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Chapter XXV THERE comes a time in every rightly-
constructed boy's life when he has a raging desire to go somewhere and dig for
hidden treasure.
This desire suddenly came upon Tom one day.
He sallied out to find Joe Harper, but failed of success.
Next he sought Ben Rogers; he had gone fishing.
Presently he stumbled upon Huck Finn the Red-Handed.
Huck would answer.
Tom took him to a private place and opened the matter to him confidentially.
Huck was willing.
Huck was always willing to take a hand in any enterprise that offered entertainment
and required no capital, for he had a troublesome superabundance of that sort of
time which is not money.
"Where'll we dig?" said Huck.
"Oh, most anywhere." "Why, is it hid all around?"
"No, indeed it ain't.
It's hid in mighty particular places, Huck --sometimes on islands, sometimes in
rotten chests under the end of a limb of an old dead tree, just where the shadow
falls at midnight; but mostly under the floor in ha'nted houses."
"Who hides it?" "Why, robbers, of course--who'd you
reckon?
Sunday-school sup'rintendents?" "I don't know.
If 'twas mine I wouldn't hide it; I'd spend it and have a good time."
"So would I.
But robbers don't do that way. They always hide it and leave it there."
"Don't they come after it any more?"
"No, they think they will, but they generally forget the marks, or else they
die.
Anyway, it lays there a long time and gets rusty; and by and by somebody finds an old
yellow paper that tells how to find the marks--a paper that's got to be ciphered
over about a week because it's mostly signs and hy'roglyphics."
"Hyro--which?" "Hy'roglyphics--pictures and things, you
know, that don't seem to mean anything."
"Have you got one of them papers, Tom?" "No."
"Well then, how you going to find the marks?"
"I don't want any marks.
They always bury it under a ha'nted house or on an island, or under a dead tree
that's got one limb sticking out.
Well, we've tried Jackson's Island a little, and we can try it again some time;
and there's the old ha'nted house up the Still-House branch, and there's lots of
dead-limb trees--dead loads of 'em."
"Is it under all of them?" "How you talk!
No!" "Then how you going to know which one to
go for?"
"Go for all of 'em!" "Why, Tom, it'll take all summer."
"Well, what of that?
Suppose you find a brass pot with a hundred dollars in it, all rusty and gray,
or rotten chest full of di'monds. How's that?"
Huck's eyes glowed.
"That's bully. Plenty bully enough for me.
Just you gimme the hundred dollars and I don't want no di'monds."
"All right.
But I bet you I ain't going to throw off on di'monds.
Some of 'em's worth twenty dollars apiece- -there ain't any, hardly, but's worth six
bits or a dollar."
"No! Is that so?"
"Cert'nly--anybody'll tell you so. Hain't you ever seen one, Huck?"
"Not as I remember."
"Oh, kings have slathers of them." "Well, I don' know no kings, Tom."
"I reckon you don't. But if you was to go to Europe you'd see a
raft of 'em hopping around."
"Do they hop?" "Hop?--your granny!
No!" "Well, what did you say they did, for?"
"Shucks, I only meant you'd SEE 'em--not hopping, of course--what do they want to
hop for?--but I mean you'd just see 'em-- scattered around, you know, in a kind of a
general way.
Like that old humpbacked Richard." "Richard?
What's his other name?" "He didn't have any other name.
Kings don't have any but a given name."
"No?" "But they don't."
"Well, if they like it, Tom, all right; but I don't want to be a king and have
only just a given name, like a ***.
But say--where you going to dig first?" "Well, I don't know.
S'pose we tackle that old dead-limb tree on the hill t'other side of Still-House
"I'm agreed." So they got a crippled pick and a shovel,
and set out on their three-mile ***.
They arrived hot and panting, and threw themselves down in the shade of a
neighboring elm to rest and have a smoke. "I like this," said Tom.
"So do I."
"Say, Huck, if we find a treasure here, what you going to do with your share?"
"Well, I'll have pie and a glass of soda every day, and I'll go to every circus
that comes along.
I bet I'll have a gay time." "Well, ain't you going to save any of it?"
"Save it? What for?"
"Why, so as to have something to live on, by and by."
"Oh, that ain't any use.
Pap would come back to thish-yer town some day and get his claws on it if I didn't
hurry up, and I tell you he'd clean it out pretty quick.
What you going to do with yourn, Tom?"
"I'm going to buy a new drum, and a sure- 'nough sword, and a red necktie and a bull
pup, and get married." "Married!"
"That's it."
"Tom, you--why, you ain't in your right mind."
"Wait--you'll see." "Well, that's the foolishest thing you
could do.
Look at pap and my mother. Fight!
Why, they used to fight all the time. I remember, mighty well."
"That ain't anything.
The girl I'm going to marry won't fight." "Tom, I reckon they're all alike.
They'll all comb a body. Now you better think 'bout this awhile.
I tell you you better.
What's the name of the gal?" "It ain't a gal at all--it's a girl."
"It's all the same, I reckon; some says gal, some says girl--both's right, like
enough.
Anyway, what's her name, Tom?" "I'll tell you some time--not now."
"All right--that'll do. Only if you get married I'll be more
lonesomer than ever."
"No you won't. You'll come and live with me.
Now stir out of this and we'll go to digging."
They worked and sweated for half an hour.
No result. They toiled another half-hour.
Still no result. Huck said:
"Do they always bury it as deep as this?"
"Sometimes--not always. Not generally.
I reckon we haven't got the right place." So they chose a new spot and began again.
The labor dragged a little, but still they made progress.
They pegged away in silence for some time.
Finally Huck leaned on his shovel, swabbed the beaded drops from his brow with his
sleeve, and said: "Where you going to dig next, after we get
this one?"
"I reckon maybe we'll tackle the old tree that's over yonder on Cardiff Hill back of
the widow's." "I reckon that'll be a good one.
But won't the widow take it away from us, Tom?
It's on her land." "SHE take it away!
Maybe she'd like to try it once.
Whoever finds one of these hid treasures, it belongs to him.
It don't make any difference whose land it's on."
That was satisfactory.
The work went on. By and by Huck said:
"Blame it, we must be in the wrong place again.
What do you think?"
"It is mighty curious, Huck. I don't understand it.
Sometimes witches interfere. I reckon maybe that's what's the trouble
now."
"Shucks! Witches ain't got no power in the
daytime." "Well, that's so.
I didn't think of that.
Oh, I know what the matter is! What a blamed lot of fools we are!
You got to find out where the shadow of the limb falls at midnight, and that's
where you dig!"
"Then consound it, we've fooled away all this work for nothing.
Now hang it all, we got to come back in the night.
It's an awful long way.
Can you get out?" "I bet I will.
We've got to do it to-night, too, because if somebody sees these holes they'll know
in a minute what's here and they'll go for it."
"Well, I'll come around and maow to- night."
"All right. Let's hide the tools in the bushes."
The boys were there that night, about the appointed time.
They sat in the shadow waiting. It was a lonely place, and an hour made
solemn by old traditions.
Spirits whispered in the rustling leaves, ghosts lurked in the murky nooks, the deep
baying of a hound floated up out of the distance, an owl answered with his
sepulchral note.
The boys were subdued by these solemnities, and talked little.
By and by they judged that twelve had come; they marked where the shadow fell,
and began to dig.
Their hopes commenced to rise. Their interest grew stronger, and their
industry kept pace with it.
The hole deepened and still deepened, but every time their hearts jumped to hear the
pick strike upon something, they only suffered a new disappointment.
It was only a stone or a chunk.
At last Tom said: "It ain't any use, Huck, we're wrong
again." "Well, but we CAN'T be wrong.
We spotted the shadder to a dot."
"I know it, but then there's another thing."
"What's that?". "Why, we only guessed at the time.
Like enough it was too late or too early."
Huck dropped his shovel. "That's it," said he.
"That's the very trouble. We got to give this one up.
We can't ever tell the right time, and besides this kind of thing's too awful,
here this time of night with witches and ghosts a-fluttering around so.
I feel as if something's behind me all the time; and I'm afeard to turn around, becuz
maybe there's others in front a-waiting for a chance.
I been creeping all over, ever since I got here."
"Well, I've been pretty much so, too, Huck.
They most always put in a dead man when they bury a treasure under a tree, to look
out for it." "Lordy!"
"Yes, they do.
I've always heard that." "Tom, I don't like to fool around much
where there's dead people. A body's bound to get into trouble with
'em, sure."
"I don't like to stir 'em up, either. S'pose this one here was to stick his
skull out and say something!" "Don't Tom!
It's awful."
"Well, it just is. Huck, I don't feel comfortable a bit."
"Say, Tom, let's give this place up, and try somewheres else."
"All right, I reckon we better."
"What'll it be?" Tom considered awhile; and then said:
"The ha'nted house. That's it!"
"Blame it, I don't like ha'nted houses, Tom.
Why, they're a dern sight worse'n dead people.
Dead people might talk, maybe, but they don't come sliding around in a shroud,
when you ain't noticing, and peep over your shoulder all of a sudden and grit
their teeth, the way a ghost does.
I couldn't stand such a thing as that, Tom--nobody could."
"Yes, but, Huck, ghosts don't travel around only at night.
They won't hender us from digging there in the daytime."
"Well, that's so.
But you know mighty well people don't go about that ha'nted house in the day nor
the night."
"Well, that's mostly because they don't like to go where a man's been murdered,
anyway--but nothing's ever been seen around that house except in the night--
just some blue lights slipping by the windows--no regular ghosts."
"Well, where you see one of them blue lights flickering around, Tom, you can bet
there's a ghost mighty close behind it.
It stands to reason. Becuz you know that they don't anybody but
ghosts use 'em." "Yes, that's so.
But anyway they don't come around in the daytime, so what's the use of our being
afeard?" "Well, all right.
We'll tackle the ha'nted house if you say so--but I reckon it's taking chances."
They had started down the hill by this time.
There in the middle of the moonlit valley below them stood the "ha'nted" house,
utterly isolated, its fences gone long ago, rank weeds smothering the very
doorsteps, the chimney crumbled to ruin,
the window-sashes vacant, a corner of the roof caved in.
The boys gazed awhile, half expecting to see a blue light flit past a window; then
talking in a low tone, as befitted the time and the circumstances, they struck
far off to the right, to give the haunted
house a wide berth, and took their way homeward through the woods that adorned
the rearward side of Cardiff Hill.
>
Chapter XXVI ABOUT noon the next day the boys arrived
at the dead tree; they had come for their tools.
Tom was impatient to go to the haunted house; Huck was measurably so, also--but
suddenly said: "Lookyhere, Tom, do you know what day it
is?"
Tom mentally ran over the days of the week, and then quickly lifted his eyes
with a startled look in them-- "My!
I never once thought of it, Huck!"
"Well, I didn't neither, but all at once it popped onto me that it was Friday."
"Blame it, a body can't be too careful, Huck.
We might 'a' got into an awful scrape, tackling such a thing on a Friday."
"MIGHT! Better say we WOULD!
There's some lucky days, maybe, but Friday ain't."
"Any fool knows that. I don't reckon YOU was the first that
found it out, Huck."
"Well, I never said I was, did I? And Friday ain't all, neither.
I had a rotten bad dream last night-- dreampt about rats."
"No!
Sure sign of trouble. Did they fight?"
"No." "Well, that's good, Huck.
When they don't fight it's only a sign that there's trouble around, you know.
All we got to do is to look mighty sharp and keep out of it.
We'll drop this thing for to-day, and play.
Do you know Robin Hood, Huck?" "No.
Who's Robin Hood?"
"Why, he was one of the greatest men that was ever in England--and the best.
He was a robber." "Cracky, I wisht I was.
Who did he rob?"
"Only sheriffs and bishops and rich people and kings, and such like.
But he never bothered the poor. He loved 'em.
He always divided up with 'em perfectly square."
"Well, he must 'a' been a brick." "I bet you he was, Huck.
Oh, he was the noblest man that ever was.
They ain't any such men now, I can tell you.
He could lick any man in England, with one hand tied behind him; and he could take
his yew bow and plug a ten-cent piece every time, a mile and a half."
"What's a YEW bow?"
"I don't know. It's some kind of a bow, of course.
And if he hit that dime only on the edge he would set down and cry--and curse.
But we'll play Robin Hood--it's nobby fun.
I'll learn you." "I'm agreed."
So they played Robin Hood all the afternoon, now and then casting a yearning
eye down upon the haunted house and passing a remark about the morrow's
prospects and possibilities there.
As the sun began to sink into the west they took their way homeward athwart the
long shadows of the trees and soon were buried from sight in the forests of
Cardiff Hill.
On Saturday, shortly after noon, the boys were at the dead tree again.
They had a smoke and a chat in the shade, and then dug a little in their last hole,
not with great hope, but merely because Tom said there were so many cases where
people had given up a treasure after
getting down within six inches of it, and then somebody else had come along and
turned it up with a single thrust of a shovel.
The thing failed this time, however, so the boys shouldered their tools and went
away feeling that they had not trifled with fortune, but had fulfilled all the
requirements that belong to the business of treasure-hunting.
When they reached the haunted house there was something so weird and grisly about
the dead silence that reigned there under the baking sun, and something so
depressing about the loneliness and
desolation of the place, that they were afraid, for a moment, to venture in.
Then they crept to the door and took a trembling peep.
They saw a weed-grown, floorless room, unplastered, an ancient fireplace, vacant
windows, a ruinous staircase; and here, there, and everywhere hung ragged and
abandoned cobwebs.
