Chapter 8
A Pirate Bold To Be
-
TOM DODGED HITHER and thither through lanes until he was well out of
the track of returning scholars, and then fell into a moody jog. He
crossed a small "branch" two or three times, because of a prevailing
juvenile superstition that to cross water baffled pursuit. Half an
hour later he was disappearing behind the Douglas mansion on the
summit of Cardiff Hill, and the school-house was hardly
distinguishable away off in the valley behind him. He entered a
dense wood, picked his pathless way to the centre of it, and sat
down on a mossy spot under a spreading oak. There was not even a
zephyr stirring; the dead noonday heat had even stilled the songs of
the birds; nature lay in a trance that was broken by no sound but
the occasional far-off hammering of a woodpecker, and this seemed to
render the pervading silence and sense of loneliness the more
profound. The boy's soul was steeped in melancholy; his feelings
were in happy accord with his surroundings. He sat long with his
elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands, meditating. It seemed
to him that life was but a trouble, at best, and he more than half
envied Jimmy Hodges, so lately released; it must be very peaceful,
he thought, to lie and slumber and dream forever and ever, with the
wind whispering through the trees and caressing the grass and the
flowers over the grave, and nothing to bother and grieve about, ever
any more. If he only had a clean Sunday-school record he could be
willing to go, and be done with it all. Now as to this girl. What
had he done? Nothing. He had meant the best in the world, and been
treated like a dog- like a very dog. She would be sorry some day-
maybe when it was too late. Ah, if he could only die temporarily!
But the elastic heart of youth cannot be compressed into one
constrained shape long at a time. Tom presently began to drift
insensibly back into the concerns of this life again. What if he
turned his back, now, and disappeared mysteriously? What if he went
away- ever so far away, into unknown countries beyond the seas- and
never came back any more! How would she feel then! The idea of being a
clown recurred to him now, only to fill him with disgust. For
frivolity, and jokes, and spotted tights were an offense, when they
intruded themselves upon a spirit that was exalted into the vague
august realm of the romantic. No, he would be a soldier, and return,
after long years, all war-worn and illustrious. No- better still, he
would join the Indians, and hunt buffaloes and go on the war-path in
the mountain ranges and the trackless great plains of the Far West,
and away in the future come back a great chief, bristling with
feathers, hideous with paint, and prance into Sunday-school, some
drowsy summer morning, with a blood-curdling war-whoop, and sear the
eye-balls of all his companions with unappeasable envy. But no,
there was something gaudier even than this. He would be a pirate! That
was it! Now his future lay plain before him, and glowing with
unimaginable splendor. How his name would fill the world, and make
people shudder! How gloriously he would go plowing the dancing seas,
in his long, low, black-hulled racer, the "Spirit of the Storm,"
with his grisly flag flying at the fore! And at the zenith of his
fame, how he would suddenly appear at the old village and stalk into
church, all brown and weather-beaten, in his black velvet doublet
and trunks, his great jack-boots, his crimson sash, his belt bristling
with horse-pistols, his crime-rusted cutlass at his side, his slouch
hat with waving plumes, his black flag unfurled, with the skull and
cross-bones on it, and hear with swelling ecstasy the whisperings,
"It's Tom Sawyer the Pirate!- the Black Avenger of the Spanish Main!"
Yes, it was settled; his career was determined. He would run away
from home and enter upon it. He would start the very next morning.
Therefore he must now begin to get ready. He would collect his
resources together. He went to a rotten log near at hand and began
to dig under one end of it with his Barlow knife. He soon struck
wood that sounded hollow. He put his hand there and uttered this
incantation impressively:
"What hasn't come here, come! What's here, stay here!"
Then he scraped away the dirt, and exposed a pine shingle. He took
it up and disclosed a shapely little treasure-house whose bottom and
sides were of shingles. In it lay a marble. Tom's astonishment was
boundless! He scratched his head with a perplexed air, and said:
"Well, that beats anything!"
Then he tossed the marble away pettishly, and stood cogitating.
