Страница:
Mark Twain. Tom Sawyer Abroad.
Марк Твен. Том Сойер за границей. [Том Сойер - путешественник]
E-mail:
WWW: Mark Twain on Lib.ru
http://andrey.tsx.org/
Изд:
OCR:
SpellCheck: GrAnD
Date: 18.09.2002
DO you reckon Tom Sawyer was satisfied after all them adventures? I
mean the adventures we had down the river, and the time we set the darky
Jim free and Tom got shot in the leg. No, he wasn't. It only just p'isoned
him for more. That was all the effect it had. You see, when we three came
back up the river in glory, as you may say, from that long travel, and the
village received us with a torchlight procession and speeches, and
everybody hurrah'd and shouted, it made us heroes, and that was what Tom
Sawyer had always been hankering to be.
For a while he WAS satisfied. Everybody made much of him, and he tilted
up his nose and stepped around the town as though he owned it. Some called
him Tom Sawyer the Traveler, and that just swelled him up fit to bust. You
see he laid over me and Jim considerable, because we only went down the
river on a raft and came back by the steamboat, but Tom went by the
steamboat both ways. The boys envied me and Jim a good deal, but land!
they just knuckled to the dirt before TOM.
Well, I don't know; maybe he might have been satisfied if it hadn't
been for old Nat Parsons, which was postmaster, and powerful long and
slim, and kind o' good-hearted and silly, and bald-headed, on account of
his age, and about the talkiest old cretur I ever see. For as much as
thirty years he'd been the only man in the village that had a reputation-I
mean a reputation for being a traveler, and of course he was mortal proud
of it, and it was reckoned that in the course of that thirty years he had
told about that journey over a million times and enjoyed it every time.
And now comes along a boy not quite fifteen, and sets everybody admiring
and gawking over HIS travels, and it just give the poor old man the high
strikes. It made him sick to listen to Tom, and to hear the people say "My
land!" "Did you ever!" "My goodness sakes alive!" and all such things; but
he couldn't pull away from it, any more than a fly that's got its hind leg
fast in the molasses. And always when Tom come to a rest, the poor old
cretur would chip in on HIS same old travels and work them for all they
were worth; but they were pretty faded, and didn't go for much, and it was
pitiful to see. And then Tom would take another innings, and then the old
man again-and so on, and so on, for an hour and more, each trying to beat
out the other.
You see, Parsons' travels happened like this: When he first got to be
postmaster and was green in the business, there come a letter for somebody
he didn't know, and there wasn't any such person in the village. Well, he
didn't know what to do, nor how to act, and there the letter stayed and
stayed, week in and week out, till the bare sight of it gave him a
conniption. The postage wasn't paid on it, and that was another thing to
worry about. There wasn't any way to collect that ten cents, and he
reckon'd the gov'ment would hold him responsible for it and maybe turn him
out besides, when they found he hadn't collected it. Well, at last he
couldn't stand it any longer. He couldn't sleep nights, he couldn't eat,
he was thinned down to a shadder, yet he da'sn't ask anybody's advice, for
the very person he asked for advice might go back on him and let the
gov'ment know about the letter. He had the letter buried under the floor,
but that did no good; if he happened to see a person standing over the
place it'd give him the cold shivers, and loaded him up with suspicions,
and he would sit up that night till the town was still and dark, and then
he would sneak there and get it out and bury it in another place. Of
course, people got to avoiding him and shaking their heads and whispering,
because, the way he was looking and acting, they judged he had killed
somebody or done something terrible, they didn't know what, and if he had
been a stranger they would've lynched him.
Well, as I was saying, it got so he couldn't stand it any longer; so he
made up his mind to pull out for Washington, and just go to the President
of the United States and make a clean breast of the whole thing, not
keeping back an atom, and then fetch the letter out and lay it before the
whole gov'ment, and say, "Now, there she is-do with me what you're a mind
to; though as heaven is my judge I am an innocent man and not deserving of
the full penalties of the law and leaving behind me a family that must
starve and yet hadn't had a thing to do with it, which is the whole truth
and I can swear to it."
So he did it. He had a little wee bit of steamboating, and some
stage-coaching, but all the rest of the way was horseback, and it took him
three weeks to get to Washington. He saw lots of land and lots of villages
and four cities. He was gone 'most eight weeks, and there never was such a
proud man in the village as he when he got back. His travels made him the
greatest man in all that region, and the most talked about; and people
come from as much as thirty miles back in the country, and from over in
the Illinois bottoms, too, just to look at him-and there they'd stand and
gawk, and he'd gabble. You never see anything like it.
