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TOM SAWYER, DETECTIVE .........................................................................................................................1

MARK TWAIN.......................................................................................................................................1

[Footnote: Strange as the incidents of this story are, they are not inventions, but facts even to the public

confession of the accused. I take them from an oldtime Swedish criminal trial, change the actors, and

transfer the scenes to America. I have added some details, but only a couple of them are important ones.

WELL, it was the next spring after me and Tom Sawyer set our old nigger Jim free, the time he was chained

up for a runaway slave down there on Tom's uncle Silas's farm in Arkansaw. The frost was working out of

the ground, and out of the air, too, and it was getting closer and closer onto barefoot time every day; and next

it would be marble time, and next mumbletypeg, and next tops and hoops, and next kites, and then right away

it would be summer and go ing in aswimming. It just makes a boy homesick to look ahead like that and see

how far off summer is. Yes, and it sets him to sighing and saddening around, and there's something the matter

with him, he don't know what. But anyway, he gets out by himself and mopes and thinks; and mostly he

hunts for a lone some place high up on the hill in the edge of the woods, and sets there and looks away off

on the big Mississippi down there areaching miles and miles around the points where the timber looks

smoky and dim it's so far off and still, and everything's so solemn it seems like everybody you've loved is

dead and gone, and you 'most wish you was dead and gone too, and done with it all.

Don't you know what that is? It's spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you've got it, you

want oh, you don't quite know what it is you DO want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it

so! It seems to you that mainly what you want is to get away; get away from the same old tedious things

you're so used to seeing and so tired of, and set something new. That is the idea; you want to go and be a

wanderer; you want to go wandering far away to strange countries where everything is mysterious and

wonderful and romantic. And if you can't do that, you'll put up with considerable less; you'll go any where

Well, me and Tom Sawyer had the spring fever, and had it bad, too; but it warn't any use to think about Tom

trying to get away, because, as he said, his Aunt Polly wouldn't let him quit school and go traipsing off

somers wasting time; so we was pretty blue. We was setting on the front steps one day about sundown talk

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

I 'most jumped out of my skin for joy. I reckoned Tom would fly at his aunt and hug her head off; but if you

believe me he set there like a rock, and never said a word. It made me fit to cry to see him act so foolish, with

such a noble chance as this opening up. Why, we might lose it if he didn't speak up and show he was thankful

and grateful. But he set there and studied and studied till I was that distressed I didn't know what to do; then

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

His aunt Polly was knocked so stupid and so mad at the cold impudence of it that she couldn't say a word for

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

"Huck Finn, do you want me to let her SEE how bad I want to go? Why, she'd begin to doubt, right away, and

imagine a lot of sicknesses and dangers and objections, and first you know she'd take it all back. You lemme

Now I never would 'a' thought of that. But he was right. Tom Sawyer was always right the levelest head I

ever see, and always AT himself and ready for anything you might spring on him. By this time his aunt Polly

"You'll be excused! YOU will! Well, I never heard the like of it in all my days! The idea of you talking like

that to ME! Now take yourself off and pack your traps; and if I hear another word out of you about what

you'll be excused from and what you won't, I lay I'LL excuse you with a hickory!"

She hit his head a thump with her thimble as we dodged by, and he let on to be whimpering as we struck for

the stairs. Up in his room he hugged me, he was so out of his head for gladness because he was going

"Before we get away she'll wish she hadn't let me go, but she won't know any way to get around it now. After

Tom was packed in ten minutes, all except what his aunt and Mary would finish up for him; then we waited

ten more for her to get cooled down and sweet and gentle again; for Tom said it took her ten minutes to

unruffle in times when half of her feathers was up, but twenty when they was all up, and this was one of the

times when they was all up. Then we went down, being in a sweat to know what the letter said.

