"
"Tom, we GOT to keep mum. You know that. That Injun devil wouldn't make
any more of drownding us than a couple of cats, if we was to squeak 'bout
this and they didn't hang him. Now, look-a-here, Tom, less take and swear
to one another-that's what we got to do-swear to keep mum."
"I'm agreed. It's the best thing. Would you just hold hands and swear
that we-"
"Oh no, that wouldn't do for this. That's good enough for little
rubbishy common things-specially with gals, cuz THEY go back on you
anyway, and blab if they get in a huff-but there orter be writing 'bout a
big thing like this. And blood."
Tom's whole being applauded this idea. It was deep, and dark, and
awful; the hour, the circumstances, the surroundings, were in keeping with
it. He picked up a clean pine shingle that lay in the moonlight, took a
little fragment of "red keel" out of his pocket, got the moon on his work,
and painfully scrawled these lines, emphasizing each slow down-stroke by
clamping his tongue between his teeth, and letting up the pressure on the
up-strokes. [See next page.]
Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer swears they will
keep mum about This and They wish They may
Drop down dead in Their Tracks if They ever
Tell and Rot.
Huckleberry was filled with admiration of Tom's facility in writing,
and the sublimity of his language. He at once took a pin from his lapel
and was going to prick his flesh, but Tom said:
"Hold on! Don't do that. A pin's brass. It might have verdigrease on it."
"What's verdigrease?"
"It's p'ison. That's what it is. You just swaller some of it
once-you'll see."
So Tom unwound the thread from one of his needles, and each boy pricked
the ball of his thumb and squeezed out a drop of blood. In time, after
many squeezes, Tom managed to sign his initials, using the ball of his
little finger for a pen. Then he showed Huckleberry how to make an H and
an F, and the oath was complete. They buried the shingle close to the
wall, with some dismal ceremonies and incantations, and the fetters that
bound their tongues were considered to be locked and the key thrown away.
A figure crept stealthily through a break in the other end of the
ruined building, now, but they did not notice it.
"Tom," whispered Huckleberry, "does this keep us from EVER
telling-ALWAYS?"
"Of course it does. It don't make any difference WHAT happens, we got
to keep mum. We'd drop down dead-don't YOU know that?"
"Yes, I reckon that's so."
They continued to whisper for some little time. Presently a dog set up
a long, lugubrious howl just outside-within ten feet of them. The boys
clasped each other suddenly, in an agony of fright.
"Which of us does he mean?" gasped Huckleberry.
"I dono-peep through the crack. Quick!"
"No, YOU, Tom!"
"I can't-I can't DO it, Huck!"
"Please, Tom. There 'tis again!"
"Oh, lordy, I'm thankful!" whispered Tom. "I know his voice. It's Bull
Harbison." *
[* If Mr. Harbison owned a slave named Bull, Tom would have spoken of
him as "Harbison's Bull," but a son or a dog of that name was "Bull
Harbison."]
"Oh, that's good-I tell you, Tom, I was most scared to death; I'd a bet
anything it was a STRAY dog."
The dog howled again. The boys' hearts sank once more.
"Oh, my! that ain't no Bull Harbison!" whispered Huckleberry. "DO, Tom!"
Tom, quaking with fear, yielded, and put his eye to the crack. His
whisper was hardly audible when he said:
"Oh, Huck, IT S A STRAY DOG!"
"Quick, Tom, quick! Who does he mean?"
"Huck, he must mean us both-we're right together."
"Oh, Tom, I reckon we're goners. I reckon there ain't no mistake 'bout
where I'LL go to. I been so wicked."
"Dad fetch it! This comes of playing hookey and doing everything a
feller's told NOT to do. I might a been good, like Sid, if I'd a tried-but
no, I wouldn't, of course. But if ever I get off this time, I lay I'll
just WALLER in Sunday-schools!" And Tom began to snuffle a little.
"YOU bad!" and Huckleberry began to snuffle too. "Consound it, Tom
Sawyer, you're just old pie, 'longside o' what I am. Oh, LORDY, lordy,
lordy, I wisht I only had half your chance."
