TOM SAWYER, DETECTIVE

By Mark Twain

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 actors, 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 niggerJim free, the time he was chained up for a runaway slave down there onTom's uncle Silas's farm in Arkansaw. The frost was working out of theground, and out of the air, too, and it was getting closer and closeronto barefoot time every day; and next it would be marble time, and nextmumbletypeg, and next tops and hoops, and next kites, and then rightaway it would be summer and going in a-swimming. It just makes a boyhomesick to look ahead like that and see how far off summer is. Yes, andit sets him to sighing and saddening around, and there's something thematter with him, he don't know what. But anyway, he gets out by himselfand mopes and thinks; and mostly he hunts for a lonesome place high upon the hill in the edge of the woods, and sets there and looks away offon the big Mississippi down there a-reaching miles and miles around thepoints where the timber looks smoky and dim it's so far off and still, and everything's so solemn it seems like everybody you've loved is deadand gone, and you 'most wish you was dead and gone too, and done with itall. 

Don't you know what that is? It's spring fever. That is what the name ofit is. And when you've got it, you want--oh, you don't quite know whatit is you DO want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want itso! It seems to you that mainly what you want is to get away; get awayfrom the same old tedious things you're so used to seeing and so tiredof, and set something new. That is the idea; you want to go and be awanderer; you want to go wandering far away to strange countries whereeverything is mysterious and wonderful and romantic. And if you can't dothat, you'll put up with considerable less; you'll go anywhere you CANgo, 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; butit warn't any use to think about Tom trying to get away, because, as hesaid, his Aunt Polly wouldn't let him quit school and go traipsing offsomers wasting time; so we was pretty blue. We was setting on the frontsteps one day about sundown talking this way, when out comes his auntPolly with a letter in her hand and says:

"Tom, I reckon you've got to pack up and go down to Arkansaw--your auntSally wants you. "

I 'most jumped out of my skin for joy. I reckoned Tom would fly at hisaunt and hug her head off; but if you believe me he set there like arock, and never said a word. It made me fit to cry to see him act sofoolish, with such a noble chance as this opening up. Why, we might loseit if he didn't speak up and show he was thankful and grateful. But heset there and studied and studied till I was that distressed I didn'tknow what to do; then he says, very ca'm, and I could a shot him for it:

"Well, " he says, "I'm right down sorry, Aunt Polly, but I reckon I gotto be excused--for the present. "

His aunt Polly was knocked so stupid and so mad at the cold impudence ofit that she couldn't say a word for as much as a half a minute, and thisgave me a chance to nudge Tom and whisper:

"Ain't you got any sense? Sp'iling such a noble chance as this andthrowing it away?"

But he warn'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 sicknesses anddangers and objections, and first you know she'd take it all back. Youlemme alone; I reckon I know how to work her. "

Now I never would 'a' thought of that. But he was right. Tom Sawyer wasalways right--the levelest head I ever see, and always AT himself andready for anything you might spring on him. By this time his aunt Pollywas all straight again, and she let fly. She says:

"You'll be excused! YOU will! Well, I never heard the like of it in allmy days! The idea of you talking like that to ME! Now take yourself offand pack your traps; and if I hear another word out of you about whatyou'll be excused from and what you won't, I lay I'LL excuse you--with ahickory!"

She hit his head a thump with her thimble as we dodged by, and he let onto be whimpering as we struck for the stairs. Up in his room hehugged me, he was so out of his head for gladness because he was goingtraveling. And he says:

"Before we get away she'll wish she hadn't let me go, but she won't knowany way to get around it now. After what she's said, her pride won't lether take it back. "

Tom was packed in ten minutes, all except what his aunt and Mary wouldfinish up for him; then we waited ten more for her to get cooled downand sweet and gentle again; for Tom said it took her ten minutes tounruffle in times when half of her feathers was up, but twenty when theywas all up, and this was one of the times when they was all up. Then wewent down, being in a sweat to know what the letter said. 

She was setting there in a brown study, with it laying in her lap. Weset down, and she says:

"They're in considerable trouble down there, and they think you andHuck'll be a kind of diversion for them--'comfort, ' they say. Much ofthat they'll get out of you and Huck Finn, I reckon. There's a neighbornamed Brace Dunlap that's been wanting to marry their Benny for threemonths, and at last they told him point blank and once for all, heCOULDN'T; so he has soured on them, and they're worried about it. Ireckon he's somebody they think they better be on the good side of, forthey've tried to please him by hiring his no-account brother to helpon the farm when they can't hardly afford it, and don't want him aroundanyhow. Who are the Dunlaps?"

"They live about a mile from Uncle Silas's place, Aunt Polly--all thefarmers live about a mile apart down there--and Brace Dunlap is a longsight 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 proudof his money and overbearing, and everybody is a little afraid of him. Ijudge 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 getBenny. Why, Benny's only half as old as he is, and just as sweet andlovely as--well, you've seen her. Poor old Uncle Silas--why, it'spitiful, him trying to curry favor that way--so hard pushed andpoor, and yet hiring that useless Jubiter Dunlap to please his ornerybrother. "

"What a name--Jubiter! Where'd he get it?"

"It's only just a nickname. I reckon they've forgot his real name longbefore this. He's twenty-seven, now, and has had it ever since the firsttime he ever went in swimming. The school teacher seen a round brownmole the size of a dime on his left leg above his knee, and four littlebits of moles around it, when he was naked, and he said it minded himof Jubiter and his moons; and the children thought it was funny, and sothey got to calling him Jubiter, and he's Jubiter yet. He's tall, and lazy, and sly, and sneaky, and ruther cowardly, too, but kind ofgood-natured, and wears long brown hair and no beard, and hasn't got acent, and Brace boards him for nothing, and gives him his old clothes towear, and despises him. Jubiter is a twin. "

"What's t'other twin like?"

"Just exactly like Jubiter--so they say; used to was, anyway, but hehain't been seen for seven years. He got to robbing when he was nineteenor twenty, and they jailed him; but he broke jail and got away--up Northhere, somers. They used to hear about him robbing and burglaring now andthen, but that was years ago. He's dead, now. At least that's what theysay. 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 ladywas thinking. At last she says:

"The thing that is mostly worrying your aunt Sally is the tempers thatthat man Jubiter 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 HADany temper. "

"Works him up into perfect rages, your aunt Sally says; says he acts asif he would really hit the man, sometimes. "

"Aunt Polly, it beats anything I ever heard of. Why, he's just as gentleas mush. "

"Well, she's worried, anyway. Says your uncle Silas is like a changedman, 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 preacherand hain't got any business to quarrel. Your aunt Sally says he hatesto go into the pulpit he's so ashamed; and the people have begun to cooltoward 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 kindand moony and absent-minded and chuckle-headed and lovable--why, he wasjust an angel! What CAN be the matter of him, do you reckon?"

CHAPTER II. JAKE DUNLAP

WE had powerful good luck; because we got a chance in a stern-wheelerfrom away North which was bound for one of them bayous or one-horserivers away down Louisiana way, and so we could go all the way down theUpper Mississippi and all the way down the Lower Mississippi to thatfarm in Arkansaw without having to change steamboats at St. Louis; notso very much short of a thousand miles at one pull. 

A pretty lonesome boat; there warn't but few passengers, and all oldfolks, that set around, wide apart, dozing, and was very quiet. We wasfour days getting out of the "upper river, " because we got aground somuch. But it warn't dull--couldn't be for boys that was traveling, ofcourse. 

From the very start me and Tom allowed that there was somebody sick inthe stateroom next to ourn, because the meals was always toted in thereby the waiters. By and by we asked about it--Tom did and the waiter saidit was a man, but he didn't look sick. 

"Well, but AIN'T he sick?"

"I don't know; maybe he is, but 'pears 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 orother--don't you reckon he would? Well, this one don't. At least hedon'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. If you'd lay out amystery and a pie before me and him, you wouldn't have to say take yourchoice; it was a thing that would regulate itself. Because in my natureI have always run to pie, whilst in his nature he has always run tomystery. People are made different. And it is the best way. Tom says tothe waiter:

"What's the man's name?"

"Phillips. "

"Where'd he come aboard?"

"I think he got aboard at Elexandria, up on the Iowa line. "

"What do you reckon he's a-playing?"

"I hain'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, except he seems so scary, and keeps his doors locked nightand day both, and when you knock he won't let you in till he opens thedoor a crack and sees who it is. "

"By jimminy, it's int'resting! I'd like to get a look at him. Say--thenext time you're going in there, don't you reckon you could spread thedoor 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 apern and let me take him his breakfast inthe morning. I'll give you a quarter. "

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 the headsteward; and he done it. He fixed it so as we could both go in withaperns on and toting vittles. 

He didn't sleep much, he was in such a sweat to get in there and findout the mystery about Phillips; and moreover he done a lot of guessingabout it all night, which warn't no use, for if you are going to findout the facts of a thing, what's the sense in guessing out what ain'tthe facts and wasting ammunition? I didn't lose no sleep. I wouldn'tgive a dern to know what's the matter of Phillips, I says to myself. 

Well, in the morning we put on the aperns and got a couple of trays oftruck, and Tom he knocked on the door. The man opened it a crack, andthen he let us in and shut it quick. By Jackson, when we got a sight ofhim, we 'most dropped the trays! and Tom says:

"Why, Jubiter Dunlap, where'd YOU come from?"

Well, the man was astonished, of course; and first off he looked likehe didn't know whether to be scared, or glad, or both, or which, butfinally 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 talkingtogether while he et his breakfast. And he says:

"But I aint Jubiter Dunlap. I'd just as soon tell you who I am, though, if you'll swear to keep mum, for I ain't no Phillips, either. "

Tom says:

"We'll keep mum, but there ain't any need to tell who you are if youain't Jubiter Dunlap. "

"Why?"

"Because if you ain't him you're t'other twin, Jake. You're the spit'nimage of Jubiter. "

"Well, I'm Jake. But looky here, how do you come to know us Dunlaps?"

Tom told about the adventures we'd had down there at his uncle Silas'slast summer, and when he see that there warn't anything about hisfolks--or him either, for that matter--that we didn't know, he openedout and talked perfectly free and candid. He never made any bonesabout his own case; said he'd been a hard lot, was a hard lot yet, andreckoned he'd be a hard lot plumb to the end. He said of course it wasa dangerous life, and--He give a kind of gasp, and set his head likea person that's listening. We didn't say anything, and so it was verystill for a second or so, and there warn't no sounds but the screakingof the woodwork and the chug-chugging of the machinery down below. 

Then we got him comfortable again, telling him about his people, and howBrace's wife had been dead three years, and Brace wanted to marry Bennyand she shook him, and Jubiter was working for Uncle Silas, and him andUncle Silas quarreling all the time--and then he let go and laughed. 

"Land!" he says, "it's like old times to hear all this tittle-tattle, and does me good. It's been seven years and more since I heard any. Howdo they talk about me these days?"

"Who?"

"The farmers--and the family. "

"Why, they don't talk about you at all--at least only just a mention, once in a long time. "

"The nation!" he says, surprised; "why is that?"

"Because they think you are dead long ago. "

"No! Are you speaking true?--honor bright, now. " He jumped up, excited. 

"Honor bright. There ain't anybody thinks you are alive. "

"Then I'm saved, I'm saved, sure! I'll go home. They'll hide me and savemy life. You keep mum. Swear you'll keep mum--swear you'll never, nevertell on me. Oh, boys, be good to a poor devil that's being hunted dayand night, and dasn't show his face! I've never done you any harm; I'llnever do you any, as God is in the heavens; swear you'll be good to meand help me save my life. "

We'd a swore it if he'd been a dog; and so we done it. Well, he couldn'tlove us enough for it or be grateful enough, poor cuss; it was all hecould do to keep from hugging us. 

We talked along, and he got out a little hand-bag and begun to open it, and told us to turn our backs. We done it, and when he told us to turnagain he was perfectly different to what he was before. He had on bluegoggles and the naturalest-looking long brown whiskers and mustashesyou ever see. His own mother wouldn't 'a' knowed him. He asked us if helooked like his brother Jubiter, now. 