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

"They're in considerable trouble down there, and they think you and Huck'll be a kind of diversion for them

'comfort,' they say. Much of that they'll get out of you and Huck Finn, I reckon. There's a neigh bor

named Brace Dunlap that's been wanting to marry their Benny for three months, and at last they told him

point blank and once for all, he COULDN'T; so he has soured on them, and they're worried about it. I reckon

he's somebody they think they better be on the good side of, for they've tried to please him by hiring his no

account brother to help on the farm when they can't hardly afford it, and don't want him around anyhow. Who

"They live about a mile from Uncle Silas's place, Aunt Polly all the farmers live about a mile apart down

there and Brace Dunlap is a long sight richer than any of the others, and owns a whole grist of nig gers.

He's a widower, thirtysix years old, without any children, and is proud of his money and overbear ing, and

everybody is a little afraid of him. I judge he thought he could have any girl he wanted, just for the asking,

and it must have set him back a good deal when he found he couldn't get Benny. Why, Benny's only half as

old as he is, and just as sweet and lovely asQ well, you've seen her. Poor old Uncle Silas why, it's pitiful,

him trying to curry favor that way so hard pushed and poor, and yet hiring that useless Jubiter Dunlap to

"It's only just a nickname. I reckon they've forgot his real name long before this. He's twentyseven, now,

and has had it ever since the first time he ever went in swimming. The school teacher seen a round brown

mole the size of a dime on his left leg above his knee, and four little bits of moles around it, when he was

naked, and he said it minded him of Jubiter and his moons; and the children thought it was funny, and so they

got to calling him Jubiter, and he's Jubiter yet. He's tall, and lazy, and sly, and sneaky, and ruther cowardly,

too, but kind of goodnatured, and wears long brown hair and no beard, and hasn't got a cent, and Brace

boards him for nothing, and gives him his old clothes to wear, and despises him. Jubiter is a twin."

"Just exactly like Jubiter so they say; used to was, anyway, but he hain't been seen for seven years. He got

to robbing when he was nineteen or twenty, and they jailed him; but he broke jail and got away up North

here, somers. They used to hear about him robbing and burglaring now and then, but that was years ago. He's

There wasn't anything more said for a considerable while; the old lady was thinking. At last she says:

"The thing that is mostly worrying your aunt Sally is the tempers that that man Jubiter gets your uncle into."

"Tempers? Uncle Silas? Land, you must be jok ing! I didn't know he HAD any temper."

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

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

"Well, she's worried, anyway. Says your uncle Silas is like a changed man, on account of all this quarreling.

And the neighbors talk about it, and lay all the blame on your uncle, of course, because he's a preacher and

hain't got any business to quarrel. Your aunt Sally says he hates to go into the pulpit he's so ashamed; and the

people have begun to cool toward him, and he ain't as popular now as he used to was."

"Well, ain't it strange? Why, Aunt Polly, he was always so good and kind and moony and absentminded and

chuckleheaded and lovable why, he was just an angel! What CAN be the matter of him, do you reckon?"

WE had powerful good luck; because we got a chance in a sternwheeler from away North which was bound

for one of them bayous or onehorse rivers away down Louisiana way, and so we could go all the way down

the Upper Mississippi and all the way down the Lower Mississippi to that farm in Arkansaw with out

having to change steamboats at St. Louis; not so very much short of a thousand miles at one pull.

A pretty lonesome boat; there warn't but few passengers, and all old folks, that set around, wide apart, dozing,

and was very quiet. We was four days getting out of the "upper river," because we got aground so much. But

From the very start me and Tom allowed that there was somebody sick in the stateroom next to ourn, be

cause the meals was always toted in there by the wait ers. By and by we asked about it Tom did and the

"Because if he was sick he would pull his clothes off SOME time or other don't you reckon he would?

It was always nuts for Tom Sawyer a mystery was. If you'd lay out a mystery and a pie before me and

him, you wouldn't have to say take your choice; it was a thing that would regulate itself. Because in my

nature I have always run to pie, whilst in his nature he has always run to mystery. People are made different.

