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"Oh, shucks, Huck Finn, can't you see? Look at it. What's a-going to
happen? There's going to be an inquest in the morning. Them two men will
tell how they heard the yells and rushed there just in time to not save
the stranger. Then the jury'll twaddle and twaddle and twaddle, and
finally they'll fetch in a verdict that he got shot or stuck or busted
over the head with something, and come to his death by the inspiration of
God. And after they've buried him they'll auction off his things for to
pay the expenses, and then's OUR chance." "How, Tom?"
"Buy the boots for two dollars!"
Well, it 'most took my breath.
"My land! Why, Tom, WE'LL get the di'monds!"
"You bet. Some day there'll be a big reward offered for them-a thousand
dollars, sure. That's our money! Now we'll trot in and see the folks. And
mind you we don't know anything about any murder, or any di'monds, or any
thieves-don't you forget that."
I had to sigh a little over the way he had got it fixed. I'd 'a' SOLD
them di'monds-yes, sir-for twelve thousand dollars; but I didn't say
anything. It wouldn't done any good. I says:
"But what are we going to tell your aunt Sally has made us so long
getting down here from the village, Tom?"
"Oh, I'll leave that to you," he says. "I reckon you can explain it
somehow."
He was always just that strict and delicate. He never would tell a lie
himself.
We struck across the big yard, noticing this, that, and t'other thing
that was so familiar, and we so glad to see it again, and when we got to
the roofed big passageway betwixt the double log house and the kitchen
part, there was everything hanging on the wall just as it used to was,
even to Uncle Silas's old faded green baize working-gown with the hood to
it, and raggedy white patch between the shoulders that always looked like
somebody had hit him with a snowball; and then we lifted the latch and
walked in. Aunt Sally she was just a-ripping and a-tearing around, and the
children was huddled in one corner, and the old man he was huddled in the
other and praying for help in time of need. She jumped for us with joy and
tears running down her face and give us a whacking box on the ear, and
then hugged us and kissed us and boxed us again, and just couldn't seem to
get enough of it, she was so glad to see us; and she says:
"Where HAVE you been a-loafing to, you good-for-nothing trash! I've
been that worried about you I didn't know what to do. Your traps has been
here ever so long, and I've had supper cooked fresh about four times so as
to have it hot and good when you come, till at last my patience is just
plumb wore out, and I declare I-I-why I could skin you alive! You must be
starving, poor things!-set down, set down, everybody; don't lose no more
time."
It was good to be there again behind all that noble corn-pone and
spareribs, and everything that you could ever want in this world. Old
Uncle Silas he peeled off one of his bulliest old-time blessings, with as
many layers to it as an onion, and whilst the angels was hauling in the
slack of it I was trying to study up what to say about what kept us so
long. When our plates was all loadened and we'd got a-going, she asked me,
and I says:
"Well, you see,-er-Mizzes-"
"Huck Finn! Since when am I Mizzes to you? Have I ever been stingy of
cuffs or kisses for you since the day you stood in this room and I took
you for Tom Sawyer and blessed God for sending you to me, though you told
me four thousand lies and I believed every one of them like a simpleton?
Call me Aunt Sally-like you always done."
So I done it. And I says:
"Well, me and Tom allowed we would come along afoot and take a smell of
the woods, and we run across Lem Beebe and Jim Lane, and they asked us to
go with them blackberrying to-night, and said they could borrow Jubiter
Dunlap's dog, because he had told them just that minute-"
"Where did they see him?" says the old man; and when I looked up to see
how HE come to take an intrust in a little thing like that, his eyes was
just burning into me, he was that eager. It surprised me so it kind of
throwed me off, but I pulled myself together again and says:
"It was when he was spading up some ground along with you, towards
sundown or along there."
He only said, "Um," in a kind of a disappointed way, and didn't take no
more intrust. So I went on. I says:
"Well, then, as I was a-saying-"
"That'll do, you needn't go no furder." It was Aunt Sally. She was
boring right into me with her eyes, and very indignant. "Huck Finn," she
says, "how'd them men come to talk about going a-black-berrying in
September-in THIS region?"
I see I had slipped up, and I couldn't say a word. She waited, still
a-gazing at me, then she says:
"And how'd they come to strike that idiot idea of going a-blackberrying
in the night?"
"Well, m'm, they-er-they told us they had a lantern, and-"
"Oh, SHET up-do! Looky here; what was they going to do with a dog?-hunt
blackberries with it?"
"I think, m'm, they-"
"Now, Tom Sawyer, what kind of a lie are you fixing YOUR mouth to
contribit to this mess of rubbage? Speak out-and I warn you before you
begin, that I don't believe a word of it. You and Huck's been up to
something you no business to-I know it perfectly well; I know you, BOTH of
you. Now you explain that dog, and them blackberries, and the lantern, and
the rest of that rot-and mind you talk as straight as a string-do you
hear?"
Tom he looked considerable hurt, and says, very dignified:
"It is a pity if Huck is to be talked to that way, just for making a
little bit of a mistake that anybody could make."
"What mistake has he made?"
"Why, only the mistake of saying blackberries when of course he meant
strawberries."
"Tom Sawyer, I lay if you aggravate me a little more, I'll-"
"Aunt Sally, without knowing it-and of course without intending it-you
are in the wrong. If you'd 'a' studied natural history the way you ought,
you would know that all over the world except just here in Arkansaw they
ALWAYS hunt strawberries with a dog-and a lantern-"
But she busted in on him there and just piled into him and snowed him
under. She was so mad she couldn't get the words out fast enough, and she
gushed them out in one everlasting freshet. That was what Tom Sawyer was
after. He allowed to work her up and get her started and then leave her
alone and let her burn herself out. Then she would be so aggravated with
that subject that she wouldn't say another word about it, nor let anybody
else. Well, it happened just so. When she was tuckered out and had to hold
up, he says, quite ca'm:
"And yet, all the same, Aunt Sally-"
"Shet up!" she says, "I don't want to hear another word out of you."
So we was perfectly safe, then, and didn't have no more trouble about
that delay. Tom done it elegant.
BENNY she was looking pretty sober, and she sighed some, now and then;
but pretty soon she got to asking about Mary, and Sid, and Tom's aunt
Polly, and then Aunt Sally's clouds cleared off and she got in a good
humor and joined in on the questions and was her lovingest best self, and
so the rest of the supper went along gay and pleasant. But the old man he
didn't take any hand hardly, and was absent-minded and restless, and done
a considerable amount of sighing; and it was kind of heart-breaking to see
him so sad and troubled and worried.
By and by, a spell after supper, come a nigger and knocked on the door
and put his head in with his old straw hat in his hand bowing and
scraping, and said his Marse Brace was out at the stile and wanted his
brother, and was getting tired waiting supper for him, and would Marse
Silas please tell him where he was? I never see Uncle Silas speak up so
sharp and fractious before. He says:
"Am I his brother's keeper?" And then he kind of wilted together, and
looked like he wished he hadn't spoken so, and then he says, very gentle:
"But you needn't say that, Billy; I was took sudden and irritable, and I
ain't very well these days, and not hardly responsible. Tell him he ain't
here."
And when the nigger was gone he got up and walked the floor, backwards
and forwards, mumbling and muttering to himself and plowing his hands
through his hair. It was real pitiful to see him. Aunt Sally she whispered
to us and told us not to take notice of him, it embarrassed him. She said
he was always thinking and thinking, since these troubles come on, and she
allowed he didn't more'n about half know what he was about when the
thinking spells was on him; and she said he walked in his sleep
considerable more now than he used to, and sometimes wandered around over
the house and even outdoors in his sleep, and if we catched him at it we
must let him alone and not disturb him. She said she reckoned it didn't do
him no harm, and may be it done him good. She said Benny was the only one
that was much help to him these days. Said Benny appeared to know just
when to try to soothe him and when to leave him alone.
So he kept on tramping up and down the floor and muttering, till by and
by he begun to look pretty tired; then Benny she went and snuggled up to
his side and put one hand in his and one arm around his waist and walked
with him; and he smiled down on her, and reached down and kissed her; and
so, little by little the trouble went out of his face and she persuaded
him off to his room. They had very petting ways together, and it was
uncommon pretty to see.
Aunt Sally she was busy getting the children ready for bed; so by and
by it got dull and tedious, and me and Tom took a turn in the moonlight,
and fetched up in the watermelon-patch and et one, and had a good deal of
talk. And Tom said he'd bet the quarreling was all Jubiter's fault, and he
was going to be on hand the first time he got a chance, and see; and if it
was so, he was going to do his level best to get Uncle Silas to turn him
off.
And so we talked and smoked and stuffed watermelons much as two hours,
and then it was pretty late, and when we got back the house was quiet and
dark, and everybody gone to bed.
Tom he always seen everything, and now he see that the old green baize
work-gown was gone, and said it wasn't gone when he went out; so he
allowed it was curious, and then we went up to bed.
We could hear Benny stirring around in her room, which was next to
ourn, and judged she was worried a good deal about her father and couldn't
sleep. We found we couldn't, neither. So we set up a long time, and smoked
and talked in a low voice, and felt pretty dull and down-hearted. We
talked the murder and the ghost over and over again, and got so creepy and
crawly we couldn't get sleepy nohow and noway.
By and by, when it was away late in the night and all the sounds was
late sounds and solemn, Tom nudged me and whispers to me to look, and I
done it, and there we see a man poking around in the yard like he didn't
know just what he wanted to do, but it was pretty dim and we couldn't see
him good. Then he started for the stile, and as he went over it the moon
came out strong, and he had a long-handled shovel over his shoulder, and
we see the white patch on the old work-gown. So Tom says:
"He's a-walking in his sleep. I wish we was allowed to follow him and
see where he's going to. There, he's turned down by the tobacker-field.