"No, " Tom said; "there ain't anything left that's like him except thelong hair. "

"All right, I'll get that cropped close to my head before I get there;then him and Brace will keep my secret, and I'll live with them asbeing a stranger, and the neighbors won't ever guess me out. What do youthink?"

Tom he studied awhile, then he says:

"Well, of course me and Huck are going to keep mum there, but if youdon't keep mum yourself there's going to be a little bit of a risk--itain't much, maybe, but it's a little. I mean, if you talk, won't peoplenotice that your voice is just like Jubiter's; and mightn't it make themthink of the twin they reckoned was dead, but maybe after all was hidall this time under another name?"

"By George, " he says, "you're a sharp one! You're perfectly right. I've got to play deef and dumb when there's a neighbor around. If I'da struck for home and forgot that little detail--However, I wasn'tstriking for home. I was breaking for any place where I could get awayfrom these fellows that are after me; then I was going to put on thisdisguise and get some different clothes, and--"

He jumped for the outside door and laid his ear against it and listened, 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 sweatoff of his face. 

CHAPTER III. A DIAMOND ROBBERY

FROM that time out, we was with him 'most all the time, and one ort'other 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 talkto 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 hewould drop into it himself in one of his talks, but if we got to askingquestions he would get suspicious and shet up his shell. It turned outjust so. It warn't no trouble to see that he WANTED to talk about it, but always along at first he would scare away from it when he got on thevery edge of it, and go to talking about something else. The way it comeabout was this: He got to asking us, kind of indifferent like, aboutthe passengers down on deck. We told him about them. But he warn'tsatisfied; we warn't particular enough. He told us to describe thembetter. Tom done it. At last, when Tom was describing one of theroughest and raggedest ones, he gave a shiver and a gasp and says:

"Oh, lordy, that's one of them! They're aboard sure--I just knowed it. Isort of hoped I had got away, but I never believed it. Go on. "

Presently when Tom was describing another mangy, rough deck passenger, he give that shiver again and says:

"That's him!--that's the other one. If it would only come a good blackstormy 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 forrard, and they take that chance to bribe somebody to keep watch on me--porteror 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 wastelling! He was poking along through his ups and downs, and when he cometo that place he went right along. He says:

"It was a confidence game. We played it on a julery-shop in St. Louis. What we was after was a couple of noble big di'monds as big ashazel-nuts, which everybody was running to see. We was dressed up fine, and we played it on them in broad daylight. We ordered the di'mondssent to the hotel for us to see if we wanted to buy, and when we wasexamining them we had paste counterfeits all ready, and THEM was thethings that went back to the shop when we said the water wasn't quitefine enough for twelve thousand dollars. "

"Twelve-thousand-dollars!" Tom says. "Was they really worth all thatmoney, do you reckon?"

"Every cent of it. "

"And you fellows got away with them?"

"As easy as nothing. I don't reckon the julery people know they've beenrobbed yet. But it wouldn't be good sense to stay around St. Louis, ofcourse, so we considered where we'd go. One was for going one way, oneanother, so we throwed up, heads or tails, and the Upper Mississippiwon. We done up the di'monds in a paper and put our names on it and putit in the keep of the hotel clerk, and told him not to ever let eitherof us have it again without the others was on hand to see it done; thenwe went down town, each by his own self--because I reckon maybe we allhad the same notion. I don't know for certain, but I reckon maybe wehad. "

"What notion?" Tom says. 

"To rob the others. "

"What--one take everything, after all of you had helped to get it?"

"Cert'nly. "

It disgusted Tom Sawyer, and he said it was the orneriest, low-downestthing he ever heard of. But Jake Dunlap said it warn't unusual in theprofession. Said when a person was in that line of business he'd got tolook out for his own intrust, there warn't nobody else going to do itfor him. And then he went on. He says:

"You see, the trouble was, you couldn't divide up two di'monds amongstthree. If there'd been three--But never mind about that, there warn'tthree. I loafed along the back streets studying and studying. And I saysto myself, I'll hog them di'monds the first chance I get, and I'll havea disguise all ready, and I'll give the boys the slip, and when I'm safeaway I'll put it on, and then let them find me if they can. So I got thefalse whiskers and the goggles and this countrified suit of clothes, and fetched them along back in a hand-bag; and when I was passing a shopwhere they sell all sorts of things, I got a glimpse of one of my palsthrough the window. It was Bud Dixon. I was glad, you bet. I says tomyself, I'll see what he buys. So I kept shady, and watched. Now what doyou reckon it was he bought?"

"Whiskers?" said I. 

"No. "

"Goggles?"

"No. "

"Oh, keep still, Huck Finn, can't you, you're only just hendering allyou can. What WAS it he bought, Jake?"

"You'd never guess in the world. It was only just a screwdriver--just awee little bit of a screwdriver. "

"Well, I declare! What did he want with that?"

"That's what I thought. It was curious. It clean stumped me. I says tomyself, what can he want with that thing? Well, when he come out I stoodback out of sight, and then tracked him to a second-hand slop-shop andsee him buy a red flannel shirt and some old ragged clothes--just theones he's got on now, as you've described. Then I went down to the wharfand hid my things aboard the up-river boat that we had picked out, andthen started back and had another streak of luck. I seen our other pallay in HIS stock of old rusty second-handers. We got the di'monds andwent aboard the boat. 

"But now we was up a stump, for we couldn't go to bed. We had to set upand watch one another. Pity, that was; pity to put that kind of a strainon us, because there was bad blood between us from a couple of weeksback, and we was only friends in the way of business. Bad anyway, seeingthere was only two di'monds betwixt three men. First we had supper, andthen tramped up and down the deck together smoking till most midnight;then we went and set down in my stateroom and locked the doors andlooked in the piece of paper to see if the di'monds was all right, thenlaid it on the lower berth right in full sight; and there we set, andset, and by-and-by it got to be dreadful hard to keep awake. At last BudDixon he dropped off. As soon as he was snoring a good regular gait thatwas likely to last, and had his chin on his breast and looked permanent, Hal Clayton nodded towards the di'monds and then towards the outsidedoor, and I understood. I reached and got the paper, and then we stoodup and waited perfectly still; Bud never stirred; I turned the key ofthe 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 softand gentle. 

"There warn't nobody stirring anywhere, and the boat was slipping along, swift and steady, through the big water in the smoky moonlight. We neversaid a word, but went straight up onto the hurricane-deck and plumb backaft, and set down on the end of the sky-light. Both of us knowed whatthat meant, without having to explain to one another. Bud Dixon wouldwake up and miss the swag, and would come straight for us, for he ain'tafeard of anything or anybody, that man ain't. He would come, and wewould heave him overboard, or get killed trying. It made me shiver, because I ain't as brave as some people, but if I showed the whitefeather--well, I knowed better than do that. I kind of hoped the boatwould land somers, and we could skip ashore and not have to run the riskof this row, I was so scared of Bud Dixon, but she was an upper-rivertub and there warn'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!' Idone it, and by gracious there warn't anything in it but a couple oflittle pieces of loaf-sugar! THAT'S the reason he could set there andsnooze all night so comfortable. Smart? Well, I reckon! He had had themtwo papers all fixed and ready, and he had put one of them in place oft'other right under our noses. 

"We felt pretty cheap. But the thing to do, straight off, was to makea 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 wasa-laughing at us behind them bogus snores of his'n; and we would stickby him, and the first night we was ashore we would get him drunk andsearch him, and get the di'monds; and DO for him, too, if it warn't toorisky. If we got the swag, we'd GOT to do for him, or he would hunt usdown and do for us, sure. But I didn't have no real hope. I knowed wecould get him drunk--he was always ready for that--but what's the goodof it? You might search him a year and never find--Well, right thereI catched my breath and broke off my thought! For an idea went rippingthrough my head that tore my brains to rags--and land, but I felt gayand good! You see, I had had my boots off, to unswell my feet, and justthen I took up one of them to put it on, and I catched a glimpse of theheel-bottom, and it just took my breath away. You remember about thatpuzzlesome little screwdriver?"

"You bet I do, " says Tom, all excited. 

"Well, when I catched that glimpse of that boot heel, the idea that wentsmashing through my head was, I know where he's hid the di'monds! Youlook at this boot heel, now. See, it's bottomed with a steel plate, andthe plate is fastened on with little screws. Now there wasn't a screwabout that feller anywhere but in his boot heels; so, if he needed ascrewdriver, 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 thepaper of sugar on the berth, and sat down soft and sheepish and went tolistening to Bud Dixon snore. Hal Clayton dropped off pretty soon, butI didn't; I wasn't ever so wide awake in my life. I was spying out fromunder the shade of my hat brim, searching the floor for leather. It tookme a long time, and I begun to think maybe my guess was wrong, but atlast I struck it. It laid over by the bulkhead, and was nearly the colorof the carpet. It was a little round plug about as thick as the end ofyour little finger, and I says to myself there's a di'mond in the nestyou've come from. Before long I spied out the plug's mate. 

"Think of the smartness and coolness of that blatherskite! He put upthat scheme on us and reasoned out what we would do, and we went aheadand done it perfectly exact, like a couple of pudd'nheads. He set thereand took his own time to unscrew his heelplates and cut out his plugsand stick in the di'monds and screw on his plates again. He allowed wewould steal the bogus swag and wait all night for him to come up and getdrownded, and by George it's just what we done! I think it was powerfulsmart. "

"You bet your life it was!" says Tom, just full of admiration. 

CHAPTER IV. THE THREE SLEEPERS

WELL, all day we went through the humbug of watching one another, and itwas pretty sickly business for two of us and hard to act out, I can tellyou. About night we landed at one of them little Missouri towns high uptoward Iowa, and had supper at the tavern, and got a room upstairs witha cot and a double bed in it, but I dumped my bag under a deal table inthe dark hall while we was moving along it to bed, single file, me last, and the landlord in the lead with a tallow candle. We had up a lot ofwhisky, and went to playing high-low-jack for dimes, and as soon as thewhisky begun to take hold of Bud we stopped drinking, but we didn't lethim stop. We loaded him till he fell out of his chair and laid theresnoring. 

"We was ready for business now. I said we better pull our boots off, andhis'n too, and not make any noise, then we could pull him and haul himaround and ransack him without any trouble. So we done it. I set myboots and Bud's side by side, where they'd be handy. Then we strippedhim and searched his seams and his pockets and his socks and the insideof his boots, and everything, and searched his bundle. Never found anydi'monds. We found the screwdriver, and Hal says, 'What do you reckonhe wanted with that?' I said I didn't know; but when he wasn't looking Ihooked it. At last Hal he looked beat and discouraged, and said we'd gotto give it up. That was what I was waiting for. I says:

"'There's one place we hain't searched. '

"'What place is that?' he says. 

"'His stomach. '

"'By gracious, I never thought of that! NOW we're on the homestretch, toa dead moral certainty. How'll 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 di'mondstired of the company they're keeping. '

"He said that's the ticket, and with him looking straight at me I slidmyself into Bud's boots instead of my own, and he never noticed. Theywas just a shade large for me, but that was considerable better thanbeing too small. I got my bag as I went a-groping through the hall, andin about a minute I was out the back way and stretching up the riverroad at a five-mile gait. 

"And not feeling so very bad, neither--walking on di'monds don't have nosuch effect. When I had gone fifteen minutes I says to myself, there'smore'n a mile behind me, and everything quiet. Another five minutes andI says there's considerable more land behind me now, and there's a manback there that's begun to wonder what's the trouble. Another five andI 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 behindme, and he's AWFUL uneasy--beginning to cuss, I reckon. Pretty soon Isays to myself, forty minutes gone--he KNOWS there's something up! Fiftyminutes--the truth's a-busting on him now! he is reckoning I found thedi'monds whilst we was searching, and shoved them in my pocket and neverlet on--yes, and he's starting out to hunt for me. He'll hunt for newtracks in 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 Ijumped into the bush. It was stupid! When he got abreast he stopped andwaited a little for me to come out; then he rode on again. But I didn'tfeel gay any more. I says to myself I've botched my chances by that; Isurely have, if he meets up with Hal Clayton. 