Well, there wasn't any way now to settle which was the greatest
traveler; some said it was Nat, some said it was Tom. Everybody allowed
that Nat had seen the most longitude, but they had to give in that
whatever Tom was short in longitude he had made up in latitude and
climate. It was about a stand-off; so both of them had to whoop up their
dangerous adventures, and try to get ahead THAT way. That bullet-wound in
Tom's leg was a tough thing for Nat Parsons to buck against, but he bucked
the best he could; and at a disadvantage, too, for Tom didn't set still as
he'd orter done, to be fair, but always got up and sauntered around and
worked his limp while Nat was painting up the adventure that HE had in
Washington; for Tom never let go that limp when his leg got well, but
practiced it nights at home, and kept it good as new right along.
Nat's adventure was like this; I don't know how true it is; maybe he
got it out of a paper, or somewhere, but I will say this for him, that he
DID know how to tell it. He could make anybody's flesh crawl, and he'd
turn pale and hold his breath when he told it, and sometimes women and
girls got so faint they couldn't stick it out. Well, it was this way, as
near as I can remember:
He come a-loping into Washington, and put up his horse and shoved out
to the President's house with his letter, and they told him the President
was up to the Capitol, and just going to start for Philadelphia-not a
minute to lose if he wanted to catch him. Nat 'most dropped, it made him
so sick. His horse was put up, and he didn't know what to do. But just
then along comes a darky driving an old ramshackly hack, and he see his
chance. He rushes out and shouts: "A half a dollar if you git me to the
Capitol in half an hour, and a quarter extra if you do it in twenty
minutes!"
"Done!" says the darky.
Nat he jumped in and slammed the door, and away they went a-ripping and
a-tearing over the roughest road a body ever see, and the racket of it was
something awful. Nat passed his arms through the loops and hung on for
life and death, but pretty soon the hack hit a rock and flew up in the
air, and the bottom fell out, and when it come down Nat's feet was on the
ground, and he see he was in the most desperate danger if he couldn't keep
up with the hack. He was horrible scared, but he laid into his work for
all he was worth, and hung tight to the arm-loops and made his legs fairly
fly. He yelled and shouted to the driver to stop, and so did the crowds
along the street, for they could see his legs spinning along under the
coach, and his head and shoulders bobbing inside through the windows, and
he was in awful danger; but the more they all shouted the more the nigger
whooped and yelled and lashed the horses and shouted, "Don't you fret,
I'se gwine to git you dah in time, boss; I's gwine to do it, sho'!" for
you see he thought they were all hurrying him up, and, of course, he
couldn't hear anything for the racket he was making. And so they went
ripping along, and everybody just petrified to see it; and when they got
to the Capitol at last it was the quickest trip that ever was made, and
everybody said so. The horses laid down, and Nat dropped, all tuckered
out, and he was all dust and rags and barefooted; but he was in time and
just in time, and caught the President and give him the letter, and
everything was all right, and the President give him a free pardon on the
spot, and Nat give the nigger two extra quarters instead of one, because
he could see that if he hadn't had the hack he wouldn't'a' got there in
time, nor anywhere near it.
It WAS a powerful good adventure, and Tom Sawyer had to work his
bullet-wound mighty lively to hold his own against it.
Well, by and by Tom's glory got to paling down gradu'ly, on account of
other things turning up for the people to talk about-first a horse-race,
and on top of that a house afire, and on top of that the circus, and on
top of that the eclipse; and that started a revival, same as it always
does, and by that time there wasn't any more talk about Tom, so to speak,
and you never see a person so sick and disgusted.
Pretty soon he got to worrying and fretting right along day in and day
out, and when I asked him what WAS he in such a state about, he said it
'most broke his heart to think how time was slipping away, and him getting
older and older, and no wars breaking out and no way of making a name for
himself that he could see. Now that is the way boys is always thinking,
but he was the first one I ever heard come out and say it.
So then he set to work to get up a plan to make him celebrated; and
pretty soon he struck it, and offered to take me and Jim in. Tom Sawyer
was always free and generous that way. There's a-plenty of boys that's
mighty good and friendly when YOU'VE got a good thing, but when a good
thing happens to come their way they don't say a word to you, and try to
hog it all. That warn't ever Tom Sawyer's way, I can say that for him.
There's plenty of boys that will come hankering and groveling around you
when you've got an apple and beg the core off of you; but when they've got
one, and you beg for the core and remind them how you give them a core one
time, they say thank you 'most to death, but there ain't a-going to be no
core. But I notice they always git come up with; all you got to do is to
wait.
Well, we went out in the woods on the hill, and Tom told us what it
was. It was a crusade.
"What's a crusade?" I says.
He looked scornful, the way he's always done when he was ashamed of a
person, and says:
"Huck Finn, do you mean to tell me you don't know what a crusade is?"
"No," says I, "I don't. And I don't care to, nuther. I've lived till
now and done without it, and had my health, too. But as soon as you tell
me, I'll know, and that's soon enough. I don't see any use in finding out
things and clogging up my head with them when I mayn't ever have any
occasion to use 'em. There was Lance Williams, he learned how to talk
Choctaw here till one come and dug his grave for him. Now, then, what's a
crusade? But I can tell you one thing before you begin; if it's a
patent-right, there's no money in it. Bill Thompson he-"
"Patent-right!" says he. "I never see such an idiot. Why, a crusade is
a kind of war."
