 CHAPTER I. An Invitation for Tom and Huck. NOTE. Strange as the incidents of this story are, they are not inventions, but facts, even to the public confession of the accused. I take them from an old-time Swedish criminal trial, change the characters, and transfer the scenes to America. I have added some details, but only a couple of them are important ones. M.T. Well, it was the next spring after me and Tom Sawyer set our old nigger Jim free the time he was chained up for a runaway slave down there on Tom's Uncle Silas's farm in Arkansas. The frost was working out of the ground and out of the air, too, and it was getting closer and closer on to barefoot time every day, and next it would be marble time, and next mumbledy peg, and next tops and hoops, and next kites, and then right away it would be summer and going into swimming. It just makes a boy homesick to look ahead like that and see how far off summer is. Yes, and it sets him to sighing and saddening round, and there's something to matter with him, and he don't know what. But anyway, he gets out by himself and mopes and thinks, and mostly he hunts for a lonesome place high up on the hill in the edge of the woods, and sets there and looks away off on the big Mississippi down there and reaching miles and miles around the points where the timber looks smoky and dim, it's so far off and still, and everything so solemn it seems like everybody you've loved is dead and gone, and you most wish you was dead and gone, too, and done with it all. Don't you know what that is? It's spring fever. That is what the name of it is, and when you've got it, you want—oh, you don't quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so. It seems to you that mainly what you want is to get away. Get away from the same old tedious things you're so used to seeing and so tired of, and set something new. That is the idea. You want to go and be a wanderer. You want to go wandering far away to strange countries where everything is mysterious and wonderful and romantic, and if you can't do that, you'll put up with considerable less, you'll go anywhere you can go, just so as to get away, and be thankful of the chance, too. Well, me and Tom Sawyer had the spring fever and had it bad, too, but it weren't any use to think about Tom trying to get away, because, as he said, his Aunt Polly wouldn't let him quit school and go traipsing off summer's waste in time, though we was pretty blue. We was sitting on the front steps one day, about sundown, talking this way, when out comes his Aunt Polly with a letter in her hand, and says, I reckon you've got to pack up and go down to Arkansas. Your Aunt Sally wants you. I most jumped out of my skin for joy. I reckon Tom would fly at his Aunt and hug her head off, but if you believe me, he sat there like a rock, and never said a word, made me fit to cry to see him act so foolish, with such a noble chance as this opening up. Why, we might lose it if he didn't speak up and show he was thankful and grateful, but he sat there and studied and studied till I was that distressed I didn't know what to do. Then he says, very calm, and I could have shot him for it. Well, he says, I'm right down sorry, Aunt Polly, but I reckon I got to be excused for the present. His Aunt Polly was knocked so stupid and so mad at the cold impudence of it that she couldn't say a word for as much as a half a minute, and this gave me a chance to nudge Tom and whisper, ain't you got any sense? Spiling such a noble chance as this and throwing it away? But he weren't disturbed. He mumbled back, Huck Finn, do you want me to let her see how bad I want to go? Why, she'd begin to doubt right away and imagine a lot of sickness and dangers and objections, and first you know she'd take it all back. You let me alone. I reckon I know how to work her. Now I never would have thought of that, but he was right. Tom sorry was always right. The levelest head I ever see, and always at himself and ready for anything you might spring on him. By this time his Aunt Polly was all straight again, and she let fly. She says, you'll be excused. You will. Well, I never heard the like of it in all my days. The idea of you talking like that to me. Now take yourself off and pack your traps, and if I hear another word out of you about what you'll be excused from and what you won't, I lay I'll excuse you with a hickory. She hid his head a thump with her thimble as we dodged by, and he let on to be whimpering as we struck for the stairs. Up in his room he hugged me. He was so out of his head for gladness because he was going travelling, and he says, Before we get away she'll wish she hadn't let me go, but she won't know any way to get around it now. After what she's said, her pride won't let her take it back. Tom was packed in ten minutes, all except what his aunt and Mary would finish up for him. Then we waited ten more for her to get cool down and sweet and gentle again. For Tom said it took her ten minutes to unruffle in times when half of her feathers was up, but twenty when they was all up, and this was one of the times when they was all up. Then we went down, being in a sweat to know what the letter said. She was sitting there in a brown study with it laying in her lap. We sat down, and she says, They're in considerable trouble down there, and they think you and Huck will be a kind of diversion for them. Comfort, they say. Much of that they'll get out of you and Huck Finn, I reckon. There's a neighbour named Brace Dunlop that's been wanting to marry their Benny for three months, and at last they told him point blank, and once for all he couldn't. So he has soured on them, and they're worried about it. I reckon he's somebody they think they better be on the good side of for they've tried to please him by hiring his no-account brother to help on the farm when they can't hardly afford it, and don't want him round anyhow. Who are the Dunlaps? They live about a mile from Uncle Silas' place, Aunt Polly. All the farmers live about a mile apart down there, and Brace Dunlop is a long sight richer than any of the others, and owns a whole grist of niggers. He's a widower, thirty-six years old, without any children, and is proud of his money and overbearing, and everybody is a little afraid of him. A judge he thought he could have any girl he wanted just for the asking, and it must have set him back a good deal when he found he couldn't get Benny. Why, Benny's only half as old as he is, and just as sweet and lovely as—well, you've seen her, poor old Uncle Silas, why, it's pitiful him try to curry favour that way. So hard-pushed and poor, and yet hiring that useless Jupiter Dunlop to please his ornery brother. What a name! Jupiter! Where'd he get it? It's only just a nickname—I reckon they'd forgot his real name long before this—he's twenty-seven now, and has had it ever since the first time he ever went in swimming. The school teacher seen a round brown mole the size of a dime on his left leg above his knee, and four little bits of moles around it when he was naked, and he said it minded him of Jupiter and his moons, and the children thought it was funny, and so they got to calling him Jupiter, and he's Jupiter yet. He's tall, and lazy, and sly, and sneaky, and rather cowardly, too, but kind of good-natured, and wears long brown hair and no beard, and hasn't got a scent, and brace boards him for nothing, and gives him his old clothes to wear, and despises him—Jupiter is a twin. What's the other twin like? Just exactly like Jupiter, so they say. Used to was, anyway, but he ain't been seen for seven years. He got to robbing when he was nineteen or twenty, and they jailed him. But he broke jail, and got away—up north here, summers. They used to hear about him robbing and burglaring now and then, but that was years ago. He's dead now—at least that's what they say. They don't hear about him any more. What was his name? Jake. There wasn't anything more said for a considerable while. The old lady was thinking, at last, she says, The thing that is mostly worrying your Aunt Sally is the tempers that that man, Jupiter, gets your uncle into. Tom was astonished, and so was I. Tom says, Tempers? Uncle Silas? Land! You must be joking! I didn't know he had any temper. Works him up into perfect rages, your Aunt Sally says. As he acts as if he would really hit the man sometimes. Aunt Polly, it beats anything I ever heard of. Why, he's just as gentle as mush. Well, she's worried anyway. Says your Uncle Silas is like a changed man, on account of all this quarreling, and the neighbors talk about it, and lay all the blame on your uncle, of course, because