"No nothing, except he seems so scary, and keeps his doors locked night and day both, and when you

"By jimminy, it's int'resting! I'd like to get a look at him. Say the next time you're going in there, don't you

"Looky here. You lend me your apern and let me take him his breakfast in the morning. I'll give you a

The boy was plenty willing enough, if the head steward wouldn't mind. Tom says that's all right, he reckoned

he could fix it with the head steward; and he done it. He fixed it so as we could both go in with aperns on and

He didn't sleep much, he was in such a sweat to get in there and find out the mystery about Phillips; and

moreover he done a lot of guessing about it all night, which warn't no use, for if you are going to find out the

facts of a thing, what's the sense in guessing out what ain't the facts and wasting ammunition? I didn't lose no

sleep. I wouldn't give a dern to know what's the matter of Phillips, I says to myself.

Well, in the morning we put on the aperns and got a couple of trays of truck, and Tom he knocked on the

door. The man opened it a crack, and then he let us in and shut it quick. By Jackson, when we got a sight of

Well, the man was astonished, of course; and first off he looked like he didn't know whether to be scared, or

glad, or both, or which, but finally he settled down to being glad; and then his color come back, though at

first his face had turned pretty white. So we got to talking together while he et his breakfast. And he says:

"But I aint Jubiter Dunlap. I'd just as soon tell you who I am, though, if you'll swear to keep mum, for I ain't

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

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

Tom told about the adventures we'd had down there at his uncle Silas's last summer, and when he see that

there warn't anything about his folks or him either, for that matter that we didn't know, he opened out

and talked perfectly free and candid. He never made any bones about his own case; said he'd been a hard lot,

was a hard lot yet, and reckoned he'd be a hard lot plumb to the end. He said of course it was a danger ous

He give a kind of gasp, and set his head like a person that's listening. We didn't say anything, and so it was

very still for a second or so, and there warn't no sounds but the screaking of the woodwork and the chug

Then we got him comfortable again, telling him about his people, and how Brace's wife had been dead three

years, and Brace wanted to marry Benny and she shook him, and Jubiter was working for Uncle Silas, and

"Land!" he says, "it's like old times to hear all this tittletattle, and does me good. It's been seven years and

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

"Then I'm saved, I'm saved, sure! I'll go home. They'll hide me and save my life. You keep mum. Swear

you'll keep mum swear you'll never, never tell on me. Oh, boys, be good to a poor devil that's being

hunted day and night, and dasn't show his face! I've never done you any harm; I'll never do you any, as God

We'd a swore it if he'd been a dog; and so we done it. Well, he couldn't love us enough for it or be grate ful

We talked along, and he got out a little handbag and begun to open it, and told us to turn our backs. We

done it, and when he told us to turn again he was perfectly different to what he was before. He had on blue

goggles and the naturalestlooking long brown whiskers and mustashes you ever see. His own mother

wouldn't 'a' knowed him. He asked us if he looked like his brother Jubiter, now.

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

"All right, I'll get that cropped close to my head be fore I get there; then him and Brace will keep my secret,

and I'll live with them as being a stranger, and the neighbors won't ever guess me out. What do you think?"

"Well, of course me and Huck are going to keep mum there, but if you don't keep mum yourself there's going

to be a little bit of a risk it ain't much, maybe, but it's a little. I mean, if you talk, won't people notice that

your voice is just like Jubiter's; and mightn't it make them think of the twin they reckoned was dead, but

"By George," he says, "you're a sharp one! You're perfectly right. I've got to play deef and dumb when there's

a neighbor around. If I'd a struck for home and forgot that little detail However, I wasn't striking for home.

I was breaking for any place where I could get away from these fellows that are after me; then I was going to

He jumped for the outside door and laid his ear against it and listened, pale and kind of panting. Presently he

Then he sunk down in a chair all limp and sick like, and wiped the sweat off of his face.