They presently entered, softly, with quickened pulses, talking in whispers,
ears alert to catch the slightest sound, and muscles tense and ready for instant
retreat.
In a little while familiarity modified their fears and they gave the place a
critical and interested examination, rather admiring their own boldness, and
wondering at it, too.
Next they wanted to look up-stairs.
This was something like cutting off retreat, but they got to daring each
other, and of course there could be but one result--they threw their tools into a
corner and made the ascent.
Up there were the same signs of decay. In one corner they found a closet that
promised mystery, but the promise was a fraud--there was nothing in it.
Their courage was up now and well in hand.
They were about to go down and begin work when--
"Sh!" said Tom.
"What is it?"
whispered Huck, blanching with fright. "Sh!...
There!... Hear it?"
"Yes!...
Oh, my! Let's run!"
"Keep still! Don't you budge!
They're coming right toward the door."
The boys stretched themselves upon the floor with their eyes to knot-holes in the
planking, and lay waiting, in a misery of fear.
"They've stopped....
No--coming.... Here they are.
Don't whisper another word, Huck. My goodness, I wish I was out of this!"
Two men entered.
Each boy said to himself: "There's the old deaf and dumb Spaniard that's been about
town once or twice lately--never saw t'other man before."
"T'other" was a ragged, unkempt creature, with nothing very pleasant in his face.
The Spaniard was wrapped in a serape; he had bushy white whiskers; long white hair
flowed from under his sombrero, and he wore green goggles.
When they came in, "t'other" was talking in a low voice; they sat down on the
ground, facing the door, with their backs to the wall, and the speaker continued his
remarks.
His manner became less guarded and his words more distinct as he proceeded:
"No," said he, "I've thought it all over, and I don't like it.
It's dangerous."
"Dangerous!" grunted the "deaf and dumb" Spaniard--to
the vast surprise of the boys. "Milksop!"
This voice made the boys gasp and quake.
It was *** Joe's! There was silence for some time.
Then Joe said: "What's any more dangerous than that job
up yonder--but nothing's come of it."
"That's different. Away up the river so, and not another
house about. 'Twon't ever be known that we tried,
anyway, long as we didn't succeed."
"Well, what's more dangerous than coming here in the daytime!--anybody would
suspicion us that saw us." "I know that.
But there warn't any other place as handy after that fool of a job.
I want to quit this shanty.
I wanted to yesterday, only it warn't any use trying to stir out of here, with those
infernal boys playing over there on the hill right in full view."
"Those infernal boys" quaked again under the inspiration of this remark, and
thought how lucky it was that they had remembered it was Friday and concluded to
wait a day.
They wished in their hearts they had waited a year.
The two men got out some food and made a luncheon.
After a long and thoughtful silence, *** Joe said:
"Look here, lad--you go back up the river where you belong.
Wait there till you hear from me.
I'll take the chances on dropping into this town just once more, for a look.
We'll do that 'dangerous' job after I've spied around a little and think things
look well for it.
Then for Texas! We'll leg it together!"
This was satisfactory. Both men presently fell to yawning, and
*** Joe said:
"I'm dead for sleep! It's your turn to watch."
He curled down in the weeds and soon began to snore.
His comrade stirred him once or twice and he became quiet.
Presently the watcher began to nod; his head drooped lower and lower, both men
began to snore now.
The boys drew a long, grateful breath. Tom whispered:
"Now's our chance--come!" Huck said:
"I can't--I'd die if they was to wake."
Tom urged--Huck held back. At last Tom rose slowly and softly, and
started alone.
But the first step he made wrung such a hideous creak from the crazy floor that he
sank down almost dead with fright. He never made a second attempt.
The boys lay there counting the dragging moments till it seemed to them that time
must be done and eternity growing gray; and then they were grateful to note that
at last the sun was setting.
Now one snore ceased. *** Joe sat up, stared around--smiled
grimly upon his comrade, whose head was drooping upon his knees--stirred him up
with his foot and said:
"Here! YOU'RE a watchman, ain't you!
All right, though--nothing's happened." "My!
have I been asleep?"
"Oh, partly, partly. Nearly time for us to be moving, pard.
What'll we do with what little swag we've got left?"
"I don't know--leave it here as we've always done, I reckon.
No use to take it away till we start south.
Six hundred and fifty in silver's something to carry."
"Well--all right--it won't matter to come here once more."
"No--but I'd say come in the night as we used to do--it's better."
"Yes: but look here; it may be a good while before I get the right chance at
that job; accidents might happen; 'tain't in such a very good place; we'll just
regularly bury it--and bury it deep."
"Good idea," said the comrade, who walked across the room, knelt down, raised one of
the rearward hearth-stones and took out a bag that jingled pleasantly.
He subtracted from it twenty or thirty dollars for himself and as much for ***
Joe, and passed the bag to the latter, who was on his knees in the corner, now,
digging with his bowie-knife.
The boys forgot all their fears, all their miseries in an instant.
With gloating eyes they watched every movement.
Luck!--the splendor of it was beyond all imagination!
Six hundred dollars was money enough to make half a dozen boys rich!
Here was treasure-hunting under the happiest auspices--there would not be any
bothersome uncertainty as to where to dig.
They nudged each other every moment-- eloquent nudges and easily understood, for
they simply meant--"Oh, but ain't you glad NOW we're here!"
Joe's knife struck upon something.
"Hello!" said he.
"What is it?" said his comrade.
"Half-rotten plank--no, it's a box, I believe.
Here--bear a hand and we'll see what it's here for.
Never mind, I've broke a hole."
He reached his hand in and drew it out-- "Man, it's money!"
The two men examined the handful of coins. They were gold.
The boys above were as excited as themselves, and as delighted.
Joe's comrade said: "We'll make quick work of this.
There's an old rusty pick over amongst the weeds in the corner the other side of the
fireplace--I saw it a minute ago." He ran and brought the boys' pick and
shovel.
*** Joe took the pick, looked it over critically, shook his head, muttered
something to himself, and then began to use it.
The box was soon unearthed.
It was not very large; it was iron bound and had been very strong before the slow
years had injured it. The men contemplated the treasure awhile
in blissful silence.
"Pard, there's thousands of dollars here," said *** Joe.
"'Twas always said that Murrel's gang used to be around here one summer," the
stranger observed.
"I know it," said *** Joe; "and this looks like it, I should say."
"Now you won't need to do that job." The half-breed frowned.
Said he:
"You don't know me. Least you don't know all about that thing.
'Tain't robbery altogether--it's REVENGE!" and a wicked light flamed in his eyes.
"I'll need your help in it.
When it's finished--then Texas. Go home to your Nance and your kids, and
stand by till you hear from me." "Well--if you say so; what'll we do with
this--bury it again?"
"Yes. [Ravishing delight overhead.] NO!
by the great Sachem, no! [Profound distress overhead.] I'd nearly
forgot.
That pick had fresh earth on it! [The boys were sick with terror in a
moment.] What business has a pick and a shovel here?
What business with fresh earth on them?
Who brought them here--and where are they gone?
Have you heard anybody?--seen anybody? What!
bury it again and leave them to come and see the ground disturbed?
Not exactly--not exactly. We'll take it to my den."
"Why, of course!
Might have thought of that before. You mean Number One?"
"No--Number Two--under the cross. The other place is bad--too common."
"All right.
It's nearly dark enough to start." *** Joe got up and went about from
window to window cautiously peeping out. Presently he said:
"Who could have brought those tools here?
Do you reckon they can be up-stairs?" The boys' breath forsook them.
*** Joe put his hand on his knife, halted a moment, undecided, and then
turned toward the stairway.
The boys thought of the closet, but their strength was gone.
The steps came creaking up the stairs--the intolerable distress of the situation woke
the stricken resolution of the lads--they were about to spring for the closet, when
there was a crash of rotten timbers and
*** Joe landed on the ground amid the debris of the ruined stairway.
He gathered himself up cursing, and his comrade said:
"Now what's the use of all that?
If it's anybody, and they're up there, let them STAY there--who cares?
If they want to jump down, now, and get into trouble, who objects?
It will be dark in fifteen minutes --and then let them follow us if they want to.
I'm willing.
In my opinion, whoever hove those things in here caught a sight of us and took us
for ghosts or devils or something. I'll bet they're running yet."
Joe grumbled awhile; then he agreed with his friend that what daylight was left
ought to be economized in getting things ready for leaving.
Shortly afterward they slipped out of the house in the deepening twilight, and moved
toward the river with their precious box.
Tom and Huck rose up, weak but vastly relieved, and stared after them through
the chinks between the logs of the house. Follow?
Not they.
They were content to reach ground again without broken necks, and take the
townward track over the hill. They did not talk much.
They were too much absorbed in hating themselves--hating the ill luck that made
them take the spade and the pick there. But for that, *** Joe never would have
suspected.
He would have hidden the silver with the gold to wait there till his "revenge" was
satisfied, and then he would have had the misfortune to find that money turn up
missing.
Bitter, bitter luck that the tools were ever brought there!
They resolved to keep a lookout for that Spaniard when he should come to town
spying out for chances to do his revengeful job, and follow him to "Number
Two," wherever that might be.
Then a ghastly thought occurred to Tom. "Revenge?
What if he means US, Huck!" "Oh, don't!"
said Huck, nearly fainting.
They talked it all over, and as they entered town they agreed to believe that
he might possibly mean somebody else--at least that he might at least mean nobody
but Tom, since only Tom had testified.
Very, very small comfort it was to Tom to be alone in danger!
Company would be a palpable improvement, he thought.
>
Chapter XXVII THE adventure of the day mightily
tormented Tom's dreams that night.
Four times he had his hands on that rich treasure and four times it wasted to
nothingness in his fingers as sleep forsook him and wakefulness brought back
the hard reality of his misfortune.
As he lay in the early morning recalling the incidents of his great adventure, he
noticed that they seemed curiously subdued and far away--somewhat as if they had
happened in another world, or in a time long gone by.
Then it occurred to him that the great adventure itself must be a dream!
There was one very strong argument in favor of this idea--namely, that the
quantity of coin he had seen was too vast to be real.
He had never seen as much as fifty dollars in one mass before, and he was like all
boys of his age and station in life, in that he imagined that all references to
"hundreds" and "thousands" were mere
fanciful forms of speech, and that no such sums really existed in the world.
He never had supposed for a moment that so large a sum as a hundred dollars was to be
found in actual money in any one's possession.
If his notions of hidden treasure had been analyzed, they would have been found to
consist of a handful of real dimes and a bushel of vague, splendid, ungraspable
dollars.
But the incidents of his adventure grew sensibly sharper and clearer under the
attrition of thinking them over, and so he presently found himself leaning to the
impression that the thing might not have been a dream, after all.
This uncertainty must be swept away. He would *** a hurried breakfast and go
and find Huck.
Huck was sitting on the gunwale of a flatboat, listlessly dangling his feet in
the water and looking very melancholy. Tom concluded to let Huck lead up to the
subject.
If he did not do it, then the adventure would be proved to have been only a dream.
"Hello, Huck!" "Hello, yourself."
Silence, for a minute.
"Tom, if we'd 'a' left the blame tools at the dead tree, we'd 'a' got the money.
Oh, ain't it awful!" "'Tain't a dream, then, 'tain't a dream!
Somehow I most wish it was.
Dog'd if I don't, Huck." "What ain't a dream?"
"Oh, that thing yesterday. I been half thinking it was."
"Dream!
If them stairs hadn't broke down you'd 'a' seen how much dream it was!
I've had dreams enough all night--with that patch-eyed Spanish devil going for me
all through 'em--rot him!"
"No, not rot him. FIND him!
Track the money!" "Tom, we'll never find him.
A feller don't have only one chance for such a pile--and that one's lost.
I'd feel mighty shaky if I was to see him, anyway."
"Well, so'd I; but I'd like to see him, anyway--and track him out--to his Number
Two." "Number Two--yes, that's it.
I been thinking 'bout that.
But I can't make nothing out of it. What do you reckon it is?"
"I dono. It's too deep.
Say, Huck--maybe it's the number of a house!"
"Goody!... No, Tom, that ain't it.
If it is, it ain't in this one-horse town.
They ain't no numbers here." "Well, that's so.
Lemme think a minute. Here--it's the number of a room--in a
tavern, you know!"
"Oh, that's the trick! They ain't only two taverns.
We can find out quick." "You stay here, Huck, till I come."
Tom was off at once.
He did not care to have Huck's company in public places.
He was gone half an hour.
He found that in the best tavern, No. 2 had long been occupied by a young lawyer,
and was still so occupied. In the less ostentatious house, No. 2 was
a mystery.
The tavern-keeper's young son said it was kept locked all the time, and he never saw
anybody go into it or come out of it except at night; he did not know any
particular reason for this state of
things; had had some little curiosity, but it was rather feeble; had made the most of
the mystery by entertaining himself with the idea that that room was "ha'nted"; had
noticed that there was a light in there the night before.
"That's what I've found out, Huck. I reckon that's the very No. 2 we're
after."
"I reckon it is, Tom. Now what you going to do?"
"Lemme think." Tom thought a long time.
Then he said:
"I'll tell you. The back door of that No. 2 is the door
that comes out into that little close alley between the tavern and the old
rattle trap of a brick store.
Now you get hold of all the door-keys you can find, and I'll nip all of auntie's,
and the first dark night we'll go there and try 'em.