"Well, about three in the morning I fetched Elexandria and see thisstern-wheeler laying there, and was very glad, because I felt perfectlysafe, now, you know. It was just daybreak. I went aboard and got thisstateroom and put on these clothes and went up in the pilot-house--towatch, though I didn't reckon there was any need of it. I set there andplayed with my di'monds and waited and waited for the boat to start, butshe didn't. You see, they was mending her machinery, but I didn't knowanything about it, not being very much used to steamboats. 

"Well, to cut the tale short, we never left there till plumb noon; andlong before that I was hid in this stateroom; for before breakfast I seea man coming, away off, that had a gait like Hal Clayton's, and it mademe 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 mewatched, and wait--wait till I slip ashore, thinking he is a thousandmiles away, then slip after me and dog me to a good place and make megive up the di'monds, and then he'll--oh, I know what he'll do! Ain't itawful--awful! And now to think the OTHER one's aboard, too! Oh, ain't ithard 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 saveme--I'll worship the very ground you walk on!"

We turned in and soothed him down and told him we would plan for himand help him, and he needn't be so afeard; and so by and by he got tofeeling kind of comfortable again, and unscrewed his heelplates and heldup his di'monds this way and that, admiring them and loving them; andwhen the light struck into them they WAS beautiful, sure; why, theyseemed to kind of bust, and snap fire out all around. But all the same Ijudged he was a fool. If I had been him I would a handed the di'monds tothem pals and got them to go ashore and leave me alone. But he was madedifferent. He said it was a whole fortune and he couldn't bear the idea. 

Twice we stopped to fix the machinery and laid a good while, once inthe night; but it wasn't dark enough, and he was afeard to skip. But thethird time we had to fix it there was a better chance. We laid up ata country woodyard about forty mile above Uncle Silas's place a littleafter one at night, and it was thickening up and going to storm. So Jakehe laid for a chance to slide. We begun to take in wood. Pretty soon therain come a-drenching down, and the wind blowed hard. Of course everyboat-hand fixed a gunny sack and put it on like a bonnet, the way theydo when they are toting wood, and we got one for Jake, and he slippeddown aft with his hand-bag and come tramping forrard just like the rest, and walked ashore with them, and when we see him pass out of the lightof the torch-basket and get swallowed up in the dark, we got our breathagain 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 palscome tearing forrard as tight as they could jump and darted ashore andwas gone. We waited plumb till dawn for them to come back, andkept hoping they would, but they never did. We was awful sorry andlow-spirited. All the hope we had was that Jake had got such a startthat they couldn't get on his track, and he would get to his brother'sand hide there and be safe. 

He was going to take the river road, and told us to find out if Braceand Jubiter was to home and no strangers there, and then slip out aboutsundown and tell him. Said he would wait for us in a little bunch ofsycamores right back of Tom's uncle Silas's tobacker field on the riverroad, a lonesome place. 

We set and talked a long time about his chances, and Tom said he wasall right if the pals struck up the river instead of down, but it wasn'tlikely, because maybe they knowed where he was from; more likely theywould go right, and dog him all day, him not suspecting, and kill himwhen it come dark, and take the boots. So we was pretty sorrowful. 

CHAPTER V. A TRAGEDY IN THE WOODS

WE didn't get done tinkering the machinery till away late in theafternoon, and so it was so close to sundown when we got home that wenever stopped on our road, but made a break for the sycamores as tightas we could go, to tell Jake what the delay was, and have him wait tillwe could go to Brace's and find out how things was there. It was gettingpretty dim by the time we turned the corner of the woods, sweating andpanting with that long run, and see the sycamores thirty yards ahead ofus; and just then we see a couple of men run into the bunch and heardtwo or three terrible screams for help. "Poor Jake is killed, sure, "we says. We was scared through and through, and broke for the tobackerfield and hid there, trembling so our clothes would hardly stay on; andjust as we skipped in there, a couple of men went tearing by, and intothe bunch they went, and in a second out jumps four men and took out upthe road as tight as they could go, two chasing two. 

We laid down, kind of weak and sick, and listened for more sounds, butdidn't hear none for a good while but just our hearts. We was thinkingof that awful thing laying yonder in the sycamores, and it seemed likebeing that close to a ghost, and it give me the cold shudders. The mooncome a-swelling up out of the ground, now, powerful big and round andbright, behind a comb of trees, like a face looking through prison bars, and the black shadders and white places begun to creep around, and itwas miserable quiet and still and night-breezy and graveyardy 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 'mostready 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 a-coming this way. "

He was so excited he could hardly get breath enough to whisper. I had tolook. I couldn't help it. So now we was both on our knees with our chinson a fence rail and gazing--yes, and gasping too. It was coming down theroad--coming in the shadder of the trees, and you couldn't see itgood; not till it was pretty close to us; then it stepped into a brightsplotch of moonlight and we sunk right down in our tracks--it was JakeDunlap's ghost! That was what we said to ourselves. 

We couldn't stir for a minute or two; then it was gone We talked aboutit in low voices. Tom says:

"They're mostly dim and smoky, or like they're made out of fog, but thisone wasn't. "

"No, " I says; "I seen the goggles and the whiskers perfectly plain. "

"Yes, and the very colors in them loud countrified Sunday clothes--plaidbreeches, green and black--"

"Cotton velvet westcot, fire-red and yaller squares--"

"Leather straps to the bottoms of the breeches legs and one of themhanging unbottoned--"

"Yes, and that hat--"

"What a hat for a ghost to wear!"

You see it was the first season anybody wore that kind--a blackstiff-brim stove-pipe, very high, and not smooth, with a round top--justlike a sugar-loaf. 

"Did you notice if its hair was the same, Huck?"

"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?"

"Sho! 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 theirthings, like anybody else. You see, yourself, that its clothes wasturned to ghost-stuff. Well, then, what's to hender its bag fromturning, too? Of course it done it. "

That was reasonable. I couldn't find no fault with it. Bill Withers andhis brother Jack come along by, talking, and Jack says:

"What do you reckon he was toting?"

"I dunno; but it was pretty heavy. "

"Yes, all he could lug. Nigger stealing corn from old Parson Silas, Ijudged. "

"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 howunpopular old Uncle Silas had got to be now. They wouldn't 'a' let anigger 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 Beebe and Jim Lane. JimLane says:

"Who?--Jubiter Dunlap?"

"Yes. "

"Oh, I don't know. I reckon so. I seen him spading up some ground alongabout an hour ago, just before sundown--him and the parson. Said heguessed he wouldn't go to-night, but we could have his dog if we wantedhim. "

"Too tired, I reckon. "

"Yes--works so hard!"

"Oh, you bet!"

They cackled at that, and went on by. Tom said we better jump out andtag along after them, because they was going our way and it wouldn't becomfortable to run across the ghost all by ourselves. So we done it, andgot home all right. 

That night was the second of September--a Saturday. I sha'n't everforget it. You'll see why, pretty soon. 

CHAPTER VI. PLANS TO SECURE THE DIAMONDS

WE tramped along behind Jim and Lem till we come to the back stile whereold 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 thelights of the house, too; so we warn't afeard any more, and was going toclimb over, but Tom says:

"Hold on; set down here a minute. By George!"

"What's the matter?" says I. 

"Matter enough!" he says. "Wasn't you expecting we would be the firstto 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 di'mondsthey've smouched off of the corpse, and paint it up fine, and have theglory of being the ones that knows a lot more about it than anybodyelse?"

"Why, of course. It wouldn't be you, Tom Sawyer, if you was to letsuch a chance go by. I reckon it ain't going to suffer none for lack ofpaint, " I says, "when you start in to scollop the facts. "

"Well, now, " he says, perfectly ca'm, "what would you say if I was totell you I ain't going to start in 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, it wasn't. What of it?"

"You wait--I'll show you what. Did it have its boots on?"

"Yes. I seen them plain. "

"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 DI'MONDS. "

"Jimminy! What makes you think that?"

"I don't only think it, I know it. Didn't the breeches and gogglesand whiskers and hand-bag and every blessed thing turn to ghost-stuff?Everything it had on turned, didn't it? It shows that the reason itsboots turned too was because it still had them on after it started to goha'nting around, and if that ain't proof that them blatherskites didn'tget 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 hadeyes and I could see things, but they never meant nothing to me. But TomSawyer was different. When Tom Sawyer seen a thing it just got up on itshind legs and TALKED to him--told him everything it knowed. I never seesuch a head. 

"Tom Sawyer, " I says, "I'll say it again as I've said it a many a timebefore: I ain't fitten to black your boots. But that's all right--that'sneither here nor there. God Almighty made us all, and some He gives eyesthat's blind, and some He gives eyes that can see, and I reckon it ain'tnone of our lookout what He done it for; it's all right, or He'd 'a'fixed it some other way. Go on--I see plenty plain enough, now, thatthem thieves didn't get way with the di'monds. Why didn't they, do youreckon?"

"Because they got chased away by them other two men before they couldpull the boots off of the corpse. "

"That's so! I see it now. But looky here, Tom, why ain't we to go andtell about it?"

"Oh, shucks, Huck Finn, can't you see? Look at it. What's a-going tohappen? There's going to be an inquest in the morning. Them two men willtell how they heard the yells and rushed there just in time to not savethe stranger. Then the jury'll twaddle and twaddle and twaddle, andfinally they'll fetch in a verdict that he got shot or stuck or bustedover the head with something, and come to his death by the inspirationof God. And after they've buried him they'll auction off his things forto pay the expenses, and then's OUR chance. " "How, Tom?"

"Buy the boots for two dollars!"

Well, it 'most took my breath. 

"My land! Why, Tom, WE'LL get the di'monds!"

"You bet. Some day there'll be a big reward offered for them--a thousanddollars, sure. That's our money! Now we'll trot in and see the folks. And mind you we don't know anything about any murder, or any di'monds, or any thieves--don't you forget that. "

I had to sigh a little over the way he had got it fixed. I'd 'a' SOLDthem di'monds--yes, sir--for twelve thousand dollars; but I didn't sayanything. It wouldn't done any good. I says:

"But what are we going to tell your aunt Sally has made us so longgetting down here from the village, Tom?"

"Oh, I'll leave that to you, " he says. "I reckon you can explain itsomehow. "

He was always just that strict and delicate. He never would tell a liehimself. 

We struck across the big yard, noticing this, that, and t'other thingthat was so familiar, and we so glad to see it again, and when we got tothe roofed big passageway betwixt the double log house and the kitchenpart, there was everything hanging on the wall just as it used to was, even to Uncle Silas's old faded green baize working-gown with the hoodto it, and raggedy white patch between the shoulders that always lookedlike somebody had hit him with a snowball; and then we lifted the latchand 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 washuddled in the other and praying for help in time of need. She jumpedfor us with joy and tears running down her face and give us a whackingbox on the ear, and then hugged us and kissed us and boxed us again, andjust couldn't seem to get enough of it, she was so glad to see us; andshe says:

"Where HAVE you been a-loafing to, you good-for-nothing trash! I've beenthat worried about you I didn't know what to do. Your traps has beenhere ever so long, and I've had supper cooked fresh about four times soas to have it hot and good when you come, till at last my patience isjust plumb wore out, and I declare I--I--why I could skin you alive!You must be starving, poor things!--set down, set down, everybody; don'tlose no more time. "

It was good to be there again behind all that noble corn-pone andspareribs, and everything that you could ever want in this world. OldUncle Silas he peeled off one of his bulliest old-time blessings, withas many layers to it as an onion, and whilst the angels was hauling inthe slack of it I was trying to study up what to say about what keptus so long. When our plates was all loadened and we'd got a-going, sheasked me, and I says:

"Well, you see, --er--Mizzes--"

"Huck Finn! Since when am I Mizzes to you? Have I ever been stingy ofcuffs or kisses for you since the day you stood in this room and I tookyou for Tom Sawyer and blessed God for sending you to me, though youtold me four thousand lies and I believed every one of them like asimpleton? Call me Aunt Sally--like you always done. "

So I done it. And I says:

"Well, me and Tom allowed we would come along afoot and take a smell ofthe woods, and we run across Lem Beebe and Jim Lane, and they askedus to go with them blackberrying to-night, and said they could borrowJubiter Dunlap's dog, because he had told them just that minute--"

"Where did they see him?" says the old man; and when I looked up to seehow HE come to take an intrust in a little thing like that, his eyes wasjust burning into me, he was that eager. It surprised me so it kind ofthrowed me off, but I pulled myself together again and says:

"It was when he was spading up some ground along with you, towardssundown or along there. "

He only said, "Um, " in a kind of a disappointed way, and didn't take nomore intrust. So I went on. I says:

"Well, then, as I was a-saying--"

"That'll do, you needn't go no furder. " It was Aunt Sally. She wasboring right into me with her eyes, and very indignant. "Huck Finn, "she says, "how'd them men come to talk about going a-black-berrying inSeptember--in THIS region?"