he's a preacher, and he ain't got any business to quarrel. Your Aunt Sally says he hates to go into the pulpit, he's so ashamed. And the people have begun to cool toward him, and he ain't as popular now as he used to was. Well, ain't it strange why Aunt Polly, he was always so good and kind and moony and absent-minded and chuckle-headed and lovable? Why, he was just an angel. What can be the matter of him, do you reckon? CHAPTER II We had powerful good luck, because we got a chance in a stern-wheeler from away north, which was bound for one of them bayous, or one-horse rivers, away down Louisianaway, and so we could go all the way down the upper Mississippi, and all the way down the lower Mississippi to that farm in Arkansas, without having to change steamboats at St. Louis, not so very much short of a thousand miles at one pull. A pretty lonesome boat, there weren't but few passengers and all old folks that sat round, wide apart, dozing, and was very quiet. We was four days getting out of the upper river, because we got a ground so much, but it weren't dull, couldn't be for boys that was traveling, of course. From the very start, me and Tom allowed that there was somebody sick in the stateroom next to Arne, because the meals was always toted in there by the waiters, by and by we asked about it. Tom did, and the waiters said he was a man, but he didn't look sick. Well, but ain't he sick? I don't know, maybe he is, but here's to me, he's just letting on. What makes you think that? Because if he was sick he would pull his clothes off some time or other. Don't you reckon he would? Well, this one don't, at least he don't ever pull off his boots anyway. The mischief he don't! Not even when he goes to bed? No. It was always nuts for Tom Sawyer a mystery was, but you'd lay out a mystery and a pie before me and him, and you wouldn't have to say take your choice. It was a thing that would regulate itself, because in my nature I was run to pie, whilst in his nature he has always run to mystery. People are made different, and it is the best way. Tom says to the waiter, What's the man's name? Phillips. Where'd he come aboard? I think he got aboard at Alexandria, up on the Iowa line. What do you reckon he's a-playing? I ain't any notion, I never thought of it. I says to myself, Here's another one that runs to pie. Anything peculiar about him, the way he acts or talks? No. Nothing. He seems so scary and keeps his doors locked night and day, both, and when you knock, he won't let you in till he opens the door crack and sees who it is. Batch! I mean, it's interesting. I'd like to get a look at him. Say, the next time you're going in there, don't you reckon you could spread the door and- No, indeedy! He's always behind it. He would block that game. Tom studied over it, and then he says, Looky here! You lend me your apron, and let me take him his breakfast in the morning. Harder! The boy was plenty willing enough, if the head steward wouldn't mind. Tom says, That's all right, he reckoned he could fix it with a head steward, and he'd done it. He fixed it so as we could both go in with aprons on and totin' vitals. He didn't sleep much. He was in such a sweat to get in there and find out the mystery about Philips, and moreover he'd done a lot of guessing about it all night, which weren't no use. For if you were going to find out the facts of a thing, what's the sense in guessing out what ate the facts and wasted ammunition? I didn't lose no sleep. I wouldn't give a durn to know what's the matter of Philips, I says to myself. Well, in the morning we put on the aprons and got a couple of trays of truck, and Tom he knocked on the door. The man opened it a crack, and then he let us in and shut it quick. Pat Jackson, when we got a sight of him, we most dropped the trays and Tom says, Why, Jupiter Dunlap, where'd you come from? Well, the man was astonished, of course. And first off he looked like he didn't know whether to be scared or glad, or both, or which. But finally he settled down to being glad, and then his color come back, though at first his face had turned pretty white. So we got to talking together while he had his breakfast, and he says, But I ain't Jupiter Dunlap. I'd just as soon tell you who I am, though, if you'll swear to keep mum, for I ain't no Philips either. Tom says, We'll keep mum, but there ain't any need to tell who you are if you ain't Jupiter Dunlap. Why? Because if you ain't him, you're a tether-twin, Jake. You're the spitting image of Jupiter. Well, I'm Jake. But lookie here, how do you come to know us Dunlaps? Tom told about the adventures we'd had down there at his Uncle Silas's last summer, and when he'd seen that there weren't anything about his folks, or him either, for that matter, that we didn't know, he opened out and talked perfectly free and candid. He never had made any bones about his own case, said he'd been a hard lot, was a hard lot yet, and reckoned he'd be a hard lot plumb to the end. He said, Of course it was a dangerous life, and he gave a kind of gasp and said his head like a person that's listening, we didn't say anything, and so it was very still for a second or so, and there weren't no sounds but the squeaking of the woodwork and the chug chugging of the machinery down below. Then we got him comfortable again, telling him about his people and how Brace's wife had been dead three years, and Brace wanted to marry Benny, and she shook him, and Jupiter was working for Uncle Silas, and him and Uncle Silas quarreling all the time, and then he let go and laughed. "'Land,' he says, it's like old times to hear all this tiddle-tattle, and does me good. It's been seven years and more since I heard any. How do they talk about me these days? Who? The farmers and the family. Why, they don't talk about you at all, and at least only just a mention once in a long time. The nation,' he says, surprised. Why is that? Because they think you were dead long ago. No. You speaking true? Honor bright now.' He jumped up excited. "'Honor bright! There ain't anybody who thinks you are alive.' "'Then I'm saved. I'm saved, sure. I'll go home. They'll hide me and save my life. You keep mum. Swear you'll keep mum. Swear you'll never tell on me.' "'Oh, boys, be good to a poor devil. That's being hunted day and night and doesn't show his face. I've never done you any harm. I'll never do you any, as God is in the heavens. Swear you'll be good to me and help me save my life. We'd have swore if it had been a dog, and so we'd done it. Well, he couldn't love us enough for it, or be grateful enough, poor cuss. It was all he could do to keep from hugging us. We talked along, and he got out a little handbag and begun to open it and told us to turn our backs. We'd done it, and when he told us to turn again he was perfectly different to what he was before. He had on blue goggles and the naturalist-looking long brown whiskers and mustaches you ever see. His own mother wouldn't have known him. He asked us if he looked like his brother Jupiter now. "'No,' Tom said. "'There ain't anything left that's like him except the long hair. All right. I'll get that crop close to my head before I get there. Then him and Brace will keep my secret, and I'll live with them as being a stranger, and the neighbors won't ever guess me out. What do you think?' Tom he studied a while. Then he says, "'Well, of course me and Huck are going to keep Mum there, but if you don't keep Mum yourself there's going to be a little bit of a risk. It ain't much, maybe, but it's a little. I mean, if you talk, won't people notice that your voice is just like Jupiter's, and mightn't it make them think of the twin they reckoned was dead, but maybe after all was hid all this time under another name?' "'Bah, George,' he says, "'you're a sharp one. You're perfectly right. I've got to play deep and dumb when there's a neighbor around. If I had us struck for home and forgot that little detail—' However I wasn't striking for home. I was breaking for any place where I could get away from these fellows that are after me. Then I was going to put on this disguise and get some different clothes, and—' He chunked for the outside door and laid his ear against it and listened to pale and kind of panting. Presently he whispers, "'Sounded like cocking a gun. Lord, what a life to lead!' Then he sunk down in a chair, all limp and sick like, and wiped the sweat off his face.' CHAPTER II From that time out we was with him most all the time, and one or another of us slept in his upper berth. He said he had been so lonesome, and it was such a comfort to him to have company and somebody to talk