Out of sight now. It's a dreadful pity he can't rest no better."
We waited a long time, but he didn't come back any more, or if he did
he come around the other way; so at last we was tuckered out and went to
sleep and had nightmares, a million of them. But before dawn we was awake
again, because meantime a storm had come up and been raging, and the
thunder and lightning was awful, and the wind was a-thrashing the trees
around, and the rain was driving down in slanting sheets, and the gullies
was running rivers. Tom says:
"Looky here, Huck, I'll tell you one thing that's mighty curious. Up to
the time we went out last night the family hadn't heard about Jake Dunlap
being murdered. Now the men that chased Hal Clayton and Bud Dixon away
would spread the thing around in a half an hour, and every neighbor that
heard it would shin out and fly around from one farm to t'other and try to
be the first to tell the news. Land, they don't have such a big thing as
that to tell twice in thirty year! Huck, it's mighty strange; I don't
understand it."
So then he was in a fidget for the rain to let up, so we could turn out
and run across some of the people and see if they would say anything about
it to us. And he said if they did we must be horribly surprised and
shocked.
We was out and gone the minute the rain stopped. It was just broad day
then. We loafed along up the road, and now and then met a person and
stopped and said howdy, and told them when we come, and how we left the
folks at home, and how long we was going to stay, and all that, but none
of them said a word about that thing; which was just astonishing, and no
mistake. Tom said he believed if we went to the sycamores we would find
that body laying there solitary and alone, and not a soul around. Said he
believed the men chased the thieves so far into the woods that the thieves
prob'ly seen a good chance and turned on them at last, and maybe they all
killed each other, and so there wasn't anybody left to tell.
First we knowed, gabbling along that away, we was right at the
sycamores. The cold chills trickled down my back and I wouldn't budge
another step, for all Tom's persuading. But he couldn't hold in; he'd GOT
to see if the boots was safe on that body yet. So he crope in-and the next
minute out he come again with his eyes bulging he was so excited, and
says:
"Huck, it's gone!"
I WAS astonished! I says:
"Tom, you don't mean it."
"It's gone, sure. There ain't a sign of it. The ground is trampled
some, but if there was any blood it's all washed away by the storm, for
it's all puddles and slush in there."
At last I give in, and went and took a look myself; and it was just as
Tom said-there wasn't a sign of a corpse.
"Dern it," I says, "the di'monds is gone. Don't you reckon the thieves
slunk back and lugged him off, Tom?"
"Looks like it. It just does. Now where'd they hide him, do you reckon?"
"I don't know," I says, disgusted, "and what's more I don't care.
They've got the boots, and that's all I cared about. He'll lay around
these woods a long time before I hunt him up."
Tom didn't feel no more intrust in him neither, only curiosity to know
what come of him; but he said we'd lay low and keep dark and it wouldn't
be long till the dogs or somebody rousted him out.
We went back home to breakfast ever so bothered and put out and
disappointed and swindled. I warn't ever so down on a corpse before.
IT warn't very cheerful at breakfast. Aunt Sally she looked old and
tired and let the children snarl and fuss at one another and didn't seem
to notice it was going on, which wasn't her usual style; me and Tom had a
plenty to think about without talking; Benny she looked like she hadn't
had much sleep, and whenever she'd lift her head a little and steal a look
towards her father you could see there was tears in her eyes; and as for
the old man, his things stayed on his plate and got cold without him
knowing they was there, I reckon, for he was thinking and thinking all the
time, and never said a word and never et a bite.
By and by when it was stillest, that nigger's head was poked in at the
door again, and he said his Marse Brace was getting powerful uneasy about
Marse Jubiter, which hadn't come home yet, and would Marse Silas please
-He was looking at Uncle Silas, and he stopped there, like the rest of his
words was froze; for Uncle Silas he rose up shaky and steadied himself
leaning his fingers on the table, and he was panting, and his eyes was set
on the nigger, and he kept swallowing, and put his other hand up to his
throat a couple of times, and at last he got his words started, and says:
"Does he-does he-think-WHAT does he think! Tell him-tell him-" Then he
sunk down in his chair limp and weak, and says, so as you could hardly
hear him: "Go away-go away!"
The nigger looked scared and cleared out, and we all felt-well, I don't
know how we felt, but it was awful, with the old man panting there, and
his eyes set and looking like a person that was dying. None of us could
budge; but Benny she slid around soft, with her tears running down, and
stood by his side, and nestled his old gray head up against her and begun
to stroke it and pet it with her hands, and nodded to us to go away, and
we done it, going out very quiet, like the dead was there.
Me and Tom struck out for the woods mighty solemn, and saying how
different it was now to what it was last summer when we was here and
everything was so peaceful and happy and everybody thought so much of
Uncle Silas, and he was so cheerful and simple-hearted and pudd'n-headed
and good-and now look at him. If he hadn't lost his mind he wasn't muck
short of it. That was what we allowed.
It was a most lovely day now, and bright and sun. shiny; and the
further and further we went over the hills towards the prairie the
lovelier and lovelier the trees and flowers got to be and the more it
seemed strange and somehow wrong that there had to be trouble in such a
world as this. And then all of a sudden I catched my breath and grabbed
Tom's arm, and all my livers and lungs and things fell down into my legs.
"There it is!" I says. We jumped back behind a bush shivering, and Tom
says:
"Sh!-don't make a noise."
It was setting on a log right in the edge of a little prairie,
thinking. I tried to get Tom to come away, but he wouldn't, and I dasn't
budge by myself. He said we mightn't ever get another chance to see one,
and he was going to look his fill at this one if he died for it. So I
looked too, though it give me the fan-tods to do it. Tom he HAD to talk,
but he talked low. He says:
"Poor Jakey, it's got all its things on, just as he said he would. NOW
you see what we wasn't certain about-its hair. It's not long now the way
it was: it's got it cropped close to its head, the way he said he would.
Huck, I never see anything look any more naturaler than what It does."
"Nor I neither," I says; "I'd recognize it anywheres."
"So would I. It looks perfectly solid and genuwyne, just the way it
done before it died."
So we kept a-gazing. Pretty soon Tom says:
"Huck, there's something mighty curious about this one, don't you know?
IT oughtn't to be going around in the daytime."
"That's so, Tom-I never heard the like of it before."
"No, sir, they don't ever come out only at night- and then not till
after twelve. There's something wrong about this one, now you mark my
words. I don't believe it's got any right to be around in the daytime. But
don't it look natural! Jake was going to play deef and dumb here, so the
neighbors wouldn't know his voice. Do you reckon it would do that if we
was to holler at it?"
"Lordy, Tom, don't talk so! If you was to holler at it I'd die in my
tracks."
"Don't you worry, I ain't going to holler at it. Look, Huck, it's
a-scratching its head-don't you see?"
"Well, what of it?"
"Why, this. What's the sense of it scratching its head? There ain't
anything there to itch; its head is made out of fog or something like
that, and can't itch. A fog can't itch; any fool knows that."
"Well, then, if it don't itch and can't itch, what in the nation is it
scratching it for? Ain't it just habit, don't you reckon?"
"No, sir, I don't. I ain't a bit satisfied about the way this one acts.
I've a blame good notion it's a bogus one-I have, as sure as I'm a-sitting
here. Because, if it-Huck!"
"Well, what's the matter now?"
"YOU CAN'T SEE THE BUSHES THROUGH IT!"
"Why, Tom, it's so, sure! It's as solid as a cow. I sort of begin to
think-"
"Huck, it's biting off a chaw of tobacker! By George, THEY don't
chaw-they hain't got anything to chaw WITH. Huck!"
"I'm a-listening."
"It ain't a ghost at all. It's Jake Dunlap his own self!"
"Oh your granny!" I says.
"Huck Finn, did we find any corpse in the sycamores?"
"No."
"Or any sign of one?"
"No."
"Mighty good reason. Hadn't ever been any corpse there."
"Why, Tom, you know we heard-"
"Yes, we did-heard a howl or two. Does that prove anybody was killed?
Course it don't. And we seen four men run, then this one come walking out
and we took it for a ghost. No more ghost than you are. It was Jake Dunlap
his own self, and it's Jake Dunlap now. He's been and got his hair
cropped, the way he said he would, and he's playing himself for a
stranger, just the same as he said he would. Ghost? Hum!-he's as sound as
a nut."
Then I see it all, and how we had took too much for granted. I was
powerful glad he didn't get killed, and so was Tom, and we wondered which
he would like the best-for us to never let on to know him, or how? Tom
reckoned the best way would be to go and ask him. So he started; but I
kept a little behind, because I didn't know but it might be a ghost, after
all. When Tom got to where he was, he says:
"Me and Huck's mighty glad to see you again, and you needn't be afeared
we'll tell. And if you think it'll be safer for you if we don't let on to
know you when we run across you, say the word and you'll see you can
depend on us, and would ruther cut our hands off than get you into the
least little bit of danger."
First off he looked surprised to see us, and not very glad, either; but
as Tom went on he looked pleasanter, and when he was done he smiled, and
nodded his head several times, and made signs with his hands, and says:
"Goo-goo-goo-goo," the way deef and dummies does.
Just then we see some of Steve Nickerson's people coming that lived
t'other side of the prairie, so Tom says:
"You do it elegant; I never see anybody do it better. You're right;
play it on us, too; play it on us same as the others; it'll keep you in
practice and prevent you making blunders. We'll keep away from you and let
on we don't know you, but any time we can be any help, you just let us
know."