I thought he must be losing his mind. But no, he was in real earnest,
and went right on, perfectly ca'm.
"A crusade is a war to recover the Holy Land from the paynim."
"Which Holy Land?"
"Why, the Holy Land-there ain't but one."
"What do we want of it?"
"Why, can't you understand? It's in the hands of the paynim, and it's
our duty to take it away from them."
"How did we come to let them git hold of it?"
"We didn't come to let them git hold of it. They always had it."
"Why, Tom, then it must belong to them, don't it?"
"Why of course it does. Who said it didn't?"
I studied over it, but couldn't seem to git at the right of it, no way.
I says:
"It's too many for me, Tom Sawyer. If I had a farm and it was mine, and
another person wanted it, would it be right for him to-"
"Oh, shucks! you don't know enough to come in when it rains, Huck Finn.
It ain't a farm, it's entirely different. You see, it's like this. They
own the land, just the mere land, and that's all they DO own; but it was
our folks, our Jews and Christians, that made it holy, and so they haven't
any business to be there defiling it. It's a shame, and we ought not to
stand it a minute. We ought to march against them and take it away from
them."
"Why, it does seem to me it's the most mixed-up thing I ever see! Now,
if I had a farm and another person-"
"Don't I tell you it hasn't got anything to do with farming? Farming is
business, just common low-down business: that's all it is, it's all you
can say for it; but this is higher, this is religious, and totally
different."
"Religious to go and take the land away from people that owns it?"
"Certainly; it's always been considered so."
Jim he shook his head, and says:
"Mars Tom, I reckon dey's a mistake about it somers-dey mos' sholy is.
I's religious myself, en I knows plenty religious people, but I hain't run
across none dat acts like dat."
It made Tom hot, and he says:
"Well, it's enough to make a body sick, such mullet-headed ignorance!
If either of you'd read anything about history, you'd know that Richard
Cur de Loon, and the Pope, and Godfrey de Bulleyn, and lots more of the
most noble-hearted and pious people in the world, hacked and hammered at
the paynims for more than two hundred years trying to take their land away
from them, and swum neck-deep in blood the whole time-and yet here's a
couple of sap-headed country yahoos out in the backwoods of Missouri
setting themselves up to know more about the rights and wrongs of it than
they did! Talk about cheek!"
Well, of course, that put a more different light on it, and me and Jim
felt pretty cheap and ignorant, and wished we hadn't been quite so
chipper. I couldn't say nothing, and Jim he couldn't for a while; then he
says:
"Well, den, I reckon it's all right; beca'se ef dey didn't know, dey
ain't no use for po' ignorant folks like us to be trying to know; en so,
ef it's our duty, we got to go en tackle it en do de bes' we can. Same
time, I feel as sorry for dem paynims as Mars Tom. De hard part gwine to
be to kill folks dat a body hain't been 'quainted wid and dat hain't done
him no harm. Dat's it, you see. Ef we wuz to go 'mongst 'em, jist we
three, en say we's hungry, en ast 'em for a bite to eat, why, maybe dey's
jist like yuther people. Don't you reckon dey is? Why, DEY'D give it, I
know dey would, en den-"
"Then what?"
"Well, Mars Tom, my idea is like dis. It ain't no use, we CAN'T kill
dem po' strangers dat ain't doin' us no harm, till we've had practice-I
knows it perfectly well, Mars Tom-'deed I knows it perfectly well. But ef
we takes a' axe or two, jist you en me en Huck, en slips acrost de river
to-night arter de moon's gone down, en kills dat sick fam'ly dat's over on
the Sny, en burns dey house down, en-"
"Oh, you make me tired!" says Tom. "I don't want to argue any more with
people like you and Huck Finn, that's always wandering from the subject,
and ain't got any more sense than to try to reason out a thing that's pure
theology by the laws that protect real estate!"
Now that's just where Tom Sawyer warn't fair. Jim didn't mean no harm,
and I didn't mean no harm. We knowed well enough that he was right and we
was wrong, and all we was after was to get at the HOW of it, and that was
all; and the only reason he couldn't explain it so we could understand it
was because we was ignorant-yes, and pretty dull, too, I ain't denying
that; but, land! that ain't no crime, I should think.
But he wouldn't hear no more about it-just said if we had tackled the
thing in the proper spirit, he would 'a' raised a couple of thousand
knights and put them in steel armor from head to heel, and made me a
lieutenant and Jim a sutler, and took the command himself and brushed the
whole paynim outfit into the sea like flies and come back across the world
in a glory like sunset. But he said we didn't know enough to take the
chance when we had it, and he wouldn't ever offer it again. And he didn't.
When he once got set, you couldn't budge him.