FROM that time out, we was with him 'most all the time, and one or t'other of us slept in his upper berth. He

said he had been so lonesome, and it was such a comfort to him to have company, and somebody to talk to in

his troubles. We was in a sweat to find out what his secret was, but Tom said the best way was not to seem

anxious, then likely he would drop into it himself in one of his talks, but if we got to asking questions he

would get suspicious and shet up his shell. It turned out just so. It warn't no trouble to see that he WANTED

to talk about it, but always along at first he would scare away from it when he got on the very edge of it, and

go to talking about something else. The way it come about was this: He got to asking us, kind of indifferent

like, about the passengers down on deck. We told him about them. But he warn't satis fied; we warn't

particular enough. He told us to de scribe them better. Tom done it. At last, when Tom was describing one

"Oh, lordy, that's one of them! They're aboard sure I just knowed it. I sort of hoped I had got away, but I

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

"That's him! that's the other one. If it would only come a good black stormy night and I could get ashore.

You see, they've got spies on me. They've got a right to come up and buy drinks at the bar yonder forrard, and

they take that chance to bribe somebody to keep watch on me porter or boots or somebody. If I was to slip

So then he got to wandering along, and pretty soon, sure enough, he was telling! He was poking along

through his ups and downs, and when he come to that place he went right along. He says:

"It was a confidence game. We played it on a julery shop in St. Louis. What we was after was a couple of

noble big di'monds as big as hazelnuts, which every body was running to see. We was dressed up fine, and

we played it on them in broad daylight. We ordered the di'monds sent to the hotel for us to see if we wanted

to buy, and when we was examining them we had paste counterfeits all ready, and THEM was the things that

went back to the shop when we said the water wasn't quite fine enough for twelve thousand dollars."

"TwelveQthousandQdollars!" Tom says. "Was they really worth all that money, do you reckon?"

"As easy as nothing. I don't reckon the julery people know they've been robbed yet. But it wouldn't be good

sense to stay around St. Louis, of course, so we considered where we'd go. One was for going one way, one

another, so we throwed up, heads or tails, and the Upper Mississippi won. We done up the di'monds in a

paper and put our names on it and put it in the keep of the hotel clerk, and told him not to ever let either of us

have it again without the others was on hand to see it done; then we went down town, each by his own self

because I reckon maybe we all had the same notion. I don't know for certain, but I reckon maybe we had."

It disgusted Tom Sawyer, and he said it was the orneriest, lowdownest thing he ever heard of. But Jake

Dunlap said it warn't unusual in the profession. Said when a person was in that line of business he'd got to

look out for his own intrust, there warn't no body else going to do it for him. And then he went on. He says:

"You see, the trouble was, you couldn't divide up two di'monds amongst three. If there'd been three But

never mind about that, there warn't three. I loafed along the back streets studying and studying. And I says to

myself, I'll hog them di'monds the first chance I get, and I'll have a disguise all ready, and I'll give the boys

the slip, and when I'm safe away I'll put it on, and then let them find me if they can. So I got the false

whiskers and the goggles and this countrified suit of clothes, and fetched them along back in a hand bag;

and when I was passing a shop where they sell all sorts of things, I got a glimpse of one of my pals through

the window. It was Bud Dixon. I was glad, you bet. I says to myself, I'll see what he buys. So I kept shady,

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

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

"That's what I thought. It was curious. It clean stumped me. I says to myself, what can he want with that

thing? Well, when he come out I stood back out of sight, and then tracked him to a secondhand slop shop

and see him buy a red flannel shirt and some old ragged clothes just the ones he's got on now, as you've

described. Then I went down to the wharf and hid my things aboard the upriver boat that we had picked out,

and then started back and had another streak of luck. I seen our other pal lay in HIS stock of old rusty

"But now we was up a stump, for we couldn't go to bed. We had to set up and watch one another. Pity, that

was; pity to put that kind of a strain on us, because there was bad blood between us from a couple of weeks

back, and we was only friends in the way of business. Bad anyway, seeing there was only two di'monds

betwixt three men. First we had supper, and then tramped up and down the deck together smoking till most

midnight; then we went and set down in my stateroom and locked the doors and looked in the piece of paper

to see if the di'monds was all right, then laid it on the lower berth right in full sight; and there we set, and set,

and byandby it got to be dreadful hard to keep awake. At last Bud Dixon he dropped off. As soon as he

was snoring a good regular gait that was likely to last, and had his chin on his breast and looked permanent,