to in his troubles. We was in a sweat to find out what his secret was, but Tom said the best way was not to seem anxious. Then likely he would drop into it himself in one of his talks. But if we go to asking questions he would get suspicious and shut up his shell. It turned out just so it weren't no trouble to see that he wanted to talk about it, but all was along at first he would scare away from it when he got on the very edge of it and go to talk about something else. The way it came about was this. He got to asking us, kind of indifferent like, about the passengers down on deck. We told him about them, but he weren't satisfied. We weren't particular enough. He told us to describe them better. Tom done it. At last, when Tom was describing one of the roughest and raggedest ones, he gave a shiver and a gasp and says, Oh, Lordy, that's one of them. There aboard, sure, I just noted. I sort of hoped I'd got away, but I never believed it. Go on. Presently when Tom was describing another mangy, rough deck passenger, he gave that shiver again and says, That's him. That's the other one. If it would only come a good black stormy night and I could get ashore, you see, they've got spies on me. They've got a right to come up and buy drinks at the bar yonder forward, and they take that chance to bribe somebody to keep watch on me, porter or boots or somebody. If I was to slip ashore without anybody seeing me, they would know it inside of an hour. So then he got to wandering along, and pretty soon, sure enough, he was telling. He was poking along through his ups and downs, and when he come to that place he went right along. He says, It was a confidence game. We played it on a jewellery shop in St. Louis. What we was after was a couple of noble big diamonds as big as hazelnuts which everybody was running to see. We was dressed up fine, and we played it on them in broad daylight. We ordered the diamonds sent to the hotel for us to see if we wanted to buy, and when we was examining them we had paced counterfeits already and then was the things that went back to the shop when we said the water wasn't quite fine enough for twelve thousand dollars. Twelve thousand dollars, Tom says. Was they really worth all that money, do you reckon? Every cent of it. And your fellows got away with them? As easy as nothing. I don't reckon the jewellery people know they've been robbed yet. But it wouldn't be good sense to stay around St. Louis, of course, so we considered where we'd go. One was for going one way, one another, so we throwed up heads or tails, and the Upper Mississippi one. We'd done up the diamonds in a paper and put our names on it and put it in the keep of the hotel clerk and told him not to ever let either of us have it again without the others was on hand to see it done. Then we went downtown, each by his own self, because I reckon maybe we all had the same notion. I don't know for certain, but I reckon maybe we had. What notion, Tom says, to rob the others? What, one take everything after all of you had helped to get it? Certainly. It disgusted Tom Sawyer, and he said it was the orneriest, low-downest thing he ever heard of. But Jake Dunlap said it weren't unusual in the profession. Said when a person was in that line of business he got to look out for his own interest. There weren't nobody else going to do it for him. And then he went on, and he says, you see, the trouble was, you couldn't divide up two diamonds amongst three. If there'd been three, but never mind about that, there weren't three. I loafed along the back street studying and studying, and I says to myself, I'll hog them diamonds the first chance I get, and I'll have a disguise all ready, and I'll give the boys the slip, and when I'm safe away I'll put it on, and then let them find me if they can. So I got the false whiskers and the goggles and this countryfied suit of clothes, and fetched them along back in a handbag. And when I was passing a shop where they sell all sorts of things, I got a glimpse of one of my pals through the window. It was Bud Dixon. I was glad, you bet. I says to myself, I'll see what he buys. So I kept shady and watched. Now, what do you reckon it was he bought? Whiskers? said I. No. Goggles? No. Oh, keep still, Huck Finn, can't you? You're only just hendering all you can. What was it he bought, Jake? You'd never guess it in the world. It was only just a screwdriver, just a wee little bit of a screwdriver. Well, I declare. What do you want with that? That's what I thought. It was curious. It clean stumped me. I says to myself, what can he want with that thing? Well, when he come out I stood back out of sight and then tracked him to a second-hand slop shop and see him buy a red flannel shirt and some old ragged clothes, just the ones he's got on now, as you've described. Then I went down to the wharf and hid my things aboard the upriver boat that we had picked out and then started back and had another streak of luck. I seen our other palet in his stock of old rusty second-handers. We got the diamonds and went aboard the boat. But now we was up a stump, for we couldn't go to bed. We had to set up and watch one another. Pity that was. Pity to put that kind of a strain on us, because there was bad blood between us from a couple of weeks back, and we was only friends in the way of business. Bad, anyway, seeing there was only two diamonds, twix three men. First we had supper, and then tramped up and down the deck together, smoking till the most midnight. Then we went and sat down in my state room and locked the doors and looked in the piece of paper to see if the diamonds was all right. Then laid it on the lower berth right in full sight. And there we sat, and sat, and by and by it got to be dreadful hard to keep awake. At last, by Dixon, he dropped off. As soon as he was snoring a good regular gait that was likely to last and had his chin on his breast and looked permanent, Hal Clayton nodded towards the diamonds and then towards the outside door, and I understood. I reached and got the paper, and then we stood up and waited perfectly still, but never stirred. I turned the key of the outside door very soft and slow, then turned the knob the same way, and we went tiptoeing out onto the guard, and shut the door very soft and gentle. There weren't nobody stirring anywhere, and the boat was slipping along, swift and steady, through the big water and the smoky moonlight. We never said a word, but went straight up onto the hurricane deck and plump back aft, and sat down on the end of the skylight. Both of us knowed what that meant, without having to explain to one another. But Dixon would wake up and miss the swag, and would come straight for us, for he ain't a feared of anything where anybody that man ain't. He would come, and we would heave him overboard and or get killed trying. It made me shiver, because I ain't as brave as some people, but if I showed the white feather, well, I knowed better than do that. I kind of hoped the boat would land summers, and we could skip ashore and not have to run the risk of this row. I was so scared of Bud Dixon, but she was an upper river tub, and there weren't no real chance of that. Well, the time strung along and along, and that fellow never come. Why, it strung along till dawn begun to break, and still he never come. Thunder, I says. What do you make out of this? Ain't it suspicious? Land, Hal says. Do you reckon he's playing us? Open the paper. I done it, and by gracious there weren't anything in it but a couple of little pieces of loaf sugar. That's the reason he could sit there and snooze all night so comfortable. Smart? Well, I reckon. He had had them two papers all fixed and ready, and he had put one of them in place of tether right under our noses. We felt pretty cheap, but the thing to do straight off was to make a plan, and we done it. We would do up the paper again, just as it was, and slip in, very elaborate and soft, and lay it on the bunk again, and let on we didn't know about any trick, and hadn't any idea he was laughing at us behind them bogus snores of his, and we would stick by him, and the first night we was ashore we would get him drunk and search him, and get the diamonds, and do for him too, if it weren't too risky. If we got the swag we'd got to do for him, or he would hunt us down and do for us, sure. But I didn't have no real hope. I knowed we could get him drunk. He was always ready for that. But what's the good of it? You might search him a year, and never fight. Well, right there I catched my breath and broke off my thought. For an idea went ripping through my head that tore my brains to