And mind you, keep a lookout for *** Joe, because he said he was going to drop
into town and spy around once more for a chance to get his revenge.
If you see him, you just follow him; and if he don't go to that No. 2, that ain't
the place." "Lordy, I don't want to foller him by
myself!"
"Why, it'll be night, sure. He mightn't ever see you--and if he did,
maybe he'd never think anything." "Well, if it's pretty dark I reckon I'll
track him.
I dono--I dono. I'll try."
"You bet I'll follow him, if it's dark, Huck.
Why, he might 'a' found out he couldn't get his revenge, and be going right after
that money." "It's so, Tom, it's so.
I'll foller him; I will, by jingoes!"
"Now you're TALKING! Don't you ever weaken, Huck, and I won't."
>
Chapter XXVIII THAT night Tom and Huck were ready for
their adventure.
They hung about the neighborhood of the tavern until after nine, one watching the
alley at a distance and the other the tavern door.
Nobody entered the alley or left it; nobody resembling the Spaniard entered or
left the tavern door.
The night promised to be a fair one; so Tom went home with the understanding that
if a considerable degree of darkness came on, Huck was to come and "maow," whereupon
he would slip out and try the keys.
But the night remained clear, and Huck closed his watch and retired to bed in an
empty sugar hogshead about twelve. Tuesday the boys had the same ill luck.
Also Wednesday.
But Thursday night promised better. Tom slipped out in good season with his
aunt's old tin lantern, and a large towel to blindfold it with.
He hid the lantern in Huck's sugar hogshead and the watch began.
An hour before midnight the tavern closed up and its lights (the only ones
thereabouts) were put out.
No Spaniard had been seen. Nobody had entered or left the alley.
Everything was auspicious.
The blackness of darkness reigned, the perfect stillness was interrupted only by
occasional mutterings of distant thunder.
Tom got his lantern, lit it in the hogshead, wrapped it closely in the towel,
and the two adventurers crept in the gloom toward the tavern.
Huck stood sentry and Tom felt his way into the alley.
Then there was a season of waiting anxiety that weighed upon Huck's spirits like a
mountain.
He began to wish he could see a flash from the lantern--it would frighten him, but it
would at least tell him that Tom was alive yet.
It seemed hours since Tom had disappeared.
Surely he must have fainted; maybe he was dead; maybe his heart had burst under
terror and excitement.
In his uneasiness Huck found himself drawing closer and closer to the alley;
fearing all sorts of dreadful things, and momentarily expecting some catastrophe to
happen that would take away his breath.
There was not much to take away, for he seemed only able to inhale it by
thimblefuls, and his heart would soon wear itself out, the way it was beating.
Suddenly there was a flash of light and Tom came tearing by him: "Run!"
said he; "run, for your life!"
He needn't have repeated it; once was enough; Huck was making thirty or forty
miles an hour before the repetition was uttered.
The boys never stopped till they reached the shed of a deserted slaughter-house at
the lower end of the village. Just as they got within its shelter the
storm burst and the rain poured down.
As soon as Tom got his breath he said: "Huck, it was awful!
I tried two of the keys, just as soft as I could; but they seemed to make such a
power of racket that I couldn't hardly get my breath I was so scared.
They wouldn't turn in the lock, either.
Well, without noticing what I was doing, I took hold of the ***, and open comes the
door! It warn't locked!
I hopped in, and shook off the towel, and, GREAT CAESAR'S GHOST!"
"What!--what'd you see, Tom?" "Huck, I most stepped onto *** Joe's
hand!"
"No!" "Yes!
He was lying there, sound asleep on the floor, with his old patch on his eye and
his arms spread out."
"Lordy, what did you do? Did he wake up?"
"No, never budged. Drunk, I reckon.
I just grabbed that towel and started!"
"I'd never 'a' thought of the towel, I bet!"
"Well, I would. My aunt would make me mighty sick if I
lost it."
"Say, Tom, did you see that box?" "Huck, I didn't wait to look around.
I didn't see the box, I didn't see the cross.
I didn't see anything but a bottle and a tin cup on the floor by *** Joe; yes, I
saw two barrels and lots more bottles in the room.
Don't you see, now, what's the matter with that ha'nted room?"
"How?" "Why, it's ha'nted with whiskey!
Maybe ALL the Temperance Taverns have got a ha'nted room, hey, Huck?"
"Well, I reckon maybe that's so. Who'd 'a' thought such a thing?
But say, Tom, now's a mighty good time to get that box, if *** Joe's drunk."
"It is, that! You try it!"
Huck shuddered.
"Well, no--I reckon not." "And I reckon not, Huck.
Only one bottle alongside of *** Joe ain't enough.
If there'd been three, he'd be drunk enough and I'd do it."
There was a long pause for reflection, and then Tom said:
"Lookyhere, Huck, less not try that thing any more till we know *** Joe's not in
there. It's too scary.
Now, if we watch every night, we'll be dead sure to see him go out, some time or
other, and then we'll *** that box quicker'n lightning."
"Well, I'm agreed.
I'll watch the whole night long, and I'll do it every night, too, if you'll do the
other part of the job." "All right, I will.
All you got to do is to trot up Hooper Street a block and maow--and if I'm
asleep, you throw some gravel at the window and that'll fetch me."
"Agreed, and good as wheat!"
"Now, Huck, the storm's over, and I'll go home.
It'll begin to be daylight in a couple of hours.
You go back and watch that long, will you?"
"I said I would, Tom, and I will. I'll ha'nt that tavern every night for a
year!
I'll sleep all day and I'll stand watch all night."
"That's all right. Now, where you going to sleep?"
"In Ben Rogers' hayloft.
He lets me, and so does his pap's *** man, Uncle Jake.
I tote water for Uncle Jake whenever he wants me to, and any time I ask him he
gives me a little something to eat if he can spare it.
That's a mighty good ***, Tom.
He likes me, becuz I don't ever act as if I was above him.
Sometime I've set right down and eat WITH him.
But you needn't tell that.
A body's got to do things when he's awful hungry he wouldn't want to do as a steady
thing." "Well, if I don't want you in the daytime,
I'll let you sleep.
I won't come bothering around. Any time you see something's up, in the
night, just skip right around and maow."
>
Chapter XXIX THE first thing Tom heard on Friday
morning was a glad piece of news --Judge Thatcher's family had come back to town
the night before.
Both *** Joe and the treasure sunk into secondary importance for a moment, and
Becky took the chief place in the boy's interest.
He saw her and they had an exhausting good time playing "hi-spy" and "gully-keeper"
with a crowd of their school-mates.
The day was completed and crowned in a peculiarly satisfactory way: Becky teased
her mother to appoint the next day for the long-promised and long-delayed picnic, and
she consented.
The child's delight was boundless; and Tom's not more moderate.
The invitations were sent out before sunset, and straightway the young folks of
the village were thrown into a fever of preparation and pleasurable anticipation.
Tom's excitement enabled him to keep awake until a pretty late hour, and he had good
hopes of hearing Huck's "maow," and of having his treasure to astonish Becky and
the picnickers with, next day; but he was disappointed.
No signal came that night.
Morning came, eventually, and by ten or eleven o'clock a giddy and rollicking
company were gathered at Judge Thatcher's, and everything was ready for a start.
It was not the custom for elderly people to mar the picnics with their presence.
The children were considered safe enough under the wings of a few young ladies of
eighteen and a few young gentlemen of twenty-three or thereabouts.
The old steam ferryboat was chartered for the occasion; presently the gay throng
filed up the main street laden with provision-baskets.
Sid was sick and had to miss the fun; Mary remained at home to entertain him.
The last thing Mrs. Thatcher said to Becky, was:
"You'll not get back till late.
Perhaps you'd better stay all night with some of the girls that live near the
ferry-landing, child." "Then I'll stay with Susy Harper, mamma."
"Very well.
And mind and behave yourself and don't be any trouble."
Presently, as they tripped along, Tom said to Becky:
"Say--I'll tell you what we'll do.
'Stead of going to Joe Harper's we'll climb right up the hill and stop at the
Widow Douglas'. She'll have ice-cream!
She has it most every day--dead loads of it.
And she'll be awful glad to have us." "Oh, that will be fun!"
Then Becky reflected a moment and said:
"But what will mamma say?" "How'll she ever know?"
The girl turned the idea over in her mind, and said reluctantly:
"I reckon it's wrong--but--"
"But shucks! Your mother won't know, and so what's the
harm?
All she wants is that you'll be safe; and I bet you she'd 'a' said go there if she'd
'a' thought of it. I know she would!"
The Widow Douglas' splendid hospitality was a tempting bait.
It and Tom's persuasions presently carried the day.
So it was decided to say nothing anybody about the night's programme.
Presently it occurred to Tom that maybe Huck might come this very night and give
the signal.
The thought took a deal of the spirit out of his anticipations.
Still he could not bear to give up the fun at Widow Douglas'.
And why should he give it up, he reasoned- -the signal did not come the night before,
so why should it be any more likely to come to-night?
The sure fun of the evening outweighed the uncertain treasure; and, boy-like, he
determined to yield to the stronger inclination and not allow himself to think
of the box of money another time that day.
Three miles below town the ferryboat stopped at the mouth of a *** hollow and
tied up.
The crowd swarmed ashore and soon the forest distances and craggy heights echoed
far and near with shoutings and laughter.
All the different ways of getting hot and tired were gone through with, and by-and-
by the rovers straggled back to camp fortified with responsible appetites, and
then the destruction of the good things began.
After the feast there was a refreshing season of rest and chat in the shade of
spreading oaks.
By-and-by somebody shouted: "Who's ready for the cave?"
Everybody was.
Bundles of candles were procured, and straightway there was a general scamper up
the hill. The mouth of the cave was up the hillside-
-an opening shaped like a letter A.
Its massive oaken door stood unbarred. Within was a small chamber, chilly as an
ice-house, and walled by Nature with solid limestone that was dewy with a cold sweat.
It was romantic and mysterious to stand here in the deep gloom and look out upon
the green valley shining in the sun.
But the impressiveness of the situation quickly wore off, and the romping began
again.
The moment a candle was lighted there was a general rush upon the owner of it; a
struggle and a gallant defence followed, but the candle was soon knocked down or
blown out, and then there was a glad clamor of laughter and a new chase.
But all things have an end.
By-and-by the procession went filing down the steep descent of the main avenue, the
flickering rank of lights dimly revealing the lofty walls of rock almost to their
point of junction sixty feet overhead.
This main avenue was not more than eight or ten feet wide.
Every few steps other lofty and still narrower crevices branched from it on
either hand--for McDougal's cave was but a vast labyrinth of crooked aisles that ran
into each other and out again and led nowhere.
It was said that one might wander days and nights together through its intricate
tangle of rifts and chasms, and never find the end of the cave; and that he might go
down, and down, and still down, into the
earth, and it was just the same--labyrinth under labyrinth, and no end to any of
them. No man "knew" the cave.
That was an impossible thing.
Most of the young men knew a portion of it, and it was not customary to venture
much beyond this known portion. Tom Sawyer knew as much of the cave as any
one.
The procession moved along the main avenue some three-quarters of a mile, and then
groups and couples began to slip aside into branch avenues, fly along the dismal
corridors, and take each other by surprise
at points where the corridors joined again.
Parties were able to elude each other for the space of half an hour without going
beyond the "known" ground.
By-and-by, one group after another came straggling back to the mouth of the cave,
panting, hilarious, smeared from head to foot with tallow drippings, daubed with
clay, and entirely delighted with the success of the day.
Then they were astonished to find that they had been taking no note of time and
that night was about at hand.
The clanging bell had been calling for half an hour.
However, this sort of close to the day's adventures was romantic and therefore
satisfactory.
When the ferryboat with her wild freight pushed into the stream, nobody cared
sixpence for the wasted time but the captain of the craft.
Huck was already upon his watch when the ferryboat's lights went glinting past the
wharf.
He heard no noise on board, for the young people were as subdued and still as people
usually are who are nearly tired to death.
He wondered what boat it was, and why she did not stop at the wharf--and then he
dropped her out of his mind and put his attention upon his business.
The night was growing cloudy and dark.
Ten o'clock came, and the noise of vehicles ceased, scattered lights began to
wink out, all straggling foot-passengers disappeared, the village betook itself to
its slumbers and left the small watcher alone with the silence and the ghosts.
Eleven o'clock came, and the tavern lights were put out; darkness everywhere, now.
Huck waited what seemed a weary long time, but nothing happened.
His faith was weakening. Was there any use?
Was there really any use?
Why not give it up and turn in? A noise fell upon his ear.
He was all attention in an instant. The alley door closed softly.
He sprang to the corner of the brick store.
The next moment two men brushed by him, and one seemed to have something under his
arm.
It must be that box! So they were going to remove the treasure.
Why call Tom now? It would be absurd--the men would get away
with the box and never be found again.
No, he would stick to their wake and follow them; he would trust to the
darkness for security from discovery.
So communing with himself, Huck stepped out and glided along behind the men, cat-
like, with bare feet, allowing them to keep just far enough ahead not to be
invisible.
They moved up the river street three blocks, then turned to the left up a
cross-street.
They went straight ahead, then, until they came to the path that led up Cardiff Hill;
this they took.
They passed by the old Welshman's house, half-way up the hill, without hesitating,
and still climbed upward. Good, thought Huck, they will bury it in
the old quarry.
But they never stopped at the quarry. They passed on, up the summit.