I see I had slipped up, and I couldn't say a word. She waited, stilla-gazing at me, then she says:

"And how'd they come to strike that idiot idea of going a-blackberryingin the night?"

"Well, m'm, they--er--they told us they had a lantern, and--"

"Oh, SHET up--do! Looky here; what was they going to do with adog?--hunt blackberries with it?"

"I think, m'm, they--"

"Now, Tom Sawyer, what kind of a lie are you fixing YOUR mouth tocontribit to this mess of rubbage? Speak out--and I warn you beforeyou begin, that I don't believe a word of it. You and Huck's been up tosomething you no business to--I know it perfectly well; I know you, BOTH of you. Now you explain that dog, and them blackberries, and thelantern, and the rest of that rot--and mind you talk as straight as astring--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 alittle bit of a mistake that anybody could make. "

"What mistake has he made?"

"Why, only the mistake of saying blackberries when of course he meantstrawberries. "

"Tom Sawyer, I lay if you aggravate me a little more, I'll--"

"Aunt Sally, without knowing it--and of course without intending it--youare in the wrong. If you'd 'a' studied natural history the way youought, you would know that all over the world except just here inArkansaw they ALWAYS hunt strawberries with a dog--and a lantern--"

But she busted in on him there and just piled into him and snowed himunder. She was so mad she couldn't get the words out fast enough, andshe gushed them out in one everlasting freshet. That was what Tom Sawyerwas after. He allowed to work her up and get her started and then leaveher alone and let her burn herself out. Then she would be so aggravatedwith that subject that she wouldn't say another word about it, nor letanybody else. Well, it happened just so. When she was tuckered out andhad to hold up, he says, quite ca'm:

"And yet, all the same, Aunt Sally--"

"Shet up!" she says, "I don't want to hear another word out of you. "

So we was perfectly safe, then, and didn't have no more trouble aboutthat delay. Tom done it elegant. 

CHAPTER VII. A NIGHT'S VIGIL

BENNY she was looking pretty sober, and she sighed some, now and then;but pretty soon she got to asking about Mary, and Sid, and Tom's auntPolly, and then Aunt Sally's clouds cleared off and she got in a goodhumor 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 oldman he didn't take any hand hardly, and was absent-minded andrestless, and done a considerable amount of sighing; and it was kind ofheart-breaking to see him so sad and troubled and worried. 

By and by, a spell after supper, come a nigger and knocked on thedoor and put his head in with his old straw hat in his hand bowing andscraping, and said his Marse Brace was out at the stile and wanted hisbrother, and was getting tired waiting supper for him, and would MarseSilas please tell him where he was? I never see Uncle Silas speak up sosharp 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 andirritable, 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, backwardsand forwards, mumbling and muttering to himself and plowing his handsthrough his hair. It was real pitiful to see him. Aunt Sally shewhispered to us and told us not to take notice of him, it embarrassedhim. She said he was always thinking and thinking, since these troublescome on, and she allowed he didn't more'n about half know what he wasabout when the thinking spells was on him; and she said he walked inhis sleep considerable more now than he used to, and sometimes wanderedaround over the house and even outdoors in his sleep, and if we catchedhim at it we must let him alone and not disturb him. She said shereckoned it didn't do him no harm, and may be it done him good. She saidBenny was the only one that was much help to him these days. Said Bennyappeared to know just when to try to soothe him and when to leave himalone. 

So he kept on tramping up and down the floor and muttering, till by andby he begun to look pretty tired; then Benny she went and snuggled up tohis side and put one hand in his and one arm around his waist and walkedwith 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 shepersuaded him off to his room. They had very petting ways together, andit was uncommon pretty to see. 

Aunt Sally she was busy getting the children ready for bed; so by andby it got dull and tedious, and me and Tom took a turn in the moonlight, and fetched up in the watermelon-patch and et one, and had a good dealof talk. And Tom said he'd bet the quarreling was all Jubiter's fault, and he was going to be on hand the first time he got a chance, and see;and if it was so, he was going to do his level best to get Uncle Silasto 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 quietand dark, and everybody gone to bed. 

Tom he always seen everything, and now he see that the old green baizework-gown was gone, and said it wasn't gone when he went out; so heallowed it was curious, and then we went up to bed. 

We could hear Benny stirring around in her room, which was next to ourn, and judged she was worried a good deal about her father and couldn'tsleep. We found we couldn't, neither. So we set up a long time, andsmoked 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 socreepy and crawly we couldn't get sleepy nohow and noway. 

By and by, when it was away late in the night and all the sounds waslate sounds and solemn, Tom nudged me and whispers to me to look, and Idone it, and there we see a man poking around in the yard like he didn'tknow just what he wanted to do, but it was pretty dim and we couldn'tsee him good. Then he started for the stile, and as he went over itthe moon came out strong, and he had a long-handled shovel over hisshoulder, and we see the white patch on the old work-gown. So Tom says:

"He's a-walking in his sleep. I wish we was allowed to follow him andsee where he's going to. There, he's turned down by the tobacker-field. Out of sight now. It's a dreadful pity he can't rest no better. "

We waited a long time, but he didn't come back any more, or if he didhe come around the other way; so at last we was tuckered out and wentto sleep and had nightmares, a million of them. But before dawn we wasawake again, because meantime a storm had come up and been raging, andthe thunder and lightning was awful, and the wind was a-thrashing thetrees around, and the rain was driving down in slanting sheets, and thegullies was running rivers. Tom says:

"Looky here, Huck, I'll tell you one thing that's mighty curious. Upto the time we went out last night the family hadn't heard about JakeDunlap being murdered. Now the men that chased Hal Clayton and Bud Dixonaway would spread the thing around in a half an hour, and every neighborthat heard it would shin out and fly around from one farm to t'other andtry to be the first to tell the news. Land, they don't have such a bigthing as that to tell twice in thirty year! Huck, it's mighty strange; Idon't understand it. "

So then he was in a fidget for the rain to let up, so we could turn outand run across some of the people and see if they would say anythingabout it to us. And he said if they did we must be horribly surprisedand shocked. 

We was out and gone the minute the rain stopped. It was just broad daythen. We loafed along up the road, and now and then met a person andstopped and said howdy, and told them when we come, and how we left thefolks at home, and how long we was going to stay, and all that, but noneof them said a word about that thing; which was just astonishing, and nomistake. Tom said he believed if we went to the sycamores we would findthat body laying there solitary and alone, and not a soul around. Saidhe believed the men chased the thieves so far into the woods that thethieves prob'ly seen a good chance and turned on them at last, and maybethey all killed each other, and so there wasn't anybody left to tell. 

First we knowed, gabbling along that away, we was right at thesycamores. The cold chills trickled down my back and I wouldn't budgeanother step, for all Tom's persuading. But he couldn't hold in; he'dGOT to see if the boots was safe on that body yet. So he crope in--andthe next minute out he come again with his eyes bulging he was soexcited, and says:

"Huck, it's gone!"

I WAS astonished! I says:

"Tom, you don't mean it. "

"It's gone, sure. There ain't a sign of it. The ground is trampled some, but if there was any blood it's all washed away by the storm, for it'sall puddles and slush in there. "

At last I give in, and went and took a look myself; and it was just asTom said--there wasn't a sign of a corpse. 

"Dern it, " I says, "the di'monds is gone. Don't you reckon the thievesslunk back and lugged him off, Tom?"

"Looks like it. It just does. Now where'd they hide him, do you reckon?"

"I don't know, " I says, disgusted, "and what's more I don't care. They've got the boots, and that's all I cared about. He'll lay aroundthese woods a long time before I hunt him up. "

Tom didn't feel no more intrust in him neither, only curiosity to knowwhat come of him; but he said we'd lay low and keep dark and it wouldn'tbe long till the dogs or somebody rousted him out. 

We went back home to breakfast ever so bothered and put out anddisappointed and swindled. I warn't ever so down on a corpse before. 

CHAPTER VIII. TALKING WITH THE GHOST

IT warn't very cheerful at breakfast. Aunt Sally she looked old andtired and let the children snarl and fuss at one another and didn't seemto notice it was going on, which wasn't her usual style; me and Tomhad a plenty to think about without talking; Benny she looked like shehadn't had much sleep, and whenever she'd lift her head a little andsteal a look towards her father you could see there was tears in hereyes; and as for the old man, his things stayed on his plate and gotcold without him knowing they was there, I reckon, for he was thinkingand thinking all the time, and never said a word and never et a bite. 

By and by when it was stillest, that nigger's head was poked in at thedoor again, and he said his Marse Brace was getting powerful uneasyabout Marse Jubiter, which hadn't come home yet, and would Marse Silasplease--He was looking at Uncle Silas, and he stopped there, likethe rest of his words was froze; for Uncle Silas he rose up shaky andsteadied 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 hisother hand up to his throat a couple of times, and at last he got hiswords 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 couldhardly hear him: "Go away--go away!"

The nigger looked scared and cleared out, and we all felt--well, I don'tknow how we felt, but it was awful, with the old man panting there, andhis eyes set and looking like a person that was dying. None of us couldbudge; 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 andbegun to stroke it and pet it with her hands, and nodded to us to goaway, 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 howdifferent it was now to what it was last summer when we was here andeverything was so peaceful and happy and everybody thought so much ofUncle Silas, and he was so cheerful and simple-hearted and pudd'n-headedand good--and now look at him. If he hadn't lost his mind he wasn't muckshort of it. That was what we allowed. 

It was a most lovely day now, and bright and sunshiny; and the furtherand further we went over the hills towards the prairie the lovelier andlovelier the trees and flowers got to be and the more it seemed strangeand 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, andall my livers and lungs and things fell down into my legs. 

"There it is!" I says. We jumped back behind a bush shivering, and Tomsays:

"'Sh!--don't make a noise. "

It was setting on a log right in the edge of a little prairie, thinking. I tried to get Tom to come away, but he wouldn't, and I dasn't budge bymyself. He said we mightn't ever get another chance to see one, and hewas going to look his fill at this one if he died for it. So I lookedtoo, though it give me the fan-tods to do it. Tom he HAD to talk, but hetalked low. He says:

"Poor Jakey, it's got all its things on, just as he said he would. NOWyou see what we wasn't certain about--its hair. It's not long now theway it was: it's got it cropped close to its head, the way he said hewould. Huck, I never see anything look any more naturaler than what Itdoes. "

"Nor I neither, " I says; "I'd recognize it anywheres. "

"So would I. It looks perfectly solid and genuwyne, just the way it donebefore it died. "

So we kept a-gazing. Pretty soon Tom says:

"Huck, there's something mighty curious about this one, don't you know?IT oughtn't to be going around in the daytime. "

"That's so, Tom--I never heard the like of it before. "

"No, sir, they don't ever come out only at night--and then not tillafter twelve. There's something wrong about this one, now you mark mywords. I don't believe it's got any right to be around in the daytime. But don't it look natural! Jake was going to play deef and dumb here, sothe neighbors wouldn't know his voice. Do you reckon it would do that ifwe was to holler at it?"