The truth was, that a superstition of his had failed, here, which he
and all his comrades had always looked upon as infallible. If you
buried a marble with certain necessary incantations, and left it alone
a fortnight, and then opened the place with the incantation he had
just used, you would find that all the marbles you had ever lost had
gathered themselves together there, meantime, no matter how widely
they had been separated. But now, this thing had actually and
unquestionably failed. Tom's whole structure of faith was shaken to
its foundations. He had many a time heard of this thing succeeding,
but never of its failing before. It did not occur to him that he had
tried it several times before, himself, but could never find the
hiding places afterwards. He puzzled over the matter some time, and
finally decided that some witch had interfered and broken the charm.
He thought he would satisfy himself on that point; so he searched
around till he found a small sandy spot with a little funnel-shaped
depression in it. He laid himself down and put his mouth close to this
depression and called:
"Doodle-bug, doodle-bug, tell me what I want to know! Doodle-bug,
doodle-bug tell me what I want to know!"
The sand began to work, and presently a small black bug appeared for
a second and then darted under again in a fright.
"He dasn't tell! So it was a witch that done it. I just knowed it."
He well knew the futility of trying to contend against witches, so
he gave up discouraged. But it occurred to him that he might as well
have the marble he had just thrown away, and therefore he went and
made a patient search for it. But he could not find it. Now he went
back to his treasure-house and carefully placed himself just as he had
been standing when he tossed the marble away; then he took another
marble from his pocket and tossed it in the same way, saying:
"Brother go find your brother!"
He watched where it stopped, and went there and looked. But it
must have fallen short or gone too far; so he tried twice more. The
last repetition was successful. The two marbles lay within a foot of
each other.
Just here the blast of a toy tin trumpet came faintly down the green
aisles of the forest. Tom flung off his jacket and trousers, turned
a suspender into a belt, raked away some brush behind the rotten
log, disclosing a rude bow and arrow, a lath sword and a tin
trumpet, and in a moment had seized these things and bounded away,
bare-legged, with fluttering shirt. He presently halted under a
great elm, blew an answering blast, and then began to tip-toe and look
warily out, this way and that. He said cautiously- to an imaginary
company:
"Hold, my merry men! Keep hid till I blow."
Now appeared Joe Harper, as airily clad and elaborately armed as
Tom. Tom called:
"Hold! Who comes here into Sherwood Forest without my pass?"
"Guy of Guisborne wants no man's pass. Who art thou that- that-"
-"Dares to hold such language," said Tom, prompting- for they
talked "by the book," from memory.
"Who art thou that dares to hold such language?"
"I, indeed! I am Robin Hood, as thy caitiff carcass soon shall
know."
"Then art thou indeed that famous outlaw? Right gladly will I
dispute with thee the passes of the merry wood. Have at thee!"
They took their lath swords, dumped their other traps on the ground,
struck a fencing attitude, foot to foot, and began a grave, careful
combat, "two up and two down." Presently Tom said:
"Now if you've got the hang, go it lively!"
So they "went it lively," panting and perspiring with the work. By
and by Tom shouted:
"Fall! fall! Why don't you fall?"
"I shan't! Why don't you fall yourself.? You're getting the worst of
it."
"Why that ain't anything. I can't fall; that ain't the way it is
in the book. The book says 'Then with one back-handed stroke he slew
poor Guy of Guisborne.' You're to turn around and let me hit you in
the back."
There was no getting around the authorities, so Joe turned, received
the whack and fell.
"Now," said Joe- getting up, "You got to let me kill you. That's
fair."
"Why I can't do that, it ain't in the book."
"Well it's blamed mean,- that's all."
"Well, say, Joe, you can be Friar Tuck or Much the miller's son
and lam me with a quarter-staff; or I'll be the Sheriff of
Nottingham and you be Robin Hood a little while and kill me."
This was satisfactory, and so these adventures were carried out.
Then Tom became Robin Hood again, and was allowed by the treacherous
nun to bleed his strength away through his neglected wound. And at
last Joe, representing a whole tribe of weeping outlaws, dragged him
sadly forth, gave his bow into his feeble hands, and Tom said,
"Where this arrow falls, there bury poor Robin Hood under the
greenwood tree." Then he shot the arrow and fell back and would have
died but he lit on a nettle and sprang up too gaily for a corpse.
The boys dressed themselves, hid their accoutrements, and went off
grieving that there were no outlaws any more, and wondering what
modern civilization could claim to have done to compensate for their
loss. They said they would rather be outlaws a year in Sherwood Forest
than President of the United States forever.