They plunged into the narrow path between the tall sumach bushes, and were at once
hidden in the gloom.
Huck closed up and shortened his distance, now, for they would never be able to see
him.
He trotted along awhile; then slackened his pace, fearing he was gaining too fast;
moved on a piece, then stopped altogether; listened; no sound; none, save that he
seemed to hear the beating of his own heart.
The hooting of an owl came over the hill-- ominous sound!
But no footsteps.
Heavens, was everything lost! He was about to spring with winged feet,
when a man cleared his throat not four feet from him!
Huck's heart shot into his throat, but he swallowed it again; and then he stood
there shaking as if a dozen agues had taken charge of him at once, and so weak
that he thought he must surely fall to the ground.
He knew where he was. He knew he was within five steps of the
stile leading into Widow Douglas' grounds.
Very well, he thought, let them bury it there; it won't be hard to find.
Now there was a voice--a very low voice-- *** Joe's:
"Damn her, maybe she's got company-- there's lights, late as it is."
"I can't see any." This was that stranger's voice--the
stranger of the haunted house.
A deadly chill went to Huck's heart--this, then, was the "revenge" job!
His thought was, to fly.
Then he remembered that the Widow Douglas had been kind to him more than once, and
maybe these men were going to *** her.
He wished he dared venture to warn her; but he knew he didn't dare--they might
come and catch him.
He thought all this and more in the moment that elapsed between the stranger's remark
and *** Joe's next--which was-- "Because the bush is in your way.
Now--this way--now you see, don't you?"
"Yes. Well, there IS company there, I reckon.
Better give it up." "Give it up, and I just leaving this
country forever!
Give it up and maybe never have another chance.
I tell you again, as I've told you before, I don't care for her swag--you may have
it.
But her husband was rough on me--many times he was rough on me--and mainly he
was the justice of the peace that jugged me for a vagrant.
And that ain't all.
It ain't a millionth part of it! He had me HORSEWHIPPED!--horsewhipped in
front of the jail, like a ***!--with all the town looking on!
HORSEWHIPPED!--do you understand?
He took advantage of me and died. But I'll take it out of HER."
"Oh, don't kill her! Don't do that!"
"Kill?
Who said anything about killing? I would kill HIM if he was here; but not
her. When you want to get revenge on a woman
you don't kill her--bosh!
you go for her looks. You slit her nostrils--you notch her ears
like a sow!" "By God, that's--"
"Keep your opinion to yourself!
It will be safest for you. I'll tie her to the bed.
If she bleeds to death, is that my fault? I'll not cry, if she does.
My friend, you'll help me in this thing-- for MY sake --that's why you're here--I
mightn't be able alone. If you flinch, I'll kill you.
Do you understand that?
And if I have to kill you, I'll kill her-- and then I reckon nobody'll ever know much
about who done this business." "Well, if it's got to be done, let's get
at it.
The quicker the better--I'm all in a shiver."
"Do it NOW? And company there?
Look here--I'll get suspicious of you, first thing you know.
No--we'll wait till the lights are out-- there's no hurry."
Huck felt that a silence was going to ensue--a thing still more awful than any
amount of murderous talk; so he held his breath and stepped gingerly back; planted
his foot carefully and firmly, after
balancing, one-legged, in a precarious way and almost toppling over, first on one
side and then on the other.
He took another step back, with the same elaboration and the same risks; then
another and another, and--a twig snapped under his foot!
His breath stopped and he listened.
There was no sound--the stillness was perfect.
His gratitude was measureless.
Now he turned in his tracks, between the walls of sumach bushes--turned himself as
carefully as if he were a ship--and then stepped quickly but cautiously along.
When he emerged at the quarry he felt secure, and so he picked up his nimble
heels and flew. Down, down he sped, till he reached the
Welshman's.
He banged at the door, and presently the heads of the old man and his two stalwart
sons were thrust from windows. "What's the row there?
Who's banging?
What do you want?" "Let me in--quick!
I'll tell everything." "Why, who are you?"
"Huckleberry Finn--quick, let me in!"
"Huckleberry Finn, indeed! It ain't a name to open many doors, I
judge! But let him in, lads, and let's see what's
the trouble."
"Please don't ever tell I told you," were Huck's first words when he got in.
"Please don't--I'd be killed, sure--but the widow's been good friends to me
sometimes, and I want to tell--I WILL tell if you'll promise you won't ever say it
was me."
"By George, he HAS got something to tell, or he wouldn't act so!"
exclaimed the old man; "out with it and nobody here'll ever tell, lad."
Three minutes later the old man and his sons, well armed, were up the hill, and
just entering the sumach path on tiptoe, their weapons in their hands.
Huck accompanied them no further.
He hid behind a great bowlder and fell to listening.
There was a lagging, anxious silence, and then all of a sudden there was an
explosion of firearms and a cry.
Huck waited for no particulars. He sprang away and sped down the hill as
fast as his legs could carry him.
>
Chapter *** AS the earliest suspicion of dawn appeared
on Sunday morning, Huck came groping up the hill and rapped gently at the old
Welshman's door.
The inmates were asleep, but it was a sleep that was set on a hair-trigger, on
account of the exciting episode of the night.
A call came from a window:
"Who's there!" Huck's scared voice answered in a low
tone: "Please let me in!
It's only Huck Finn!"
"It's a name that can open this door night or day, lad!--and welcome!"
These were strange words to the vagabond boy's ears, and the pleasantest he had
ever heard.
He could not recollect that the closing word had ever been applied in his case
before. The door was quickly unlocked, and he
entered.
Huck was given a seat and the old man and his brace of tall sons speedily dressed
themselves.
"Now, my boy, I hope you're good and hungry, because breakfast will be ready as
soon as the sun's up, and we'll have a piping hot one, too --make yourself easy
about that!
I and the boys hoped you'd turn up and stop here last night."
"I was awful scared," said Huck, "and I run.
I took out when the pistols went off, and I didn't stop for three mile.
I've come now becuz I wanted to know about it, you know; and I come before daylight
becuz I didn't want to run across them devils, even if they was dead."
"Well, poor chap, you do look as if you'd had a hard night of it--but there's a bed
here for you when you've had your breakfast.
No, they ain't dead, lad--we are sorry enough for that.
You see we knew right where to put our hands on them, by your description; so we
crept along on tiptoe till we got within fifteen feet of them--dark as a cellar
that sumach path was--and just then I found I was going to sneeze.
It was the meanest kind of luck! I tried to keep it back, but no use --
'twas bound to come, and it did come!
I was in the lead with my pistol raised, and when the sneeze started those
scoundrels a-rustling to get out of the path, I sung out, 'Fire boys!' and blazed
away at the place where the rustling was.
So did the boys. But they were off in a jiffy, those
villains, and we after them, down through the woods.
I judge we never touched them.
They fired a shot apiece as they started, but their bullets whizzed by and didn't do
us any harm.
As soon as we lost the sound of their feet we quit chasing, and went down and stirred
up the constables.
They got a posse together, and went off to guard the river bank, and as soon as it is
light the sheriff and a gang are going to beat up the woods.
My boys will be with them presently.
I wish we had some sort of description of those rascals--'twould help a good deal.
But you couldn't see what they were like, in the dark, lad, I suppose?"
"Oh yes; I saw them down-town and follered them."
"Splendid! Describe them--describe them, my boy!"
"One's the old deaf and dumb Spaniard that's ben around here once or twice, and
t'other's a mean-looking, ragged--" "That's enough, lad, we know the men!
Happened on them in the woods back of the widow's one day, and they slunk away.
Off with you, boys, and tell the sheriff-- get your breakfast to-morrow morning!"
The Welshman's sons departed at once.
As they were leaving the room Huck sprang up and exclaimed:
"Oh, please don't tell ANYbody it was me that blowed on them!
Oh, please!"
"All right if you say it, Huck, but you ought to have the credit of what you did."
"Oh no, no! Please don't tell!"
When the young men were gone, the old Welshman said:
"They won't tell--and I won't. But why don't you want it known?"
Huck would not explain, further than to say that he already knew too much about
one of those men and would not have the man know that he knew anything against him
for the whole world--he would be killed for knowing it, sure.
The old man promised secrecy once more, and said:
"How did you come to follow these fellows, lad?
Were they looking suspicious?" Huck was silent while he framed a duly
cautious reply.
Then he said:
"Well, you see, I'm a kind of a hard lot,- -least everybody says so, and I don't see
nothing agin it--and sometimes I can't sleep much, on account of thinking about
it and sort of trying to strike out a new way of doing.
That was the way of it last night.
I couldn't sleep, and so I come along up- street 'bout midnight, a-turning it all
over, and when I got to that old shackly brick store by the Temperance Tavern, I
backed up agin the wall to have another think.
Well, just then along comes these two chaps slipping along close by me, with
something under their arm, and I reckoned they'd stole it.
One was a-smoking, and t'other one wanted a light; so they stopped right before me
and the cigars lit up their faces and I see that the big one was the deaf and dumb
Spaniard, by his white whiskers and the
patch on his eye, and t'other one was a rusty, ragged-looking devil."
"Could you see the rags by the light of the cigars?"
This staggered Huck for a moment.
Then he said: "Well, I don't know--but somehow it seems
as if I did." "Then they went on, and you--"
"Follered 'em--yes.
That was it. I wanted to see what was up--they sneaked
along so.
I dogged 'em to the widder's stile, and stood in the dark and heard the ragged one
beg for the widder, and the Spaniard swear he'd spile her looks just as I told you
and your two--"
"What! The DEAF AND DUMB man said all that!"
Huck had made another terrible mistake!
He was trying his best to keep the old man from getting the faintest hint of who the
Spaniard might be, and yet his tongue seemed determined to get him into trouble
in spite of all he could do.
He made several efforts to creep out of his scrape, but the old man's eye was upon
him and he made blunder after blunder. Presently the Welshman said:
"My boy, don't be afraid of me.
I wouldn't hurt a hair of your head for all the world.
No--I'd protect you--I'd protect you.
This Spaniard is not deaf and dumb; you've let that slip without intending it; you
can't cover that up now. You know something about that Spaniard
that you want to keep dark.
Now trust me--tell me what it is, and trust me --I won't betray you."
Huck looked into the old man's honest eyes a moment, then bent over and whispered in
his ear:
"'Tain't a Spaniard--it's *** Joe!" The Welshman almost jumped out of his
chair. In a moment he said:
"It's all plain enough, now.
When you talked about notching ears and slitting noses I judged that that was your
own embellishment, because white men don't take that sort of revenge.
But an ***!
That's a different matter altogether."
During breakfast the talk went on, and in the course of it the old man said that the
last thing which he and his sons had done, before going to bed, was to get a lantern
and examine the stile and its vicinity for marks of blood.
They found none, but captured a bulky bundle of--
"Of WHAT?"
If the words had been lightning they could not have leaped with a more stunning
suddenness from Huck's blanched lips. His eyes were staring wide, now, and his
breath suspended--waiting for the answer.
The Welshman started--stared in return-- three seconds--five seconds--ten --then
replied: "Of burglar's tools.
Why, what's the MATTER with you?"
Huck sank back, panting gently, but deeply, unutterably grateful.
The Welshman eyed him gravely, curiously-- and presently said:
"Yes, burglar's tools.
That appears to relieve you a good deal. But what did give you that turn?
What were YOU expecting we'd found?"
Huck was in a close place--the inquiring eye was upon him--he would have given
anything for material for a plausible answer--nothing suggested itself--the
inquiring eye was boring deeper and
deeper--a senseless reply offered--there was no time to weigh it, so at a venture
he uttered it--feebly: "Sunday-school books, maybe."
Poor Huck was too distressed to smile, but the old man laughed loud and joyously,
shook up the details of his anatomy from head to foot, and ended by saying that
such a laugh was money in a-man's pocket,
because it cut down the doctor's bill like everything.
Then he added:
"Poor old chap, you're white and jaded-- you ain't well a bit--no wonder you're a
little flighty and off your balance. But you'll come out of it.
Rest and sleep will fetch you out all right, I hope."
Huck was irritated to think he had been such a goose and betrayed such a
suspicious excitement, for he had dropped the idea that the parcel brought from the
tavern was the treasure, as soon as he had heard the talk at the widow's stile.
He had only thought it was not the treasure, however--he had not known that
it wasn't--and so the suggestion of a captured bundle was too much for his self-
possession.
But on the whole he felt glad the little episode had happened, for now he knew
beyond all question that that bundle was not THE bundle, and so his mind was at
rest and exceedingly comfortable.
In fact, everything seemed to be drifting just in the right direction, now; the
treasure must be still in No. 2, the men would be captured and jailed that day, and
he and Tom could seize the gold that night
without any trouble or any fear of interruption.
Just as breakfast was completed there was a knock at the door.
Huck jumped for a hiding-place, for he had no mind to be connected even remotely with
the late event.
The Welshman admitted several ladies and gentlemen, among them the Widow Douglas,
and noticed that groups of citizens were climbing up the hill--to stare at the
stile.
So the news had spread. The Welshman had to tell the story of the
night to the visitors. The widow's gratitude for her preservation
was outspoken.
"Don't say a word about it, madam. There's another that you're more beholden
to than you are to me and my boys, maybe, but he don't allow me to tell his name.
We wouldn't have been there but for him."
Of course this excited a curiosity so vast that it almost belittled the main matter--
but the Welshman allowed it to eat into the vitals of his visitors, and through
them be transmitted to the whole town, for he refused to part with his secret.