Tom choked off and whispered:
"Look, Hucky, look! He's got his BACK to us!"
Hucky looked, with joy in his heart.
"Well, he has, by jingoes! Did he before?"
"Yes, he did. But I, like a fool, never thought. Oh, this is bully, you
know. NOW who can he mean?"
The howling stopped. Tom pricked up his ears.
"Sh! What's that?" he whispered.
"Sounds like-like hogs grunting. No-it's somebody snoring, Tom."
"That IS it! Where 'bouts is it, Huck?"
"I bleeve it's down at 'tother end. Sounds so, anyway. Pap used to
sleep there, sometimes, 'long with the hogs, but laws bless you, he just
lifts things when HE snores. Besides, I reckon he ain't ever coming back
to this town any more."
The spirit of adventure rose in the boys' souls once more.
"Hucky, do you das't to go if I lead?"
"I don't like to, much. Tom, s'pose it's Injun Joe!"
Tom quailed. But presently the temptation rose up strong again and the
boys agreed to try, with the understanding that they would take to their
heels if the snoring stopped. So they went tiptoeing stealthily down, the
one behind the other. When they had got to within five steps of the
snorer, Tom stepped on a stick, and it broke with a sharp snap. The man
moaned, writhed a little, and his face came into the moonlight. It was
Muff Potter. The boys' hearts had stood still, and their hopes too, when
the man moved, but their fears passed away now. They tiptoed out, through
the broken weather-boarding, and stopped at a little distance to exchange
a parting word. That long, lugubrious howl rose on the night air again!
They turned and saw the strange dog standing within a few feet of where
Potter was lying, and FACING Potter, with his nose pointing heavenward.
"Oh, geeminy, it's HIM!" exclaimed both boys, in a breath.
"Say, Tom-they say a stray dog come howling around Johnny Miller's
house, 'bout midnight, as much as two weeks ago; and a whippoorwill come
in and lit on the banisters and sung, the very same evening; and there
ain't anybody dead there yet."
"Well, I know that. And suppose there ain't. Didn't Gracie Miller fall
in the kitchen fire and burn herself terrible the very next Saturday?"
"Yes, but she ain't DEAD. And what's more, she's getting better, too."
"All right, you wait and see. She's a goner, just as dead sure as Muff
Potter's a goner. That's what the niggers say, and they know all about
these kind of things, Huck."
Then they separated, cogitating. When Tom crept in at his bedroom
window the night was almost spent. He undressed with excessive caution,
and fell asleep congratulating himself that nobody knew of his escapade.
He was not aware that the gently-snoring Sid was awake, and had been so
for an hour.
When Tom awoke, Sid was dressed and gone. There was a late look in the
light, a late sense in the atmosphere. He was startled. Why had he not
been called-persecuted till he was up, as usual? The thought filled him
with bodings. Within five minutes he was dressed and down-stairs, feeling
sore and drowsy. The family were still at table, but they had finished
breakfast. There was no voice of rebuke; but there were averted eyes;
there was a silence and an air of solemnity that struck a chill to the
culprit's heart. He sat down and tried to seem gay, but it was up-hill
work; it roused no smile, no response, and he lapsed into silence and let
his heart sink down to the depths.
After breakfast his aunt took him aside, and Tom almost brightened in
the hope that he was going to be flogged; but it was not so. His aunt wept
over him and asked him how he could go and break her old heart so; and
finally told him to go on, and ruin himself and bring her gray hairs with
sorrow to the grave, for it was no use for her to try any more. This was
worse than a thousand whippings, and Tom's heart was sorer now than his
body. He cried, he pleaded for forgiveness, promised to reform over and
over again, and then received his dismissal, feeling that he had won but
an imperfect forgiveness and established but a feeble confidence.
He left the presence too miserable to even feel revengeful toward Sid;
and so the latter's prompt retreat through the back gate was unnecessary.