Then we loafed along past the Nickersons, and of course they asked if
that was the new stranger yonder, and where'd he come from, and what was
his name, and which communion was he, Babtis' or Methodis', and which
politics, Whig or Democrat, and how long is he staying, and all them other
questions that humans always asks when a stranger comes, and animals does,
too. But Tom said he warn't able to make anything out of deef and dumb
signs, and the same with goo-gooing. Then we watched them go and bullyrag
Jake; because we was pretty uneasy for him. Tom said it would take him
days to get so he wouldn't forget he was a deef and dummy sometimes, and
speak out before he thought. When we had watched long enough to see that
Jake was getting along all right and working his signs very good, we
loafed along again, allowing to strike the schoolhouse about recess time,
which was a three-mile tramp.
I was so disappointed not to hear Jake tell about the row in the
sycamores, and how near he come to getting killed, that I couldn't seem to
get over it, and Tom he felt the same, but said if we was in Jake's fix we
would want to go careful and keep still and not take any chances.
The boys and girls was all glad to see us again, and we had a real good
time all through recess. Coming to school the Henderson boys had come
across the new deef and dummy and told the rest; so all the scholars was
chuck full of him and couldn't talk about anything else, and was in a
sweat to get a sight of him because they hadn't ever seen a deef and dummy
in their lives, and it made a powerful excitement.
Tom said it was tough to have to keep mum now; said we would be heroes
if we could come out and tell all we knowed; but after all, it was still
more heroic to keep mum, there warn't two boys in a million could do it.
That was Tom Sawyer's idea about it, and reckoned there warn't anybody
could better it.
IN the next two or three days Dummy he got to be powerful popular. He
went associating around with the neighbors, and they made much of him, and
was proud to have such a rattling curiosity among them. They had him to
breakfast, they had him to dinner, they had him to supper; they kept him
loaded up with hog and hominy, and warn't ever tired staring at him and
wondering over him, and wishing they knowed more about him, he was so
uncommon and romantic. His signs warn't no good; people couldn't
understand them and he prob'ly couldn't himself, but he done a sight of
goo-gooing, and so everybody was satisfied, and admired to hear him go it.
He toted a piece of slate around, and a pencil; and people wrote questions
on it and he wrote answers; but there warn't anybody could read his
writing but Brace Dunlap. Brace said he couldn't read it very good, but he
could manage to dig out the meaning most of the time. He said Dummy said
he belonged away off somers and used to be well off, but got busted by
swindlers which he had trusted, and was poor now, and hadn't any way to
make a living.
Everybody praised Brace Dunlap for being so good to that stranger. He
let him have a little log-cabin all to himself, and had his niggers take
care of it, and fetch him all the vittles he wanted.
Dummy was at our house some, because old Uncle Silas was so afflicted
himself, these days, that anybody else that was afflicted was a comfort to
him. Me and Tom didn't let on that we had knowed him before, and he didn't
let on that he had knowed us before. The family talked their troubles out
before him the same as if he wasn't there, but we reckoned it wasn't any
harm for him to hear what they said. Generly he didn't seem to notice, but
sometimes he did.
Well, two or three days went along, and everybody got to getting uneasy
about Jubiter Dunlap. Everybody was asking everybody if they had any idea
what had become of him. No, they hadn't, they said: and they shook their
heads and said there was something powerful strange about it. Another and
another day went by; then there was a report got around that praps he was
murdered. You bet it made a big stir! Everybody's tongue was clacking away
after that. Saturday two or three gangs turned out and hunted the woods to
see if they could run across his remainders. Me and Tom helped, and it was
noble good times and exciting. Tom he was so brimful of it he couldn't eat
nor rest. He said if we could find that corpse we would be celebrated, and
more talked about than if we got drownded.
The others got tired and give it up; but not Tom Sawyer-that warn't his
style. Saturday night he didn't sleep any, hardly, trying to think up a
plan; and towards daylight in the morning he struck it. He snaked me out
of bed and was all excited, and says:
"Quick, Huck, snatch on your clothes-I've got it! Bloodhound!"
In two minutes we was tearing up the river road in the dark towards the
village. Old Jeff Hooker had a bloodhound, and Tom was going to borrow
him. I says:
"The trail's too old, Tom-and besides, it's rained, you know."
"It don't make any difference, Huck. If the body's hid in the woods
anywhere around the hound will find it. If he's been murdered and buried,
they wouldn't bury him deep, it ain't likely, and if the dog goes over the
spot he'll scent him, sure. Huck, we're going to be celebrated, sure as
you're born!"
He was just a-blazing; and whenever he got afire he was most likely to
get afire all over. That was the way this time. In two minutes he had got
it all ciphered out, and wasn't only just going to find the corpse-no, he
was going to get on the track of that murderer and hunt HIM down, too; and
not only that, but he was going to stick to him till- "Well," I says, "you
better find the corpse first; I reckon that's a-plenty for to-day. For all
we know, there AIN'T any corpse and nobody hain't been murdered. That cuss
could 'a' gone off somers and not been killed at all."
That graveled him, and he says:
"Huck Finn, I never see such a person as you to want to spoil
everything. As long as YOU can't see anything hopeful in a thing, you
won't let anybody else. What good can it do you to throw cold water on
that corpse and get up that selfish theory that there ain't been any
murder? None in the world. I don't see how you can act so. I wouldn't
treat you like that, and you know it. Here we've got a noble good
opportunity to make a ruputation, and-"
"Oh, go ahead," I says. "I'm sorry, and I take it all back. I didn't
mean nothing. Fix it any way you want it. HE ain't any consequence to me.
If he's killed, I'm as glad of it as you are; and if he-"
"I never said anything about being glad; I only-"
"Well, then, I'm as SORRY as you are. Any way you druther have it, that
is the way I druther have it. He-"
"There ain't any druthers ABOUT it, Huck Finn; nobody said anything
about druthers. And as for-"
He forgot he was talking, and went tramping along, studying. He begun
to get excited again, and pretty soon he says:
"Huck, it'll be the bulliest thing that ever happened if we find the
body after everybody else has quit looking, and then go ahead and hunt up
the murderer. It won't only be an honor to us, but it'll be an honor to
Uncle Silas because it was us that done it. It'll set him up again, you
see if it don't."
But Old Jeff Hooker he throwed cold water on the whole business when we
got to his blacksmith shop and told him what we come for.
"You can take the dog," he says, "but you ain't a-going to find any
corpse, because there ain't any corpse to find. Everybody's quit looking,
and they're right. Soon as they come to think, they knowed there warn't no
corpse. And I'll tell you for why. What does a person kill another person
for, Tom Sawyer?-answer me that."
"Why, he-er-"
"Answer up! You ain't no fool. What does he kill him FOR?"
"Well, sometimes it's for revenge, and-"
"Wait. One thing at a time. Revenge, says you; and right you are. Now
who ever had anything agin that poor trifling no-account? Who do you
reckon would want to kill HIM?- that rabbit!"
Tom was stuck. I reckon he hadn't thought of a person having to have a
REASON for killing a person before, and now he sees it warn't likely
anybody would have that much of a grudge against a lamb like Jubiter
Dunlap. The blacksmith says, by and by:
"The revenge idea won't work, you see. Well, then, what's next?
Robbery? B'gosh, that must 'a' been it, Tom! Yes, sirree, I reckon we've
struck it this time. Some feller wanted his gallus-buckles, and so he-"
But it was so funny he busted out laughing, and just went on laughing
and laughing and laughing till he was 'most dead, and Tom looked so put
out and cheap that I knowed he was ashamed he had come, and he wished he
hadn't. But old Hooker never let up on him. He raked up everything a
person ever could want to kill another person about, and any fool could
see they didn't any of them fit this case, and he just made no end of fun
of the whole business and of the people that had been hunting the body;
and he said:
"If they'd had any sense they'd 'a' knowed the lazy cuss slid out
because he wanted a loafing spell after all this work. He'll come
pottering back in a couple of weeks, and then how'll you fellers feel?
But, laws bless you, take the dog, and go and hunt his remainders. Do,
Tom."
Then he busted out, and had another of them forty-rod laughs of hisn.
Tom couldn't back down after all this, so he said, "All right, unchain
him;" and the blacksmith done it, and we started home and left that old
man laughing yet.
It was a lovely dog. There ain't any dog that's got a lovelier
disposition than a bloodhound, and this one knowed us and liked us. He
capered and raced around ever so friendly, and powerful glad to be free
and have a holiday; but Tom was so cut up he couldn't take any intrust in
him, and said he wished he'd stopped and thought a minute before he ever
started on such a fool errand. He said old Jeff Hooker would tell
everybody, and we'd never hear the last of it.
So we loafed along home down the back lanes, feeling pretty glum and
not talking. When we was passing the far corner of our tobacker field we
heard the dog set up a long howl in there, and we went to the place and he
was scratching the ground with all his might, and every now and then
canting up his head sideways and fetching another howl.
It was a long square, the shape of a grave; the rain had made it sink
down and show the shape. The minute we come and stood there we looked at
one another and never said a word. When the dog had dug down only a few
inches he grabbed something and pulled it up, and it was an arm and a
sleeve. Tom kind of gasped out, and says:
"Come away, Huck-it's found."
I just felt awful. We struck for the road and fetched the first men
that come along. They got a spade at the crib and dug out the body, and
you never see such an excitement. You couldn't make anything out of the
face, but you didn't need to. Everybody said:
"Poor Jubiter; it's his clothes, to the last rag!"