"Lordy, Tom, don't talk so! If you was to holler at it I'd die in mytracks. "

"Don't you worry, I ain't going to holler at it. Look, Huck, it'sa-scratching its head--don't you see?"

"Well, what of it?"

"Why, this. What's the sense of it scratching its head? There ain'tanything there to itch; its head is made out of fog or something likethat, and can't itch. A fog can't itch; any fool knows that. "

"Well, then, if it don't itch and can't itch, what in the nation is itscratching 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 oneacts. I've a blame good notion it's a bogus one--I have, as sure as I'ma-sitting here. Because, if it--Huck!"

"Well, what's the matter now?"

"YOU CAN'T SEE THE BUSHES THROUGH IT!"

"Why, Tom, it's so, sure! It's as solid as a cow. I sort of begin tothink--"

"Huck, it's biting off a chaw of tobacker! By George, THEY don'tchaw--they hain't got anything to chaw WITH. Huck!"

"I'm a-listening. "

"It ain't a ghost at all. It's Jake Dunlap his own self!"

"Oh your granny!" I says. 

"Huck Finn, did we find any corpse in the sycamores?"

"No. "

"Or any sign of one?"

"No. "

"Mighty good reason. Hadn't ever been any corpse there. "

"Why, Tom, you know we heard--"

"Yes, we did--heard a howl or two. Does that prove anybody was killed?Course it don't. And we seen four men run, then this one come walkingout and we took it for a ghost. No more ghost than you are. It was JakeDunlap his own self, and it's Jake Dunlap now. He's been and got hishair cropped, the way he said he would, and he's playing himself for astranger, just the same as he said he would. Ghost? Hum!--he's as soundas a nut. "

Then I see it all, and how we had took too much for granted. I waspowerful glad he didn't get killed, and so was Tom, and we wonderedwhich 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 hestarted; but I kept a little behind, because I didn't know but it mightbe a ghost, after all. When Tom got to where he was, he says:

"Me and Huck's mighty glad to see you again, and you needn't be afearedwe'll tell. And if you think it'll be safer for you if we don't let onto know you when we run across you, say the word and you'll see you candepend on us, and would ruther cut our hands off than get you into theleast little bit of danger. "

First off he looked surprised to see us, and not very glad, either; butas Tom went on he looked pleasanter, and when he was done he smiled, andnodded his head several times, and made signs with his hands, and says:

"Goo-goo--goo-goo, " the way deef and dummies does. 

Just then we see some of Steve Nickerson's people coming that livedt'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 inpractice and prevent you making blunders. We'll keep away from you andlet on we don't know you, but any time we can be any help, you just letus know. "

Then we loafed along past the Nickersons, and of course they asked ifthat was the new stranger yonder, and where'd he come from, and what washis name, and which communion was he, Babtis' or Methodis', and whichpolitics, Whig or Democrat, and how long is he staying, and all themother questions that humans always asks when a stranger comes, andanimals does, too. But Tom said he warn't able to make anything out ofdeef and dumb signs, and the same with goo-gooing. Then we watched themgo and bullyrag Jake; because we was pretty uneasy for him. Tom said itwould take him days to get so he wouldn't forget he was a deef and dummysometimes, and speak out before he thought. When we had watched longenough to see that Jake was getting along all right and workinghis signs very good, we loafed along again, allowing to strike theschoolhouse about recess time, which was a three-mile tramp. 

I was so disappointed not to hear Jake tell about the row in thesycamores, and how near he come to getting killed, that I couldn't seemto get over it, and Tom he felt the same, but said if we was in Jake'sfix 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 goodtime all through recess. Coming to school the Henderson boys had comeacross the new deef and dummy and told the rest; so all the scholars waschuck full of him and couldn't talk about anything else, and was in asweat to get a sight of him because they hadn't ever seen a deef anddummy in their lives, and it made a powerful excitement. 

Tom said it was tough to have to keep mum now; said we would be heroesif we could come out and tell all we knowed; but after all, it was stillmore heroic to keep mum, there warn't two boys in a million could do it. That was Tom Sawyer's idea about it, and reckoned there warn't anybodycould better it. 

CHAPTER IX. FINDING OF JUBITER DUNLAP

IN the next two or three days Dummy he got to be powerful popular. Hewent associating around with the neighbors, and they made much of him, and was proud to have such a rattling curiosity among them. They had himto breakfast, they had him to dinner, they had him to supper; they kepthim loaded up with hog and hominy, and warn't ever tired staring at himand wondering over him, and wishing they knowed more about him, he wasso uncommon and romantic. His signs warn't no good; people couldn'tunderstand them and he prob'ly couldn't himself, but he done a sight ofgoo-gooing, and so everybody was satisfied, and admired to hear him goit. He toted a piece of slate around, and a pencil; and people wrotequestions on it and he wrote answers; but there warn't anybody couldread his writing but Brace Dunlap. Brace said he couldn't read it verygood, but he could manage to dig out the meaning most of the time. Hesaid Dummy said he belonged away off somers and used to be well off, but got busted by swindlers which he had trusted, and was poor now, andhadn't any way to make a living. 

Everybody praised Brace Dunlap for being so good to that stranger. Helet him have a little log-cabin all to himself, and had his niggers takecare of it, and fetch him all the vittles he wanted. 

Dummy was at our house some, because old Uncle Silas was so afflictedhimself, these days, that anybody else that was afflicted was a comfortto him. Me and Tom didn't let on that we had knowed him before, andhe didn't let on that he had knowed us before. The family talked theirtroubles out before him the same as if he wasn't there, but we reckonedit wasn't any harm for him to hear what they said. Generly he didn'tseem to notice, but sometimes he did. 

Well, two or three days went along, and everybody got to getting uneasyabout Jubiter Dunlap. Everybody was asking everybody if they had anyidea what had become of him. No, they hadn't, they said: and they shooktheir heads and said there was something powerful strange about it. Another and another day went by; then there was a report got around thatpraps he was murdered. You bet it made a big stir! Everybody's tonguewas clacking away after that. Saturday two or three gangs turned out andhunted the woods to see if they could run across his remainders. Meand Tom helped, and it was noble good times and exciting. Tom he was sobrimful of it he couldn't eat nor rest. He said if we could find thatcorpse we would be celebrated, and more talked about than if we gotdrownded. 

The others got tired and give it up; but not Tom Sawyer--that warn't hisstyle. Saturday night he didn't sleep any, hardly, trying to think up aplan; and towards daylight in the morning he struck it. He snaked me outof 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 thevillage. Old Jeff Hooker had a bloodhound, and Tom was going to borrowhim. I says:

"The trail's too old, Tom--and besides, it's rained, you know. "

"It don't make any difference, Huck. If the body's hid in the woodsanywhere around the hound will find it. If he's been murdered andburied, they wouldn't bury him deep, it ain't likely, and if the doggoes over the spot he'll scent him, sure. Huck, we're going to becelebrated, sure as you're born!"

He was just a-blazing; and whenever he got afire he was most likely toget afire all over. That was the way this time. In two minutes hehad got it all ciphered out, and wasn't only just going to find thecorpse--no, he was going to get on the track of that murderer and huntHIM down, too; and not only that, but he was going to stick to himtill--"Well, " I says, "you better find the corpse first; I reckon that'sa-plenty for to-day. For all we know, there AIN'T any corpse and nobodyhain't been murdered. That cuss could 'a' gone off somers and not beenkilled at all. "

That graveled him, and he says:

"Huck Finn, I never see such a person as you to want to spoileverything. As long as YOU can't see anything hopeful in a thing, youwon't let anybody else. What good can it do you to throw cold water onthat corpse and get up that selfish theory that there ain't been anymurder? None in the world. I don't see how you can act so. I wouldn'ttreat you like that, and you know it. Here we've got a noble goodopportunity to make a ruputation, and--"

"Oh, go ahead, " I says. "I'm sorry, and I take it all back. I didn'tmean nothing. Fix it any way you want it. HE ain't any consequence tome. If he's killed, I'm as glad of it as you are; and if he--"

"I never said anything about being glad; I only--"

"Well, then, I'm as SORRY as you are. Any way you druther have it, thatis the way I druther have it. He--"

"There ain't any druthers ABOUT it, Huck Finn; nobody said anythingabout druthers. And as for--"

He forgot he was talking, and went tramping along, studying. He begun toget excited again, and pretty soon he says:

"Huck, it'll be the bulliest thing that ever happened if we find thebody after everybody else has quit looking, and then go ahead and huntup the murderer. It won't only be an honor to us, but it'll be an honorto 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 wegot to his blacksmith shop and told him what we come for. 

"You can take the dog, " he says, "but you ain't a-going to find anycorpse, because there ain't any corpse to find. Everybody's quitlooking, and they're right. Soon as they come to think, they knowedthere warn't no corpse. And I'll tell you for why. What does a personkill another person for, Tom Sawyer?--answer me that. "

"Why, he--er--"

"Answer up! You ain't no fool. What does he kill him FOR?"

"Well, sometimes it's for revenge, and--"

"Wait. One thing at a time. Revenge, says you; and right you are. Nowwho ever had anything agin that poor trifling no-account? Who do youreckon would want to kill HIM?--that rabbit!"

Tom was stuck. I reckon he hadn't thought of a person having to havea REASON for killing a person before, and now he sees it warn't likelyanybody would have that much of a grudge against a lamb like JubiterDunlap. The blacksmith says, by and by:

"The revenge idea won't work, you see. Well, then, what's next? Robbery?B'gosh, that must 'a' been it, Tom! Yes, sirree, I reckon we've struckit this time. Some feller wanted his gallus-buckles, and so he--"

But it was so funny he busted out laughing, and just went on laughingand laughing and laughing till he was 'most dead, and Tom looked so putout and cheap that I knowed he was ashamed he had come, and he wishedhe hadn't. But old Hooker never let up on him. He raked up everything aperson ever could want to kill another person about, and any fool couldsee they didn't any of them fit this case, and he just made no end offun of the whole business and of the people that had been hunting thebody; and he said:

"If they'd had any sense they'd 'a' knowed the lazy cuss slid outbecause he wanted a loafing spell after all this work. He'll comepottering back in a couple of weeks, and then how'll you fellers feel?But, laws bless you, take the dog, and go and hunt his remainders. Do, Tom. "

Then he busted out, and had another of them forty-rod laughs of hisn. Tom couldn't back down after all this, so he said, "All right, unchainhim;" and the blacksmith done it, and we started home and left that oldman laughing yet. 

It was a lovely dog. There ain't any dog that's got a lovelierdisposition than a bloodhound, and this one knowed us and liked us. Hecapered and raced around ever so friendly, and powerful glad to be freeand have a holiday; but Tom was so cut up he couldn't take any intrustin him, and said he wished he'd stopped and thought a minute before heever started on such a fool errand. He said old Jeff Hooker would telleverybody, and we'd never hear the last of it. 

So we loafed along home down the back lanes, feeling pretty glum andnot talking. When we was passing the far corner of our tobacker field weheard the dog set up a long howl in there, and we went to the place andhe was scratching the ground with all his might, and every now and thencanting up his head sideways and fetching another howl. 

It was a long square, the shape of a grave; the rain had made it sinkdown and show the shape. The minute we come and stood there we looked atone another and never said a word. When the dog had dug down only a fewinches he grabbed something and pulled it up, and it was an arm and asleeve. Tom kind of gasped out, and says:

"Come away, Huck--it's found. "

I just felt awful. We struck for the road and fetched the first men thatcome along. They got a spade at the crib and dug out the body, and younever see such an excitement. You couldn't make anything out of theface, but you didn't need to. Everybody said:

"Poor Jubiter; it's his clothes, to the last rag!"