CHAPTER_9
Chapter 9
Tragedy in the Grave Yard
-
AT HALF PAST NINE, that night, Tom and Sid were sent to bed, as
usual. They said their prayers, and Sid was soon asleep. Tom lay awake
and waited, in restless impatience. When it seemed to him that it must
be nearly daylight, he heard the clock strike ten! This was despair.
He would have tossed and fidgeted, as his nerves demanded, but he
was afraid he might wake Sid. So he lay still, and stared up into
the dark. Everything was dismally still. By and by, out of the
stillness little scarcely perceptible noises began to emphasize
themselves. The ticking of the clock began to bring itself into
notice. Old beams began to crack mysteriously. The stairs creaked
faintly. Evidently spirits were abroad. A measured, muffled snore
issued from Aunt Polly's chamber. And now the tiresome chirping of a
cricket that no human ingenuity could locate, began. Next the
ghastly ticking of a death-watch in the wall at the bed's head made
Tom shudder- it meant that somebody's days were numbered. Then the
howl of a far-off dog rose on the night air and was answered by a
fainter howl from a remoter distance. Tom was in an agony. At last
he was satisfied that time had ceased and eternity begun; he began
to doze, in spite of himself, the clock chimed eleven but he did not
hear it. And then there came mingling with his half-formed dreams, a
most melancholy caterwauling. The raising of a neighboring window
disturbed him. A cry of "Scat! you devil!" and the crash of an empty
bottle against the back of his aunt's woodshed brought him wide awake,
and a single minute later he was dressed and out of the window and
creeping along the roof of the "ell" on all fours. He "meow'd" with
caution once or twice, as he went; then jumped to the roof of the
woodshed and thence to the ground. Huckleberry Finn was there, with
his dead cat. The boys moved off and disappeared in the gloom. At
the end of half an hour they were wading through the tall grass of the
graveyard.
It was a graveyard of the old-fashioned western kind. It was on a
hill, about a mile and a half from the village. It had a crazy board
fence around it, which leaned inward in places, and outward the rest
of the time, but stood upright nowhere. Grass and weeds grew rank over
the whole cemetery. All the old graves were sunken in. There was not a
tombstone on the place; round-topped, worm-eaten boards staggered over
the graves, leaning for support and finding none. "Sacred to the
Memory of" So-and-So had been painted on them once, but it could no
longer have been read, on the most of them, now, even if there had
been light.
A faint wind moaned through the trees, and Tom feared it might be
the spirits of the dead complaining at being disturbed. The boys
talked little, and only under their breath, for the time and the place
and the pervading solemnity and silence oppressed their spirits.
They found the sharp new heap they were seeking, and ensconced
themselves within the protection of three great elms that grew in a
bunch within a few feet of the grave.
Then they waited in silence for what seemed a long time. The hooting
of a distant owl was all the sound that troubled the dead stillness.
Tom's reflections grew oppressive. He must force some talk. So he said
in a whisper:
"Hucky, do you believe the dead people like it for us to be here?"
Huckleberry whispered:
"I wisht I knowed. It's awful solemn like, ain't it?"
"I bet it is."
There was a considerable pause, while the boys canvassed this matter
inwardly. Then Tom whispered:
"Say, Hucky- do you reckon Hoss Williams hears us talking?"
"O' course he does. Least his sperrit does."
Tom, after a pause:
"I wish I'd said Mister Williams. But I never meant any harm.
Everybody calls him Hoss."
"A body can't be too partic'lar how they talk 'bout these-yer dead
people, Tom."
This was a damper, and conversation died again, Presently Tom seized
his comrade's arm and said:
"Sh!"
"What is it, Tom?" And the two clung together with beating hearts.
"Sh! There 'tis again! Didn't you hear it?"
"I-"
"There! Now you hear it."
"Lord, Tom they're coming! They're coming, sure. What'll we do?"
"I dono. Think they'll see us?"
"O, Tom, they can see in the dark, same as cats. I wisht I hadn't
come."
"O, don't be afeard. I don't believe they'll bother us. We ain't
doing any harm. If we keep perfectly still, maybe they won't notice us
at all."
"I'll try to, Tom, but Lord I'm all of a shiver."
"Listen!"