Hal Clayton nodded towards the di'monds and then towards the outside door, and I understood. I reached and

got the paper, and then we stood up and waited perfectly still; Bud never stirred; I turned the key of the

outside door very soft and slow, then turned the knob the same way, and we went tiptoeing out onto the

"There warn't nobody stirring anywhere, and the boat was slipping along, swift and steady, through the big

water in the smoky moonlight. We never said a word, but went straight up onto the hurricanedeck and

plumb back aft, and set down on the end of the sky light. Both of us knowed what that meant, without

having to explain to one another. Bud Dixon would wake up and miss the swag, and would come straight for

us, for he ain't afeard of anything or anybody, that man ain't. He would come, and we would heave him

overboard, or get killed trying. It made me shiver, because I ain't as brave as some people, but if I showed the

white feather well, I knowed better than do that. I kind of hoped the boat would land somers, and we

could skip ashore and not have to run the risk of this row, I was so scared of Bud Dixon, but she was an

"Well, the time strung along and along, and that fellow never come! Why, it strung along till dawn begun to

break, and still he never come. 'Thunder,' I says, 'what do you make out of this? ain't it sus picious?'

'Land!' Hal says, 'do you reckon he's playing us? open the paper!' I done it, and by gracious there warn't

anything in it but a couple of little pieces of loafsugar! THAT'S the reason he could set there and snooze all

night so comfortable. Smart? Well, I reckon! He had had them two papers all fixed and ready, and he had put

"We felt pretty cheap. But the thing to do, straight off, was to make a plan; and we done it. We would do up

the paper again, just as it was, and slip in, very elaborate and soft, and lay it on the bunk again, and let on WE

didn't know about any trick, and hadn't any idea he was alaughing at us behind them bogus snores of his'n;

and we would stick by him, and the first night we was ashore we would get him drunk and search him, and

get the di'monds; and DO for him, too, if it warn't too risky. If we got the swag, we'd GOT to do for him, or

he would hunt us down and do for us, sure. But I didn't have no real hope. I knowed we could get him drunk

he was always ready for that but what's the good of it? You might search him a year and never find

"Well, right there I catched my breath and broke off my thought! For an idea went ripping through my head

that tore my brains to rags and land, but I felt gay and good! You see, I had had my boots off, to unswell

my feet, and just then I took up one of them to put it on, and I catched a glimpse of the heel bottom, and it

just took my breath away. You re member about that puzzlesome little screwdriver?"

"Well, when I catched that glimpse of that boot heel, the idea that went smashing through my head was, I

know where he's hid the di'monds! You look at this boot heel, now. See, it's bottomed with a steel plate, and

the plate is fastened on with little screws. Now there wasn't a screw about that feller anywhere but in his boot

"Well, I got my boots on, and we went down and slipped in and laid the paper of sugar on the berth, and sat

down soft and sheepish and went to listening to Bud Dixon snore. Hal Clayton dropped off pretty soon, but I

didn't; I wasn't ever so wide awake in my life. I was spying out from under the shade of my hat brim,

searching the floor for leather. It took me a long time, and I begun to think maybe my guess was wrong, but

at last I struck it. It laid over by the bulkhead, and was nearly the color of the carpet. It was a little round plug

about as thick as the end of your little finger, and I says to myself there's a di'mond in the nest you've come

"Think of the smartness and coolness of that blatherskite! He put up that scheme on us and reasoned out what

we would do, and we went ahead and done it perfectly exact, like a couple of pudd'n heads. He set there and

took his own time to un screw his heelplates and cut out his plugs and stick in the di'monds and screw on his

plates again . He allowed we would steal the bogus swag and wait all night for him to come up and get

drownded, and by George it's just what we done! I think it was power ful smart."