Some rushed off to spread the news and tell the justice of the peace andhave an inquest, and me and Tom lit out for the house. Tom was all afireand 'most out of breath when we come tearing in where Uncle Silas andAunt Sally and Benny was. Tom sung out:

"Me and Huck's found Jubiter Dunlap's corpse all by ourselves with abloodhound, after everybody else had quit hunting and given it up; andif it hadn't a been for us it never WOULD 'a' been found; and he WASmurdered too--they done it with a club or something like that; and I'mgoing 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 fellright forward out of his chair on to the floor and groans out:

"Oh, my God, you've found him NOW!"

CHAPTER X. THE ARREST OF UNCLE SILAS

THEM awful words froze us solid. We couldn't move hand or foot for asmuch as half a minute. Then we kind of come to, and lifted the old manup and got him into his chair, and Benny petted him and kissed him andtried to comfort him, and poor old Aunt Sally she done the same; but, poor things, they was so broke up and scared and knocked out of theirright minds that they didn't hardly know what they was about. With Tomit was awful; it 'most petrified him to think maybe he had got his uncleinto a thousand times more trouble than ever, and maybe it wouldn't everhappened if he hadn't been so ambitious to get celebrated, and let thecorpse alone the way the others done. But pretty soon he sort of come tohimself again and says:

"Uncle Silas, don't you say another word like that. It's dangerous, andthere ain't a shadder of truth in it. "

Aunt Sally and Benny was thankful to hear him say that, and they saidthe same; but the old man he wagged his head sorrowful and hopeless, andthe tears run down his face, and he says;

"No--I done it; poor Jubiter, I done it!"

It was dreadful to hear him say it. Then he went on and told about it, and said it happened the day me and Tom come--along about sundown. Hesaid Jubiter pestered him and aggravated him till he was so mad he justsort of lost his mind and grabbed up a stick and hit him over the headwith all his might, and Jubiter dropped in his tracks. Then he wasscared and sorry, and got down on his knees and lifted his head up, andbegged 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 'mostscared to death, and cleared the fence and tore into the woods, and wasgone. So he hoped he wasn't hurt bad. 

"But laws, " he says, "it was only just fear that gave him that lastlittle spurt of strength, and of course it soon played out and he laiddown 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 themark of Cain was on him, and he had disgraced his family and was goingto be found out and hung. But Tom said:

"No, you ain't going to be found out. You DIDN'T kill him. ONE lickwouldn't kill him. Somebody else done it. "

"Oh, yes, " he says, "I done it--nobody else. Who else had anythingagainst him? Who else COULD have anything against him?"

He looked up kind of like he hoped some of us could mention somebodythat could have a grudge against that harmless no-account, but of courseit warn't no use--he HAD us; we couldn't say a word. He noticed that, and he saddened down again, and I never see a face so miserable and sopitiful to see. Tom had a sudden idea, and says:

"But hold on!--somebody BURIED him. Now who--"

He shut off sudden. I knowed the reason. It give me the cold shudderswhen he said them words, because right away I remembered about us seeingUncle Silas prowling around with a long-handled shovel away in the nightthat night. And I knowed Benny seen him, too, because she was talkingabout it one day. The minute Tom shut off he changed the subject andwent to begging Uncle Silas to keep mum, and the rest of us done thesame, and said he MUST, and said it wasn't his business to tell onhimself, and if he kept mum nobody would ever know; but if it was foundout and any harm come to him it would break the family's hearts and killthem, and yet never do anybody any good. So at last he promised. We wasall of us more comfortable, then, and went to work to cheer up the oldman. We told him all he'd got to do was to keep still, and it wouldn'tbe long till the whole thing would blow over and be forgot. We all saidthere wouldn't anybody ever suspect Uncle Silas, nor ever dream of sucha 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, allthese years a preacher--at his own expense; all these years doing goodwith 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 beenpeaceable and minding his own business, the very last man in this wholedeestrict to touch a person, and everybody knows it. Suspect HIM? Why, it ain't any more possible than--"

"By authority of the State of Arkansaw, I arrest you for the murder ofJubiter 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 Sallysaid 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 gotout. 

They took him up to the little one-horse jail in the village, and we allwent along to tell him good-bye; and Tom was feeling elegant, and saysto me, "We'll have a most noble good time and heaps of danger somedark night getting him out of there, Huck, and it'll be talked abouteverywheres and we will be celebrated;" but the old man busted thatscheme up the minute he whispered to him about it. He said no, it washis duty to stand whatever the law done to him, and he would stick tothe jail plumb through to the end, even if there warn't no door to it. It disappointed Tom and graveled him a good deal, but he had to put upwith it. 

But he felt responsible and bound to get his uncle Silas free; and hetold Aunt Sally, the last thing, not to worry, because he was going toturn in and work night and day and beat this game and fetch Uncle Silasout innocent; and she was very loving to him and thanked him and saidshe knowed he would do his very best. And she told us to help Benny takecare of the house and the children, and then we had a good-bye cry allaround and went back to the farm, and left her there to live with thejailer's wife a month till the trial in October. 

CHAPTER XI. TOM SAWYER DISCOVERS THE MURDERERS

WELL, that was a hard month on us all. Poor Benny, she kept up the bestshe could, and me and Tom tried to keep things cheerful there at thehouse, but it kind of went for nothing, as you may say. It was the sameup at the jail. We went up every day to see the old people, but it wasawful dreary, because the old man warn't sleeping much, and was walkingin his sleep considerable and so he got to looking fagged and miserable, and his mind got shaky, and we all got afraid his troubles would breakhim down and kill him. And whenever we tried to persuade him to feelcheerfuler, he only shook his head and said if we only knowed what itwas to carry around a murderer's load in your heart we wouldn't talkthat way. Tom and all of us kept telling him it WASN'T murder, but justaccidental killing! but it never made any difference--it was murder, andhe wouldn't have it any other way. He actu'ly begun to come out plainand square towards trial time and acknowledge that he TRIED to kill theman. Why, that was awful, you know. It made things seem fifty times asdreadful, and there warn't no more comfort for Aunt Sally and Benny. But he promised he wouldn't say a word about his murder when others wasaround, and we was glad of that. 

Tom Sawyer racked the head off of himself all that month trying to plansome way out for Uncle Silas, and many's the night he kept me up 'mostall night with this kind of tiresome work, but he couldn't seem to geton the right track no way. As for me, I reckoned a body might as wellgive it up, it all looked so blue and I was so downhearted; but hewouldn't. He stuck to the business right along, and went on planning andthinking and ransacking his head. 

So at last the trial come on, towards the middle of October, and we wasall in the court. The place was jammed, of course. Poor old Uncle Silas, he looked more like a dead person than a live one, his eyes was sohollow and he looked so thin and so mournful. Benny she set on one sideof him and Aunt Sally on the other, and they had veils on, and wasfull of trouble. But Tom he set by our lawyer, and had his finger ineverywheres, of course. The lawyer let him, and the judge let him. He'most took the business out of the lawyer's hands sometimes; which waswell enough, because that was only a mud-turtle of a back-settlementlawyer and didn't know enough to come in when it rains, as the sayingis. 

They swore in the jury, and then the lawyer for the prostitution got upand begun. He made a terrible speech against the old man, that made himmoan and groan, and made Benny and Aunt Sally cry. The way HE told aboutthe murder kind of knocked us all stupid it was so different from theold man's tale. He said he was going to prove that Uncle Silas was SEENto kill Jubiter Dunlap by two good witnesses, and done it deliberate, and SAID he was going to kill him the very minute he hit him with theclub; and they seen him hide Jubiter in the bushes, and they seen thatJubiter was stone-dead. And said Uncle Silas come later and luggedJubiter down into the tobacker field, and two men seen him do it. Andsaid Uncle Silas turned out, away in the night, and buried Jubiter, anda man seen him at it. 

I says to myself, poor old Uncle Silas has been lying about it becausehe reckoned nobody seen him and he couldn't bear to break Aunt Sally'sheart and Benny's; and right he was: as for me, I would 'a' lied thesame way, and so would anybody that had any feeling, to save them suchmisery and sorrow which THEY warn't no ways responsible for. Well, itmade our lawyer look pretty sick; and it knocked Tom silly, too, fora little spell, but then he braced up and let on that he warn'tworried--but I knowed he WAS, all the same. And the people--my, but itmade a stir amongst them!

And when that lawyer was done telling the jury what he was going toprove, he set down and begun to work his witnesses. 

First, he called a lot of them to show that there was bad blood betwixtUncle Silas and the diseased; and they told how they had heard UncleSilas threaten the diseased, at one time and another, and how it gotworse and worse and everybody was talking about it, and how diseased gotafraid of his life, and told two or three of them he was certain UncleSilas would up and kill him some time or another. 

Tom and our lawyer asked them some questions; but it warn't no use, theystuck to what they said. 

Next, they called up Lem Beebe, and he took the stand. It come intomy mind, then, how Lem and Jim Lane had come along talking, that time, about borrowing a dog or something from Jubiter Dunlap; and that broughtup the blackberries and the lantern; and that brought up Bill and JackWithers, and how they passed by, talking about a nigger stealing UncleSilas's corn; and that fetched up our old ghost that come along aboutthe same time and scared us so--and here HE was too, and a privilegedcharacter, on accounts of his being deef and dumb and a stranger, andthey had fixed him a chair inside the railing, where he could cross hislegs and be comfortable, whilst the other people was all in a jam sothey couldn't hardly breathe. So it all come back to me just the way itwas that day; and it made me mournful to think how pleasant it was up tothen, and how miserable ever since. 

 LEM BEEBE, sworn, said--"I was a-coming along, that day, second of September, and Jim Lane was with me, and it was towards sundown, and we heard loud talk, like quarrelling, and we was very close, only the hazel bushes between (that's along the fence); and we heard a voice say, 'I've told you more'n once I'd kill you, ' and knowed it was this prisoner's voice; and then we see a club come up above the bushes and down out of sight again, and heard a smashing thump and then a groan or two: and then we crope soft to where we could see, and there laid Jupiter Dunlap dead, and this prisoner standing over him with the club; and the next he hauled the dead man into a clump of bushes and hid him, and then we stooped low, to be cut of sight, and got away. "

Well, it was awful. It kind of froze everybody's blood to hear it, andthe house was 'most as still whilst he was telling it as if there warn'tnobody in it. And when he was done, you could hear them gasp and sigh, all over the house, and look at one another the same as to say, "Ain'tit perfectly terrible--ain't it awful!"

Now happened a thing that astonished me. All the time the firstwitnesses was proving the bad blood and the threats and all that, TomSawyer was alive and laying for them; and the minute they was through, he went for them, and done his level best to catch them in lies andspile their testimony. But now, how different. When Lem first begun totalk, and never said anything about speaking to Jubiter or trying toborrow a dog off of him, he was all alive and laying for Lem, and youcould see he was getting ready to cross-question him to death prettysoon, and then I judged him and me would go on the stand by and by andtell what we heard him and Jim Lane say. But the next time I looked atTom I got the cold shivers. Why, he was in the brownest study youever see--miles and miles away. He warn't hearing a word Lem Beebe wassaying; and when he got through he was still in that brown-study, justthe same. Our lawyer joggled him, and then he looked up startled, andsays, "Take the witness if you want him. Lemme alone--I want to think. "

Well, that beat me. I couldn't understand it. And Benny and hermother--oh, they looked sick, they was so troubled. They shoved theirveils to one side and tried to get his eye, but it warn't any use, andI couldn't get his eye either. So the mud-turtle he tackled the witness, but it didn't amount to nothing; and he made a mess of it. 

Then they called up Jim Lane, and he told the very same story overagain, exact. Tom never listened to this one at all, but set therethinking and thinking, miles and miles away. So the mud-turtle went inalone again and come out just as flat as he done before. The lawyerfor the prostitution looked very comfortable, but the judge lookeddisgusted. You see, Tom was just the same as a regular lawyer, nearly, because it was Arkansaw law for a prisoner to choose anybody he wantedto help his lawyer, and Tom had had Uncle Silas shove him into the case, and now he was botching it and you could see the judge didn't like itmuch. All that the mud-turtle got out of Lem and Jim was this: he askedthem:

"Why didn't you go and tell what you saw?"