The boys bent their heads together and scarcely breathed. A
muffled sound of voices floated up from the far end of the graveyard.
"Look! See there!" whispered Tom. "What is it?"
"It's devil-fire. O, Tom, this is awful."
Some vague figures approached through the gloom, swinging an
old-fashioned tin lantern that freckled the ground with innumerable
little spangles of light. Presently Huckleberry whispered with a
shudder:
"It's the devils sure enough. Three of 'em! Lordy, Tom, we're
goners! Can you pray?"
"I'll try, but don't you be afeard. They ain't going to hurt us. Now
I lay me down to sleep, I-"
"Sh!"
"What is it, Huck?"
"They're humans! One of 'em is, anyway. One of 'em's old Muff
Potter's voice."
"No- 'tain't so, is it?"
"I bet I know it. Don't you stir nor budge. He ain't sharp enough to
notice us. Drunk, same as usual, likely- blamed old rip!"
"All right, I'll keep still. Now they're stuck. Can't find it.
Here they come again. Now they're hot. Cold again. Hot again. Red hot!
They're p'inted right, this time. Say Huck, I know another o' them
voices; it's Injun Joe."
"That's so- that murderin' half-breed! I'd druther they was
devils, a dem sight. What kin they be up to?"
The whispers died wholly out, now, for the three men had reached the
grave and stood within a few feet of the boys' hiding-place.
"Here it is," said the third voice; and the owner of it held the
lantern up and revealed the face of young Dr. Robinson.
Potter and Injun Joe were carrying a handbarrow with a rope and a
couple of shovels on it. They cast down their load and began to open
the grave. The doctor put the lantern at the head of the grave and
came and sat down with his back against one of the elm trees. He was
so close the boys could have touched him.
"Hurry, men!" he said in a low voice; "the moon might come out at
any moment."
They growled a response and went on digging. For some time there was
no noise but the grating sound of the spades discharging their freight
of mould and gravel. It was very monotonous. Finally a spade struck
upon the coffin with a dull woody accent, and within another minute or
two the men had hoisted it out on the ground. They pried off the lid
with their shovels, got out the body and dumped it rudely on the
ground. The moon drifted from behind the clouds and exposed the pallid
face. The barrow was got ready and the corpse placed on it, covered
with a blanket, and bound to its place with the rope. Potter took
out a large spring-knife and cut off the dangling end of the rope
and then said:
"Now the cussed thing's ready, Sawbones, and you'll just out with
another five, or here she stays."
"That's the talk!" said Injun Joe.
"Look here, what does this mean?" said the doctor. "You required
your pay in advance, and I've paid you."
"Yes, and you done more than that," said Injun joe, approaching
the doctor, who was now standing. "Five year ago you drove me away
from your father's kitchen one night, when I come to ask for something
to eat, and you said I warn't there for any good; and when I swore I'd
get even with you if it took a hundred years, your father had me
jailed for a vagrant. Did you think I'd forget? The Injun blood
ain't in me for nothing. And now I've got you, and you got to
settle, you know!"
He was threatening the doctor, with his fist in his face, by this
time. The doctor struck out suddenly and stretched the ruffian on
the ground. Potter dropped his knife, and exclaimed:
"Here, now, don't you hit my pard!" and the next moment he had
grappled with the doctor and the two were struggling with might and
main, trampling the grass and tearing the ground with their heels.
Injun Joe sprang to his feet, his eyes flaming with passion,
snatched up Potter's knife, and went creeping, catlike and stooping,
round and round about the combatants, seeking an opportunity. All at
once the doctor flung himself free, seized the heavy head-board of
Williams' grave and felled Potter to the earth with it- and in the
same instant the half-breed saw his chance and drove the knife to
the hilt in the young man's breast. He reeled and fell partly upon
Potter, flooding him with his blood, and in the same moment the clouds
blotted out the dreadful spectacle and the two frightened boys went
speeding away in the dark.
Presently, when the moon emerged again, Injun Joe was standing
over the two forms, contemplating them. The doctor murmured
inarticulately, gave a long gasp or two and was still. The
half-breed muttered:
"That score is settled- damn you."
Then he robbed the body. After which he put the fatal knife in
Potter's open right hand, and sat down on the dismantled coffin.