Some rushed off to spread the news and tell the justice of the peace
and have an inquest, and me and Tom lit out for the house. Tom was all
afire and 'most out of breath when we come tearing in where Uncle Silas
and Aunt Sally and Benny was. Tom sung out:
"Me and Huck's found Jubiter Dunlap's corpse all by ourselves with a
bloodhound, after everybody else had quit hunting and given it up; and if
it hadn't a been for us it never WOULD 'a' been found; and he WAS murdered
too-they done it with a club or something like that; and I'm going to
start in and find the murderer, next, and I bet I'll do it!"
Aunt Sally and Benny sprung up pale and astonished, but Uncle Silas
fell right forward out of his chair on to the floor and groans out:
"Oh, my God, you've found him NOW!"
THEM awful words froze us solid. We couldn't move hand or foot for as
much as half a minute. Then we kind of come to, and lifted the old man up
and got him into his chair, and Benny petted him and kissed him and tried
to comfort him, and poor old Aunt Sally she done the same; but, poor
things, they was so broke up and scared and knocked out of their right
minds that they didn't hardly know what they was about. With Tom it was
awful; it 'most petrified him to think maybe he had got his uncle into a
thousand times more trouble than ever, and maybe it wouldn't ever happened
if he hadn't been so ambitious to get celebrated, and let the corpse alone
the way the others done. But pretty soon he sort of come to himself again
and says:
"Uncle Silas, don't you say another word like that. It's dangerous, and
there ain't a shadder of truth in it."
Aunt Sally and Benny was thankful to hear him say that, and they said
the same; but the old man he wagged his head sorrowful and hopeless, and
the tears run down his face, and he says;
"No-I done it; poor Jubiter, I done it!"
It was dreadful to hear him say it. Then he went on and told about it,
and said it happened the day me and Tom come-along about sundown. He said
Jubiter pestered him and aggravated him till he was so mad he just sort of
lost his mind and grabbed up a stick and hit him over the head with all
his might, and Jubiter dropped in his tracks. Then he was scared and
sorry, and got down on his knees and lifted his head up, and begged him to
speak and say he wasn't dead; and before long he come to, and when he see
who it was holding his head, he jumped like he was 'most scared to death,
and cleared the fence and tore into the woods, and was gone. So he hoped
he wasn't hurt bad.
"But laws," he says, "it was only just fear that gave him that last
little spurt of strength, and of course it soon played out and he laid
down in the bush, and there wasn't anybody to help him, and he died."
Then the old man cried and grieved, and said he was a murderer and the
mark of Cain was on him, and he had disgraced his family and was going to
be found out and hung. But Tom said:
"No, you ain't going to be found out. You DIDN'T kill him. ONE lick
wouldn't kill him. Somebody else done it."
"Oh, yes," he says, "I done it-nobody else. Who else had anything
against him? Who else COULD have anything against him?"
He looked up kind of like he hoped some of us could mention somebody
that could have a grudge against that harmless no-account, but of course
it warn't no use-he HAD us; we couldn't say a word. He noticed that, and
he saddened down again, and I never see a face so miserable and so pitiful
to see. Tom had a sudden idea, and says:
"But hold on!-somebody BURIED him. Now who-"
He shut off sudden. I knowed the reason. It give me the cold shudders
when he said them words, because right away I remembered about us seeing
Uncle Silas prowling around with a long-handled shovel away in the night
that night. And I knowed Benny seen him, too, because she was talking
about it one day. The minute Tom shut off he changed the subject and went
to begging Uncle Silas to keep mum, and the rest of us done the same, and
said he MUST, and said it wasn't his business to tell on himself, and if
he kept mum nobody would ever know; but if it was found out and any harm
come to him it would break the family's hearts and kill them, and yet
never do anybody any good. So at last he promised. We was all of us more
comfortable, then, and went to work to cheer up the old man. We told him
all he'd got to do was to keep still, and it wouldn't be long till the
whole thing would blow over and be forgot. We all said there wouldn't
anybody ever suspect Uncle Silas, nor ever dream of such a thing, he being
so good and kind, and having such a good character; and Tom says, cordial
and hearty, he says:
"Why, just look at it a minute; just consider. Here is Uncle Silas, all
these years a preacher-at his own expense; all these years doing good with
all his might and every way he can think of-at his own expense, all the
time; always been loved by everybody, and respected; always been peaceable
and minding his own business, the very last man in this whole deestrict to
touch a person, and everybody knows it. Suspect HIM? Why, it ain't any
more possible than-"
"By authority of the State of Arkansaw, I arrest you for the murder of
Jubiter Dunlap!" shouts the sheriff at the door.
It was awful. Aunt Sally and Benny flung themselves at Uncle Silas,
screaming and crying, and hugged him and hung to him, and Aunt Sally said
go away, she wouldn't ever give him up, they shouldn't have him, and the
niggers they come crowding and crying to the door and-well, I couldn't
stand it; it was enough to break a person's heart; so I got out.
They took him up to the little one-horse jail in the village, and we
all went along to tell him good-bye; and Tom was feeling elegant, and says
to me, "We'll have a most noble good time and heaps of danger some dark
night getting him out of there, Huck, and it'll be talked about
everywheres and we will be celebrated;" but the old man busted that scheme
up the minute he whispered to him about it. He said no, it was his duty to
stand whatever the law done to him, and he would stick to the jail plumb
through to the end, even if there warn't no door to it. It disappointed
Tom and graveled him a good deal, but he had to put up with it.
But he felt responsible and bound to get his uncle Silas free; and he
told Aunt Sally, the last thing, not to worry, because he was going to
turn in and work night and day and beat this game and fetch Uncle Silas
out innocent; and she was very loving to him and thanked him and said she
knowed he would do his very best. And she told us to help Benny take care
of the house and the children, and then we had a good-bye cry all around
and went back to the farm, and left her there to live with the jailer's
wife a month till the trial in October.
WELL, that was a hard month on us all. Poor Benny, she kept up the best
she could, and me and Tom tried to keep things cheerful there at the
house, but it kind of went for nothing, as you may say. It was the same up
at the jail. We went up every day to see the old people, but it was awful
dreary, because the old man warn't sleeping much, and was walking in his
sleep considerable and so he got to looking fagged and miserable, and his
mind got shaky, and we all got afraid his troubles would break him down
and kill him. And whenever we tried to persuade him to feel cheerfuler, he
only shook his head and said if we only knowed what it was to carry around
a murderer's load in your heart we wouldn't talk that way. Tom and all of
us kept telling him it WASN'T murder, but just accidental killing! but it
never made any difference-it was murder, and he wouldn't have it any other
way. He actu'ly begun to come out plain and square towards trial time and
acknowledge that he TRIED to kill the man. Why, that was awful, you know.
It made things seem fifty times as dreadful, and there warn't no more
comfort for Aunt Sally and Benny. But he promised he wouldn't say a word
about his murder when others was around, and we was glad of that.
Tom Sawyer racked the head off of himself all that month trying to plan
some way out for Uncle Silas, and many's the night he kept me up 'most all
night with this kind of tiresome work, but he couldn't seem to get on the
right track no way. As for me, I reckoned a body might as well give it up,
it all looked so blue and I was so downhearted; but he wouldn't. He stuck
to the business right along, and went on planning and thinking and
ransacking his head.
So at last the trial come on, towards the middle of October, and we was
all in the court. The place was jammed, of course. Poor old Uncle Silas,
he looked more like a dead person than a live one, his eyes was so hollow
and he looked so thin and so mournful. Benny she set on one side of him
and Aunt Sally on the other, and they had veils on, and was full of
trouble. But Tom he set by our lawyer, and had his finger in everywheres,
of course. The lawyer let him, and the judge let him. He 'most took the
business out of the lawyer's hands sometimes; which was well enough,
because that was only a mud-turtle of a back-settlement lawyer and didn't
know enough to come in when it rains, as the saying is.
They swore in the jury, and then the lawyer for the prostitution got up
and begun. He made a terrible speech against the old man, that made him
moan and groan, and made Benny and Aunt Sally cry. The way HE told about
the murder kind of knocked us all stupid it was so different from the old
man's tale. He said he was going to prove that Uncle Silas was SEEN to
kill Jubiter Dunlap by two good witnesses, and done it deliberate, and
SAID he was going to kill him the very minute he hit him with the club;
and they seen him hide Jubiter in the bushes, and they seen that Jubiter
was stone-dead. And said Uncle Silas come later and lugged Jubiter down
into the tobacker field, and two men seen him do it. And said Uncle Silas
turned out, away in the night, and buried Jubiter, and a man seen him at
it.
I says to myself, poor old Uncle Silas has been lying about it because
he reckoned nobody seen him and he couldn't bear to break Aunt Sally's
heart and Benny's; and right he was: as for me, I would 'a' lied the same
way, and so would anybody that had any feeling, to save them such misery
and sorrow which THEY warn't no ways responsible for. Well, it made our
lawyer look pretty sick; and it knocked Tom silly, too, for a little
spell, but then he braced up and let on that he warn't worried-but I
knowed he WAS, all the same. And the people-my, but it made a stir amongst
them!
And when that lawyer was done telling the jury what he was going to
prove, he set down and begun to work his witnesses.
First, he called a lot of them to show that there was bad blood betwixt
Uncle Silas and the diseased; and they told how they had heard Uncle Silas
threaten the diseased, at one time and another, and how it got worse and
worse and everybody was talking about it, and how diseased got afraid of
his life, and told two or three of them he was certain Uncle Silas would
up and kill him some time or another.