"We was afraid we would get mixed up in it ourselves. And we was juststarting down the river a-hunting for all the week besides; but as soonas we come back we found out they'd been searching for the body, so thenwe went and told Brace Dunlap all about it. "

"When was that?"

"Saturday night, September 9th. "

The judge he spoke up and says:

"Mr. Sheriff, arrest these two witnesses on suspicions of beingaccessionary after the fact to the murder. "

The lawyer for the prostitution jumps up all excited, and says:

"Your honor! I protest against this extraordi--"

"Set down!" says the judge, pulling his bowie and laying it on hispulpit. "I beg you to respect the Court. "

So he done it. Then he called Bill Withers. 

 BILL WITHERS, sworn, said: "I was coming along about sundown, Saturday, September 2d, by the prisoner's field, and my brother Jack was with me and we seen a man toting off something heavy on his back and allowed it was a nigger stealing corn; we couldn't see distinct; next we made out that it was one man carrying another; and the way it hung, so kind of limp, we judged it was somebody that was drunk; and by the man's walk we said it was Parson Silas, and we judged he had found Sam Cooper drunk in the road, which he was always trying to reform him, and was toting him out of danger. "

It made the people shiver to think of poor old Uncle Silas toting offthe diseased down to the place in his tobacker field where the dog dugup the body, but there warn't much sympathy around amongst the faces, and I heard one cuss say "'Tis the coldest blooded work I ever struck, lugging a murdered man around like that, and going to bury him like aanimal, and him a preacher at that. "

Tom he went on thinking, and never took no notice; so our lawyer tookthe witness and done the best he could, and it was plenty poor enough. 

Then Jack Withers he come on the stand and told the same tale, just likeBill done. 

And after him comes Brace Dunlap, and he was looking very mournful, andmost crying; and there was a rustle and a stir all around, and everybodygot ready to listen, and lost of the women folks said, "Poor cretur, poor cretur, " and you could see a many of them wiping their eyes. 

 BRACE DUNLAP, sworn, said: "I was in considerable trouble a long time about my poor brother, but I reckoned things warn't near so bad as he made out, and I couldn't make myself believe anybody would have the heart to hurt a poor harmless cretur like that"--[by jings, I was sure I seen Tom give a kind of a faint little start, and then look disappointed again]--"and you know I COULDN'T think a preacher would hurt him--it warn't natural to think such an onlikely thing--so I never paid much attention, and now I sha'n't ever, ever forgive myself; for if I had a done different, my poor brother would be with me this day, and not laying yonder murdered, and him so harmless. " He kind of broke down there and choked up, and waited to get his voice; and people all around said the most pitiful things, and women cried; and it was very still in there, and solemn, and old Uncle Silas, poor thing, he give a groan right out so everybody heard him. Then Brace he went on, "Saturday, September 2d, he didn't come home to supper. By-and-by I got a little uneasy, and one of my niggers went over to this prisoner's place, but come back and said he warn't there. So I got uneasier and uneasier, and couldn't rest. I went to bed, but I couldn't sleep; and turned out, away late in the night, and went wandering over to this prisoner's place and all around about there a good while, hoping I would run across my poor brother, and never knowing he was out of his troubles and gone to a better shore--" So he broke down and choked up again, and most all the women was crying now. Pretty soon he got another start and says: "But it warn't no use; so at last I went home and tried to get some sleep, but couldn't. Well, in a day or two everybody was uneasy, and they got to talking about this prisoner's threats, and took to the idea, which I didn't take no stock in, that my brother was murdered so they hunted around and tried to find his body, but couldn't and give it up. And so I reckoned he was gone off somers to have a little peace, and would come back to us when his troubles was kind of healed. But late Saturday night, the 9th, Lem Beebe and Jim Lane come to my house and told me all--told me the whole awful 'sassination, and my heart was broke. And THEN I remembered something that hadn't took no hold of me at the time, because reports said this prisoner had took to walking in his sleep and doing all kind of things of no consequence, not knowing what he was about. I will tell you what that thing was that come back into my memory. Away late that awful Saturday night when I was wandering around about this prisoner's place, grieving and troubled, I was down by the corner of the tobacker-field and I heard a sound like digging in a gritty soil; and I crope nearer and peeped through the vines that hung on the rail fence and seen this prisoner SHOVELING--shoveling with a long-handled shovel--heaving earth into a big hole that was most filled up; his back was to me, but it was bright moonlight and I knowed him by his old green baize work-gown with a splattery white patch in the middle of the back like somebody had hit him with a snowball. HE WAS BURYING THE MAN HE'D MURDERED!"

And he slumped down in his chair crying and sobbing, and 'most everybodyin the house busted out wailing, and crying, and saying, "Oh, it'sawful--awful--horrible! and there was a most tremendous excitement, andyou couldn't hear yourself think; and right in the midst of it up jumpsold Uncle Silas, white as a sheet, and sings out:

"IT'S TRUE, EVERY WORD--I MURDERED HIM IN COLD BLOOD!"

By Jackson, it petrified them! People rose up wild all over the house, straining and staring for a better look at him, and the judge washammering with his mallet and the sheriff yelling "Order--order in thecourt--order!"

And all the while the old man stood there a-quaking and his eyesa-burning, and not looking at his wife and daughter, which was clingingto him and begging him to keep still, but pawing them off with his handsand saying he WOULD clear his black soul from crime, he WOULD heaveoff this load that was more than he could bear, and he WOULDN'T bearit another hour! And then he raged right along with his awful tale, everybody a-staring and gasping, judge, jury, lawyers, and everybody, and Benny and Aunt Sally crying their hearts out. And by George, TomSawyer never looked at him once! Never once--just set there gazing withall his eyes at something else, I couldn't tell what. And so the old manraged right along, pouring his words out like a stream of fire:

"I killed him! I am guilty! But I never had the notion in my life tohurt him or harm him, spite of all them lies about my threatening him, till the very minute I raised the club--then my heart went cold!--thenthe pity all went out of it, and I struck to kill! In that one momentall my wrongs come into my mind; all the insults that that man and thescoundrel his brother, there, had put upon me, and how they laid intogether to ruin me with the people, and take away my good name, andDRIVE me to some deed that would destroy me and my family that hadn'tever done THEM no harm, so help me God! And they done it in a meanrevenge--for why? Because my innocent pure girl here at my side wouldn'tmarry that rich, insolent, ignorant coward, Brace Dunlap, who's beensniveling here over a brother he never cared a brass farthing for--"[I see Tom give a jump and look glad THIS time, to a dead certainty]"--and in that moment I've told you about, I forgot my God andremembered only my heart's bitterness, God forgive me, and I struck tokill. In one second I was miserably sorry--oh, filled with remorse; butI thought of my poor family, and I MUST hide what I'd done for theirsakes; and I did hide that corpse in the bushes; and presently I carriedit to the tobacker field; and in the deep night I went with my shoveland buried it where--"

Up jumps Tom and shouts:

"NOW, I've got it!" and waves his hand, oh, ever so fine and starchy, towards the old man, and says:

"Set down! A murder WAS done, but you never had no hand in it!"

Well, sir, you could a heard a pin drop. And the old man he sunk downkind of bewildered in his seat and Aunt Sally and Benny didn't know it, because they was so astonished and staring at Tom with their mouths openand not knowing what they was about. And the whole house the same. Inever seen people look so helpless and tangled up, and I hain't everseen eyes bug out and gaze without a blink the way theirn did. Tom says, perfectly ca'm:

"Your honor, may I speak?"

"For God's sake, yes--go on!" says the judge, so astonished and mixed uphe didn't know what he was about hardly. 

Then Tom he stood there and waited a second or two--that was for to workup an "effect, " as he calls it--then he started in just as ca'm as ever, and says:

"For about two weeks now there's been a little bill sticking on thefront of this courthouse offering two thousand dollars reward for acouple of big di'monds--stole at St. Louis. Them di'monds is worthtwelve thousand dollars. But never mind about that till I get to it. Nowabout this murder. I will tell you all about it--how it happened--whodone it--every DEtail. "

You could see everybody nestle now, and begin to listen for all they wasworth. 

"This man here, Brace Dunlap, that's been sniveling so about his deadbrother that YOU know he never cared a straw for, wanted to marry thatyoung girl there, and she wouldn't have him. So he told Uncle Silas hewould make him sorry. Uncle Silas knowed how powerful he was, and howlittle chance he had against such a man, and he was scared and worried, and done everything he could think of to smooth him over and get him tobe good to him: he even took his no-account brother Jubiter on the farmand give him wages and stinted his own family to pay them; and Jubiterdone everything his brother could contrive to insult Uncle Silas, andfret and worry him, and try to drive Uncle Silas into doing him a hurt, so as to injure Uncle Silas with the people. And it done it. Everybodyturned against him and said the meanest kind of things about him, and itgraduly broke his heart--yes, and he was so worried and distressed thatoften he warn't hardly in his right mind. 

"Well, on that Saturday that we've had so much trouble about, two ofthese witnesses here, Lem Beebe and Jim Lane, come along by where UncleSilas and Jubiter Dunlap was at work--and that much of what they've saidis true, the rest is lies. They didn't hear Uncle Silas say he wouldkill Jubiter; they didn't hear no blow struck; they didn't see no deadman, and they didn't see Uncle Silas hide anything in the bushes. Lookat them now--how they set there, wishing they hadn't been so handy withtheir tongues; anyway, they'll wish it before I get done. 

"That same Saturday evening Bill and Jack Withers DID see one manlugging off another one. That much of what they said is true, and therest is lies. First off they thought it was a nigger stealing UncleSilas's corn--you notice it makes them look silly, now, to find outsomebody overheard them say that. That's because they found out by andby who it was that was doing the lugging, and THEY know best why theyswore here that they took it for Uncle Silas by the gait--which itWASN'T, and they knowed it when they swore to that lie. 

"A man out in the moonlight DID see a murdered person put under groundin the tobacker field--but it wasn't Uncle Silas that done the burying. He was in his bed at that very time. 

"Now, then, before I go on, I want to ask you if you've ever noticedthis: that people, when they're thinking deep, or when they're worried, are most always doing something with their hands, and they don't knowit, and don't notice what it is their hands are doing, some stroke theirchins; some stroke their noses; some stroke up UNDER their chin withtheir hand; some twirl a chain, some fumble a button, then there's somethat draws a figure or a letter with their finger on their cheek, or under their chin or on their under lip. That's MY way. When I'mrestless, or worried, or thinking hard, I draw capital V's on my cheekor on my under lip or under my chin, and never anything BUT capitalV's--and half the time I don't notice it and don't know I'm doing it. "

That was odd. That is just what I do; only I make an O. And I could seepeople nodding to one another, same as they do when they mean "THAT'sso. "

"Now, then, I'll go on. That same Saturday--no, it was the nightbefore--there was a steamboat laying at Flagler's Landing, forty milesabove here, and it was raining and storming like the nation. And therewas a thief aboard, and he had them two big di'monds that's advertisedout here on this courthouse door; and he slipped ashore with hishand-bag and struck out into the dark and the storm, and he was a-hopinghe could get to this town all right and be safe. But he had two palsaboard the boat, hiding, and he knowed they was going to kill him thefirst chance they got and take the di'monds; because all three stolethem, and then this fellow he got hold of them and skipped. 

"Well, he hadn't been gone more'n ten minutes before his pals found itout, and they jumped ashore and lit out after him. Prob'ly they burntmatches and found his tracks. Anyway, they dogged along after him allday Saturday and kept out of his sight; and towards sundown he come tothe bunch of sycamores down by Uncle Silas's field, and he went in thereto get a disguise out of his hand-bag and put it on before he showedhimself here in the town--and mind you he done that just a little afterthe time that Uncle Silas was hitting Jubiter Dunlap over the head witha club--for he DID hit him. 

"But the minute the pals see that thief slide into the bunch ofsycamores, they jumped out of the bushes and slid in after him. 

