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Chapter XXXII.
WHEN I got there it was all still and
Sunday-like, and hot and sunshiny; the
hands was gone to the fields; and there was
them kind of faint dronings of bugs and
flies in the air that makes it seem so
lonesome and like everybody's dead and
gone; and if a breeze fans along and
quivers the leaves it makes you feel
mournful, because you feel like it's
spirits whispering--spirits that's been
dead ever so many years--and you always
think they're talking about YOU.
As a general thing it makes a body wish HE
was dead, too, and done with it all.
Phelps' was one of these little one-horse
cotton plantations, and they all look
alike.
A rail fence round a two-acre yard; a stile
made out of logs sawed off and up-ended in
steps, like barrels of a different length,
to climb over the fence with, and for the
women to stand on when they are going to
jump on to a horse; some sickly grass-
patches in the big yard, but mostly it was
bare and smooth, like an old hat with the
nap rubbed off; big double log-house for
the white folks--hewed logs, with the
chinks stopped up with mud or mortar, and
these mud-stripes been whitewashed some
time or another; round-log kitchen, with a
big broad, open but roofed passage joining
it to the house; log smoke-house back of
the kitchen; three little log ***-cabins
in a row t'other side the smoke-house; one
little hut all by itself away down against
the back fence, and some outbuildings down
a piece the other side; ash-hopper and big
kettle to bile soap in by the little hut;
bench by the kitchen door, with bucket of
water and a gourd; hound asleep there in
the sun; more hounds asleep round about;
about three shade trees away off in a
corner; some currant bushes and gooseberry
bushes in one place by the fence; outside
of the fence a garden and a watermelon
patch; then the cotton fields begins, and
after the fields the woods.
I went around and clumb over the back stile
by the ash-hopper, and started for the
kitchen.
When I got a little ways I heard the dim
hum of a spinning-wheel wailing along up
and sinking along down again; and then I
knowed for certain I wished I was dead--for
that IS the lonesomest sound in the whole
world.
I went right along, not fixing up any
particular plan, but just trusting to
Providence to put the right words in my
mouth when the time come; for I'd noticed
that Providence always did put the right
words in my mouth if I left it alone.
When I got half-way, first one hound and
then another got up and went for me, and of
course I stopped and faced them, and kept
still.
And such another powwow as they made!
In a quarter of a minute I was a kind of a
hub of a wheel, as you may say--spokes made
out of dogs--circle of fifteen of them
packed together around me, with their necks
and noses stretched up towards me, a-
barking and howling; and more a-coming; you
could see them sailing over fences and
around corners from everywheres.
A *** woman come tearing out of the
kitchen with a rolling-pin in her hand,
singing out, "Begone YOU Tige! you Spot!
begone sah!" and she fetched first one and
then another of them a clip and sent them
howling, and then the rest followed; and
the next second half of them come back,
wagging their tails around me, and making
friends with me.
There ain't no harm in a hound, nohow.
And behind the woman comes a little ***
girl and two little *** boys without
anything on but tow-linen shirts, and they
hung on to their mother's gown, and peeped
out from behind her at me, bashful, the way
they always do.
And here comes the white woman running from
the house, about forty-five or fifty year
old, bareheaded, and her spinning-stick in
her hand; and behind her comes her little
white children, acting the same way the
little *** was doing.
She was smiling all over so she could
hardly stand--and says:
"It's YOU, at last!--AIN'T it?"
I out with a "Yes'm" before I thought.
She grabbed me and hugged me tight; and
then gripped me by both hands and shook and
shook; and the tears come in her eyes, and
run down over; and she couldn't seem to hug
and shake enough, and kept saying, "You
don't look as much like your mother as I
reckoned you would; but law sakes, I don't
care for that, I'm so glad to see you!
Dear, dear, it does seem like I could eat
you up!
Children, it's your cousin Tom!--tell him
howdy."
But they ducked their heads, and put their
fingers in their mouths, and hid behind
her.
So she run on:
"Lize, hurry up and get him a hot breakfast
right away--or did you get your breakfast
on the boat?"
I said I had got it on the boat.
So then she started for the house, leading
me by the hand, and the children tagging
after.
When we got there she set me down in a
split-bottomed chair, and set herself down
on a little low stool in front of me,
holding both of my hands, and says:
"Now I can have a GOOD look at you; and,
laws-a-me, I've been hungry for it a many
and a many a time, all these long years,
and it's come at last!
We been expecting you a couple of days and
more.
What kep' you?--boat get aground?"
"Yes'm--she--"
"Don't say yes'm--say Aunt Sally.
Where'd she get aground?"
I didn't rightly know what to say, because
I didn't know whether the boat would be
coming up the river or down.
But I go a good deal on instinct; and my
instinct said she would be coming up--from
down towards Orleans.
That didn't help me much, though; for I
didn't know the names of bars down that
way.
I see I'd got to invent a bar, or forget
the name of the one we got aground on--or--
Now I struck an idea, and fetched it out:
"It warn't the grounding--that didn't keep
us back but a little.
We blowed out a cylinder-head."
"Good gracious! anybody hurt?"
"No'm.
Killed a ***."
"Well, it's lucky; because sometimes people
do get hurt.
Two years ago last Christmas your uncle
Silas was coming up from Newrleans on the
old Lally Rook, and she blowed out a
cylinder-head and crippled a man.
And I think he died afterwards.
He was a Baptist.
Your uncle Silas knowed a family in Baton
Rouge that knowed his people very well.