rags, and land, but I felt gay and good. You see, I had had my boots off to unswell my feet, and just then I took up one of them to put it on, and I catched a glimpse of the heel bottom, and it just took my breath away. You remember about that puzzlesome little screwdriver? You bet I do, says Tom, all excited. Well, when I catch that glimpse of that boot heel, the idea that went smashing through my head was, I know where he'd hid the diamonds. You look at this boot heel now. See, it's bottom with a steel plate, and the plate is fastened on with little screws. Now, there wasn't a screw about that feller anywhere but in his boot heels. So, if he needed a screwdriver, I reckoned I knowed why. Huck, ain't it bully, says Tom. Well, I got my boots on, and we went down and slipped in and laid the paper of sugar on the berth, and sat down soft and sheepish and went to listening to Bud Dixon's snore. Hal Clayton dropped off pretty soon, but I didn't. I wasn't ever so wide awake in my life. I was spying out from under the shade of my hat-brim, searching the floor for leather. It took me a long time, and I had begun to think maybe my guess was wrong, but at last I struck it. It laid over by the bulkhead, and was nearly the color of the carpet. It was a little round plug about as thick as the end of your little finger, and I says to myself, There's a diamond in the nest you've come from! Before long I spied out the plug's mate. Think of the smartness and coolness of that blather-skite. He put up that scheme on us and reasoned out what we would do, and we went ahead and done it perfectly exact like a couple of pudding-heads. He sat there and took his own time to unscrew his heel-plates and cut out his plugs and stick in the diamonds and screw on his plates again. He loud we would steal the bogus swag and wait all night for him to come up and get drowned, and by George it's just what we done. I think it was powerful smart. You bet your life it was! says Tom, just full of admiration. CHAPTER 4 The Three Sleepers Well, all day we went through the humbug of watching one another, and it was pretty sickly business for two of us, and hard to act out, I can tell you. About night we landed at one of them little Missouri towns high up toward Iowa and had supper at the tavern, and got a room upstairs with a cot and a double bed in it, but I dumped my bag under a deal-table in the dark hall while we was moving along it to bed, single file, me last, and the landlord and lead with a tallow candle. We had up a lot of whiskey and went to playing high-low jack for dimes, and as soon as the whiskey began to take hold of Bud we stopped drinking, but we didn't let him stop. We loaded him till he fell out of his chair and laid there snoring. We was ready for business now. I said we better pull our boots off and his and two and not make any noise, then we could pull him and haul him round and ransack him without any trouble. So we done it. I set my boots and Buds side by side where they'd be handy. Then we stripped him and searched his seams and his pockets and his socks and inside of his boots and everything and searched his bundle. Never found any diamonds. We found a screwdriver and Hal says, What do you reckon he wanted with that? I said I didn't know, but when he wasn't looking I hooked it. At last Hal he looked beat and discouraged and said, We've got to give it up. That was what I was waiting for. I says, There's one place we ain't searched. What place is that? He says, His stomach. By gracious I never thought of that. Now we're on the home stretch to a dead moral certainty. How we manage? Well, I says, Just stay by him till I turn out and hunt up a drugstore and I reckon I'll fetch something that'll make them diamonds tired of the company they're keeping. He said that's the ticket and with him looking straight at me I slid myself into Buds boots instead of my own and he never noticed. They was just a shade large for me, but that was considerable better than being too small. I got my bag as I went a groping through the hall and in about a minute I was out the back way and stretching up the river-road at a five-mile gate. And not feeling so very bad neither. Walking on diamonds don't have no such effect. When I had gone fifteen minutes I says to myself, There's more in a mile behind me and everything quiet. Another five minutes and I says there's considerable more land behind me now and there's a man back there that's begun to wonder what's the trouble. Another five and I says to myself he's getting real uneasy. He's walking the floor now. Another five and I says to myself there's two-mile-and-a-half behind me and he's awful uneasy. Beginning to cuss, I reckon. Pretty soon I says to myself forty minutes gone. He knows there's something up. Fifty minutes. The truth's a bust on him now. He is reckoning I found the diamonds whilst we were searching and shoved them in my pocket and never let on. Yes, and he's starting out to hunt for me. He'll hunt for new tracks and the dust and they'll as likely send him down the river as up. Just then I see a man coming down on a mule and before I thought I jumped into the bush. It was stupid. When he got abreast he stopped and waited little for me to come out and then he rode on again. But I didn't feel gay any more. I says to myself I've botched my chances by that. I surely have if he meets up with Hal Clayton. Well, about three in the morning I fetched Alexandria and see this stern-wheeler laying there and was very glad because I felt perfectly safe now, you know. It was just daybreak. I went aboard and got this state room and put on these clothes and went up in the pilot house to watch, though I didn't reckon there was any need of it. I sat there and played with my diamonds and waited and waited for the boat to start, but she didn't. You see, they was mended in her machinery, but I didn't know anything about it, not being very much used to steamboats. Well, to cut the tale short, we never left there till plum noon and long before that I was hid in this state room for before breakfast I see a man coming away off that had a gate like Hal Clayton's and it made me just sick. I says to myself if he finds out I'm aboard this boat he's got me like a rat in a trap. All he's got to do is to have me watched and wait. Wait till I slip ashore, thinking he is a thousand miles away. Then slip after me and dog me to a good place and make me give up the diamonds and then he'll—oh, I know what he'll do. Ain't it awful? Awful! And now to think the other one's aboard, too. Oh, ain't it hard luck, boys? Ain't it hard? But you'll help save me, won't you? Oh, boys, be good to a poor devil that's being hunted to death and saved me. I'll worship the very ground you walk on. We turned in and soothed him down and told him we would plan for him and help him, and he needn't be so feared. And so by and by he got to feeling kind of comfortable again, and unscrewed his heel-plates and held up his diamonds this way and that, admiring them and loving them, and when the light struck into them they was beautiful, sure. Why, they seemed to kind of bust and snap fire out all around. But all the same I judged he was a fool. If I had been him I would have handed the diamonds to them pals and got them to go ashore and leave me alone. But he was made different. He said it was a whole fortune and he couldn't bear the idea. Twice we stopped to fix the machinery and lay it a good while, once in the night. But it wasn't dark enough and he was a fear to skip. But the third time we had to fix it there was a better chance. We laid up at a country woodyard about forty miles above Uncle Silas's place, a little after one at night, and it was thickening up and going to storm. So Jake he laid for a chance to slide. We began to take in wood. Pretty soon the rain come adrenched down and the wind blowed hard. Of course every boat-hand fixed the gunny sack and put it on like a bonnet. The way they do when they are toting wood. And we got one for Jake, and he slipped down aft with his handbag and come tramping forward just like the rest and walked ashore with them. And when we see him pass out of the light of the torch-basket and get swallowed up in the dark we got our breath again and just felt grateful and splendid. But it wasn't for long. Somebody told, I reckon, for in about eight or ten minutes them two pals come tearing forward as tight as they could jump and dart at ashore and was gone. We waited plumb till dawn for them to come back and kept hoping they would but they never did. We was awful sorry and low-spirited. All the hope we had was that Jake had got such a start that they couldn't get on his track. And he would get to his brothers and hide there and be safe. He was going to take the river-road and told us to find out if Brace and Jupiter was to home and no strangers there and then slip out about sundown and tell him. Said he would wait for us in a little bunch of sycamores right back of Tom's uncle's silas' tobacco-field on the river-road, a lonesome place. We sat and talked a long time about his chances and Tom said he was all right if the pals struck up the river instead of down. But it wasn't likely because maybe they knowed where he was from. More likely they would go right and dog him all day, him not suspecting, and kill him when it come dark and take the boots. So we was pretty sorrowful. End of Chapter 4 This is Chapter 5 of Tom Sawyer Detective. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Tom Sawyer Detective. By Mark Twain. Chapter 5. A Tragedy in the Woods We didn't get done tinkering the machinery till a way late in the afternoon, and so it was so close to sundown when we got home that we never stopped on our road but made a break for the sycamores as tight as we could go to tell Jake what the delay was, and have him wait till we could go to braces and find out how things was there. It was getting pretty dim by the time we turned the corner of the woods, sweating and panting with that long run, and see the sycamores thirty yards ahead of us, and just then we see a couple of men run into the bunch and heard two or three terrible screams for help. Poor Jake has killed sure, we says. We was scared through and through and broke for the tobacco-field and hid there, trembling so our clothes would hardly stay on, and just as we skipped in there a couple of men went tearing by and into the bunch they went, and in a second out jumps four men and took out up the road as tight as they could go to chasing two. We laid down kind of weak and sick and listened for more sounds but didn't hear none for a good while but just our hearts. We was thinking about that awful thing laying yonder in the sycamores and it seemed like being that close to a ghost, and it gave me the cold shudders. The moon come as swelling up out of the ground now, powerful big and round and bright behind a comb of trees, like a face looking through prison bars, and the black shudders and white places begun to creep around, and it was miserable quiet and still, and night breezy and graveyard-y and scary. All of a sudden Tom whispers, Look, what's that? Don't, I says. Don't take a person by surprise that way. I'm most ready to die anyway without you doing that. Look, I tell you, it's something coming out of the sycamores. Don't, Tom. It's terrible tall. Oh, lordy, lordy, let's keep still. It's coming this way. He was so excited he could hardly get breath enough to whisper. I had to look. I couldn't help it. So now we was both on our knees with our chins on a fence-rail and gazing, yes, and gasping, too. It was coming down the road, coming in the shatter of the trees, and you couldn't see it good, not till it was pretty close to us. Then it stepped into a bright splotch of moonlight, and we sunk right down in our tracks. It was Jake Dunlap's ghost. That was what we said to ourselves. We couldn't stir for a minute or two. Then it was gone. We talked about it in low voices. Tom says, they're mostly dim and smoky, or like they've made out of fog. But this one wasn't. No, I says, I've seen the goggles and the whiskers perfectly plain. Yes, and the very colors in them loud, country-fied Sunday clothes, plaid bridges, green and black, cotton velvet west coat, fire red and yaller squares, leather straps to the bottoms of the bridge's legs, and one of them hanging unbuttoned. Yes, and that hat! What a hat for a ghost to wear! You see, it was the first season anybody wore that kind, a black stiff brim stove pipe, very high and not smooth with a round top, just like a sugar loaf. Did you notice if its hair was the same hug? No. Seems to me I did. Then again, it seems to me I didn't. I didn't either. But it had its bag along. I noticed that. So did I. How can there be a ghost bag, Tom? So I wouldn't be as ignorant as that if I was you, Huck Finn. Whatever a ghost has turns to ghost stuff. They've got to have their things like anybody else. You see it yourself that its clothes was turned to ghost stuff. Well, then, what's to hinder its bag from turning to? Of course it done it. That was reasonable. I couldn't find no fault with it. Bill Withers and his brother Jack come along by, talking, and Jack says, what do you reckon he was toting? I don't know, but it was pretty heavy. Yes. All he could lug. Nigger stealing corn from old Parson Silas I judged. So did I. And so I allowed I wouldn't let on to see him. That's me too. Then they both laughed, and went on out of hearing. It showed how unpopular old Uncle Silas had got to be now. They wouldn't have let a nigger steal anybody else's corn and never done anything to him. We heard some more voices mumbling along towards us and getting louder, and sometimes a cackle of a laugh. It was Lem Bebe, and Jim Lane. Jim Lane says, Ho! Joe butter done lap? Yes? Oh, I don't know. I reckon so. I seen him spading up some ground long about an hour ago just before sundown. Him and the Parson said he guessed he wouldn't go to night, but we could have his dog if we wanted him. Too tired, I reckon. Yes! Works so hard! Ho! You bet! They cackled at that and went on by. Tom said we better jump out and tag along with them, because they was going our way and it wouldn't be comfortable to run across the ghost all by ourselves. So we done it and got home all right. That night was the second of September, a Saturday. I shan't ever forget it. You'll see why, pretty soon. This is Chapter 6 of Tom Sawyer, Detective. Tom Sawyer, Detective by Mark Twain. Chapter 6. Plans to Secure the Diamonds. We trapped along behind Jim and Lem till we come to the back style where old Jim's cabin was that he was captivated in the time we set him free, and here come the dogs piling around us to say howdy, and there was the lights of the house, too, so we weren't afeared any more, and was going to climb over, but Tom says, hold on, sit down here a minute by George. What's the matter? I says, matter enough, he says. Wasn't you expecting we would be the first to tell the family who it is that's been killed yonder in the sycamores, and all about them rapscallions that done it and about the diamonds they've smooched off of the corpse and painted up fine, and have the glory of being the ones that knows a lot more about it than any one else? Why, of course, it wouldn't be you, Tom Sawyer, if you was to let such a chance go by. I reckon it ain't going to suffer none for lack of paint, I says. When you start in to scalp the facts. Well now, he says, perfectly calm. What would you say if I was to tell you I ain't going to start it at all? I was astonished to hear him talk so. I says, I'd say it's a lie! You ain't in earnest, Tom Sawyer. You'll soon see. Was the ghost barefooted? No, he wasn't. What of it? You wait, I'll show you what. Did it have its boots on? Yes, I seen them playing. Swear it? Yes, I swear it. So do I. Now, do you know what that means? No, what does it mean? Means that them thieves didn't get the diamonds. Jiminy, what makes you think that? I don't only think it, I know it. Didn't the britches and goggles and whiskers and handbag and every blessed thing turn to ghost duff? Everything it had on turn, didn't it? It shows that the reason its boots turned to was because it still had them on after it started to go hatting around. And if that ain't proof that them blather skites didn't get the boots, I'd like to know what you'd call proof. Think of that now. I never see such a head as that boy had. Why, I had eyes and I could see things but they never meant nothing to me. But Tom Sawyer was different. When Tom Sawyer seen the thing, it just got up on its hind legs and talked to him, told him everything it knowed. I never see such a head. Tom Sawyer says, I'll say it again, as I've said it many a time before. I ain't fit to black your boots. But that's all right, that's neither here nor there. God Almighty made us all, and some He give eyes that's blind, and some He gives eyes that can see, and I reckon ain't none of our look out what He'd done it for. It's all right. Or He'd have fixed it some other way. And go on, I see plenty plain enough now that them thieves didn't get way with the diamonds. Why didn't they, do you reckon? Because they got chased away by them other two men before they could pull the