Tom and our lawyer asked them some questions; but it warn't no use,
happen? There's going to be an inquest in the morning. Them two men will
tell how they heard the yells and rushed there just in time to not save
the stranger. Then the jury'll twaddle and twaddle and twaddle, and
finally they'll fetch in a verdict that he got shot or stuck or busted
over the head with something, and come to his death by the inspiration of
God. And after they've buried him they'll auction off his things for to
pay the expenses, and then's OUR chance." "How, Tom?"
"Buy the boots for two dollars!"
Well, it 'most took my breath.
"My land! Why, Tom, WE'LL get the di'monds!"
"You bet. Some day there'll be a big reward offered for them-a thousand
dollars, sure. That's our money! Now we'll trot in and see the folks. And
mind you we don't know anything about any murder, or any di'monds, or any
thieves-don't you forget that."
I had to sigh a little over the way he had got it fixed. I'd 'a' SOLD
them di'monds-yes, sir-for twelve thousand dollars; but I didn't say
anything. It wouldn't done any good. I says:
"But what are we going to tell your aunt Sally has made us so long
getting down here from the village, Tom?"
"Oh, I'll leave that to you," he says. "I reckon you can explain it
somehow."
He was always just that strict and delicate. He never would tell a lie
himself.
We struck across the big yard, noticing this, that, and t'other thing
that was so familiar, and we so glad to see it again, and when we got to
the roofed big passageway betwixt the double log house and the kitchen
part, there was everything hanging on the wall just as it used to was,
even to Uncle Silas's old faded green baize working-gown with the hood to
it, and raggedy white patch between the shoulders that always looked like
somebody had hit him with a snowball; and then we lifted the latch and
walked in. Aunt Sally she was just a-ripping and a-tearing around, and the
children was huddled in one corner, and the old man he was huddled in the
other and praying for help in time of need. She jumped for us with joy and
tears running down her face and give us a whacking box on the ear, and
then hugged us and kissed us and boxed us again, and just couldn't seem to
get enough of it, she was so glad to see us; and she says:
"Where HAVE you been a-loafing to, you good-for-nothing trash! I've
been that worried about you I didn't know what to do. Your traps has been
here ever so long, and I've had supper cooked fresh about four times so as
to have it hot and good when you come, till at last my patience is just
plumb wore out, and I declare I-I-why I could skin you alive! You must be
starving, poor things!-set down, set down, everybody; don't lose no more
time."
It was good to be there again behind all that noble corn-pone and
spareribs, and everything that you could ever want in this world. Old
Uncle Silas he peeled off one of his bulliest old-time blessings, with as
many layers to it as an onion, and whilst the angels was hauling in the
slack of it I was trying to study up what to say about what kept us so
long. When our plates was all loadened and we'd got a-going, she asked me,
and I says:
"Well, you see,-er-Mizzes-"
"Huck Finn! Since when am I Mizzes to you? Have I ever been stingy of
cuffs or kisses for you since the day you stood in this room and I took
you for Tom Sawyer and blessed God for sending you to me, though you told
me four thousand lies and I believed every one of them like a simpleton?
Call me Aunt Sally-like you always done."
So I done it. And I says:
"Well, me and Tom allowed we would come along afoot and take a smell of
the woods, and we run across Lem Beebe and Jim Lane, and they asked us to
go with them blackberrying to-night, and said they could borrow Jubiter
Dunlap's dog, because he had told them just that minute-"
"Where did they see him?" says the old man; and when I looked up to see
how HE come to take an intrust in a little thing like that, his eyes was
just burning into me, he was that eager. It surprised me so it kind of
throwed me off, but I pulled myself together again and says:
"It was when he was spading up some ground along with you, towards
sundown or along there."
He only said, "Um," in a kind of a disappointed way, and didn't take no
more intrust. So I went on. I says:
"Well, then, as I was a-saying-"
"That'll do, you needn't go no furder." It was Aunt Sally. She was
boring right into me with her eyes, and very indignant. "Huck Finn," she
says, "how'd them men come to talk about going a-black-berrying in
September-in THIS region?"
I see I had slipped up, and I couldn't say a word. She waited, still
a-gazing at me, then she says:
"And how'd they come to strike that idiot idea of going a-blackberrying
in the night?"
"Well, m'm, they-er-they told us they had a lantern, and-"
"Oh, SHET up-do! Looky here; what was they going to do with a dog?-hunt
blackberries with it?"
"I think, m'm, they-"
"Now, Tom Sawyer, what kind of a lie are you fixing YOUR mouth to
contribit to this mess of rubbage? Speak out-and I warn you before you
begin, that I don't believe a word of it. You and Huck's been up to
something you no business to-I know it perfectly well; I know you, BOTH of
you. Now you explain that dog, and them blackberries, and the lantern, and
the rest of that rot-and mind you talk as straight as a string-do you
hear?"
Tom he looked considerable hurt, and says, very dignified:
"It is a pity if Huck is to be talked to that way, just for making a
little bit of a mistake that anybody could make."
"What mistake has he made?"
"Why, only the mistake of saying blackberries when of course he meant
strawberries."
"Tom Sawyer, I lay if you aggravate me a little more, I'll-"
"Aunt Sally, without knowing it-and of course without intending it-you
are in the wrong. If you'd 'a' studied natural history the way you ought,
you would know that all over the world except just here in Arkansaw they
ALWAYS hunt strawberries with a dog-and a lantern-"
But she busted in on him there and just piled into him and snowed him
under. She was so mad she couldn't get the words out fast enough, and she
gushed them out in one everlasting freshet. That was what Tom Sawyer was
after. He allowed to work her up and get her started and then leave her
alone and let her burn herself out. Then she would be so aggravated with
that subject that she wouldn't say another word about it, nor let anybody
else. Well, it happened just so. When she was tuckered out and had to hold
up, he says, quite ca'm:
"And yet, all the same, Aunt Sally-"
"Shet up!" she says, "I don't want to hear another word out of you."
So we was perfectly safe, then, and didn't have no more trouble about
that delay. Tom done it elegant.
BENNY she was looking pretty sober, and she sighed some, now and then;
but pretty soon she got to asking about Mary, and Sid, and Tom's aunt
Polly, and then Aunt Sally's clouds cleared off and she got in a good
humor and joined in on the questions and was her lovingest best self, and
so the rest of the supper went along gay and pleasant. But the old man he
didn't take any hand hardly, and was absent-minded and restless, and done
a considerable amount of sighing; and it was kind of heart-breaking to see
him so sad and troubled and worried.
By and by, a spell after supper, come a nigger and knocked on the door
and put his head in with his old straw hat in his hand bowing and
scraping, and said his Marse Brace was out at the stile and wanted his
brother, and was getting tired waiting supper for him, and would Marse
Silas please tell him where he was? I never see Uncle Silas speak up so
sharp and fractious before. He says:
"Am I his brother's keeper?" And then he kind of wilted together, and
looked like he wished he hadn't spoken so, and then he says, very gentle:
"But you needn't say that, Billy; I was took sudden and irritable, and I
ain't very well these days, and not hardly responsible. Tell him he ain't
here."
And when the nigger was gone he got up and walked the floor, backwards
and forwards, mumbling and muttering to himself and plowing his hands
through his hair. It was real pitiful to see him. Aunt Sally she whispered
to us and told us not to take notice of him, it embarrassed him. She said
he was always thinking and thinking, since these troubles come on, and she
allowed he didn't more'n about half know what he was about when the
thinking spells was on him; and she said he walked in his sleep
considerable more now than he used to, and sometimes wandered around over
the house and even outdoors in his sleep, and if we catched him at it we
must let him alone and not disturb him. She said she reckoned it didn't do
him no harm, and may be it done him good. She said Benny was the only one
that was much help to him these days. Said Benny appeared to know just
when to try to soothe him and when to leave him alone.
So he kept on tramping up and down the floor and muttering, till by and
by he begun to look pretty tired; then Benny she went and snuggled up to
his side and put one hand in his and one arm around his waist and walked
with him; and he smiled down on her, and reached down and kissed her; and
so, little by little the trouble went out of his face and she persuaded
him off to his room. They had very petting ways together, and it was
uncommon pretty to see.
Aunt Sally she was busy getting the children ready for bed; so by and
by it got dull and tedious, and me and Tom took a turn in the moonlight,
and fetched up in the watermelon-patch and et one, and had a good deal of
talk. And Tom said he'd bet the quarreling was all Jubiter's fault, and he
was going to be on hand the first time he got a chance, and see; and if it
was so, he was going to do his level best to get Uncle Silas to turn him
off.
And so we talked and smoked and stuffed watermelons much as two hours,
and then it was pretty late, and when we got back the house was quiet and
dark, and everybody gone to bed.
Tom he always seen everything, and now he see that the old green baize
work-gown was gone, and said it wasn't gone when he went out; so he
allowed it was curious, and then we went up to bed.
We could hear Benny stirring around in her room, which was next to
ourn, and judged she was worried a good deal about her father and couldn't
sleep. We found we couldn't, neither. So we set up a long time, and smoked
and talked in a low voice, and felt pretty dull and down-hearted. We
talked the murder and the ghost over and over again, and got so creepy and
crawly we couldn't get sleepy nohow and noway.
By and by, when it was away late in the night and all the sounds was
late sounds and solemn, Tom nudged me and whispers to me to look, and I
done it, and there we see a man poking around in the yard like he didn't
know just what he wanted to do, but it was pretty dim and we couldn't see
him good. Then he started for the stile, and as he went over it the moon
came out strong, and he had a long-handled shovel over his shoulder, and
we see the white patch on the old work-gown. So Tom says:
"He's a-walking in his sleep. I wish we was allowed to follow him and
see where he's going to. There, he's turned down by the tobacker-field.