But I didn't care much. I am peaceable, and don't get up rows with
people that ain't doing nothing to me. I allowed if the paynim was
satisfied I was, and we would let it stand at that.
Now Tom he got all that notion out of Walter Scott's book, which he was
always reading. And it WAS a wild notion, because in my opinion he never
could've raised the men, and if he did, as like as not he would've got
licked. I took the book and read all about it, and as near as I could make
it out, most of the folks that shook farming to go crusading had a mighty
rocky time of it.
WELL, Tom got up one thing after another, but they all had tender spots
about 'em somewheres, and he had to shove 'em aside. So at last he was
about in despair. Then the St. Louis papers begun to talk a good deal
about the balloon that was going to sail to Europe, and Tom sort of
thought he wanted to go down and see what it looked like, but couldn't
make up his mind. But the papers went on talking, and so he allowed that
maybe if he didn't go he mightn't ever have another chance to see a
balloon; and next, he found out that Nat Parsons was going down to see it,
and that decided him, of course. He wasn't going to have Nat Parsons
coming back bragging about seeing the balloon, and him having to listen to
it and keep quiet. So he wanted me and Jim to go too, and we went.
It was a noble big balloon, and had wings and fans and all sorts of
things, and wasn't like any balloon you see in pictures. It was away out
toward the edge of town, in a vacant lot, corner of Twelfth street; and
there was a big crowd around it, making fun of it, and making fun of the
man,-a lean pale feller with that soft kind of moonlight in his eyes, you
know,-and they kept saying it wouldn't go. It made him hot to hear them,
and he would turn on them and shake his fist and say they was animals and
blind, but some day they would find they had stood face to face with one
of the men that lifts up nations and makes civilizations, and was too dull
to know it; and right here on this spot their own children and
grandchildren would build a monument to him that would outlast a thousand
years, but his name would outlast the monument. And then the crowd would
burst out in a laugh again, and yell at him, and ask him what was his name
before he was married, and what he would take to not do it, and what was
his sister's cat's grandmother's name, and all the things that a crowd
says when they've got hold of a feller that they see they can plague.
Well, some things they said WAS funny,-yes, and mighty witty too, I ain't
denying that,-but all the same it warn't fair nor brave, all them people
pitching on one, and they so glib and sharp, and him without any gift of
talk to answer back with. But, good land! what did he want to sass back
for? You see, it couldn't do him no good, and it was just nuts for them.
They HAD him, you know. But that was his way. I reckon he couldn't help
it; he was made so, I judge. He was a good enough sort of cretur, and
hadn't no harm in him, and was just a genius, as the papers said, which
wasn't his fault. We can't all be sound: we've got to be the way we're
made. As near as I can make out, geniuses think they know it all, and so
they won't take people's advice, but always go their own way, which makes
everybody forsake them and despise them, and that is perfectly natural. If
they was humbler, and listened and tried to learn, it would be better for
them.
The part the professor was in was like a boat, and was big and roomy,
and had water-tight lockers around the inside to keep all sorts of things
in, and a body could sit on them, and make beds on them, too. We went
aboard, and there was twenty people there, snooping around and examining,
and old Nat Parsons was there, too. The professor kept fussing around
getting ready, and the people went ashore, drifting out one at a time, and
old Nat he was the last. Of course it wouldn't do to let him go out behind
US. We mustn't budge till he was gone, so we could be last ourselves.
But he was gone now, so it was time for us to follow. I heard a big
shout, and turned around-the city was dropping from under us like a shot!
It made me sick all through, I was so scared. Jim turned gray and couldn't
say a word, and Tom didn't say nothing, but looked excited. The city went
on dropping down, and down, and down; but we didn't seem to be doing
nothing but just hang in the air and stand still. The houses got smaller
and smaller, and the city pulled itself together, closer and closer, and
the men and wagons got to looking like ants and bugs crawling around, and
the streets like threads and cracks; and then it all kind of melted
together, and there wasn't any city any more it was only a big scar on the
earth, and it seemed to me a body could see up the river and down the
river about a thousand miles, though of course it wasn't so much. By and
by the earth was a ball-just a round ball, of a dull color, with shiny
stripes wriggling and winding around over it, which was rivers. The Widder
Douglas always told me the earth was round like a ball, but I never took
any stock in a lot of them superstitions o' hers, and of course I paid no
attention to that one, because I could see myself that the world was the
shape of a plate, and flat. I used to go up on the hill, and take a look
around and prove it for myself, because I reckon the best way to get a
sure thing on a fact is to go and examine for yourself, and not take
anybody's say-so. But I had to give in now that the widder was right. That
is, she was right as to the rest of the world, but she warn't right about
the part our village is in; that part is the shape of a plate, and flat, I
take my oath!