He moped to school gloomy and sad, and took his flogging, along with Joe
Harper, for playing hookey the day before, with the air of one whose heart
was busy with heavier woes and wholly dead to trifles. Then he betook
himself to his seat, rested his elbows on his desk and his jaws in his
hands, and stared at the wall with the stony stare of suffering that has
reached the limit and can no further go. His elbow was pressing against
some hard substance. After a long time he slowly and sadly changed his
position, and took up this object with a sigh. It was in a paper. He
unrolled it. A long, lingering, colossal sigh followed, and his heart
broke. It was his brass andiron knob!
This final feather broke the camel's back.
Close upon the hour of noon the whole village was suddenly electrified
with the ghastly news. No need of the as yet undreamed-of telegraph; the
tale flew from man to man, from group to group, from house to house, with
little less than telegraphic speed. Of course the schoolmaster gave
holiday for that afternoon; the town would have thought strangely of him
if he had not.
A gory knife had been found close to the murdered man, and it had been
recognized by somebody as belonging to Muff Potter-so the story ran. And
it was said that a belated citizen had come upon Potter washing himself in
the "branch" about one or two o'clock in the morning, and that Potter had
at once sneaked off-suspicious circumstances, especially the washing which
was not a habit with Potter. It was also said that the town had been
ransacked for this "murderer" (the public are not slow in the matter of
sifting evidence and arriving at a verdict), but that he could not be
found. Horsemen had departed down all the roads in every direction, and
the Sheriff "was confident" that he would be captured before night.
All the town was drifting toward the graveyard. Tom's heartbreak
vanished and he joined the procession, not because he would not a thousand
times rather go anywhere else, but because an awful, unaccountable
fascination drew him on. Arrived at the dreadful place, he wormed his
small body through the crowd and saw the dismal spectacle. It seemed to
him an age since he was there before. Somebody pinched his arm. He turned,
and his eyes met Huckleberry's. Then both looked elsewhere at once, and
wondered if anybody had noticed anything in their mutual glance. But
everybody was talking, and intent upon the grisly spectacle before them.
"Poor fellow!" "Poor young fellow!" "This ought to be a lesson to grave
robbers!" "Muff Potter'll hang for this if they catch him!" This was the
drift of remark; and the minister said, "It was a judgment; His hand is
here."
Now Tom shivered from head to heel; for his eye fell upon the stolid
face of Injun Joe. At this moment the crowd began to sway and struggle,
and voices shouted, "It's him! it's him! he's coming himself!"
"Who? Who?" from twenty voices.
"Muff Potter!"
"Hallo, he's stopped!-Look out, he's turning! Don't let him get away!"
People in the branches of the trees over Tom's head said he wasn't
trying to get away-he only looked doubtful and perplexed.
"Infernal impudence!" said a bystander; "wanted to come and take a
quiet look at his work, I reckon-didn't expect any company."
The crowd fell apart, now, and the Sheriff came through, ostentatiously
leading Potter by the arm. The poor fellow's face was haggard, and his
eyes showed the fear that was upon him. When he stood before the murdered
man, he shook as with a palsy, and he put his face in his hands and burst
into tears.
"I didn't do it, friends," he sobbed; "'pon my word and honor I never
done it."
"Who's accused you?" shouted a voice.
This shot seemed to carry home. Potter lifted his face and looked
around him with a pathetic hopelessness in his eyes. He saw Injun Joe, and
exclaimed:
"Oh, Injun Joe, you promised me you'd never-"
"Is that your knife?" and it was thrust before him by the Sheriff.
Potter would have fallen if they had not caught him and eased him to
the ground. Then he said:
"Something told me 't if I didn't come back and get-" He shuddered;
then waved his nerveless hand with a vanquished gesture and said, "Tell
'em, Joe, tell 'em-it ain't any use any more."
Then Huckleberry and Tom stood dumb and staring, and heard the
stony-hearted liar reel off his serene statement, they expecting every
moment that the clear sky would deliver God's lightnings upon his head,
and wondering to see how long the stroke was delayed. And when he had
finished and still stood alive and whole, their wavering impulse to break