Out of sight now. It's a dreadful pity he can't rest no better."
We waited a long time, but he didn't come back any more, or if he did
he come around the other way; so at last we was tuckered out and went to
sleep and had nightmares, a million of them. But before dawn we was awake
again, because meantime a storm had come up and been raging, and the
thunder and lightning was awful, and the wind was a-thrashing the trees
around, and the rain was driving down in slanting sheets, and the gullies
was running rivers. Tom says:
"Looky here, Huck, I'll tell you one thing that's mighty curious. Up to
the time we went out last night the family hadn't heard about Jake Dunlap
being murdered. Now the men that chased Hal Clayton and Bud Dixon away
would spread the thing around in a half an hour, and every neighbor that
heard it would shin out and fly around from one farm to t'other and try to
be the first to tell the news. Land, they don't have such a big thing as
that to tell twice in thirty year! Huck, it's mighty strange; I don't
understand it."
So then he was in a fidget for the rain to let up, so we could turn out
and run across some of the people and see if they would say anything about
it to us. And he said if they did we must be horribly surprised and
shocked.
We was out and gone the minute the rain stopped. It was just broad day
then. We loafed along up the road, and now and then met a person and
stopped and said howdy, and told them when we come, and how we left the
folks at home, and how long we was going to stay, and all that, but none
of them said a word about that thing; which was just astonishing, and no
mistake. Tom said he believed if we went to the sycamores we would find
that body laying there solitary and alone, and not a soul around. Said he
believed the men chased the thieves so far into the woods that the thieves
prob'ly seen a good chance and turned on them at last, and maybe they all
killed each other, and so there wasn't anybody left to tell.
First we knowed, gabbling along that away, we was right at the
sycamores. The cold chills trickled down my back and I wouldn't budge
another step, for all Tom's persuading. But he couldn't hold in; he'd GOT
to see if the boots was safe on that body yet. So he crope in-and the next
minute out he come again with his eyes bulging he was so excited, and
says:
"Huck, it's gone!"
I WAS astonished! I says:
"Tom, you don't mean it."
"It's gone, sure. There ain't a sign of it. The ground is trampled
some, but if there was any blood it's all washed away by the storm, for
it's all puddles and slush in there."
At last I give in, and went and took a look myself; and it was just as
Tom said-there wasn't a sign of a corpse.
"Dern it," I says, "the di'monds is gone. Don't you reckon the thieves
slunk back and lugged him off, Tom?"
"Looks like it. It just does. Now where'd they hide him, do you reckon?"
"I don't know," I says, disgusted, "and what's more I don't care.
They've got the boots, and that's all I cared about. He'll lay around
these woods a long time before I hunt him up."
Tom didn't feel no more intrust in him neither, only curiosity to know
what come of him; but he said we'd lay low and keep dark and it wouldn't
be long till the dogs or somebody rousted him out.
We went back home to breakfast ever so bothered and put out and
disappointed and swindled. I warn't ever so down on a corpse before.
IT warn't very cheerful at breakfast. Aunt Sally she looked old and
tired and let the children snarl and fuss at one another and didn't seem
to notice it was going on, which wasn't her usual style; me and Tom had a
plenty to think about without talking; Benny she looked like she hadn't
had much sleep, and whenever she'd lift her head a little and steal a look
towards her father you could see there was tears in her eyes; and as for
the old man, his things stayed on his plate and got cold without him
knowing they was there, I reckon, for he was thinking and thinking all the
time, and never said a word and never et a bite.
By and by when it was stillest, that nigger's head was poked in at the
door again, and he said his Marse Brace was getting powerful uneasy about
Marse Jubiter, which hadn't come home yet, and would Marse Silas please
-He was looking at Uncle Silas, and he stopped there, like the rest of his
words was froze; for Uncle Silas he rose up shaky and steadied himself
leaning his fingers on the table, and he was panting, and his eyes was set
on the nigger, and he kept swallowing, and put his other hand up to his
throat a couple of times, and at last he got his words started, and says:
"Does he-does he-think-WHAT does he think! Tell him-tell him-" Then he
sunk down in his chair limp and weak, and says, so as you could hardly
hear him: "Go away-go away!"
The nigger looked scared and cleared out, and we all felt-well, I don't
know how we felt, but it was awful, with the old man panting there, and
his eyes set and looking like a person that was dying. None of us could
budge; but Benny she slid around soft, with her tears running down, and
stood by his side, and nestled his old gray head up against her and begun
to stroke it and pet it with her hands, and nodded to us to go away, and
we done it, going out very quiet, like the dead was there.
Me and Tom struck out for the woods mighty solemn, and saying how
different it was now to what it was last summer when we was here and
everything was so peaceful and happy and everybody thought so much of
Uncle Silas, and he was so cheerful and simple-hearted and pudd'n-headed
and good-and now look at him. If he hadn't lost his mind he wasn't muck
short of it. That was what we allowed.
It was a most lovely day now, and bright and sun. shiny; and the
further and further we went over the hills towards the prairie the
lovelier and lovelier the trees and flowers got to be and the more it
seemed strange and somehow wrong that there had to be trouble in such a
world as this. And then all of a sudden I catched my breath and grabbed
Tom's arm, and all my livers and lungs and things fell down into my legs.
"There it is!" I says. We jumped back behind a bush shivering, and Tom
says:
"Sh!-don't make a noise."
It was setting on a log right in the edge of a little prairie,
thinking. I tried to get Tom to come away, but he wouldn't, and I dasn't
budge by myself. He said we mightn't ever get another chance to see one,
and he was going to look his fill at this one if he died for it. So I
looked too, though it give me the fan-tods to do it. Tom he HAD to talk,
but he talked low. He says:
"Poor Jakey, it's got all its things on, just as he said he would. NOW
you see what we wasn't certain about-its hair. It's not long now the way
it was: it's got it cropped close to its head, the way he said he would.
Huck, I never see anything look any more naturaler than what It does."
"Nor I neither," I says; "I'd recognize it anywheres."
"So would I. It looks perfectly solid and genuwyne, just the way it
done before it died."
So we kept a-gazing. Pretty soon Tom says:
"Huck, there's something mighty curious about this one, don't you know?
IT oughtn't to be going around in the daytime."
"That's so, Tom-I never heard the like of it before."
"No, sir, they don't ever come out only at night- and then not till
after twelve. There's something wrong about this one, now you mark my
words. I don't believe it's got any right to be around in the daytime. But
don't it look natural! Jake was going to play deef and dumb here, so the
neighbors wouldn't know his voice. Do you reckon it would do that if we
was to holler at it?"
"Lordy, Tom, don't talk so! If you was to holler at it I'd die in my
tracks."
"Don't you worry, I ain't going to holler at it. Look, Huck, it's
a-scratching its head-don't you see?"
"Well, what of it?"
"Why, this. What's the sense of it scratching its head? There ain't
anything there to itch; its head is made out of fog or something like
that, and can't itch. A fog can't itch; any fool knows that."
"Well, then, if it don't itch and can't itch, what in the nation is it
scratching it for? Ain't it just habit, don't you reckon?"
"No, sir, I don't. I ain't a bit satisfied about the way this one acts.
I've a blame good notion it's a bogus one-I have, as sure as I'm a-sitting
here. Because, if it-Huck!"
"Well, what's the matter now?"
"YOU CAN'T SEE THE BUSHES THROUGH IT!"
"Why, Tom, it's so, sure! It's as solid as a cow. I sort of begin to
think-"
"Huck, it's biting off a chaw of tobacker! By George, THEY don't
chaw-they hain't got anything to chaw WITH. Huck!"
"I'm a-listening."
"It ain't a ghost at all. It's Jake Dunlap his own self!"
"Oh your granny!" I says.
"Huck Finn, did we find any corpse in the sycamores?"
"No."
"Or any sign of one?"
"No."
"Mighty good reason. Hadn't ever been any corpse there."
"Why, Tom, you know we heard-"
"Yes, we did-heard a howl or two. Does that prove anybody was killed?
Course it don't. And we seen four men run, then this one come walking out
and we took it for a ghost. No more ghost than you are. It was Jake Dunlap
his own self, and it's Jake Dunlap now. He's been and got his hair
cropped, the way he said he would, and he's playing himself for a
stranger, just the same as he said he would. Ghost? Hum!-he's as sound as
a nut."
Then I see it all, and how we had took too much for granted. I was
powerful glad he didn't get killed, and so was Tom, and we wondered which
he would like the best-for us to never let on to know him, or how? Tom
reckoned the best way would be to go and ask him. So he started; but I
kept a little behind, because I didn't know but it might be a ghost, after
all. When Tom got to where he was, he says:
"Me and Huck's mighty glad to see you again, and you needn't be afeared
we'll tell. And if you think it'll be safer for you if we don't let on to
know you when we run across you, say the word and you'll see you can
depend on us, and would ruther cut our hands off than get you into the
least little bit of danger."
First off he looked surprised to see us, and not very glad, either; but
as Tom went on he looked pleasanter, and when he was done he smiled, and
nodded his head several times, and made signs with his hands, and says:
"Goo-goo-goo-goo," the way deef and dummies does.
Just then we see some of Steve Nickerson's people coming that lived
t'other side of the prairie, so Tom says:
"You do it elegant; I never see anybody do it better. You're right;
play it on us, too; play it on us same as the others; it'll keep you in
practice and prevent you making blunders. We'll keep away from you and let
on we don't know you, but any time we can be any help, you just let us
know."