The professor had been quiet all this time, as if he was asleep; but he
broke loose now, and he was mighty bitter. He says something like this:
"Idiots! They said it wouldn't go; and they wanted to examine it, and
spy around and get the secret of it out of me. But I beat them. Nobody
knows the secret but me. Nobody knows what makes it move but me; and it's
a new power-a new power, and a thousand times the strongest in the earth!
Steam's foolishness to it! They said I couldn't go to Europe. To Europe!
Why, there's power aboard to last five years, and feed for three months.
They are fools! What do they know about it? Yes, and they said my air-ship
was flimsy. Why, she's good for fifty years! I can sail the skies all my
life if I want to, and steer where I please, though they laughed at that,
and said I couldn't. Couldn't steer! Come here, boy; we'll see. You press
these buttons as I tell you."
He made Tom steer the ship all about and every which way, and learnt
him the whole thing in nearly no time; and Tom said it was perfectly easy.
He made him fetch the ship down 'most to the earth, and had him spin her
along so close to the Illinois prairies that a body could talk to the
farmers, and hear everything they said perfectly plain; and he flung out
printed bills to them that told about the balloon, and said it was going
to Europe. Tom got so he could steer straight for a tree till he got
nearly to it, and then dart up and skin right along over the top of it.
Yes, and he showed Tom how to land her; and he done it first-rate, too,
and set her down in the prairies as soft as wool. But the minute we
started to skip out the professor says, "No, you don't!" and shot her up
in the air again. It was awful. I begun to beg, and so did Jim; but it
only give his temper a rise, and he begun to rage around and look wild out
of his eyes, and I was scared of him.
Well, then he got on to his troubles again, and mourned and grumbled
about the way he was treated, and couldn't seem to git over it, and
especially people's saying his ship was flimsy. He scoffed at that, and at
their saying she warn't simple and would be always getting out of order.
Get out of order! That graveled him; he said that she couldn't any more
get out of order than the solar sister.
He got worse and worse, and I never see a person take on so. It give me
the cold shivers to see him, and so it did Jim. By and by he got to
yelling and screaming, and then he swore the world shouldn't ever have his
secret at all now, it had treated him so mean. He said he would sail his
balloon around the globe just to show what he could do, and then he would
sink it in the sea, and sink us all along with it, too. Well, it was the
awfulest fix to be in, and here was night coming on!
He give us something to eat, and made us go to the other end of the
boat, and he laid down on a locker, where he could boss all the works, and
put his old pepper-box revolver under his head, and said if anybody come
fooling around there trying to land her, he would kill him.
We set scrunched up together, and thought considerable, but didn't say
much-only just a word once in a while when a body had to say something or
bust, we was so scared and worried. The night dragged along slow and
lonesome. We was pretty low down, and the moonshine made everything soft
and pretty, and the farmhouses looked snug and homeful, and we could hear
the farm sounds, and wished we could be down there; but, laws! we just
slipped along over them like a ghost, and never left a track.
Away in the night, when all the sounds was late sounds, and the air had
a late feel, and a late smell, too-about a two-o'clock feel, as near as I
could make out-Tom said the professor was so quiet this time he must be
asleep, and we'd better-
"Better what?" I says in a whisper, and feeling sick all over, because
I knowed what he was thinking about.
"Better slip back there and tie him, and land the ship," he says.
I says: "No, sir! Don' you budge, Tom Sawyer."
And Jim-well, Jim was kind o' gasping, he was so scared. He says:
"Oh, Mars Tom, DON'T! Ef you teches him, we's gone-we's gone sho'! I
ain't gwine anear him, not for nothin' in dis worl'. Mars Tom, he's plumb
crazy."
Tom whispers and says-"That's WHY we've got to do something. If he
wasn't crazy I wouldn't give shucks to be anywhere but here; you couldn't
hire me to get out-now that I've got used to this balloon and over the
scare of being cut loose from the solid ground-if he was in his right
mind. But it's no good politics, sailing around like this with a person
that's out of his head, and says he's going round the world and then drown
us all. We've GOT to do something, I tell you, and do it before he wakes
up, too, or we mayn't ever get another chance. Come!"
But it made us turn cold and creepy just to think of it, and we said we
wouldn't budge. So Tom was for slipping back there by himself to see if he
couldn't get at the steering-gear and land the ship. We begged and begged
him not to, but it warn't no use; so he got down on his hands and knees,
and begun to crawl an inch at a time, we a-holding our breath and
watching. After he got to the middle of the boat he crept slower than
ever, and it did seem like years to me. But at last we see him get to the
professor's head, and sort of raise up soft and look a good spell in his
face and listen. Then we see him begin to inch along again toward the
professor's feet where the steering-buttons was. Well, he got there all
safe, and was reaching slow and steady toward the buttons, but he knocked
down something that made a noise, and we see him slump down flat an' soft
in the bottom, and lay still. The professor stirred, and says, "What's
that?" But everybody kept dead still and quiet, and he begun to mutter and
mumble and nestle, like a person that's going to wake up, and I thought I
was going to die, I was so worried and scared.