boots off the corpse. That's so, I see it now. But looky here, Tom, why ain't we to go and tell about it? Oh, shucks, huck-fin, can't you see? Look at it. What's it 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 stalker 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 diamonds. You bet? Someday 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 diamonds or any thieves. Don't you forget that. I had to sigh a little over the way he had got it fixed. I had us sold them diamonds yesterday for twelve thousand dollars, but I didn't say anything. It wouldn't have done any good, I says. But what are we going to tell your aunt Sally has made us so long getting down here from the village, Tom? Oh, I'll leave that to you, he says. I reckon you can explain it somehow. He was always just that strict and delicate. He never would tell a lie himself. We struck across the big yard noticing this, that, and the other thing that was so familiar, and we so glad to see it again, and when we got to the roofed big passageway between 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 bays working down 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 and 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 aloof and 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 has just plumb wore out, and I declare I could skin you alive. You must be starving poor things. Sit down. Sit down, everybody. Don't lose no more time. It was good to be there again, behind all that noble corn-pone and spare ribs, and everything that you could ever want in this world. Old Uncle Silas, he peeled off one of his bullious 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 have got a going, she asked me, and I says, Well, you see, Mrs. Huck Finn, since when am I Mrs. 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 a foot and take a smell of the woods, and we run across Lembebe and Jim Lane, and they asked us to go with them black-bearing tonight, and said they could borrow Jupiter Dunlop's dog, because he had told them just that minute, Where do they see him? says the old man, and when I looked up to see how he come to take an interest in a little thing like that, his eyes was just burning into me, he was that eager. It surprised me, so it kind of threw me off, but I pulled myself together again, and says, It was when we was spading up some ground along with you, towards sundown or along there. He only said, Hmm, in a kind of a disappointed way, and didn't take no more interest. So I went on, I says, Well, then, as I was saying, That'll do, you needn't go no further. It was Aunt Sally. She was boring right into me with her eyes and very indignant. Hotfin! she says. How'd them men come to talk about going a black-bearing in September, in this region? I see I had slipped up, and I couldn't say a word. She waited, still a gaze in at me, then she says. And how'd they come to strike that idiot idea of going a black-bearing in the night? Well, they told us they had a lantern, and oh, shut up, dude! Look at here. What was they going to do with the dog? Hunt blackberries with it? I think, man, they— Nah, Tom Sawyer, what kind of a lie are you fixing your mouth to contribute to this messy rubbish? 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 do 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—and Sally, without knowing it, and of course without intending it, you are in the wrong. If you'd have studied natural history the way you walked to, you would know that all over the world except just here in Arkansas they always hunt strawberries with a dog, and a lantern. But she busted in on him there, and just piled into him and snowed him under. She was so mad she couldn't get the words out fast enough, and she gushed them out in one everlasting fresh-out. That was what Tom Sawyer was after. He allowed to work her up and get her started, and then leave her alone and let her burn herself out. Then she would be so aggravated with that subject that she wouldn't say another word about it, nor let anybody else. Well, it happened just so. When she was tuckered out and had to hold up, he says, quite calm. And yet, all the same, Aunt Sally, shut up! She says, I don't want to hear another word out of you. So we was perfectly safe then, and didn't have no more trouble about that delay. Tom done it elegant. CHAPTER 7 A NIGHT'S VIGIL Banny she was looking pretty sober, and she sighed some now and then. But pretty soon she got to asking about Mary and Sid and Tom's Aunt Polly. And then Aunt Sally's clouds cleared off and she got in a good humor and joined in on the questions, and was her lovingest best self. And so the rest of the supper went along gay and pleasant. But the old man he didn't take any hand hardly, and was absent-minded and restless and done a considerable amount of sighing, and it was kind of heartbreaking to see him so sad and troubled and worried. By and by a spell after supper, come a nigger knocked on the door and put his head in with his old straw hat in his hand, bowing and scraping, and said his Mars brace was out of the style, and wanted his brother, and was getting tired waiting supper for him. And would Mars Silas please tell him where he was? I never see Uncle Silas speak up so sharp and fractious before. He says, Am I his brother's keeper? And then he kind of wilted together, and looked like he wished he hadn't spoken so, and then he says very gentle, But you needn't say that, Billy. I was took sudden and irritable, and I ain't very well these days, and not hardly responsible. Tell him he ain't 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 mourn 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 no harm, and maybe it done him good. She said Benny was the only one that was much helped 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 began 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 at one and had a good deal of talk. And Tom said he'd bet the quarrel and was all Jupiter'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 had gone to bed. Tom he always seen everything and now he see that the old green bay's 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 staring round in her room, which was next to on, and judged she was worried a good deal about her father and couldn't sleep. We found we couldn't either. So we set up a long time and smoked and talked in a low voice and felt pretty dull and down-hearted. We talked the murder and the ghost over and over again and got so creepy and crawly we couldn't get sleepy know-how in no way. 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'd done it, and there we see a man poking around in the yard like he didn't know just what he wanted to do, but it was pretty dim and we couldn't see him good. Then he started for the style, and as he went over it the moon came out strong and he had a long handled shovel over his shoulder and we see the white patch on the old work-gown. So Tom says, He's a walkin' in his sleep. I wish we was allowed to follow him and see where he's going to. There he's turned down by the tobacco field, out of sight now. It's a dreadful pity he can't rest no better. We waited a long time, but he didn't come back 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 thrashing the trees around and the rain was driving down and slanting sheets and the gullies was running rivers. Tom says, Lookie here, Huck, I'll tell you one thing that's mighty curious. Up to the time we went out last night the family hadn't heard about Jake Dunlap being murdered. Now the men that chased Hal Clayton and Bud Dixon away would spread the thing around in half an hour, and every neighbor that heard it would shin out and fly around from one farm to the 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 years. Huck, it's mighty strange, I don't understand it. So then he was in a fidget for the rain to let up so we could turn out and run across some of the people and see if they would say anything about it to us. And he said if they did we must be horribly surprised and shocked. We was out and gone a minute the rain stopped. It was just broad day then. We loafed along up the road and now and then met a person and stopped and said, Howdy, and told them when we come and how we left the folks at home and how long we was going to stay and all that. But none of them said a word about that thing, which was just astonishing and no mistake. Tom said he believed if we went to the Sycamores we would find that body laying there solitary and alone and not a soul around. Said he believed the men chased the thieves so far into the woods that the thieves probably 