"They fell on him and clubbed him to death. 

"Yes, for all he screamed and howled so, they never had no mercy on him, but clubbed him to death. And two men that was running along the roadheard him yelling that way, and they made a rush into the syca-i morebunch--which was where they was bound for, anyway--and when the pals sawthem they lit out and the two new men after them a-chasing them astight as they could go. But only a minute or two--then these two new menslipped back very quiet into the sycamores. 

"THEN what did they do? I will tell you what they done. They found wherethe thief had got his disguise out of his carpet-sack to put on; so oneof them strips and puts on that disguise. "

Tom waited a little here, for some more "effect"--then he says, verydeliberate:

"The man that put on that dead man's disguise was--JUBITER DUNLAP!"

"Great Scott!" everybody shouted, all over the house, and old UncleSilas he looked perfectly astonished. 

"Yes, it was Jubiter Dunlap. Not dead, you see. Then they pulled off thedead man's boots and put Jubiter Dunlap's old ragged shoes on the corpseand put the corpse's boots on Jubiter Dunlap. Then Jubiter Dunlapstayed where he was, and the other man lugged the dead body off in thetwilight; and after midnight he went to Uncle Silas's house, and tookhis old green work-robe off of the peg where it always hangs in thepassage betwixt the house and the kitchen and put it on, and stole thelong-handled shovel and went off down into the tobacker field and buriedthe murdered man. "

He stopped, and stood half a minute. Then--"And who do you reckon themurdered man WAS? It was--JAKE Dunlap, the long-lost burglar!"

"Great Scott!"

"And the man that buried him was--BRACE Dunlap, his brother!"

"Great Scott!"

"And who do you reckon is this mowing idiot here that's letting on allthese weeks to be a deef and dumb stranger? It's--JUBITER Dunlap!"

My land, they all busted out in a howl, and you never see the like ofthat excitement since the day you was born. And Tom he made a jump forJubiter and snaked off his goggles and his false whiskers, and there wasthe murdered man, sure enough, just as alive as anybody! And Aunt Sallyand Benny they went to hugging and crying and kissing and smothering oldUncle Silas to that degree he was more muddled and confused and mushedup in his mind than he ever was before, and that is saying considerable. And next, people begun to yell:

"Tom Sawyer! Tom Sawyer! Shut up everybody, and let him go on! Go on, Tom Sawyer!"

Which made him feel uncommon bully, for it was nuts for Tom Sawyer to bea public character that-away, and a hero, as he calls it. So when it wasall quiet, he says:

"There ain't much left, only this. When that man there, Bruce Dunlap, had most worried the life and sense out of Uncle Silas till at last heplumb lost his mind and hit this other blatherskite, his brother, with aclub, I reckon he seen his chance. Jubiter broke for the woods to hide, and I reckon the game was for him to slide out, in the night, and leavethe country. Then Brace would make everybody believe Uncle Silas killedhim and hid his body somers; and that would ruin Uncle Silas and driveHIM out of the country--hang him, maybe; I dunno. But when they foundtheir dead brother in the sycamores without knowing him, because he wasso battered up, they see they had a better thing; disguise BOTH and buryJake and dig him up presently all dressed up in Jubiter's clothes, andhire Jim Lane and Bill Withers and the others to swear to some handylies--which they done. And there they set, now, and I told them theywould be looking sick before I got done, and that is the way they'relooking now. 

"Well, me and Huck Finn here, we come down on the boat with the thieves, and the dead one told us all about the di'monds, and said the otherswould murder him if they got the chance; and we was going to help himall we could. We was bound for the sycamores when we heard them killinghim in there; but we was in there in the early morning after the stormand allowed nobody hadn't been killed, after all. And when we seeJubiter Dunlap here spreading around in the very same disguise Jake toldus HE was going to wear, we thought it was Jake his own self--and he wasgoo-gooing deef and dumb, and THAT was according to agreement. 

"Well, me and Huck went on hunting for the corpse after the others quit, and we found it. And was proud, too; but Uncle Silas he knocked us crazyby telling us HE killed the man. So we was mighty sorry we found thebody, and was bound to save Uncle Silas's neck if we could; and it wasgoing to be tough work, too, because he wouldn't let us break him out ofprison the way we done with our old nigger Jim. 

"I done everything I could the whole month to think up some way to saveUncle Silas, but I couldn't strike a thing. So when we come into courtto-day I come empty, and couldn't see no chance anywheres. But by andby I had a glimpse of something that set me thinking--just a little weeglimpse--only that, and not enough to make sure; but it set me thinkinghard--and WATCHING, when I was only letting on to think; and by andby, sure enough, when Uncle Silas was piling out that stuff about HIMkilling Jubiter Dunlap, I catched that glimpse again, and this time Ijumped up and shut down the proceedings, because I KNOWED Jubiter Dunlapwas a-setting here before me. I knowed him by a thing which I seen himdo--and I remembered it. I'd seen him do it when I was here a year ago. "

He stopped then, and studied a minute--laying for an "effect"--I knowedit perfectly well. Then he turned off like he was going to leave theplatform, and says, kind of lazy and indifferent:

"Well, I believe that is all. "

Why, you never heard such a howl!--and it come from the whole house:

"What WAS it you seen him do? Stay where you are, you little devil! Youthink you are going to work a body up till his mouth's a-watering andstop there? What WAS it he done?"

That was it, you see--he just done it to get an "effect"; you couldn't'a' pulled him off of that platform with a yoke of oxen. 

"Oh, it wasn't anything much, " he says. "I seen him looking a littleexcited when he found Uncle Silas was actually fixing to hang himself fora murder that warn't ever done; and he got more and more nervous andworried, I a-watching him sharp but not seeming to look at him--and allof a sudden his hands begun to work and fidget, and pretty soon hisleft crept up and HIS FINGER DRAWED A CROSS ON HIS CHEEK, and then I HADhim!"

Well, then they ripped and howled and stomped and clapped their handstill Tom Sawyer was that proud and happy he didn't know what to do withhimself. 

And then the judge he looked down over his pulpit and says:

"My boy, did you SEE all the various details of this strange conspiracyand tragedy that you've been describing?"

"No, your honor, I didn't see any of them. "

"Didn't see any of them! Why, you've told the whole history straightthrough, just the same as if you'd seen it with your eyes. How did youmanage that?"

Tom says, kind of easy and comfortable:

"Oh, just noticing the evidence and piecing this and that together, yourhonor; just an ordinary little bit of detective work; anybody could 'a'done it. "

"Nothing of the kind! Not two in a million could 'a' done it. You are avery remarkable boy. "

Then they let go and give Tom another smashing round, and he--well, hewouldn't 'a' sold out for a silver mine. Then the judge says:

"But are you certain you've got this curious history straight?"

"Perfectly, your honor. Here is Brace Dunlap--let him deny his shareof it if he wants to take the chance; I'll engage to make him wish hehadn't said anything...... Well, you see HE'S pretty quiet. And hisbrother's pretty quiet, and them four witnesses that lied so and gotpaid for it, they're pretty quiet. And as for Uncle Silas, it ain't anyuse for him to put in his oar, I wouldn't believe him under oath!"

Well, sir, that fairly made them shout; and even the judge he let goand laughed. Tom he was just feeling like a rainbow. When they was donelaughing he looks up at the judge and says:

"Your honor, there's a thief in this house. "

"A thief?"

"Yes, sir. And he's got them twelve-thousand-dollar di'monds on him. "

By gracious, but it made a stir! Everybody went shouting:

"Which is him? which is him? p'int him out!"

And the judge says:

"Point him out, my lad. Sheriff, you will arrest him. Which one is it?"

Tom says:

"This late dead man here--Jubiter Dunlap. "

Then there was another thundering let-go of astonishment and excitement;but Jubiter, which was astonished enough before, was just fairlyputrified with astonishment this time. And he spoke up, about halfcrying, and says:

"Now THAT'S a lie. Your honor, it ain't fair; I'm plenty bad enoughwithout that. I done the other things--Brace he put me up to it, andpersuaded me, and promised he'd make me rich, some day, and I done it, and I'm sorry I done it, and I wisht I hadn't; but I hain't stole nodi'monds, and I hain't GOT no di'monds; I wisht I may never stir if itain't so. The sheriff can search me and see. "

Tom says:

"Your honor, it wasn't right to call him a thief, and I'll let up onthat a little. He did steal the di'monds, but he didn't know it. Hestole them from his brother Jake when he was laying dead, after Jakehad stole them from the other thieves; but Jubiter didn't know he wasstealing them; and he's been swelling around here with them a month;yes, sir, twelve thousand dollars' worth of di'monds on him--all thatriches, and going around here every day just like a poor man. Yes, yourhonor, he's got them on him now. "

The judge spoke up and says:

"Search him, sheriff. "

Well, sir, the sheriff he ransacked him high and low, and everywhere:searched his hat, socks, seams, boots, everything--and Tom he stoodthere quiet, laying for another of them effects of hisn. Finally thesheriff he give it up, and everybody looked disappointed, and Jubitersays:

"There, now! what'd I tell you?"

And the judge says:

"It appears you were mistaken this time, my boy. "

Then Tom took an attitude and let on to be studying with all his might, and scratching his head. Then all of a sudden he glanced up chipper, andsays:

"Oh, now I've got it! I'd forgot. "

Which was a lie, and I knowed it. Then he says:

"Will somebody be good enough to lend me a little small screwdriver?There was one in your brother's hand-bag that you smouched, Jubiter, butI reckon you didn't fetch it with you. "

"No, I didn't. I didn't want it, and I give it away. "

"That's because you didn't know what it was for. "

Jubiter had his boots on again, by now, and when the thing Tom wantedwas passed over the people's heads till it got to him, he says toJubiter:

"Put up your foot on this chair. " And he kneeled down and begun tounscrew the heel-plate, everybody watching; and when he got that bigdi'mond out of that boot-heel and held it up and let it flash and blazeand squirt sunlight everwhichaway, it just took everybody's breath; andJubiter he looked so sick and sorry you never see the like of it. Andwhen Tom held up the other di'mond he looked sorrier than ever. Land! hewas thinking how he would 'a' skipped out and been rich and independentin a foreign land if he'd only had the luck to guess what thescrewdriver was in the carpet-bag for. 

Well, it was a most exciting time, take it all around, and Tom got cordsof glory. The judge took the di'monds, and stood up in his pulpit, andcleared his throat, and shoved his spectacles back on his head, andsays:

"I'll keep them and notify the owners; and when they send for them itwill be a real pleasure to me to hand you the two thousand dollars, foryou've earned the money--yes, and you've earned the deepest and mostsincerest thanks of this community besides, for lifting a wronged andinnocent family out of ruin and shame, and saving a good and honorableman from a felon's death, and for exposing to infamy and the punishmentof the law a cruel and odious scoundrel and his miserable creatures!"

Well, sir, if there'd been a brass band to bust out some music, then, itwould 'a' been just the perfectest thing I ever see, and Tom Sawyer hesaid the same. 

Then the sheriff he nabbed Brace Dunlap and his crowd, and by and bynext month the judge had them up for trial and jailed the whole lot. Andeverybody crowded back to Uncle Silas's little old church, and was everso loving and kind to him and the family and couldn't do enough forthem; and Uncle Silas he preached them the blamedest jumbledest idioticsermons you ever struck, and would tangle you up so you couldn't findyour way home in daylight; but the people never let on but what theythought it was the clearest and brightest and elegantest sermons thatever was; and they would set there and cry, for love and pity; but, byGeorge, they give me the jim-jams and the fan-tods and caked up whatbrains I had, and turned them solid; but by and by they loved the oldman's intellects back into him again, and he was as sound in his skullas ever he was, which ain't no flattery, I reckon. And so the wholefamily was as happy as birds, and nobody could be gratefuler andlovinger than what they was to Tom Sawyer; and the same to me, thoughI hadn't done nothing. And when the two thousand dollars come, Tom givehalf of it to me, and never told anybody so, which didn't surprise me, because I knowed him.