WELL, all day we went through the humbug of watching one another, and it was pretty sickly business for

two of us and hard to act out, I can tell you. About night we landed at one of them little Missouri towns high

up toward Iowa, and had supper at the tavern, and got a room upstairs with a cot and a double bed in it, but I

dumped my bag under a deal table in the dark hall while we was moving along it to bed, single file, me last,

and the landlord in the lead with a tallow candle. We had up a lot of whisky, and went to playing

highlowjack for dimes, and as soon as the whisky begun to take hold of Bud we stopped drinking, but we

didn't let him stop. We loaded him till he fell out of his chair and laid there snoring.

"We was ready for business now. I said we better pull our boots off, and his'n too, and not make any noise,

then we could pull him and haul him around and ransack him without any trouble. So we done it. I set my

boots and Bud's side by side, where they'd be handy. Then we stripped him and searched his seams and his

pockets and his socks and the inside of his boots, and everything, and searched his bundle. Never found any

di'monds. We found the screwdriver, and Hal says, 'What do you reckon he wanted with that?' I said I didn't

know; but when he wasn't looking I hooked it. At last Hal he looked beat and discour aged, and said we'd

"'By gracious, I never thought of that! NOW we're on the homestretch, to a dead moral certainty. How'll we

"'Well,' I says, 'just stay by him till I turn out and hunt up a drug store, and I reckon I'll fetch something that'll

"He said that's the ticket, and with him looking straight at me I slid myself into Bud's boots instead of my

own, and he never noticed. They was just a shade large for me, but that was considerable better than be ing

too small. I got my bag as I went agroping through the hall, and in about a minute I was out the back way

"And not feeling so very bad, neither walking on di'monds don't have no such effect. When I had gone

fifteen minutes I says to myself, there's more'n a mile behind me, and everything quiet. Another five minutes

and I says there's considerable more land behind me now, and there's a man back there that's begun to wonder

what's the trouble. Another five and I says to myself he's getting real uneasy he's walking the floor now.

Another five, and I says to myself, there's two mile and a half behind me, and he's AWFUL uneasy be

ginning to cuss, I reckon. Pretty soon I says to my self, forty minutes gone he KNOWS there's

something up! Fifty minutes the truth's abusting on him now! he is reckoning I found the di'monds

whilst we was searching, and shoved them in my pocket and never let on yes, and he's starting out to hunt

for me. He'll hunt for new tracks in the dust, and they'll as likely send him down the river as up.

"Just then I see a man coming down on a mule, and before I thought I jumped into the bush. It was stupid!

When he got abreast he stopped and waited a little for me to come out; then he rode on again. But I didn't feel

gay any more. I says to myself I've botched my chances by that; I surely have, if he meets up with Hal

"Well, about three in the morning I fetched Elex andria and see this sternwheeler laying there, and was

very glad, because I felt perfectly safe, now, you know. It was just daybreak. I went aboard and got this

state room and put on these clothes and went up in the pilot house to watch, though I didn't reckon

there was any need of it. I set there and played with my di'monds and waited and waited for the boat to start,

but she didn't. You see, they was mending her machinery, but I didn't know anything about it, not being very

"Well, to cut the tale short, we never left there till plumb noon; and long before that I was hid in this

stateroom; for before breakfast I see a man coming, away off, that had a gait like Hal Clayton's, and it made

me just sick. I says to myself, if he finds out I'm aboard this boat, he's got me like a rat in a trap. All he's got

to do is to have me watched, and wait wait till I slip ashore, thinking he is a thousand miles away, then

slip after me and dog me to a good place and make me give up the di'monds, and then he'll oh, I know

what he'll do! Ain't it awful awful! And now to think the OTHER one's aboard, too! Oh, ain't it hard luck,

boys ain't it hard! But you'll help save me, WON'T you? oh, boys, be good to a poor devil that's being

We turned in and soothed him down and told him we would plan for him and help him, and he needn't be so

afeard; and so by and by he got to feeling kind of comfortable again, and unscrewed his heelplates and held

up his di'monds this way and that, admiring them and loving them; and when the light struck into them they

WAS beautiful, sure; why, they seemed to kind of bust, and snap fire out all around. But all the same I judged

he was a fool. If I had been him I would a handed the di'monds to them pals and got them to go ashore and

leave me alone. But he was made differ ent. He said it was a whole fortune and he couldn't bear the idea.