When all else had been learned, the widow said:
"I went to sleep reading in bed and slept straight through all that noise.
Why didn't you come and wake me?" "We judged it warn't worth while.
Those fellows warn't likely to come again- -they hadn't any tools left to work with,
and what was the use of waking you up and scaring you to death?
My three *** men stood guard at your house all the rest of the night.
They've just come back."
More visitors came, and the story had to be told and retold for a couple of hours
more.
There was no Sabbath-school during day- school vacation, but everybody was early
at church. The stirring event was well canvassed.
News came that not a sign of the two villains had been yet discovered.
When the sermon was finished, Judge Thatcher's wife dropped alongside of Mrs.
Harper as she moved down the aisle with the crowd and said:
"Is my Becky going to sleep all day?
I just expected she would be tired to death."
"Your Becky?" "Yes," with a startled look--"didn't she
stay with you last night?"
"Why, no." Mrs. Thatcher turned pale, and sank into a
pew, just as Aunt Polly, talking briskly with a friend, passed by.
Aunt Polly said:
"Good-morning, Mrs. Thatcher. Good-morning, Mrs. Harper.
I've got a boy that's turned up missing. I reckon my Tom stayed at your house last
night--one of you.
And now he's afraid to come to church. I've got to settle with him."
Mrs. Thatcher shook her head feebly and turned paler than ever.
"He didn't stay with us," said Mrs. Harper, beginning to look uneasy.
A marked anxiety came into Aunt Polly's face.
"Joe Harper, have you seen my Tom this morning?"
"No'm." "When did you see him last?"
Joe tried to remember, but was not sure he could say.
The people had stopped moving out of church.
Whispers passed along, and a boding uneasiness took possession of every
countenance. Children were anxiously questioned, and
young teachers.
They all said they had not noticed whether Tom and Becky were on board the ferryboat
on the homeward trip; it was dark; no one thought of inquiring if any one was
missing.
One young man finally blurted out his fear that they were still in the cave!
Mrs. Thatcher swooned away. Aunt Polly fell to crying and wringing her
hands.
The alarm swept from lip to lip, from group to group, from street to street, and
within five minutes the bells were wildly clanging and the whole town was up!
The Cardiff Hill episode sank into instant insignificance, the burglars were
forgotten, horses were saddled, skiffs were manned, the ferryboat ordered out,
and before the horror was half an hour
old, two hundred men were pouring down highroad and river toward the cave.
All the long afternoon the village seemed empty and dead.
Many women visited Aunt Polly and Mrs. Thatcher and tried to comfort them.
They cried with them, too, and that was still better than words.
All the tedious night the town waited for news; but when the morning dawned at last,
all the word that came was, "Send more candles--and send food."
Mrs. Thatcher was almost crazed; and Aunt Polly, also.
Judge Thatcher sent messages of hope and encouragement from the cave, but they
conveyed no real cheer.
The old Welshman came home toward daylight, spattered with candle-grease,
smeared with clay, and almost worn out.
He found Huck still in the bed that had been provided for him, and delirious with
fever.
The physicians were all at the cave, so the Widow Douglas came and took charge of
the patient.
She said she would do her best by him, because, whether he was good, bad, or
indifferent, he was the Lord's, and nothing that was the Lord's was a thing to
be neglected.
The Welshman said Huck had good spots in him, and the widow said:
"You can depend on it. That's the Lord's mark.
He don't leave it off.
He never does. Puts it somewhere on every creature that
comes from his hands."
Early in the forenoon parties of jaded men began to straggle into the village, but
the strongest of the citizens continued searching.
All the news that could be gained was that remotenesses of the cavern were being
ransacked that had never been visited before; that every corner and crevice was
going to be thoroughly searched; that
wherever one wandered through the maze of passages, lights were to be seen flitting
hither and thither in the distance, and shoutings and pistol-shots sent their
hollow reverberations to the ear down the sombre aisles.
In one place, far from the section usually traversed by tourists, the names "BECKY &
TOM" had been found traced upon the rocky wall with candle-smoke, and near at hand a
grease-soiled bit of ribbon.
Mrs. Thatcher recognized the ribbon and cried over it.
She said it was the last relic she should ever have of her child; and that no other
memorial of her could ever be so precious, because this one parted latest from the
living body before the awful death came.
Some said that now and then, in the cave, a far-away speck of light would glimmer,
and then a glorious shout would burst forth and a score of men go trooping down
the echoing aisle--and then a sickening
disappointment always followed; the children were not there; it was only a
searcher's light.
Three dreadful days and nights dragged their tedious hours along, and the village
sank into a hopeless stupor. No one had heart for anything.
The accidental discovery, just made, that the proprietor of the Temperance Tavern
kept liquor on his premises, scarcely fluttered the public pulse, tremendous as
the fact was.
In a lucid interval, Huck feebly led up to the subject of taverns, and finally asked-
-dimly dreading the worst--if anything had been discovered at the Temperance Tavern
since he had been ill.
"Yes," said the widow. Huck started up in bed, wild-eyed:
"What? What was it?"
"Liquor!--and the place has been shut up.
Lie down, child--what a turn you did give me!"
"Only tell me just one thing--only just one--please!
Was it Tom Sawyer that found it?"
The widow burst into tears. "Hush, hush, child, hush!
I've told you before, you must NOT talk. You are very, very sick!"
Then nothing but liquor had been found; there would have been a great powwow if it
had been the gold. So the treasure was gone forever--gone
forever!
But what could she be crying about? Curious that she should cry.
These thoughts worked their dim way through Huck's mind, and under the
weariness they gave him he fell asleep.
The widow said to herself: "There--he's asleep, poor wreck.
Tom Sawyer find it! Pity but somebody could find Tom Sawyer!
Ah, there ain't many left, now, that's got hope enough, or strength enough, either,
to go on searching."
>
Chapter XXXI NOW to return to Tom and Becky's share in
the picnic.
They tripped along the murky aisles with the rest of the company, visiting the
familiar wonders of the cave--wonders dubbed with rather over-descriptive names,
such as "The Drawing-Room," "The Cathedral," "Aladdin's Palace," and so on.
Presently the hide-and-seek frolicking began, and Tom and Becky engaged in it
with zeal until the exertion began to grow a trifle wearisome; then they wandered
down a sinuous avenue holding their
candles aloft and reading the tangled web- work of names, dates, post-office
addresses, and mottoes with which the rocky walls had been frescoed (in candle-
smoke).
Still drifting along and talking, they scarcely noticed that they were now in a
part of the cave whose walls were not frescoed.
They smoked their own names under an overhanging shelf and moved on.
Presently they came to a place where a little stream of water, trickling over a
ledge and carrying a limestone sediment with it, had, in the slow-dragging ages,
formed a laced and ruffled Niagara in gleaming and imperishable stone.
Tom squeezed his small body behind it in order to illuminate it for Becky's
gratification.
He found that it curtained a sort of steep natural stairway which was enclosed
between narrow walls, and at once the ambition to be a discoverer seized him.
Becky responded to his call, and they made a smoke-mark for future guidance, and
started upon their quest.
They wound this way and that, far down into the secret depths of the cave, made
another mark, and branched off in search of novelties to tell the upper world
about.
In one place they found a spacious cavern, from whose ceiling depended a multitude of
shining stalactites of the length and circumference of a man's leg; they walked
all about it, wondering and admiring, and
presently left it by one of the numerous passages that opened into it.
This shortly brought them to a bewitching spring, whose basin was incrusted with a
frostwork of glittering crystals; it was in the midst of a cavern whose walls were
supported by many fantastic pillars which
had been formed by the joining of great stalactites and stalagmites together, the
result of the ceaseless water-drip of centuries.
Under the roof vast knots of bats had packed themselves together, thousands in a
bunch; the lights disturbed the creatures and they came flocking down by hundreds,
squeaking and darting furiously at the candles.
Tom knew their ways and the danger of this sort of conduct.
He seized Becky's hand and hurried her into the first corridor that offered; and
none too soon, for a bat struck Becky's light out with its wing while she was
passing out of the cavern.
The bats chased the children a good distance; but the fugitives plunged into
every new passage that offered, and at last got rid of the perilous things.
Tom found a subterranean lake, shortly, which stretched its dim length away until
its shape was lost in the shadows.
He wanted to explore its borders, but concluded that it would be best to sit
down and rest awhile, first.
Now, for the first time, the deep stillness of the place laid a clammy hand
upon the spirits of the children. Becky said:
"Why, I didn't notice, but it seems ever so long since I heard any of the others."
"Come to think, Becky, we are away down below them--and I don't know how far away
north, or south, or east, or whichever it is.
We couldn't hear them here."
Becky grew apprehensive. "I wonder how long we've been down here,
Tom? We better start back."
"Yes, I reckon we better.
P'raps we better." "Can you find the way, Tom?
It's all a mixed-up crookedness to me." "I reckon I could find it--but then the
bats.
If they put our candles out it will be an awful fix.
Let's try some other way, so as not to go through there."
"Well.
But I hope we won't get lost. It would be so awful!"
and the girl shuddered at the thought of the dreadful possibilities.
They started through a corridor, and traversed it in silence a long way,
glancing at each new opening, to see if there was anything familiar about the look
of it; but they were all strange.
Every time Tom made an examination, Becky would watch his face for an encouraging
sign, and he would say cheerily: "Oh, it's all right.
This ain't the one, but we'll come to it right away!"
But he felt less and less hopeful with each failure, and presently began to turn
off into diverging avenues at sheer random, in desperate hope of finding the
one that was wanted.
He still said it was "all right," but there was such a leaden dread at his heart
that the words had lost their ring and sounded just as if he had said, "All is
lost!"
Becky clung to his side in an anguish of fear, and tried hard to keep back the
tears, but they would come. At last she said:
"Oh, Tom, never mind the bats, let's go back that way!
We seem to get worse and worse off all the time."
said he. Profound silence; silence so deep that
even their breathings were conspicuous in the hush.
Tom shouted.
The call went echoing down the empty aisles and died out in the distance in a
faint sound that resembled a ripple of mocking laughter.
"Oh, don't do it again, Tom, it is too horrid," said Becky.
"It is horrid, but I better, Becky; they might hear us, you know," and he shouted
again.
The "might" was even a chillier horror than the ghostly laughter, it so confessed
a perishing hope. The children stood still and listened; but
there was no result.
Tom turned upon the back track at once, and hurried his steps.
It was but a little while before a certain indecision in his manner revealed another
fearful fact to Becky--he could not find his way back!
"Oh, Tom, you didn't make any marks!"
"Becky, I was such a fool! Such a fool!
I never thought we might want to come back!
No--I can't find the way.
It's all mixed up." "Tom, Tom, we're lost!
we're lost! We never can get out of this awful place!
Oh, why DID we ever leave the others!"
She sank to the ground and burst into such a frenzy of crying that Tom was appalled
with the idea that she might die, or lose her reason.
He sat down by her and put his arms around her; she buried her face in his ***, she
clung to him, she poured out her terrors, her unavailing regrets, and the far echoes
turned them all to jeering laughter.
Tom begged her to pluck up hope again, and she said she could not.
He fell to blaming and abusing himself for getting her into this miserable situation;
this had a better effect.
She said she would try to hope again, she would get up and follow wherever he might
lead if only he would not talk like that any more.
For he was no more to blame than she, she said.
So they moved on again--aimlessly--simply at random--all they could do was to move,
keep moving.
For a little while, hope made a show of reviving--not with any reason to back it,
but only because it is its nature to revive when the spring has not been taken
out of it by age and familiarity with failure.
By-and-by Tom took Becky's candle and blew it out.
This economy meant so much!
Words were not needed. Becky understood, and her hope died again.
She knew that Tom had a whole candle and three or four pieces in his pockets--yet
he must economize.
By-and-by, fatigue began to assert its claims; the children tried to pay
attention, for it was dreadful to think of sitting down when time was grown to be so
precious, moving, in some direction, in
any direction, was at least progress and might bear fruit; but to sit down was to
invite death and shorten its pursuit. At last Becky's frail limbs refused to
carry her farther.
She sat down. Tom rested with her, and they talked of
home, and the friends there, and the comfortable beds and, above all, the
light!
Becky cried, and Tom tried to think of some way of comforting her, but all his
encouragements were grown threadbare with use, and sounded like sarcasms.
Fatigue bore so heavily upon Becky that she drowsed off to sleep.
Tom was grateful.
He sat looking into her drawn face and saw it grow smooth and natural under the
influence of pleasant dreams; and by-and- by a smile dawned and rested there.
The peaceful face reflected somewhat of peace and healing into his own spirit, and
his thoughts wandered away to bygone times and dreamy memories.
While he was deep in his musings, Becky woke up with a breezy little laugh--but it
was stricken dead upon her lips, and a groan followed it.
"Oh, how COULD I sleep!
I wish I never, never had waked! No!
No, I don't, Tom! Don't look so!
I won't say it again."
"I'm glad you've slept, Becky; you'll feel rested, now, and we'll find the way out."
"We can try, Tom; but I've seen such a beautiful country in my dream.
I reckon we are going there."
"Maybe not, maybe not. Cheer up, Becky, and let's go on trying."
They rose up and wandered along, hand in hand and hopeless.
They tried to estimate how long they had been in the cave, but all they knew was
that it seemed days and weeks, and yet it was plain that this could not be, for
their candles were not gone yet.