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 know, gabbling along that way, we was right at the Sycamores. The cold chills trickled down my back and I wouldn't budge another step for all Tom's persuading. But he couldn't hold in. He'd got to see if the boots were safe on that body yet. So he croaked in. And the next minute out he comes again with his eyes bulging he was so excited and says, Huck! It's gone! I was astonished. I says, Tom, you don't meet it. It's gone, sure. There ain't a sign of it. The ground 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 gave in and went and took a look myself. And it was just as Tom said there wasn't a sign of a corpse. Turn it, I says. The diamonds is gone. Don't you reckon the thieves slunk back and lugged him off, Tom? Looks like it. It just does. Now, where they hide him, do you reckon? I don't know, I says disgusted. And what's more, I don't care. They've got the boots. And that's all I cared about. He'll lay around these woods a long time before I hunt him up. Tom didn't feel no more interest in him neither. Only curiosity to know what come of him. But he said we'd lay low and keep dark and it wouldn't be long till the dogs or somebody routs to dem out. We went back home to breakfast, ever so bothered and put out and disappointed and swindled. I weren't ever so down on a corpse before. CHAPTER VIII Talking with the Ghost It weren'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 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 read a bite. Bam-bam, when it was stillest, that nigger's head was poked in at the door again and he said his Mars brace was getting powerful uneasy about Mars Jupiter which hadn't come home yet. And would Mars Silas please—he was looking at Uncle Silas and he stopped there like the rest of his words was froze—for Uncle Silas he rose up shaky and steadied himself, leaning his fingers on the table, and he was panting, and his eyes was set on the 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. Nigger looked scared and cleared out and we all felt—well, I don't know how we felt it, but it was awful with the old man panting there and his eyes set and looking like a person that was dying none of us could budge. But Benny she slid around soft with her tears running down and stood by his side and nestled his old gray head up against her and began 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 pudding-headed and good and now look at him if he hadn't lost his mind he wasn't much short of it. That was what we allowed. It was a most lovely day now and bright and sunshiny 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 in my legs. There it is! I says. We jump back behind it both shivering and Tom says, shh, don't make a noise. It was sitting on a log right in the edge of a little prairie thinking. I tried to get Tom to come away but he wouldn't. I doesn't budge him by myself. He said we might never 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 fantods to do it. Tom he had to talk and 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. It's 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 natural than what it does. Nor I neither, I says. I'd recognize it anywheres. So would I. It looks perfectly solid and genuine, just the way it done before it died. So we kept agazing. 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 lack 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 deep 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 scratch in its head. Don't you see? Well, what of it? Why this? What's the sense of it scratching its head? There ain't anything there to itch. Its head is made out of fog or something like that and can't itch. A fog can't itch. Any fool knows that. Well then, if it don't itch and can't itch, what the nation is it scratching it for? Ain't it just habit, don't you reckon? No, sir, I don't. I ain't a bit satisfied about the way this one acts. I have a blame-good notion it's a bogus one. I have, as sure as I'm a-sittin' here, because if it— Huck! Well, what's the matter now? You can't see the bushes through it. Well, Tom, it's so sure it's as solid as a cow. Sort of begin to think, Huck, it's biting off a chow off to backer. By George they don't chow. They ain't got anything to chow with, Huck. I'm listenin'. He didn'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. Might a good reason. Hadn't ever been any corpse there. Why, Tom, you know we heard. Yes, we did. Heard a howl or two. Does that prove anybody was killed? Course it don't. And we see four men run, then this one come walkin' out 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 plain himself for a stranger, just the same as he said he would. Ghost? Ha-ha! He's as sound as a nut. Then I see it all, and how he 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 if it might be a ghost after all. When Tom got to where he was, he says, Me and Huck's might've glad to see you again, and you needn't be afraid, we'll tell. And if you think it'll be safer for you, if we don't let on to know you when we run across you, say the word, and you'll see you can depend on us. And would rather cut our hands off than get you into the least little bit of danger. First off he looked surprised to see us, not very glad either. But as Tom went on he looked pleasanter, and when he was done he smiled, and nodded his head several times, and made signs with his hands, and says, Go, go, go, go, go, the way Dief and Dummies does. And just then we see some of Steve Nickerson's people coming that live to the 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 Nickerson's, and of course they asked if that was the new stranger yonder, and where'd he come from, and what was his name, and which communion was he, Baptists or Methodists, and which politics wiggered Democrat, and how long is he staying, and all them other questions that humans always ask when a stranger comes, and animals does, too. But Tom said he weren't able to make anything out of deep and dumb signs, and the same with goo-gooing. Then we watched them go and bully rag 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 deep 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 school house about recess time, which was a three-mile tramp. I was so disappointed not to hear Jake tell about the row and the sycamores, and how near he come to getting killed that I couldn't seem to get over it, and Tom he felt the same, but said if we was in Jake's fix, we would want to go careful and keep still and not take any chances. The boys and girls was all glad to see us again, and we had a real good time all through recess. Coming to school the Henderson boys had come across the new deep 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 deep and dummy in their lives, and it made a powerful excitement. Tom said it was tough to have to keep mum now, said we would be heroes if we could come out and tell all we knowed, but after all it was still more heroic to keep mum, and weren't two boys and a million could do it. That was Tom Sawyer's idea about it, and I reckoned there weren't any body could batter it. This is Chapter 9 of Tom Sawyer's Detective. 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 weren't ever tired of staring at him and wondering over him, and wishing they knowed more about him. He was so uncommon and romantic. His signs weren't no good. People couldn't understand them, and he probably couldn't himself, but he did a sight of goo-gooing, and so everybody was satisfied, and admired to hear him go it. He toed it a piece of slate around, and a pencil, and people wrote questions on it, and he wrote answers. But there weren't any body 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 way off summers, 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 niggas take care of it, and fetch him all the viddles he wanted. Dummy was at our house some, because old Silas was so afflicted himself these days that anybody else that was afflicted was a comfort to him. Me and Tom didn't let on that we had known him before, and he didn't let on that he had known us before. The family talked their troubles out before him, the same as if he wasn't there. But we reckoned it wasn't any harm for him to hear what they said. Generally he didn't seem to notice, but sometimes he did. Well, two or three days went long, and everybody got to getting uneasy about Jupiter Dunlap. Everybody was asking everybody if they had any idea what had become of him. No, they hadn't, they said. And they shook their heads, and said there was something powerful strange about it. Another and another day went by. Then there was a report got around that perhaps he was murdered. 