Then a cloud slid over the moon, and I 'most cried, I was so glad. She
buried herself deeper and deeper into the cloud, and it got so dark we
couldn't see Tom. Then it began to sprinkle rain, and we could hear the
professor fussing at his ropes and things and abusing the weather. We was
afraid every minute he would touch Tom, and then we would be goners, and
no help; but Tom was already on his way back, and when we felt his hands
on our knees my breath stopped sudden, and my heart fell down 'mongst my
other works, because I couldn't tell in the dark but it might be the
professor! which I thought it WAS.
Dear! I was so glad to have him back that I was just as near happy as a
person could be that was up in the air that way with a deranged man. You
can't land a balloon in the dark, and so I hoped it would keep on raining,
for I didn't want Tom to go meddling any more and make us so awful
uncomfortable. Well, I got my wish. It drizzled and drizzled along the
rest of the night, which wasn't long, though it did seem so; and at
daybreak it cleared, and the world looked mighty soft and gray and pretty,
and the forests and fields so good to see again, and the horses and cattle
standing sober and thinking. Next, the sun come ablazing up gay and
splendid, and then we began to feel rusty and stretchy, and first we
knowed we was all asleep.
WE went to sleep about four o'clock, and woke up about eight. The
professor was setting back there at his end, looking glum. He pitched us
some breakfast, but he told us not to come abaft the midship compass. That
was about the middle of the boat. Well, when you are sharp-set, and you
eat and satisfy yourself, everything looks pretty different from what it
done before. It makes a body feel pretty near comfortable, even when he is
up in a balloon with a genius. We got to talking together.
There was one thing that kept bothering me, and by and by I says:
"Tom, didn't we start east?"
"Yes."
"How fast have we been going?"
"Well, you heard what the professor said when he was raging round.
Sometimes, he said, we was making fifty miles an hour, sometimes ninety,
sometimes a hundred; said that with a gale to help he could make three
hundred any time, and said if he wanted the gale, and wanted it blowing
the right direction, he only had to go up higher or down lower to find
it."
"Well, then, it's just as I reckoned. The professor lied."
"Why?"
"Because if we was going so fast we ought to be past Illinois, oughtn't
we?"
"Certainly."
"Well, we ain't."
"What's the reason we ain't?"
"I know by the color. We're right over Illinois yet. And you can see
for yourself that Indiana ain't in sight."
"I wonder what's the matter with you, Huck. You know by the COLOR?"
"Yes, of course I do."
"What's the color got to do with it?"
"It's got everything to do with it. Illinois is green, Indiana is pink.
You show me any pink down here, if you can. No, sir; it's green."
"Indiana PINK? Why, what a lie!"
"It ain't no lie; I've seen it on the map, and it's pink."
You never see a person so aggravated and disgusted. He says:
"Well, if I was such a numbskull as you, Huck Finn, I would jump over.
Seen it on the map! Huck Finn, did you reckon the States was the same
color out-of-doors as they are on the map?"
"Tom Sawyer, what's a map for? Ain't it to learn you facts?"
"Of course."
"Well, then, how's it going to do that if it tells lies? That's what I
want to know."
"Shucks, you muggins! It don't tell lies."
"It don't, don't it?"
"No, it don't."
"All right, then; if it don't, there ain't no two States the same
color. You git around THAT if you can, Tom Sawyer."
He see I had him, and Jim see it too; and I tell you, I felt pretty
good, for Tom Sawyer was always a hard person to git ahead of. Jim slapped
his leg and says:
"I tell YOU! dat's smart, dat's right down smart. Ain't no use, Mars
Tom; he got you DIS time, sho'!" He slapped his leg again, and says, "My
LAN', but it was smart one!"
I never felt so good in my life; and yet I didn't know I was saying
anything much till it was out. I was just mooning along, perfectly
careless, and not expecting anything was going to happen, and never
THINKING of such a thing at all, when, all of a sudden, out it came. Why,
it was just as much a surprise to me as it was to any of them. It was just
the same way it is when a person is munching along on a hunk of corn-pone,
and not thinking about anything, and all of a sudden bites into a di'mond.