Three- four- five minutes passed, and then Potter began to stir and
moan. His hand closed upon the knife; he raised it, glanced at it, and
let it fall, with a shudder. Then he sat up, pushing the body from
him, and gazed at it, and then around him, confusedly. His eyes met
Joe's.
"Lord, how is this, Joe?" he said.
"It's a dirty business," said Joe, without moving. "What did you
do it for?"
"I! I never done it!"
"Look here! That kind of talk won't wash."
Potter trembled and grew white.
"I thought I'd got sober. I'd no business to drink to-night. But
it's in my head yet- worse'n when we started here. I'm all in a
muddle; can't recollect anything of it hardly. Tell me, Joe- honest,
now, old feller- did I do it? Joe, I never meant to- 'pon my soul
and honor I never meant to, Joe. Tell me how it was, Joe. O, it's
awful- and him so young and promising."
"Why you two was scuffling, and he fetched you one with the
headboard and you fell flat; and then up you come, all reeling and
staggering, like, and snatched the knife and jammed it into him,
just as he fetched you another awful clip- and here you've laid, as
dead as a wedge till now."
"O, I didn't know what I was a-doing. I wish I may die this minute
if I did. It was all on account of the whisky; and the excitement, I
reckon. I never used a weepon in my life before, Joe. I've fought, but
never with weepons. They'll all say that. Joe, don't tell! Say you
won't tell, Joe- that's a good feller. I always liked you Joe, and
stood up for you, too. Don't you remember? You won't tell, will you
Joe?" And the poor creature dropped on his knees before the stolid
murderer, and clasped his appealing hands.
"No, you've always been fair and square with me, Muff Potter, and
I won't go back on you.- There, now, that's as fair as a man can say."
"O, Joe, you're an angel. I'll bless you for this the longest day
I live."
And Potter began to cry.
"Come, now, that's enough of that. This ain't any time for
blubbering. You be off yonder way and I'll go this. Move, now, and
don't leave any tracks behind you."
Potter started on a trot that quickly increased to a run. The
halfbreed stood looking after him. He muttered:
"If he's as much stunned with the lick and fuddled with the rum as
he had the look of being, he won't think of the knife till he's gone
so far he'll be afraid to come back after it to such a place by
himself- chicken-heart!"
Two or three minutes later the murdered man, the blanketed corpse,
the lidless coffin and the open grave were under no inspection but the
moon's. The stillness was complete again, too.
CHAPTER_10
Chapter 10
Dire Prophecy of the Howling Dog
-
THE TWO BOYS flew on and on, toward the village, speechless with
horror. They glanced backward over their shoulders from time to
time, apprehensively, as if they feared they might be followed.
Every stump that started up in their path seemed a man and an enemy,
and made them catch their breath; and as they sped by some outlying
cottages that lay near the village, the barking of the aroused
watch-dogs seemed to give wings to their feet.
"If we can only get to the old tannery, before we break down!"
whispered Tom, in short catches between breaths, "I can't stand it
much longer."
Huckleberry's hard pantings were his only reply, and the boys
fixed their eyes on the goal of their hopes and bent to their work
to win it. They gained steadily on it, and at last, breast to breast
they burst through the open door and fell grateful and exhausted in
the sheltering shadows beyond. By and by their pulses slowed down, and
Tom whispered:
"Huckleberry, what do you reckon 'll come of this?"
"If Dr. Robinson dies, I reckon hanging 'll come of it."
"Do you though?"
"Why I know it, Tom."
Tom thought a while, then he said:
"Who'll tell? We?"
"What are you talking about? S'pose something happened and Injun Joe
didn't hang? Why he'd kill us some time or other, just as dead sure as
we're a-laying here."
"That's just what I was thinking to myself, Huck."
"If anybody tells, let Muff Potter do it, if he's fool enough.
He's generally drunk enough."
Tom said nothing- went on thinking. Presently he whispered:
"Huck, Muff Potter don't know it. How can he tell?"
"What's the reason he don't know it?"
"Because he'd just got that whack when Injun Joe done it. D' you
reckon he could see anything? D' you reckon he knowed anything?"
"By hokey, that's so Tom!"
"And besides, look-a-here- maybe that whack done for him!"