A long time after this--they could not tell how long--Tom said they must go
softly and listen for dripping water--they must find a spring.
They found one presently, and Tom said it was time to rest again.
Both were cruelly tired, yet Becky said she thought she could go a little farther.
She was surprised to hear Tom dissent.
She could not understand it. They sat down, and Tom fastened his candle
to the wall in front of them with some clay.
Thought was soon busy; nothing was said for some time.
Then Becky broke the silence: "Tom, I am so hungry!"
Tom took something out of his pocket.
"Do you remember this?" said he.
Becky almost smiled. "It's our wedding-cake, Tom."
"Yes--I wish it was as big as a barrel, for it's all we've got."
"I saved it from the picnic for us to dream on, Tom, the way grown-up people do
with wedding-cake--but it'll be our--"
She dropped the sentence where it was. Tom divided the cake and Becky ate with
good appetite, while Tom nibbled at his moiety.
There was abundance of cold water to finish the feast with.
By-and-by Becky suggested that they move on again.
Tom was silent a moment.
Then he said: "Becky, can you bear it if I tell you
something?" Becky's face paled, but she thought she
could.
"Well, then, Becky, we must stay here, where there's water to drink.
That little piece is our last candle!" Becky gave loose to tears and wailings.
Tom did what he could to comfort her, but with little effect.
At length Becky said: "Tom!"
"Well, Becky?"
"They'll miss us and hunt for us!" "Yes, they will!
Certainly they will!" "Maybe they're hunting for us now, Tom."
"Why, I reckon maybe they are.
I hope they are." "When would they miss us, Tom?"
"When they get back to the boat, I reckon."
"Tom, it might be dark then--would they notice we hadn't come?"
"I don't know. But anyway, your mother would miss you as
soon as they got home."
A frightened look in Becky's face brought Tom to his senses and he saw that he had
made a blunder. Becky was not to have gone home that
night!
The children became silent and thoughtful.
In a moment a new burst of grief from Becky showed Tom that the thing in his
mind had struck hers also--that the Sabbath morning might be half spent before
Mrs. Thatcher discovered that Becky was not at Mrs. Harper's.
The children fastened their eyes upon their bit of candle and watched it melt
slowly and pitilessly away; saw the half inch of wick stand alone at last; saw the
feeble flame rise and fall, climb the thin
column of smoke, linger at its top a moment, and then--the horror of utter
darkness reigned!
How long afterward it was that Becky came to a slow consciousness that she was
crying in Tom's arms, neither could tell.
All that they knew was, that after what seemed a mighty stretch of time, both
awoke out of a dead stupor of sleep and resumed their miseries once more.
Tom said it might be Sunday, now--maybe Monday.
He tried to get Becky to talk, but her sorrows were too oppressive, all her hopes
were gone.
Tom said that they must have been missed long ago, and no doubt the search was
going on. He would shout and maybe some one would
come.
He tried it; but in the darkness the distant echoes sounded so hideously that
he tried it no more. The hours wasted away, and hunger came to
torment the captives again.
A portion of Tom's half of the cake was left; they divided and ate it.
But they seemed hungrier than before. The poor morsel of food only whetted
desire.
By-and-by Tom said: "SH!
Did you hear that?" Both held their breath and listened.
There was a sound like the faintest, far- off shout.
Instantly Tom answered it, and leading Becky by the hand, started groping down
the corridor in its direction.
Presently he listened again; again the sound was heard, and apparently a little
nearer. "It's them!"
said Tom; "they're coming!
Come along, Becky--we're all right now!" The joy of the prisoners was almost
overwhelming.
Their speed was slow, however, because pitfalls were somewhat common, and had to
be guarded against. They shortly came to one and had to stop.
It might be three feet deep, it might be a hundred--there was no passing it at any
rate. Tom got down on his breast and reached as
far down as he could.
No bottom. They must stay there and wait until the
searchers came. They listened; evidently the distant
shoutings were growing more distant!
a moment or two more and they had gone altogether.
The heart-sinking misery of it! Tom whooped until he was hoarse, but it
was of no use.
He talked hopefully to Becky; but an age of anxious waiting passed and no sounds
came again. The children groped their way back to the
The weary time dragged on; they slept again, and awoke famished and woe-
stricken. Tom believed it must be Tuesday by this
time.
Now an idea struck him. There were some side passages near at
It would be better to explore some of these than bear the weight of the heavy
time in idleness.
He took a kite-line from his pocket, tied it to a projection, and he and Becky
started, Tom in the lead, unwinding the line as he groped along.
At the end of twenty steps the corridor ended in a "jumping-off place."
Tom got down on his knees and felt below, and then as far around the corner as he
could reach with his hands conveniently; he made an effort to stretch yet a little
farther to the right, and at that moment,
not twenty yards away, a human hand, holding a candle, appeared from behind a
rock!
Tom lifted up a glorious shout, and instantly that hand was followed by the
body it belonged to--*** Joe's! Tom was paralyzed; he could not move.
He was vastly gratified the next moment, to see the "Spaniard" take to his heels
and get himself out of sight.
Tom wondered that Joe had not recognized his voice and come over and killed him for
testifying in court. But the echoes must have disguised the
voice.
Without doubt, that was it, he reasoned. Tom's fright weakened every muscle in his
body.
He said to himself that if he had strength enough to get back to the spring he would
stay there, and nothing should tempt him to run the risk of meeting *** Joe
again.
He was careful to keep from Becky what it was he had seen.
He told her he had only shouted "for luck."
But hunger and wretchedness rise superior to fears in the long run.
Another tedious wait at the spring and another long sleep brought changes.
The children awoke tortured with a raging hunger.
Tom believed that it must be Wednesday or Thursday or even Friday or Saturday, now,
and that the search had been given over.
He proposed to explore another passage. He felt willing to risk *** Joe and all
other terrors. But Becky was very weak.
She had sunk into a dreary apathy and would not be roused.
She said she would wait, now, where she was, and die--it would not be long.
She told Tom to go with the kite-line and explore if he chose; but she implored him
to come back every little while and speak to her; and she made him promise that when
the awful time came, he would stay by her and hold her hand until all was over.
Tom kissed her, with a choking sensation in his throat, and made a show of being
confident of finding the searchers or an escape from the cave; then he took the
kite-line in his hand and went groping
down one of the passages on his hands and knees, distressed with hunger and sick
with bodings of coming doom.
>
Chapter XXXII TUESDAY afternoon came, and waned to the
twilight. The village of St. Petersburg still
mourned.
The lost children had not been found.
Public prayers had been offered up for them, and many and many a private prayer
that had the petitioner's whole heart in it; but still no good news came from the
cave.
The majority of the searchers had given up the quest and gone back to their daily
avocations, saying that it was plain the children could never be found.
Mrs. Thatcher was very ill, and a great part of the time delirious.
People said it was heartbreaking to hear her call her child, and raise her head and
listen a whole minute at a time, then lay it wearily down again with a moan.
Aunt Polly had drooped into a settled melancholy, and her gray hair had grown
almost white. The village went to its rest on Tuesday
night, sad and forlorn.
Away in the middle of the night a wild peal burst from the village bells, and in
a moment the streets were swarming with frantic half-clad people, who shouted,
"Turn out!
turn out! they're found!
they're found!"
Tin pans and horns were added to the din, the population massed itself and moved
toward the river, met the children coming in an open carriage drawn by shouting
citizens, thronged around it, joined its
homeward march, and swept magnificently up the main street roaring huzzah after
huzzah!
The village was illuminated; nobody went to bed again; it was the greatest night
the little town had ever seen.
During the first half-hour a procession of villagers filed through Judge Thatcher's
house, seized the saved ones and kissed them, squeezed Mrs. Thatcher's hand,
tried to speak but couldn't--and drifted out raining tears all over the place.
Aunt Polly's happiness was complete, and Mrs. Thatcher's nearly so.
It would be complete, however, as soon as the messenger dispatched with the great
news to the cave should get the word to her husband.
Tom lay upon a sofa with an eager auditory about him and told the history of the
wonderful adventure, putting in many striking additions to adorn it withal; and
closed with a description of how he left
Becky and went on an exploring expedition; how he followed two avenues as far as his
kite-line would reach; how he followed a third to the fullest stretch of the kite-
line, and was about to turn back when he
glimpsed a far-off speck that looked like daylight; dropped the line and groped
toward it, pushed his head and shoulders through a small hole, and saw the broad
Mississippi rolling by!
And if it had only happened to be night he would not have seen that speck of daylight
and would not have explored that passage any more!
He told how he went back for Becky and broke the good news and she told him not
to fret her with such stuff, for she was tired, and knew she was going to die, and
wanted to.
He described how he labored with her and convinced her; and how she almost died for
joy when she had groped to where she actually saw the blue speck of daylight;
how he pushed his way out at the hole and
then helped her out; how they sat there and cried for gladness; how some men came
along in a skiff and Tom hailed them and told them their situation and their
famished condition; how the men didn't
believe the wild tale at first, "because," said they, "you are five miles down the
river below the valley the cave is in" -- then took them aboard, rowed to a house,
gave them supper, made them rest till two
or three hours after dark and then brought them home.
Before day-dawn, Judge Thatcher and the handful of searchers with him were tracked
out, in the cave, by the twine clews they had strung behind them, and informed of
the great news.
Three days and nights of toil and hunger in the cave were not to be shaken off at
once, as Tom and Becky soon discovered.
They were bedridden all of Wednesday and Thursday, and seemed to grow more and more
tired and worn, all the time.
Tom got about, a little, on Thursday, was down-town Friday, and nearly as whole as
ever Saturday; but Becky did not leave her room until Sunday, and then she looked as
if she had passed through a wasting illness.
Tom learned of Huck's sickness and went to see him on Friday, but could not be
admitted to the bedroom; neither could he on Saturday or Sunday.
He was admitted daily after that, but was warned to keep still about his adventure
and introduce no exciting topic. The Widow Douglas stayed by to see that he
obeyed.
At home Tom learned of the Cardiff Hill event; also that the "ragged man's" body
had eventually been found in the river near the ferry-landing; he had been
drowned while trying to escape, perhaps.
About a fortnight after Tom's rescue from the cave, he started off to visit Huck,
who had grown plenty strong enough, now, to hear exciting talk, and Tom had some
that would interest him, he thought.
Judge Thatcher's house was on Tom's way, and he stopped to see Becky.
The Judge and some friends set Tom to talking, and some one asked him ironically
if he wouldn't like to go to the cave again.
Tom said he thought he wouldn't mind it.
The Judge said: "Well, there are others just like you,
Tom, I've not the least doubt. But we have taken care of that.
Nobody will get lost in that cave any more."
"Why?"
"Because I had its big door sheathed with boiler iron two weeks ago, and triple-
locked--and I've got the keys." Tom turned as white as a sheet.
"What's the matter, boy!
Here, run, somebody! Fetch a glass of water!"
The water was brought and thrown into Tom's face.
"Ah, now you're all right.
What was the matter with you, Tom?" "Oh, Judge, *** Joe's in the cave!"
>
Chapter XXXIII
WITHIN a few minutes the news had spread, and a dozen skiff-loads of men were on
their way to McDougal's cave, and the ferryboat, well filled with passengers,
soon followed.
Tom Sawyer was in the skiff that bore Judge Thatcher.
When the cave door was unlocked, a sorrowful sight presented itself in the
dim twilight of the place.
*** Joe lay stretched upon the ground, dead, with his face close to the crack of
the door, as if his longing eyes had been fixed, to the latest moment, upon the
light and the cheer of the free world outside.
Tom was touched, for he knew by his own experience how this wretch had suffered.
His pity was moved, but nevertheless he felt an abounding sense of relief and
security, now, which revealed to him in a degree which he had not fully appreciated
before how vast a weight of dread had been
lying upon him since the day he lifted his voice against this bloody-minded outcast.
*** Joe's bowie-knife lay close by, its blade broken in two.
The great foundation-beam of the door had been chipped and hacked through, with
tedious labor; useless labor, too, it was, for the native rock formed a sill outside
it, and upon that stubborn material the
knife had wrought no effect; the only damage done was to the knife itself.
But if there had been no stony obstruction there the labor would have been useless
still, for if the beam had been wholly cut away *** Joe could not have squeezed his
body under the door, and he knew it.
So he had only hacked that place in order to be doing something--in order to pass
the weary time--in order to employ his tortured faculties.
Ordinarily one could find half a dozen bits of candle stuck around in the
crevices of this vestibule, left there by tourists; but there were none now.
The prisoner had searched them out and eaten them.
He had also contrived to catch a few bats, and these, also, he had eaten, leaving
only their claws.
The poor unfortunate had starved to death. In one place, near at hand, a stalagmite
had been slowly growing up from the ground for ages, builded by the water-drip from a
stalactite overhead.
The captive had broken off the stalagmite, and upon the stump had placed a stone,
wherein he had scooped a shallow hollow to catch the precious drop that fell once in
every three minutes with the dreary
regularity of a clock-tick--a dessertspoonful once in four and twenty
hours.
That drop was falling when the Pyramids were new; when Troy fell; when the
foundations of Rome were laid; when Christ was crucified; when the Conqueror created
the British empire; when Columbus sailed; when the massacre at Lexington was "news."
It is falling now; it will still be falling when all these things shall have
sunk down the afternoon of history, and the twilight of tradition, and been
swallowed up in the thick night of oblivion.
Has everything a purpose and a mission?