Now all that HE knows first off is that it's some kind of gravel he's bit
into; but he don't find out it's a di'mond till he gits it out and brushes
off the sand and crumbs and one thing or another, and has a look at it,
and then he's surprised and glad-yes, and proud too; though when you come
to look the thing straight in the eye, he ain't entitled to as much credit
as he would 'a' been if he'd been HUNTING di'monds. You can see the
difference easy if you think it over. You see, an accident, that way,
ain't fairly as big a thing as a thing that's done a-purpose. Anybody
could find that di'mond in that corn-pone; but mind you, it's got to be
somebody that's got THAT KIND OF A CORN-PONE. That's where that feller's
credit comes in, you see; and that's where mine comes in. I don't claim no
great things-I don't reckon I could 'a' done it again-but I done it that
time; that's all I claim. And I hadn't no more idea I could do such a
thing, and warn't any more thinking about it or trying to, than you be
this minute. Why, I was just as ca'm, a body couldn't be any ca'mer, and
yet, all of a sudden, out it come. I've often thought of that time, and I
can remember just the way everything looked, same as if it was only last
week. I can see it all: beautiful rolling country with woods and fields
and lakes for hundreds and hundreds of miles all around, and towns and
villages scattered everywheres under us, here and there and yonder; and
the professor mooning over a chart on his little table, and Tom's cap
flopping in the rigging where it was hung up to dry. And one thing in
particular was a bird right alongside, not ten foot off, going our way and
trying to keep up, but losing ground all the time; and a railroad train
doing the same thing down there, sliding among the trees and farms, and
pouring out a long cloud of black smoke and now and then a little puff of
white; and when the white was gone so long you had almost forgot it, you
would hear a little faint toot, and that was the whistle. And we left the
bird and the train both behind, 'WAY behind, and done it easy, too.
But Tom he was huffy, and said me and Jim was a couple of ignorant
blatherskites, and then he says:
"Suppose there's a brown calf and a big brown dog, and an artist is
making a picture of them. What is the MAIN thing that that artist has got
to do? He has got to paint them so you can tell them apart the minute you
look at them, hain't he? Of course. Well, then, do you want him to go and
paint BOTH of them brown? Certainly you don't. He paints one of them blue,
and then you can't make no mistake. It's just the same with the maps.
That's why they make every State a different color; it ain't to deceive
you, it's to keep you from deceiving yourself."
But I couldn't see no argument about that, and neither could Jim. Jim
shook his head, and says:
"Why, Mars Tom, if you knowed what chuckleheads dem painters is, you'd
wait a long time before you'd fetch one er DEM in to back up a fac'. I's
gwine to tell you, den you kin see for you'self. I see one of 'em
a-paintin' away, one day, down in ole Hank Wilson's back lot, en I went
down to see, en he was paintin' dat old brindle cow wid de near horn
gone-you knows de one I means. En I ast him what he's paintin' her for, en
he say when he git her painted, de picture's wuth a hundred dollars. Mars
Tom, he could a got de cow fer fifteen, en I tole him so. Well, sah, if
you'll b'lieve me, he jes' shuck his head, dat painter did, en went on
a-dobbin'. Bless you, Mars Tom, DEY don't know nothin'."
Tom lost his temper. I notice a person 'most always does that's got
laid out in an argument. He told us to shut up, and maybe we'd feel
better. Then he see a town clock away off down yonder, and he took up the
glass and looked at it, and then looked at his silver turnip, and then at
the clock, and then at the turnip again, and says:
"That's funny! That clock's near about an hour fast."
So he put up his turnip. Then he see another clock, and took a look,
and it was an hour fast too. That puzzled him.
"That's a mighty curious thing," he says. "I don't understand it."
Then he took the glass and hunted up another clock, and sure enough it
was an hour fast too. Then his eyes began to spread and his breath to come
out kinder gaspy like, and he says:
"Ger-reat Scott, it's the LONGITUDE!"
I says, considerably scared:
"Well, what's been and gone and happened now?"
"Why, the thing that's happened is that this old bladder has slid over
Illinois and Indiana and Ohio like nothing, and this is the east end of
Pennsylvania or New York, or somewheres around there."
"Tom Sawyer, you don't mean it!"
"Yes, I do, and it's dead sure. We've covered about fifteen degrees of
longitude since we left St. Louis yesterday afternoon, and them clocks are
right. We've come close on to eight hundred miles."
I didn't believe it, but it made the cold streaks trickle down my back
just the same. In my experience I knowed it wouldn't take much short of
two weeks to do it down the Mississippi on a raft. Jim was working his
mind and studying. Pretty soon he says:
"Mars Tom, did you say dem clocks uz right?"
"Yes, they're right."
"Ain't yo' watch right, too?"
"She's right for St. Louis, but she's an hour wrong for here."
"Mars Tom, is you tryin' to let on dat de time ain't de SAME
everywheres?"
"No, it ain't the same everywheres, by a long shot."
Jim looked distressed, and says:
"It grieves me to hear you talk like dat, Mars Tom; I's right down
ashamed to hear you talk like dat, arter de way you's been raised. Yassir,
it'd break yo' Aunt Polly's heart to hear you."
Tom was astonished. He looked Jim over wondering, and didn't say
nothing, and Jim went on:
"Mars Tom, who put de people out yonder in St. Louis? De Lord done it.
Who put de people here whar we is? De Lord done it. Ain' dey bofe his
children? 'Cose dey is. WELL, den! is he gwine to SCRIMINATE 'twixt 'em?"
"Scriminate! I never heard such ignorance. There ain't no
discriminating about it. When he makes you and some more of his children
black, and makes the rest of us white, what do you call that?"