"No, 'tain't likely Tom. He had liquor in him; I could see that; and
besides, he always has. Well when pap's full, you might take and
belt him over the head with a church and you couldn't phase him. He
says so, his own self. So it's the same with Muff Potter, of course.
But if a man was dead sober, I reckon maybe that whack might fetch
him; I dono."
After another reflective silence, Tom said:
"Hucky, you sure you can keep mum?"
"Tom, we got to keep mum. You know that. That Injun devil wouldn't
make any more of drownding us than a couple of cats, if we was to
squeak 'bout this and they didn't hang him. Now look-a-here, Tom, less
take and swear to one another- that's what we got to do- swear to keep
mum."
"I'm agreed, Huck. It's the best thing. Would you just hold hands
and swear that we-"
"O, no, that wouldn't do for this. That's good enough for little
rubbishy common things- specially with gals, cuz they go back on you
anyway, and blab if they get in a huff- but there orter be writing
'bout a big thing like this. And blood."
Tom's whole being applauded this idea. It was deep, and dark, and
awful; the hour, the circumstances, the surroundings, were in
keeping with it. He picked up a clean pine shingle that lay in the
moonlight, took a little fragment of "red keel" out of his pocket, got
the moon on his work, and painfully scrawled these lines,
emphasizing each slow down-stroke by clamping his tongue between his
teeth, and letting up the pressure on the up-strokes:
-
(See illustration.)
-
Huckleberry was filled with admiration of Tom's facility in writing,
and the sublimity of his language. He at once took a pin from his
lappel and was going to prick his flesh, but Tom said:
"Hold on! Don't do that. A pin's brass. It might have verdigrease on
it."
"What's verdigrease?"
"It's p'ison. That's what it is. You just swaller some of it
once- you'll see."
So Tom unwound the thread from one of his needles, and each boy
pricked the ball of his thumb and squeezed out a drop of blood. In
time, after many squeezes, Tom managed to sign his initials, using the
ball of his little finger for a pen. Then he showed Huckleberry how to
make an H and an F, and the oath was complete. They buried the shingle
close to the wall, with some dismal ceremonies and incantations, and
the fetters that bound their tongues were considered to be locked
and the key thrown away.
A figure crept stealthily through a break in the other end of the
ruined building, now, but they did not notice it.
"Tom," whispered Huckleberry, "does this keep us from ever
telling- always?"
"Of course it does. It don't make any difference what happens, we
got to keep mum. We'd drop down dead- don't you know that?"
"Yes, I reckon that's so."
They continued to whisper for some little time. Presently a dog
set up a long, lugubrious howl just outside- within ten feet of them.
The boys clasped each other suddenly, in an agony of fright.
"Which of us does he mean?" gasped Huckleberry.
"I dono- peep through the crack. Quick!"
"No, you, Tom!"
"I cant- I can't do it, Huck!"
"Please, Tom. There 'tis again!"
"O, lordy, I'm thankful!" whispered Tom. "I know his voice. It's
Bull Harbison."
"O, that's good- I tell you, Tom, I was most scared to death; I'd
a bet anything it was a stray dog."
The dog howled again. The boys' hearts sank once more.
"O, my! that ain't no Bull Harbison!" whispered Huckleberry. "Do,
Tom!"
Tom, quaking with fear, yielded, and put his eye to the crack. His
whisper was hardly audible when he said:
"O, Huck, IT'S A STRAY DOG!"
"Quick, Tom, quick! Who does he mean?"
"Huck, he must mean us both- we're right together."
"O, Tom, I reckon we're goners. I reckon there ain't no mistake
'bout where I'll go to. I been so wicked."
"Dad fetch it! This comes of playing hookey and doing everything a
feller's told not to do. I might a been good, like Sid, if I'd a
tried- but no, I wouldn't, of course. But if ever I get off this
time, I lay I'll just waller in Sunday-schools!" And Tom began to
snuffle a little.
"You bad!" and Huckleberry began to snuffle, too. "Consound it,
Tom Sawyer, you're just old pie, 'longside o'what I am. O, lordy,
lordy, lordy, I wisht I only had half your chance."
Tom choked off and whispered:
"Look, Hucky, look! He's got his back to us!"
Hucky looked, with joy in his heart.
"Well he has, by jingoes! Did he before?"