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 grounded. The others got tired and give it up. But not Tom Sawyer. That weren'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 its range, you know. It don't make any difference, Huck. If the bodies 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 sent him sure. Huck! We're going to be celebrated. Sure as you're born. He was just a blazing, and whenever he got a fire he was most likely to get a fire all over. That was the way this time. In two minutes he got it all ciphered out 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 today. For all we know there ain't any corpse and nobody ain't been murdered. That cusk could have gone all summers and not been killed at all. That graveled him, and he says, Huck Finn! I never see such a person as you to want to spoil everything. As long as you can't see anything hopeful in the thing you won't let anybody else. What good can it do you to throw cold water on that corpse and get up that selfish theory that there ain't been any murder? None in the world. I don't see how you can act so. I wouldn't treat you like that, and you know it. Here we've got a noble good opportunity to make a reputation, and 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 I never said anything about being glad, I only—well, then I'm as sorry as you are. Anyway, you drother have it. That is the way I drother have it. There ain't any drothers about it, Huck Finn. Nobody said anything about drothers, and as for—he forgot he was talking, and went tramping along, studying. He began to get excited again, and pretty soon he says, Huck, it'll be the bulliest thing that ever happened if we find the body after everybody else has quit looking and then go ahead and hunt up the murderer. It won't only be an honor to us, but it'll be an honor to Uncle Silas, because it was us that done it. It'll set him up again. You see if it don't. But old Jeff Hooker he throwed cold water on the whole business when we got to his blacksmith's shop and told him what we come for. You can take the dog, he says, but you ain't going to find any corpse, because there ain't any corpse to find. Everybody's quit looking and they're right. Soon as they come to think, they know there aren'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—answer up. You ain't no fool. What do you kill him for? Well, sometimes it's for revenge, and—wait, one thing at a time. Revenge says you. And rot you are. Now, whoever had anything again 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 weren't likely anybody would have that much of a grudge against a lamb like Jupiter Dunlap. The blacksmith says, by and by, the revenge idea won't work, you see. Well, then, what's next? Robbery? My gosh, that must have been it, Tom. Yes, sir, I reckon we've struck it this time. Some fellow wanted his gallus buckles, and so he—that 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 to the whole business and of the people that had been hunting the body, and he said, if they had had any sense they'd have knowed the lazy cuss slid out because he wanted a loaf and spell after all this work. He'll come pottering back in a couple of weeks, and then how you fellers feel. But laws bless you, take the dog, and go and hunt his reminders. Do, Tom. Then he busted out, and had another of them forty rod laughs of his, and 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 lacked us. He capered and raced around ever so friendly, and powerful glad to be free and have a holiday. But Tom was so cut up he couldn't take any interest in him, and said he wished he'd stopped, and thought a minute before he ever started on such a fool errand. He said old Jeff Hooker would tell everybody, and we'd never hear the last of it. So we loafed along a home down the back lanes, feeling pretty glum and not talking. When we was passing the far corner of our tobacco-field, we heard the dog set up a long howl in there, and we went to the place, and he was scratching the ground with all his might, and ever now and then canting up his head sideways and fetching another howl. It was a long square, the shape of a grave. The rain had made it sink down and show the shape. The minute we come and stood there, we looked at one another and never said a word. When the dog had dug down only a few inches, he grabbed something and pulled it up, and it was an arm and a sleeve. Tom kind of gasped out and says, Come away, Hook. 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 Jupiter, 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 Hux found Jupiter Dunlap's corpse all by ourselves with a bloodhound after everybody else had quit hunting and given up, and if it hadn't been for us, it never would have been found, and he was murdered too. They'd done it with a club or something like that, 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 and onto the floor and groans out, Oh my God! You've found him now! CHAPTER 10 The arrest of Uncle Silas Them awful words froze us solid. We couldn't move hand or foot for as much as half a minute. Then we kind of come to and lifted the old man up and got him into his chair, and Benny petted him and kissed him and tried to comfort him, and poor old Aunt Sally, she'd 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 happen if he hadn't been so ambitious to get celebrated and let the corpse alone in the way of the others done. But pretty soon he sort of come to himself again and says, Uncle Silas, don't you say another word like that? It's dangerous, and there ain't a shatter of truth in it. Aunt Sally and Benny was thankful to hear him say that, and they said the same, but the old man he wagged his head sorrowful and hopeless, and the tears run down his face, and he says, No, I done it. Poor Jupiter, 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 Jupiter 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 Jupiter 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 lulls, he says, it was only just fear that gave him that last little spur 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-count, but of course it weren'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 suddenly. I know the reason it gave me the cold shutters when he said them words, because right away I remembered about us seeing Uncle Silas prowling around with a long-handled shovel away in the night that night. And I knowed Benny's 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 no one would ever know. But if it was found out and any harm come to him it would break the family's hearts and kill them, and yet never do anybody any good. So at last he promised. We was all of us more comfortable then, and went to work to cheer up the old man. We told him all he'd got to do was to keep still, and it wouldn't be long till the whole thing would blow over and be for God. We all said there wouldn't anybody ever suspect Uncle Silas, nor ever dream of such a thing, he being so good and kind, and having such a good character. And Tom says, cordial and hearty, he says, Why, just look at it a minute, just consider. Here is Uncle Silas, all these years a preacher, at his own expense, all these years doing good with all his might and every way he can think of, at his own expense, all the time, always been loved by everybody, and respected, always been peaceable and minding his own business. The very last man in this whole district to touch a person, and everybody knows it. Suspect him? Why, it ain't any more possible than by authority of the state of Arkansas, I arrest you for the murder of Jupiter Dunlap, shouts the sheriff at the door. It was awful. Aunt Sally and Benny flung themselves at Uncle Silas screaming and crying and hugged him and hung to him. And Aunt Sally said, Go away, she wouldn't ever give him up. They shouldn't have him. And the niggers, they come crowding and crying to the door and, well, I couldn't stand it. It was enough to break a person's heart. So I got out. They took him up to the little one horse jail in the village. And we all went along to tell him goodbye. And Tom was feeling elegant, says to me, We'll have a most noble good time and heaps of danger some dark night getting him out of their huck. And it'll be talked about everywhere 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 plumbed through to the end, even if there weren'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 goodbye cry all around and went back to the farm, and left her there to live with the jailer's wife a month till the trial in October. End of chapter 10