Then we loafed along past the Nickersons, and of course they asked if
that was the new stranger yonder, and where'd he come from, and what was
his name, and which communion was he, Babtis' or Methodis', and which
politics, Whig or Democrat, and how long is he staying, and all them other
questions that humans always asks when a stranger comes, and animals does,
too. But Tom said he warn't able to make anything out of deef and dumb
signs, and the same with goo-gooing. Then we watched them go and bullyrag
Jake; because we was pretty uneasy for him. Tom said it would take him
days to get so he wouldn't forget he was a deef and dummy sometimes, and
speak out before he thought. When we had watched long enough to see that
Jake was getting along all right and working his signs very good, we
loafed along again, allowing to strike the schoolhouse about recess time,
which was a three-mile tramp.
I was so disappointed not to hear Jake tell about the row in the
sycamores, and how near he come to getting killed, that I couldn't seem to
get over it, and Tom he felt the same, but said if we was in Jake's fix we
would want to go careful and keep still and not take any chances.
The boys and girls was all glad to see us again, and we had a real good
time all through recess. Coming to school the Henderson boys had come
across the new deef and dummy and told the rest; so all the scholars was
chuck full of him and couldn't talk about anything else, and was in a
sweat to get a sight of him because they hadn't ever seen a deef and dummy
in their lives, and it made a powerful excitement.
Tom said it was tough to have to keep mum now; said we would be heroes
if we could come out and tell all we knowed; but after all, it was still
more heroic to keep mum, there warn't two boys in a million could do it.
That was Tom Sawyer's idea about it, and reckoned there warn't anybody
could better it.
IN the next two or three days Dummy he got to be powerful popular. He
went associating around with the neighbors, and they made much of him, and
was proud to have such a rattling curiosity among them. They had him to
breakfast, they had him to dinner, they had him to supper; they kept him
loaded up with hog and hominy, and warn't ever tired staring at him and
wondering over him, and wishing they knowed more about him, he was so
uncommon and romantic. His signs warn't no good; people couldn't
understand them and he prob'ly couldn't himself, but he done a sight of
goo-gooing, and so everybody was satisfied, and admired to hear him go it.
He toted a piece of slate around, and a pencil; and people wrote questions
on it and he wrote answers; but there warn't anybody could read his
writing but Brace Dunlap. Brace said he couldn't read it very good, but he
could manage to dig out the meaning most of the time. He said Dummy said
he belonged away off somers and used to be well off, but got busted by
swindlers which he had trusted, and was poor now, and hadn't any way to
make a living.
Everybody praised Brace Dunlap for being so good to that stranger. He
let him have a little log-cabin all to himself, and had his niggers take
care of it, and fetch him all the vittles he wanted.
Dummy was at our house some, because old Uncle Silas was so afflicted
himself, these days, that anybody else that was afflicted was a comfort to
him. Me and Tom didn't let on that we had knowed him before, and he didn't
let on that he had knowed us before. The family talked their troubles out
before him the same as if he wasn't there, but we reckoned it wasn't any
harm for him to hear what they said. Generly he didn't seem to notice, but
sometimes he did.
Well, two or three days went along, and everybody got to getting uneasy
about Jubiter Dunlap. Everybody was asking everybody if they had any idea
what had become of him. No, they hadn't, they said: and they shook their
heads and said there was something powerful strange about it. Another and
another day went by; then there was a report got around that praps he was
murdered. You bet it made a big stir! Everybody's tongue was clacking away
after that. Saturday two or three gangs turned out and hunted the woods to
see if they could run across his remainders. Me and Tom helped, and it was
noble good times and exciting. Tom he was so brimful of it he couldn't eat
nor rest. He said if we could find that corpse we would be celebrated, and
more talked about than if we got drownded.
The others got tired and give it up; but not Tom Sawyer-that warn't his
style. Saturday night he didn't sleep any, hardly, trying to think up a
plan; and towards daylight in the morning he struck it. He snaked me out
of bed and was all excited, and says:
"Quick, Huck, snatch on your clothes-I've got it! Bloodhound!"
In two minutes we was tearing up the river road in the dark towards the
village. Old Jeff Hooker had a bloodhound, and Tom was going to borrow
him. I says:
"The trail's too old, Tom-and besides, it's rained, you know."
"It don't make any difference, Huck. If the body's hid in the woods
anywhere around the hound will find it. If he's been murdered and buried,
they wouldn't bury him deep, it ain't likely, and if the dog goes over the
spot he'll scent him, sure. Huck, we're going to be celebrated, sure as
you're born!"
He was just a-blazing; and whenever he got afire he was most likely to
get afire all over. That was the way this time. In two minutes he had got
it all ciphered out, and wasn't only just going to find the corpse-no, he
was going to get on the track of that murderer and hunt HIM down, too; and
not only that, but he was going to stick to him till- "Well," I says, "you
better find the corpse first; I reckon that's a-plenty for to-day. For all
we know, there AIN'T any corpse and nobody hain't been murdered. That cuss
could 'a' gone off somers and not been killed at all."
That graveled him, and he says:
"Huck Finn, I never see such a person as you to want to spoil
everything. As long as YOU can't see anything hopeful in a thing, you
won't let anybody else. What good can it do you to throw cold water on
that corpse and get up that selfish theory that there ain't been any
murder? None in the world. I don't see how you can act so. I wouldn't
treat you like that, and you know it. Here we've got a noble good
opportunity to make a ruputation, and-"
"Oh, go ahead," I says. "I'm sorry, and I take it all back. I didn't
mean nothing. Fix it any way you want it. HE ain't any consequence to me.
If he's killed, I'm as glad of it as you are; and if he-"
"I never said anything about being glad; I only-"
"Well, then, I'm as SORRY as you are. Any way you druther have it, that
is the way I druther have it. He-"
"There ain't any druthers ABOUT it, Huck Finn; nobody said anything
about druthers. And as for-"
He forgot he was talking, and went tramping along, studying. He begun
to get excited again, and pretty soon he says:
"Huck, it'll be the bulliest thing that ever happened if we find the
body after everybody else has quit looking, and then go ahead and hunt up
the murderer. It won't only be an honor to us, but it'll be an honor to
Uncle Silas because it was us that done it. It'll set him up again, you
see if it don't."
But Old Jeff Hooker he throwed cold water on the whole business when we
got to his blacksmith shop and told him what we come for.
"You can take the dog," he says, "but you ain't a-going to find any
corpse, because there ain't any corpse to find. Everybody's quit looking,
and they're right. Soon as they come to think, they knowed there warn't no
corpse. And I'll tell you for why. What does a person kill another person
for, Tom Sawyer?-answer me that."
"Why, he-er-"
"Answer up! You ain't no fool. What does he kill him FOR?"
"Well, sometimes it's for revenge, and-"
"Wait. One thing at a time. Revenge, says you; and right you are. Now
who ever had anything agin that poor trifling no-account? Who do you
reckon would want to kill HIM?- that rabbit!"
Tom was stuck. I reckon he hadn't thought of a person having to have a
REASON for killing a person before, and now he sees it warn't likely
anybody would have that much of a grudge against a lamb like Jubiter
Dunlap. The blacksmith says, by and by:
"The revenge idea won't work, you see. Well, then, what's next?
Robbery? B'gosh, that must 'a' been it, Tom! Yes, sirree, I reckon we've
struck it this time. Some feller wanted his gallus-buckles, and so he-"
But it was so funny he busted out laughing, and just went on laughing
and laughing and laughing till he was 'most dead, and Tom looked so put
out and cheap that I knowed he was ashamed he had come, and he wished he
hadn't. But old Hooker never let up on him. He raked up everything a
person ever could want to kill another person about, and any fool could
see they didn't any of them fit this case, and he just made no end of fun
of the whole business and of the people that had been hunting the body;
and he said:
"If they'd had any sense they'd 'a' knowed the lazy cuss slid out
because he wanted a loafing spell after all this work. He'll come
pottering back in a couple of weeks, and then how'll you fellers feel?
But, laws bless you, take the dog, and go and hunt his remainders. Do,
Tom."
Then he busted out, and had another of them forty-rod laughs of hisn.
Tom couldn't back down after all this, so he said, "All right, unchain
him;" and the blacksmith done it, and we started home and left that old
man laughing yet.
It was a lovely dog. There ain't any dog that's got a lovelier
disposition than a bloodhound, and this one knowed us and liked us. He
capered and raced around ever so friendly, and powerful glad to be free
and have a holiday; but Tom was so cut up he couldn't take any intrust in
him, and said he wished he'd stopped and thought a minute before he ever
started on such a fool errand. He said old Jeff Hooker would tell
everybody, and we'd never hear the last of it.
So we loafed along home down the back lanes, feeling pretty glum and
not talking. When we was passing the far corner of our tobacker field we
heard the dog set up a long howl in there, and we went to the place and he
was scratching the ground with all his might, and every now and then
canting up his head sideways and fetching another howl.
It was a long square, the shape of a grave; the rain had made it sink
down and show the shape. The minute we come and stood there we looked at
one another and never said a word. When the dog had dug down only a few
inches he grabbed something and pulled it up, and it was an arm and a
sleeve. Tom kind of gasped out, and says:
"Come away, Huck-it's found."
I just felt awful. We struck for the road and fetched the first men
that come along. They got a spade at the crib and dug out the body, and
you never see such an excitement. You couldn't make anything out of the
face, but you didn't need to. Everybody said:
"Poor Jubiter; it's his clothes, to the last rag!"