"Yes, he did. But I, like a fool, never thought. O, this is bully,
you know. Now, who can he mean?"
The howling stopped. Tom pricked up his ears.
"Sh! What's that?" he whispered.
"Sounds like- like hogs grunting. No- it's somebody snoring, Tom."
"That is it? Where 'bouts is it, Huck?"
"I bleeve it's down at t'other end. Sounds so, anyway. Pap used to
sleep there, sometimes, 'long with the hogs, but laws bless you, he
just lifts things when he snores. Besides, I reckon he ain't ever
coming back to this town any more."
The spirit of adventure rose in the boys' souls once more.
"Hucky do you das't to go if I lead?"
"I don't like to, much. Tom, s'pose it's Injun Joe!"
Tom quailed. But presently the temptation rose up strong again and
the boys agreed to try, with the understanding that they would take to
their heels if the snoring stopped. So they went tip-toeing stealthily
down, the one behind the other. When they had got to within five steps
of the snorer, Tom stepped on a stick, and it broke with a sharp snap.
The man moaned, writhed a little, and his face came into the
moonlight. It was Muff Potter. The boys' hearts had stood still, and
their hopes too, when the man moved, but their fears passed away
now. They tip-toed out, through the broken weather-boarding, and
stopped at a little distance to exchange a parting word. That long,
lugubrious howl rose on the night air again! They turned and saw the
strange dog standing within a few feet of where Potter was lying,
and facing Potter, with his nose pointing heavenward.
"O, geeminy it's him!" exclaimed both boys, in a breath.
"Say, Tom- they say a stray dog come howling around Johnny
Miller's house, 'bout midnight, as much as two weeks ago; and a
whippoorwill come in and lit on the bannisters and sung, the very same
evening; and there ain't anybody dead there yet."
"Well I know that. And suppose there ain't. Didn't Gracie Miller
fall in the kitchen fire and burn herself terrible the very next
Saturday?"
"Yes, but she ain't dead. And what's more, she's getting better,
too."
"All right, you wait and see. She's a goner, just as dead sure as
Muff Potter's a goner. That's what the niggers say, and they know
all about these kind of things, Huck."
Then they separated, cogitating. When Tom crept in at his bedroom
window, the night was almost spent. He undressed with excessive
caution, and fell asleep congratulating himself that nobody knew of
his escapade. He was not aware that the gently-snoring Sid was
awake, and had been so for an hour.
When Tom awoke, Sid was dressed and gone. There was a late look in
the light, a late sense in the atmosphere. He was startled. Why had he
not been called- persecuted till he was up, as usual? The thought
filled him with bodings. Within five minutes he was dressed and down
stairs, feeling sore and drowsy. The family were still at table, but
they had finished breakfast. There was no voice of rebuke; but there
were averted eyes; there was a silence and an air of solemnity that
struck a chill to the culprit's heart. He sat down and tried to seem
gay, but it was up-hill work; it roused no smile, no response, and
he lapsed into silence and let his heart sink down to the depths.
After breakfast his aunt took him aside, and Tom almost brightened
in the hope that he was going to be flogged; but it was not so. His
aunt wept over him and asked him how he could go and break her old
heart so; and finally told him to go on, and ruin himself and bring
her gray hairs with sorrow to the grave, for it was no use for her
to try any more. This was worse than a thousand whippings, and Tom's
heart was sorer now than his body. He cried, he pleaded for
forgiveness, promised reform over and over again and then received his
dismissal, feeling that he had won but an imperfect forgiveness and
established but a feeble confidence.
He left the presence too miserable to even feel revengeful toward
Sid; and so the latter's prompt retreat through the back gate was
unnecessary. He moped to school gloomy and sad, and took his flogging,
along with Joe Harper, for playing hooky the day before, with the
air of one whose heart was busy with heavier woes and wholly dead to
trifles. Then he betook himself to his seat, rested his elbows on
his desk and his jaws in his hands and stared at the wall with the
stony stare of suffering that has reached the limit and can no further
go. His elbow was pressing against some hard substance. After a long
time he slowly and sadly changed his position, and took up this object
with a sigh. It was in a paper. He unrolled it. A long, lingering,
colossal sigh followed, and his heart broke. It was his brass
andiron knob!
This final feather broke the camel's back.
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