Jim see the p'int. He was stuck. He couldn't answer. Tom says:
"He does discriminate, you see, when he wants to; but this case HERE
ain't no discrimination of his, it's man's. The Lord made the day, and he
made the night; but he didn't invent the hours, and he didn't distribute
them around. Man did that."
"Mars Tom, is dat so? Man done it?"
"Certainly."
"Who tole him he could?"
"Nobody. He never asked."
Jim studied a minute, and says:
"Well, dat do beat me. I wouldn't 'a' tuck no sich resk. But some
people ain't scared o' nothin'. Dey bangs right ahead; DEY don't care what
happens. So den dey's allays an hour's diff'unce everywhah, Mars Tom?"
"An hour? No! It's four minutes difference for every degree of
longitude, you know. Fifteen of 'em's an hour, thirty of 'em's two hours,
and so on. When it's one clock Tuesday morning in England, it's eight
o'clock the night before in New York."
Jim moved a little way along the locker, and you could see he was
insulted. He kept shaking his head and muttering, and so I slid along to
him and patted him on the leg, and petted him up, and got him over the
worst of his feelings, and then he says:
"Mars Tom talkin' sich talk as dat! Choosday in one place en Monday in
t'other, bofe in the same day! Huck, dis ain't no place to joke-up here
whah we is. Two days in one day! How you gwine to get two days inter one
day? Can't git two hours inter one hour, kin you? Can't git two niggers
inter one nigger skin, kin you? Can't git two gallons of whisky inter a
one-gallon jug, kin you? No, sir, 'twould strain de jug. Yes, en even den
you couldn't, I don't believe. Why, looky here, Huck, s'posen de Choosday
was New Year's-now den! is you gwine to tell me it's dis year in one place
en las' year in t'other, bofe in de identical same minute? It's de
beatenest rubbage! I can't stan' it-I can't stan' to hear tell 'bout it."
Then he begun to shiver and turn gray, and Tom says:
"NOW what's the matter? What's the trouble?"
Jim could hardly speak, but he says:
"Mars Tom, you ain't jokin', en it's SO?"
"No, I'm not, and it is so."
Jim shivered again, and says:
"Den dat Monday could be de las' day, en dey wouldn't be no las' day in
England, en de dead wouldn't be called. We mustn't go over dah, Mars Tom.
Please git him to turn back; I wants to be whah-"
All of a sudden we see something, and all jumped up, and forgot
everything and begun to gaze. Tom says:
"Ain't that the-" He catched his breath, then says: "It IS, sure as you
live! It's the ocean!"
That made me and Jim catch our breath, too. Then we all stood petrified
but happy, for none of us had ever seen an ocean, or ever expected to. Tom
kept muttering:
"Atlantic Ocean-Atlantic. Land, don't it sound great! And that's IT-and
WE are looking at it-we! Why, it's just too splendid to believe!"
Then we see a big bank of black smoke; and when we got nearer, it was a
city-and a monster she was, too, with a thick fringe of ships around one
edge; and we wondered if it was New York, and begun to jaw and dispute
about it, and, first we knowed, it slid from under us and went flying
behind, and here we was, out over the very ocean itself, and going like a
cyclone. Then we woke up, I tell you!
We made a break aft and raised a wail, and begun to beg the professor
to turn back and land us, but he jerked out his pistol and motioned us
back, and we went, but nobody will ever know how bad we felt.
The land was gone, all but a little streak, like a snake, away off on
the edge of the water, and down under us was just ocean, ocean,
ocean-millions of miles of it, heaving and pitching and squirming, and
white sprays blowing from the wave-tops, and only a few ships in sight,
wallowing around and laying over, first on one side and then on t'other,
and sticking their bows under and then their sterns; and before long there
warn't no ships at all, and we had the sky and the whole ocean all to
ourselves, and the roomiest place I ever see and the lonesomest.
AND it got lonesomer and lonesomer. There was the big sky up there,
empty and awful deep; and the ocean down there without a thing on it but
just the waves. All around us was a ring, where the sky and the water come
together; yes, a monstrous big ring it was, and we right in the dead
center of it-plumb in the center. We was racing along like a prairie fire,
but it never made any difference, we couldn't seem to git past that center
no way. I couldn't see that we ever gained an inch on that ring. It made a
body feel creepy, it was so curious and unaccountable.
Well, everything was so awful still that we got to talking in a very
low voice, and kept on getting creepier and lonesomer and less and less
talky, till at last the talk ran dry altogether, and we just set there and
"thunk," as Jim calls it, and never said a word the longest time.
The professor never stirred till the sun was overhead, then he stood up
and put a kind of triangle to his eye, and Tom said it was a sextant and
he was taking the sun to see whereabouts the balloon was. Then he ciphered
a little and looked in a book, and then he begun to carry on again. He
said lots of wild things, and, among others, he said he would keep up this