Some rushed off to spread the news and tell the justice of the peace
and have an inquest, and me and Tom lit out for the house. Tom was all
afire and 'most out of breath when we come tearing in where Uncle Silas
and Aunt Sally and Benny was. Tom sung out:
"Me and Huck's found Jubiter Dunlap's corpse all by ourselves with a
bloodhound, after everybody else had quit hunting and given it up; and if
it hadn't a been for us it never WOULD 'a' been found; and he WAS murdered
too-they done it with a club or something like that; and I'm going to
start in and find the murderer, next, and I bet I'll do it!"
Aunt Sally and Benny sprung up pale and astonished, but Uncle Silas
fell right forward out of his chair on to the floor and groans out:
"Oh, my God, you've found him NOW!"
THEM awful words froze us solid. We couldn't move hand or foot for as
much as half a minute. Then we kind of come to, and lifted the old man up
and got him into his chair, and Benny petted him and kissed him and tried
to comfort him, and poor old Aunt Sally she done the same; but, poor
things, they was so broke up and scared and knocked out of their right
minds that they didn't hardly know what they was about. With Tom it was
awful; it 'most petrified him to think maybe he had got his uncle into a
thousand times more trouble than ever, and maybe it wouldn't ever happened
if he hadn't been so ambitious to get celebrated, and let the corpse alone
the way the others done. But pretty soon he sort of come to himself again
and says:
"Uncle Silas, don't you say another word like that. It's dangerous, and
there ain't a shadder of truth in it."
Aunt Sally and Benny was thankful to hear him say that, and they said
the same; but the old man he wagged his head sorrowful and hopeless, and
the tears run down his face, and he says;
"No-I done it; poor Jubiter, I done it!"
It was dreadful to hear him say it. Then he went on and told about it,
and said it happened the day me and Tom come-along about sundown. He said
Jubiter pestered him and aggravated him till he was so mad he just sort of
lost his mind and grabbed up a stick and hit him over the head with all
his might, and Jubiter dropped in his tracks. Then he was scared and
sorry, and got down on his knees and lifted his head up, and begged him to
speak and say he wasn't dead; and before long he come to, and when he see
who it was holding his head, he jumped like he was 'most scared to death,
and cleared the fence and tore into the woods, and was gone. So he hoped
he wasn't hurt bad.
"But laws," he says, "it was only just fear that gave him that last
little spurt of strength, and of course it soon played out and he laid
down in the bush, and there wasn't anybody to help him, and he died."
Then the old man cried and grieved, and said he was a murderer and the
mark of Cain was on him, and he had disgraced his family and was going to
be found out and hung. But Tom said:
"No, you ain't going to be found out. You DIDN'T kill him. ONE lick
wouldn't kill him. Somebody else done it."
"Oh, yes," he says, "I done it-nobody else. Who else had anything
against him? Who else COULD have anything against him?"
He looked up kind of like he hoped some of us could mention somebody
that could have a grudge against that harmless no-account, but of course
it warn't no use-he HAD us; we couldn't say a word. He noticed that, and
he saddened down again, and I never see a face so miserable and so pitiful
to see. Tom had a sudden idea, and says:
"But hold on!-somebody BURIED him. Now who-"
He shut off sudden. I knowed the reason. It give me the cold shudders
when he said them words, because right away I remembered about us seeing
Uncle Silas prowling around with a long-handled shovel away in the night
that night. And I knowed Benny seen him, too, because she was talking
about it one day. The minute Tom shut off he changed the subject and went
to begging Uncle Silas to keep mum, and the rest of us done the same, and
said he MUST, and said it wasn't his business to tell on himself, and if
he kept mum nobody would ever know; but if it was found out and any harm
come to him it would break the family's hearts and kill them, and yet
never do anybody any good. So at last he promised. We was all of us more
comfortable, then, and went to work to cheer up the old man. We told him
all he'd got to do was to keep still, and it wouldn't be long till the
whole thing would blow over and be forgot. We all said there wouldn't
anybody ever suspect Uncle Silas, nor ever dream of such a thing, he being
so good and kind, and having such a good character; and Tom says, cordial
and hearty, he says:
"Why, just look at it a minute; just consider. Here is Uncle Silas, all
these years a preacher-at his own expense; all these years doing good with
all his might and every way he can think of-at his own expense, all the
time; always been loved by everybody, and respected; always been peaceable
and minding his own business, the very last man in this whole deestrict to
touch a person, and everybody knows it. Suspect HIM? Why, it ain't any
more possible than-"
"By authority of the State of Arkansaw, I arrest you for the murder of
Jubiter Dunlap!" shouts the sheriff at the door.
It was awful. Aunt Sally and Benny flung themselves at Uncle Silas,
screaming and crying, and hugged him and hung to him, and Aunt Sally said
go away, she wouldn't ever give him up, they shouldn't have him, and the
niggers they come crowding and crying to the door and-well, I couldn't
stand it; it was enough to break a person's heart; so I got out.
They took him up to the little one-horse jail in the village, and we
all went along to tell him good-bye; and Tom was feeling elegant, and says
to me, "We'll have a most noble good time and heaps of danger some dark
night getting him out of there, Huck, and it'll be talked about
everywheres and we will be celebrated;" but the old man busted that scheme
up the minute he whispered to him about it. He said no, it was his duty to
stand whatever the law done to him, and he would stick to the jail plumb
through to the end, even if there warn't no door to it. It disappointed
Tom and graveled him a good deal, but he had to put up with it.
But he felt responsible and bound to get his uncle Silas free; and he
told Aunt Sally, the last thing, not to worry, because he was going to
turn in and work night and day and beat this game and fetch Uncle Silas
out innocent; and she was very loving to him and thanked him and said she
knowed he would do his very best. And she told us to help Benny take care
of the house and the children, and then we had a good-bye cry all around
and went back to the farm, and left her there to live with the jailer's
wife a month till the trial in October.
WELL, that was a hard month on us all. Poor Benny, she kept up the best
she could, and me and Tom tried to keep things cheerful there at the
house, but it kind of went for nothing, as you may say. It was the same up
at the jail. We went up every day to see the old people, but it was awful
dreary, because the old man warn't sleeping much, and was walking in his
sleep considerable and so he got to looking fagged and miserable, and his
mind got shaky, and we all got afraid his troubles would break him down
and kill him. And whenever we tried to persuade him to feel cheerfuler, he
only shook his head and said if we only knowed what it was to carry around
a murderer's load in your heart we wouldn't talk that way. Tom and all of
us kept telling him it WASN'T murder, but just accidental killing! but it
never made any difference-it was murder, and he wouldn't have it any other
way. He actu'ly begun to come out plain and square towards trial time and
acknowledge that he TRIED to kill the man. Why, that was awful, you know.
It made things seem fifty times as dreadful, and there warn't no more
comfort for Aunt Sally and Benny. But he promised he wouldn't say a word
about his murder when others was around, and we was glad of that.
Tom Sawyer racked the head off of himself all that month trying to plan
some way out for Uncle Silas, and many's the night he kept me up 'most all
night with this kind of tiresome work, but he couldn't seem to get on the
right track no way. As for me, I reckoned a body might as well give it up,
it all looked so blue and I was so downhearted; but he wouldn't. He stuck
to the business right along, and went on planning and thinking and
ransacking his head.
So at last the trial come on, towards the middle of October, and we was
all in the court. The place was jammed, of course. Poor old Uncle Silas,
he looked more like a dead person than a live one, his eyes was so hollow
and he looked so thin and so mournful. Benny she set on one side of him
and Aunt Sally on the other, and they had veils on, and was full of
trouble. But Tom he set by our lawyer, and had his finger in everywheres,
of course. The lawyer let him, and the judge let him. He 'most took the
business out of the lawyer's hands sometimes; which was well enough,
because that was only a mud-turtle of a back-settlement lawyer and didn't
know enough to come in when it rains, as the saying is.
They swore in the jury, and then the lawyer for the prostitution got up
and begun. He made a terrible speech against the old man, that made him
moan and groan, and made Benny and Aunt Sally cry. The way HE told about
the murder kind of knocked us all stupid it was so different from the old
man's tale. He said he was going to prove that Uncle Silas was SEEN to
kill Jubiter Dunlap by two good witnesses, and done it deliberate, and
SAID he was going to kill him the very minute he hit him with the club;
and they seen him hide Jubiter in the bushes, and they seen that Jubiter
was stone-dead. And said Uncle Silas come later and lugged Jubiter down
into the tobacker field, and two men seen him do it. And said Uncle Silas
turned out, away in the night, and buried Jubiter, and a man seen him at
it.
I says to myself, poor old Uncle Silas has been lying about it because
he reckoned nobody seen him and he couldn't bear to break Aunt Sally's
heart and Benny's; and right he was: as for me, I would 'a' lied the same
way, and so would anybody that had any feeling, to save them such misery
and sorrow which THEY warn't no ways responsible for. Well, it made our
lawyer look pretty sick; and it knocked Tom silly, too, for a little
spell, but then he braced up and let on that he warn't worried-but I
knowed he WAS, all the same. And the people-my, but it made a stir amongst
them!
And when that lawyer was done telling the jury what he was going to
prove, he set down and begun to work his witnesses.
First, he called a lot of them to show that there was bad blood betwixt
Uncle Silas and the diseased; and they told how they had heard Uncle Silas
threaten the diseased, at one time and another, and how it got worse and
worse and everybody was talking about it, and how diseased got afraid of
his life, and told two or three of them he was certain Uncle Silas would
up and kill him some time or another.
Tom and our lawyer asked them some questions; but it warn't no use,