Twice we stopped to fix the machinery and laid a good while, once in the night; but it wasn't dark enough,

and he was afeard to skip. But the third time we had to fix it there was a better chance. We laid up at a

country woodyard about forty mile above Uncle Silas's place a little after one at night, and it was thickening

up and going to storm. So Jake he laid for a chance to slide. We begun to take in wood. Pretty soon the rain

come adrenching down, and the wind blowed hard. Of course every boathand fixed a gunny sack and put it

on like a bonnet, the way they do when they are toting wood, and we got one for Jake, and he slipped down

aft with his handbag and come tramping forrard just like the rest, and walked ashore with them, and when

we see him pass out of the light of the torchbasket and get swallowed up in the dark, we got our breath

again and just felt grateful and splendid. But it wasn't for long. Somebody told, I reckon; for in about eight or

ten minutes them two pals come tearing forrard as tight as they could jump and darted ashore and was gone.

We waited plumb till dawn for them to come back, and kept hoping they would, but they never did. We was

awful sorry and lowspirited. All the hope we had was that Jake had got such a start that they couldn't get on

He was going to take the river road, and told us to find out if Brace and Jubiter was to home and no strangers

there, and then slip out about sundown and tell him. Said he would wait for us in a little bunch of sycamores

right back of Tom's uncle Silas's tobacker field on the river road, a lonesome place.

We set and talked a long time about his chances, and Tom said he was all right if the pals struck up the river

instead of down, but it wasn't likely, because maybe they knowed where he was from; more likely they would

go right, and dog him all day, him not suspecting, and kill him when it come dark, and take the boots. So we

WE didn't get done tinkering the machinery till away late in the afternoon, and so it was so close to sundown

when we got home that we never stopped on our road, but made a break for the sycamores as tight as we

could go, to tell Jake what the delay was, and have him wait till we could go to Brace's and find out how

things was there. It was getting pretty dim by the time we turned the corner of the woods, sweating and

panting with that long run, and see the sycamores thirty yards ahead of us; and just then we see a couple of

men run into the bunch and heard two or three terrible screams for help. "Poor Jake is killed, sure," we says.

We was scared through and through, and broke for the tobacker field and hid there, trembling so our clothes

would hardly stay on; and just as we skipped in there, a couple of men went tearing by, and into the bunch

they went, and in a second out jumps four men and took out up the road as tight as they could go, two chasing

We laid down, kind of weak and sick, and listened for more sounds, but didn't hear none for a good while but

just our hearts. We was thinking of that awful thing laying yonder in the sycamores, and it seemed like being

that close to a ghost, and it give me the cold shudders. The moon come aswelling up out of the ground, now,

powerful big and round and bright, be hind a comb of trees, like a face looking through prison bars, and the

black shadders and white places begun to creep around, and it was miserable quiet and still and nightbreezy

"Don't!" I says. "Don't take a person by sur prise that way. I'm 'most ready to die, anyway, with out you

He was so excited he could hardly get breath enough to whisper. I had to look. I couldn't help it. So now we

was both on our knees with our chins on a fence rail and gazing yes, and gasping too. It was coming down

the road coming in the shadder of the trees, and you couldn't see it good; not till it was pretty close to us;

then it stepped into a bright splotch of moonlight and we sunk right down in our tracks it was Jake

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

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

"Yes, and the very colors in them loud countrified Sunday clothes plaid breeches, green and black "

"Leather straps to the bottoms of the breeches legs and one of them hanging unbottoned "

You see it was the first season anybody wore that kind a black sitffbrim stovepipe, very high, and not

"Sho! I wouldn't be as ignorant as that if I was you, Huck Finn. Whatever a ghost has, turns to ghost stuff.

They've got to have their things, like anybody else. You see, yourself, that its clothes was turned to

ghoststuff. Well, then, what's to hender its bag from turning, too? Of course it done it."