Did this drop fall patiently during five thousand years to be ready for this
flitting human insect's need? and has it another important object to
accomplish ten thousand years to come?
No matter.
It is many and many a year since the hapless half-breed scooped out the stone
to catch the priceless drops, but to this day the tourist stares longest at that
pathetic stone and that slow-dropping
water when he comes to see the wonders of McDougal's cave.
*** Joe's cup stands first in the list of the cavern's marvels; even "Aladdin's
Palace" cannot rival it.
*** Joe was buried near the mouth of the cave; and people flocked there in boats
and wagons from the towns and from all the farms and hamlets for seven miles around;
they brought their children, and all sorts
of provisions, and confessed that they had had almost as satisfactory a time at the
funeral as they could have had at the hanging.
This funeral stopped the further growth of one thing--the petition to the governor
for *** Joe's pardon.
The petition had been largely signed; many tearful and eloquent meetings had been
held, and a committee of sappy women been appointed to go in deep mourning and wail
around the governor, and implore him to be
a merciful *** and trample his duty under foot.
*** Joe was believed to have killed five citizens of the village, but what of that?
If he had been Satan himself there would have been plenty of weaklings ready to
scribble their names to a pardon-petition, and drip a tear on it from their
permanently impaired and leaky water- works.
The morning after the funeral Tom took Huck to a private place to have an
important talk.
Huck had learned all about Tom's adventure from the Welshman and the Widow Douglas,
by this time, but Tom said he reckoned there was one thing they had not told him;
that thing was what he wanted to talk about now.
Huck's face saddened. He said:
"I know what it is.
You got into No. 2 and never found anything but whiskey.
Nobody told me it was you; but I just knowed it must 'a' ben you, soon as I
heard 'bout that whiskey business; and I knowed you hadn't got the money becuz
you'd 'a' got at me some way or other and
told me even if you was mum to everybody else.
Tom, something's always told me we'd never get holt of that swag."
"Why, Huck, I never told on that tavern- keeper.
YOU know his tavern was all right the Saturday I went to the picnic.
Don't you remember you was to watch there that night?"
"Oh yes! Why, it seems 'bout a year ago.
It was that very night that I follered *** Joe to the widder's."
"YOU followed him?" "Yes--but you keep mum.
I reckon *** Joe's left friends behind him, and I don't want 'em souring on me
and doing me mean tricks. If it hadn't ben for me he'd be down in
Texas now, all right."
Then Huck told his entire adventure in confidence to Tom, who had only heard of
the Welshman's part of it before.
"Well," said Huck, presently, coming back to the main question, "whoever nipped the
whiskey in No. 2, nipped the money, too, I reckon --anyways it's a goner for us,
Tom."
"Huck, that money wasn't ever in No. 2!" "What!"
Huck searched his comrade's face keenly. "Tom, have you got on the track of that
money again?"
"Huck, it's in the cave!" Huck's eyes blazed.
"Say it again, Tom." "The money's in the cave!"
"Tom--honest ***, now--is it fun, or earnest?"
"Earnest, Huck--just as earnest as ever I was in my life.
Will you go in there with me and help get it out?"
"I bet I will! I will if it's where we can blaze our way
to it and not get lost."
"Huck, we can do that without the least little bit of trouble in the world."
"Good as wheat! What makes you think the money's--"
"Huck, you just wait till we get in there.
If we don't find it I'll agree to give you my drum and every thing I've got in the
world. I will, by jings."
"All right--it's a ***.
When do you say?" "Right now, if you say it.
Are you strong enough?" "Is it far in the cave?
I ben on my pins a little, three or four days, now, but I can't walk more'n a mile,
Tom--least I don't think I could."
"It's about five mile into there the way anybody but me would go, Huck, but there's
a mighty short cut that they don't anybody but me know about.
Huck, I'll take you right to it in a skiff.
I'll float the skiff down there, and I'll pull it back again all by myself.
You needn't ever turn your hand over."
"Less start right off, Tom." "All right.
We want some bread and meat, and our pipes, and a little bag or two, and two or
three kite-strings, and some of these new- fangled things they call lucifer matches.
I tell you, many's the time I wished I had some when I was in there before."
A trifle after noon the boys borrowed a small skiff from a citizen who was absent,
and got under way at once.
When they were several miles below "Cave Hollow," Tom said:
"Now you see this bluff here looks all alike all the way down from the cave
hollow--no houses, no wood-yards, bushes all alike.
But do you see that white place up yonder where there's been a landslide?
Well, that's one of my marks. We'll get ashore, now."
They landed.
"Now, Huck, where we're a-standing you could touch that hole I got out of with a
fishing-pole. See if you can find it."
Huck searched all the place about, and found nothing.
Tom proudly marched into a thick clump of sumach bushes and said:
"Here you are!
Look at it, Huck; it's the snuggest hole in this country.
You just keep mum about it.
All along I've been wanting to be a robber, but I knew I'd got to have a thing
like this, and where to run across it was the bother.
We've got it now, and we'll keep it quiet, only we'll let Joe Harper and Ben Rogers
in--because of course there's got to be a Gang, or else there wouldn't be any style
about it.
Tom Sawyer's Gang--it sounds splendid, don't it, Huck?"
"Well, it just does, Tom. And who'll we rob?"
"Oh, most anybody.
Waylay people--that's mostly the way." "And kill them?"
"No, not always. Hive them in the cave till they raise a
"What's a ransom?" "Money.
You make them raise all they can, off'n their friends; and after you've kept them
a year, if it ain't raised then you kill them.
That's the general way.
Only you don't kill the women. You shut up the women, but you don't kill
them. They're always beautiful and rich, and
awfully scared.
You take their watches and things, but you always take your hat off and talk polite.
They ain't anybody as polite as robbers -- you'll see that in any book.
Well, the women get to loving you, and after they've been in the cave a week or
two weeks they stop crying and after that you couldn't get them to leave.
If you drove them out they'd turn right around and come back.
It's so in all the books." "Why, it's real bully, Tom.
I believe it's better'n to be a pirate."
"Yes, it's better in some ways, because it's close to home and circuses and all
that." By this time everything was ready and the
boys entered the hole, Tom in the lead.
They toiled their way to the farther end of the tunnel, then made their spliced
kite-strings fast and moved on.
A few steps brought them to the spring, and Tom felt a shudder quiver all through
him.
He showed Huck the fragment of candle-wick perched on a lump of clay against the
wall, and described how he and Becky had watched the flame struggle and expire.
The boys began to quiet down to whispers, now, for the stillness and gloom of the
place oppressed their spirits.
They went on, and presently entered and followed Tom's other corridor until they
reached the "jumping-off place."
The candles revealed the fact that it was not really a precipice, but only a steep
clay hill twenty or thirty feet high. Tom whispered:
"Now I'll show you something, Huck."
He held his candle aloft and said: "Look as far around the corner as you can.
Do you see that? There--on the big rock over yonder--done
with candle-smoke."
"Tom, it's a CROSS!" "NOW where's your Number Two?
'UNDER THE CROSS,' hey? Right yonder's where I saw *** Joe poke
up his candle, Huck!"
Huck stared at the mystic sign awhile, and then said with a shaky voice:
"Tom, less git out of here!" "What!
and leave the treasure?"
"Yes--leave it. *** Joe's ghost is round about there,
certain." "No it ain't, Huck, no it ain't.
It would ha'nt the place where he died-- away out at the mouth of the cave--five
mile from here." "No, Tom, it wouldn't.
It would hang round the money.
I know the ways of ghosts, and so do you." Tom began to fear that Huck was right.
Misgivings gathered in his mind. But presently an idea occurred to him--
"Lookyhere, Huck, what fools we're making of ourselves!
*** Joe's ghost ain't a going to come around where there's a cross!"
The point was well taken.
It had its effect. "Tom, I didn't think of that.
But that's so. It's luck for us, that cross is.
I reckon we'll climb down there and have a hunt for that box."
Tom went first, cutting rude steps in the clay hill as he descended.
Huck followed.
Four avenues opened out of the small cavern which the great rock stood in.
The boys examined three of them with no result.
They found a small recess in the one nearest the base of the rock, with a
pallet of blankets spread down in it; also an old suspender, some bacon rind, and the
well-gnawed bones of two or three fowls.
But there was no money-box. The lads searched and researched this
place, but in vain. Tom said:
"He said UNDER the cross.
Well, this comes nearest to being under the cross.
It can't be under the rock itself, because that sets solid on the ground."
They searched everywhere once more, and then sat down discouraged.
Huck could suggest nothing. By-and-by Tom said:
"Lookyhere, Huck, there's footprints and some candle-grease on the clay about one
side of this rock, but not on the other sides.
Now, what's that for?
I bet you the money IS under the rock. I'm going to dig in the clay."
"That ain't no bad notion, Tom!" said Huck with animation.
Tom's "real Barlow" was out at once, and he had not dug four inches before he
struck wood. "Hey, Huck!--you hear that?"
Huck began to dig and scratch now.
Some boards were soon uncovered and removed.
They had concealed a natural chasm which led under the rock.
Tom got into this and held his candle as far under the rock as he could, but said
he could not see to the end of the rift. He proposed to explore.
He stooped and passed under; the narrow way descended gradually.
He followed its winding course, first to the right, then to the left, Huck at his
heels.
Tom turned a short curve, by-and-by, and exclaimed:
"My goodness, Huck, lookyhere!"
It was the treasure-box, sure enough, occupying a snug little cavern, along with
an empty powder-keg, a couple of guns in leather cases, two or three pairs of old
moccasins, a leather belt, and some other rubbish well soaked with the water-drip.
"Got it at last!" said Huck, ploughing among the tarnished
coins with his hand.
"My, but we're rich, Tom!" "Huck, I always reckoned we'd get it.
It's just too good to believe, but we HAVE got it, sure!
Say--let's not fool around here.
Let's snake it out. Lemme see if I can lift the box."
It weighed about fifty pounds.
Tom could lift it, after an awkward fashion, but could not carry it
conveniently.
"I thought so," he said; "THEY carried it like it was heavy, that day at the ha'nted
house. I noticed that.
I reckon I was right to think of fetching the little bags along."
The money was soon in the bags and the boys took it up to the cross rock.
"Now less fetch the guns and things," said Huck.
"No, Huck--leave them there. They're just the tricks to have when we go
to robbing.
We'll keep them there all the time, and we'll hold our *** there, too.
It's an awful snug place for ***." "What ***?"
"I dono.
But robbers always have ***, and of course we've got to have them, too.
Come along, Huck, we've been in here a long time.
It's getting late, I reckon.
I'm hungry, too. We'll eat and smoke when we get to the
They presently emerged into the clump of sumach bushes, looked warily out, found
the coast clear, and were soon lunching and smoking in the skiff.
As the sun dipped toward the horizon they pushed out and got under way.
Tom skimmed up the shore through the long twilight, chatting cheerily with Huck, and
landed shortly after dark.
"Now, Huck," said Tom, "we'll hide the money in the loft of the widow's woodshed,
and I'll come up in the morning and we'll count it and divide, and then we'll hunt
up a place out in the woods for it where it will be safe.
Just you lay quiet here and watch the stuff till I run and hook Benny Taylor's
little wagon; I won't be gone a minute."
He disappeared, and presently returned with the wagon, put the two small sacks
into it, threw some old rags on top of them, and started off, dragging his cargo
behind him.
When the boys reached the Welshman's house, they stopped to rest.
Just as they were about to move on, the Welshman stepped out and said:
"Hallo, who's that?"
"Huck and Tom Sawyer." "Good!
Come along with me, boys, you are keeping everybody waiting.
Here--hurry up, trot ahead--I'll haul the wagon for you.
Why, it's not as light as it might be. Got bricks in it?--or old metal?"
"Old metal," said Tom.
"I judged so; the boys in this town will take more trouble and fool away more time
hunting up six bits' worth of old iron to sell to the foundry than they would to
make twice the money at regular work.
But that's human nature--hurry along, hurry along!"
The boys wanted to know what the hurry was about.
"Never mind; you'll see, when we get to the Widow Douglas'."
Huck said with some apprehension--for he was long used to being falsely accused:
"Mr. Jones, we haven't been doing nothing."
The Welshman laughed. "Well, I don't know, Huck, my boy.
I don't know about that.
Ain't you and the widow good friends?" "Yes.
Well, she's ben good friends to me, anyway."
"All right, then.
What do you want to be afraid for?" This question was not entirely answered in
Huck's slow mind before he found himself pushed, along with Tom, into Mrs.
Douglas' drawing-room.
Mr. Jones left the wagon near the door and followed.
The place was grandly lighted, and everybody that was of any consequence in
the village was there.
The Thatchers were there, the Harpers, the Rogerses, Aunt Polly, Sid, Mary, the
minister, the editor, and a great many more, and all dressed in their best.
The widow received the boys as heartily as any one could well receive two such
looking beings. They were covered with clay and candle-
grease.
Aunt Polly blushed crimson with humiliation, and frowned and shook her
head at Tom. Nobody suffered half as much as the two
boys did, however.
Mr. Jones said: "Tom wasn't at home, yet, so I gave him
up; but I stumbled on him and Huck right at my door, and so I just brought them
along in a hurry."
"And you did just right," said the widow. "Come with me, boys."
She took them to a bedchamber and said: "Now wash and dress yourselves.
Here are two new suits of clothes -- shirts, socks, everything complete.
They're Huck's--no, no thanks, Huck--Mr. Jones bought one and I the other.
But they'll fit both of you.