Yes, I remember now, he DID die.
Mortification set in, and they had to
amputate him.
But it didn't save him.
Yes, it was mortification--that was it.
He turned blue all over, and died in the
hope of a glorious resurrection.
They say he was a sight to look at.
Your uncle's been up to the town every day
to fetch you.
And he's gone again, not more'n an hour
ago; he'll be back any minute now.
You must a met him on the road, didn't
you?--oldish man, with a--"
"No, I didn't see nobody, Aunt Sally.
The boat landed just at daylight, and I
left my baggage on the wharf-boat and went
looking around the town and out a piece in
the country, to put in the time and not get
here too soon; and so I come down the back
way."
"Who'd you give the baggage to?"
"Nobody."
"Why, child, it 'll be stole!"
"Not where I hid it I reckon it won't," I
says.
"How'd you get your breakfast so early on
the boat?"
It was kinder thin ice, but I says:
"The captain see me standing around, and
told me I better have something to eat
before I went ashore; so he took me in the
texas to the officers' lunch, and give me
all I wanted."
I was getting so uneasy I couldn't listen
good.
I had my mind on the children all the time;
I wanted to get them out to one side and
pump them a little, and find out who I was.
But I couldn't get no show, Mrs. Phelps
kept it up and run on so.
Pretty soon she made the cold chills streak
all down my back, because she says:
"But here we're a-running on this way, and
you hain't told me a word about Sis, nor
any of them.
Now I'll rest my works a little, and you
start up yourn; just tell me EVERYTHING--
tell me all about 'm all every one of 'm;
and how they are, and what they're doing,
and what they told you to tell me; and
every last thing you can think of."
Well, I see I was up a stump--and up it
good.
Providence had stood by me this fur all
right, but I was hard and tight aground
now.
I see it warn't a bit of use to try to go
ahead--I'd got to throw up my hand.
So I says to myself, here's another place
where I got to resk the truth.
I opened my mouth to begin; but she grabbed
me and hustled me in behind the bed, and
says:
"Here he comes!
Stick your head down lower--there, that'll
do; you can't be seen now.
Don't you let on you're here.
I'll play a joke on him.
Children, don't you say a word."
I see I was in a fix now.
But it warn't no use to worry; there warn't
nothing to do but just hold still, and try
and be ready to stand from under when the
lightning struck.
I had just one little glimpse of the old
gentleman when he come in; then the bed hid
him.
Mrs. Phelps she jumps for him, and says:
"Has he come?"
"No," says her husband.
"Good-NESS gracious!" she says, "what in
the warld can have become of him?"
"I can't imagine," says the old gentleman;
"and I must say it makes me dreadful
uneasy."
"Uneasy!" she says; "I'm ready to go
distracted!
He MUST a come; and you've missed him along
the road.
I KNOW it's so--something tells me so."
"Why, Sally, I COULDN'T miss him along the
road--YOU know that."
"But oh, dear, dear, what WILL Sis say!
He must a come!
You must a missed him.
He--"
"Oh, don't distress me any more'n I'm
already distressed.
I don't know what in the world to make of
it.
I'm at my wit's end, and I don't mind
acknowledging 't I'm right down scared.
But there's no hope that he's come; for he
COULDN'T come and me miss him.
Sally, it's terrible--just terrible--
something's happened to the boat, sure!"
"Why, Silas!
Look yonder!--up the road!--ain't that
somebody coming?"
He sprung to the window at the head of the
bed, and that give Mrs. Phelps the chance
she wanted.
She stooped down quick at the foot of the
bed and give me a pull, and out I come; and
when he turned back from the window there
she stood, a-beaming and a-smiling like a
house afire, and I standing pretty meek and
sweaty alongside.
The old gentleman stared, and says:
"Why, who's that?"
"Who do you reckon 't is?"
"I hain't no idea.
Who IS it?"
"It's TOM SAWYER!"
By jings, I most slumped through the floor!
But there warn't no time to swap knives;
the old man grabbed me by the hand and
shook, and kept on shaking; and all the
time how the woman did dance around and
laugh and cry; and then how they both did
fire off questions about Sid, and Mary, and
the rest of the tribe.
But if they was joyful, it warn't nothing
to what I was; for it was like being born
again, I was so glad to find out who I was.
Well, they froze to me for two hours; and
at last, when my chin was so tired it
couldn't hardly go any more, I had told
them more about my family--I mean the
Sawyer family--than ever happened to any
six Sawyer families.
And I explained all about how we blowed out
a cylinder-head at the mouth of White
River, and it took us three days to fix it.
Which was all right, and worked first-rate;
because THEY didn't know but what it would
take three days to fix it.
If I'd a called it a bolthead it would a
done just as well.
Now I was feeling pretty comfortable all
down one side, and pretty uncomfortable all
up the other.
Being Tom Sawyer was easy and comfortable,
and it stayed easy and comfortable till by
and by I hear a steamboat coughing along
down the river.
Then I says to myself, s'pose Tom Sawyer
comes down on that boat?
And s'pose he steps in here any minute, and
sings out my name before I can throw him a
wink to keep quiet?
Well, I couldn't HAVE it that way; it
wouldn't do at all.
I must go up the road and waylay him.
So I told the folks I reckoned I would go
up to the town and fetch down my baggage.
The old gentleman was for going along with
me, but I said no, I could drive the horse
myself, and I druther he wouldn't take no
trouble about me.