Get into them. We'll wait--come down when you are slicked
up enough." Then she left.
>
Chapter XXXIV HUCK said: "Tom, we can slope, if we can
find a rope. The window ain't high from the ground."
"Shucks!
what do you want to slope for?" "Well, I ain't used to that kind of a
crowd. I can't stand it.
I ain't going down there, Tom."
"Oh, bother! It ain't anything.
I don't mind it a bit. I'll take care of you."
Sid appeared.
"Tom," said he, "auntie has been waiting for you all the afternoon.
Mary got your Sunday clothes ready, and everybody's been fretting about you.
Say--ain't this grease and clay, on your clothes?"
"Now, Mr. Siddy, you jist 'tend to your own business.
What's all this blow-out about, anyway?"
"It's one of the widow's parties that she's always having.
This time it's for the Welshman and his sons, on account of that scrape they
helped her out of the other night.
And say--I can tell you something, if you want to know."
"Well, what?"
"Why, old Mr. Jones is going to try to spring something on the people here to-
night, but I overheard him tell auntie to- day about it, as a secret, but I reckon
it's not much of a secret now.
Everybody knows --the widow, too, for all she tries to let on she don't.
Mr. Jones was bound Huck should be here-- couldn't get along with his grand secret
without Huck, you know!"
"Secret about what, Sid?" "About Huck tracking the robbers to the
widow's.
I reckon Mr. Jones was going to make a grand time over his surprise, but I bet
you it will drop pretty flat." Sid chuckled in a very contented and
satisfied way.
"Sid, was it you that told?" "Oh, never mind who it was.
SOMEBODY told--that's enough." "Sid, there's only one person in this town
mean enough to do that, and that's you.
If you had been in Huck's place you'd 'a' sneaked down the hill and never told
anybody on the robbers.
You can't do any but mean things, and you can't bear to see anybody praised for
doing good ones.
There--no thanks, as the widow says"--and Tom cuffed Sid's ears and helped him to
the door with several kicks. "Now go and tell auntie if you dare--and
to-morrow you'll catch it!"
Some minutes later the widow's guests were at the supper-table, and a dozen children
were propped up at little side-tables in the same room, after the fashion of that
country and that day.
At the proper time Mr. Jones made his little speech, in which he thanked the
widow for the honor she was doing himself and his sons, but said that there was
another person whose modesty--
And so forth and so on.
He sprung his secret about Huck's share in the adventure in the finest dramatic
manner he was master of, but the surprise it occasioned was largely counterfeit and
not as clamorous and effusive as it might have been under happier circumstances.
However, the widow made a pretty fair show of astonishment, and heaped so many
compliments and so much gratitude upon Huck that he almost forgot the nearly
intolerable discomfort of his new clothes
in the entirely intolerable discomfort of being set up as a target for everybody's
gaze and everybody's laudations.
The widow said she meant to give Huck a home under her roof and have him educated;
and that when she could spare the money she would start him in business in a
modest way.
Tom's chance was come. He said:
"Huck don't need it. Huck's rich."
Nothing but a heavy strain upon the good manners of the company kept back the due
and proper complimentary laugh at this pleasant joke.
But the silence was a little awkward.
Tom broke it: "Huck's got money.
Maybe you don't believe it, but he's got lots of it.
Oh, you needn't smile--I reckon I can show you.
You just wait a minute." Tom ran out of doors.
The company looked at each other with a perplexed interest--and inquiringly at
Huck, who was tongue-tied. "Sid, what ails Tom?"
said Aunt Polly.
"He--well, there ain't ever any making of that boy out.
I never--"
Tom entered, struggling with the weight of his sacks, and Aunt Polly did not finish
her sentence. Tom poured the mass of yellow coin upon
the table and said:
"There--what did I tell you? Half of it's Huck's and half of it's
mine!" The spectacle took the general breath
away.
All gazed, nobody spoke for a moment. Then there was a unanimous call for an
explanation. Tom said he could furnish it, and he did.
The tale was long, but brimful of interest.
There was scarcely an interruption from any one to break the charm of its flow.
When he had finished, Mr. Jones said:
"I thought I had fixed up a little surprise for this occasion, but it don't
amount to anything now. This one makes it sing mighty small, I'm
willing to allow."
The money was counted. The sum amounted to a little over twelve
thousand dollars.
It was more than any one present had ever seen at one time before, though several
persons were there who were worth considerably more than that in property.
>
Chapter XXXV THE reader may rest satisfied that Tom's
and Huck's windfall made a mighty stir in the poor little village of St. Petersburg.
So vast a sum, all in actual cash, seemed next to incredible.
It was talked about, gloated over, glorified, until the reason of many of the
citizens tottered under the strain of the unhealthy excitement.
Every "haunted" house in St. Petersburg and the neighboring villages was
dissected, plank by plank, and its foundations dug up and ransacked for
hidden treasure--and not by boys, but men-
-pretty grave, unromantic men, too, some of them.
Wherever Tom and Huck appeared they were courted, admired, stared at.
The boys were not able to remember that their remarks had possessed weight before;
but now their sayings were treasured and repeated; everything they did seemed
somehow to be regarded as remarkable; they
had evidently lost the power of doing and saying commonplace things; moreover, their
past history was raked up and discovered to bear marks of conspicuous originality.
The village paper published biographical sketches of the boys.
The Widow Douglas put Huck's money out at six per cent., and Judge Thatcher did the
same with Tom's at Aunt Polly's request.
Each lad had an income, now, that was simply prodigious--a dollar for every
week-day in the year and half of the Sundays.
It was just what the minister got --no, it was what he was promised--he generally
couldn't collect it.
A dollar and a quarter a week would board, lodge, and school a boy in those old
simple days--and clothe him and wash him, too, for that matter.
Judge Thatcher had conceived a great opinion of Tom.
He said that no commonplace boy would ever have got his daughter out of the cave.
When Becky told her father, in strict confidence, how Tom had taken her whipping
at school, the Judge was visibly moved; and when she pleaded grace for the mighty
lie which Tom had told in order to shift
that whipping from her shoulders to his own, the Judge said with a fine outburst
that it was a noble, a generous, a magnanimous lie--a lie that was worthy to
hold up its head and march down through
history breast to breast with George Washington's lauded Truth about the
hatchet!
Becky thought her father had never looked so tall and so superb as when he walked
the floor and stamped his foot and said that.
She went straight off and told Tom about it.
Judge Thatcher hoped to see Tom a great lawyer or a great soldier some day.
He said he meant to look to it that Tom should be admitted to the National
Military Academy and afterward trained in the best law school in the country, in
order that he might be ready for either career or both.
Huck Finn's wealth and the fact that he was now under the Widow Douglas'
protection introduced him into society-- no, dragged him into it, hurled him into
it--and his sufferings were almost more than he could bear.
The widow's servants kept him clean and neat, combed and brushed, and they bedded
him nightly in unsympathetic sheets that had not one little spot or stain which he
could press to his heart and know for a friend.
He had to eat with a knife and fork; he had to use napkin, cup, and plate; he had
to learn his book, he had to go to church; he had to talk so properly that speech was
become insipid in his mouth; whithersoever
he turned, the bars and shackles of civilization shut him in and bound him
hand and foot. He bravely bore his miseries three weeks,
and then one day turned up missing.
For forty-eight hours the widow hunted for him everywhere in great distress.
The public were profoundly concerned; they searched high and low, they dragged the
river for his body.
Early the third morning Tom Sawyer wisely went poking among some old empty hogsheads
down behind the abandoned slaughter-house, and in one of them he found the refugee.
Huck had slept there; he had just breakfasted upon some stolen odds and ends
of food, and was lying off, now, in comfort, with his pipe.
He was unkempt, uncombed, and clad in the same old ruin of rags that had made him
picturesque in the days when he was free and happy.
Tom routed him out, told him the trouble he had been causing, and urged him to go
home. Huck's face lost its tranquil content, and
took a melancholy cast.
He said: "Don't talk about it, Tom.
I've tried it, and it don't work; it don't work, Tom.
It ain't for me; I ain't used to it.
The widder's good to me, and friendly; but I can't stand them ways.
She makes me get up just at the same time every morning; she makes me wash, they
comb me all to thunder; she won't let me sleep in the woodshed; I got to wear them
blamed clothes that just smothers me, Tom;
they don't seem to any air git through 'em, somehow; and they're so rotten nice
that I can't set down, nor lay down, nor roll around anywher's; I hain't slid on a
cellar-door for--well, it 'pears to be
years; I got to go to church and sweat and sweat--I hate them ornery sermons!
I can't ketch a fly in there, I can't chaw.
I got to wear shoes all Sunday.
The widder eats by a bell; she goes to bed by a bell; she gits up by a bell--
everything's so awful reg'lar a body can't stand it."
"Well, everybody does that way, Huck."
"Tom, it don't make no difference. I ain't everybody, and I can't STAND it.
It's awful to be tied up so. And grub comes too easy--I don't take no
interest in vittles, that way.
I got to ask to go a-fishing; I got to ask to go in a-swimming--dern'd if I hain't
got to ask to do everything.
Well, I'd got to talk so nice it wasn't no comfort--I'd got to go up in the attic and
rip out awhile, every day, to git a taste in my mouth, or I'd a died, Tom.
The widder wouldn't let me smoke; she wouldn't let me yell, she wouldn't let me
gape, nor stretch, nor scratch, before folks--" [Then with a spasm of special
irritation and injury]--"And dad fetch it, she prayed all the time!
I never see such a woman! I HAD to shove, Tom--I just had to.
And besides, that school's going to open, and I'd a had to go to it--well, I
wouldn't stand THAT, Tom. Looky here, Tom, being rich ain't what
it's cracked up to be.
It's just worry and worry, and sweat and sweat, and a-wishing you was dead all the
time.
Now these clothes suits me, and this bar'l suits me, and I ain't ever going to shake
'em any more.
Tom, I wouldn't ever got into all this trouble if it hadn't 'a' ben for that
money; now you just take my sheer of it along with your'n, and gimme a ten-center
sometimes--not many times, becuz I don't
give a dern for a thing 'thout it's tollable hard to git--and you go and beg
off for me with the widder." "Oh, Huck, you know I can't do that.
'Tain't fair; and besides if you'll try this thing just a while longer you'll come
to like it." "Like it!
Yes--the way I'd like a hot stove if I was to set on it long enough.
No, Tom, I won't be rich, and I won't live in them cussed smothery houses.
I like the woods, and the river, and hogsheads, and I'll stick to 'em, too.
Blame it all!
just as we'd got guns, and a cave, and all just fixed to rob, here this dern
foolishness has got to come up and spile it all!"
Tom saw his opportunity--
"Lookyhere, Huck, being rich ain't going to keep me back from turning robber."
"No! Oh, good-licks; are you in real dead-wood
earnest, Tom?"
"Just as dead earnest as I'm sitting here. But Huck, we can't let you into the gang
if you ain't respectable, you know." Huck's joy was quenched.
"Can't let me in, Tom?
Didn't you let me go for a pirate?" "Yes, but that's different.
A robber is more high-toned than what a pirate is--as a general thing.
In most countries they're awful high up in the nobility--dukes and such."
"Now, Tom, hain't you always ben friendly to me?
You wouldn't shet me out, would you, Tom?
You wouldn't do that, now, WOULD you, Tom?"
"Huck, I wouldn't want to, and I DON'T want to--but what would people say?
Why, they'd say, 'Mph!
Tom Sawyer's Gang! pretty low characters in it!' They'd mean
you, Huck. You wouldn't like that, and I wouldn't."
Huck was silent for some time, engaged in a mental struggle.
Finally he said:
"Well, I'll go back to the widder for a month and tackle it and see if I can come
to stand it, if you'll let me b'long to the gang, Tom."
"All right, Huck, it's a ***!
Come along, old chap, and I'll ask the widow to let up on you a little, Huck."
"Will you, Tom--now will you? That's good.
If she'll let up on some of the roughest things, I'll smoke private and cuss
private, and crowd through or bust. When you going to start the gang and turn
robbers?"
"Oh, right off. We'll get the boys together and have the
initiation to-night, maybe." "Have the which?"
"Have the initiation."
"What's that?"
"It's to swear to stand by one another, and never tell the gang's secrets, even if
you're chopped all to flinders, and kill anybody and all his family that hurts one
of the gang."
"That's gay--that's mighty gay, Tom, I tell you."
"Well, I bet it is.
And all that swearing's got to be done at midnight, in the lonesomest, awfulest
place you can find--a ha'nted house is the best, but they're all ripped up now."
"Well, midnight's good, anyway, Tom."
"Yes, so it is. And you've got to swear on a coffin, and
sign it with blood." "Now, that's something LIKE!
Why, it's a million times bullier than pirating.
I'll stick to the widder till I rot, Tom; and if I git to be a reg'lar ripper of a
robber, and everybody talking 'bout it, I reckon she'll be proud she snaked me in
out of the wet."
>
Conclusion SO endeth this chronicle.
It being strictly a history of a BOY, it must stop here; the story could not go
much further without becoming the history of a MAN.
When one writes a novel about grown people, he knows exactly where to stop--
that is, with a marriage; but when he writes of juveniles, he must stop where he
best can.
Most of the characters that perform in this book still live, and are prosperous
and happy.
Some day it may seem worth while to take up the story of the younger ones again and
see what sort of men and women they turned out to be; therefore it will be wisest not
to reveal any of that part of their lives at present.
>