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

Then they both laughed, and went on out of hearing. It showed how unpopular old Uncle Silas had got to be

now. They wouldn't 'a' let a nigger steal anybody else's corn and never done anything to him.

We heard some more voices mumbling along towards us and getting louder, and sometimes a cackle of a

"Oh, I don't know. I reckon so. I seen him spad ing up some ground along about an hour ago, just be fore

sundown him and the parson. Said he guessed he wouldn't go tonight, but we could have his dog if we

They cackled at that, and went on by. Tom said we better jump out and tag along after them, because they

was going our way and it wouldn't be comfortable to run across the ghost all by ourselves. So we done it, and

That night was the second of September a Satur day. I sha'n't ever forget it. You'll see why, pretty soon .

WE tramped along behind Jim and Lem till we come to the back stile where old Jim's cabin was that he was

captivated in, the time we set him free, and here come the dogs piling around us to say howdy, and there was

the lights of the house, too; so we warn't afeard any more, and was going to climb over, but Tom says:

"Matter enough!" he says. "Wasn't you expect ing we would be the first to tell the family who it is that's

been killed yonder in the sycamores, and all about them rapscallions that done it, and about the di'monds

they've smouched off of the corpse, and paint it up fine, and have the glory of being the ones that knows a lot

"Why, of course. It wouldn't be you, Tom Sawyer, if you was to let such a chance go by. I reckon it ain't

going to suffer none for lack of paint," I says, "when you start in to scollop the facts."

"Well, now," he says, perfectly ca'm, "what would you say if I was to tell you I ain't going to start in at all?"

"I don't only think it, I know it. Didn't the breeches and goggles and whiskers and handbag and every

blessed thing turn to ghoststuff? Everything it had on turned, didn't it? It shows that the reason its boots

turned too was because it still had them on after it started to go ha'nting around, and if that ain't proof that

them blatherskites didn't get the boots, I'd like to know what you'd CALL proof."

Think of that now. I never see such a head as that boy had. Why, I had eyes and I could see things, but they

never meant nothing to me. But Tom Sawyer was different. When Tom Sawyer seen a thing it just got up on

its hind legs and TALKED to him told him everything it knowed. I never see such a head.

"Tom Sawyer," I says, "I'll say it again as I've said it a many a time before: I ain't fitten to black your boots.

But that's all right that's neither here nor there. God Almighty made us all, and some He gives eyes that's

blind, and some He gives eyes that can see, and I reckon it ain't none of our lookout what He done it for; it's

all right, or He'd 'a' fixed it some other way. Go on I see plenty plain enough, now, that them thieves didn't

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

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

"Oh, shucks, Huck Finn, can't you see? Look at it. What's agoing to happen? There's going to be an inquest

in the morning. Them two men will tell how they heard the yells and rushed there just in time to not save the

stranger. Then the jury'll twaddle and twaddle and twaddle, and finally they'll fetch in a verdict that he got

shot or stuck or busted over the head with something, and come to his death by the in spiration of God. And

after they've buried him they'll auction off his things for to pay the expenses, and then's OUR chance." "How,

"You bet. Some day there'll be a big reward offered for them a thousand dollars, sure. That's our money!

Now we'll trot in and see the folks. And mind you we don't know anything about any murder, or any

I had to sigh a little over the way he had got it fixed. I'd 'a' SOLD them di'monds yes, sir for twelve

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

We struck across the big yard, noticing this, that, and t'other thing that was so familiar, and we so glad to see

it again, and when we got to the roofed big passageway betwixt the double log house and the kitchen part,

there was everything hanging on the wall just as it used to was, even to Uncle Silas's old faded green baize

workinggown with the hood to it, and rag gedy white patch between the shoulders that always looked like

somebody had hit him with a snowball; and then we lifted the latch and walked in. Aunt Sally she was just

aripping and atearing around, and the children was huddled in one corner, and the old man he was huddled

in the other and praying for help in time of need. She jumped for us with joy and tears running down her face

and give us a whacking box on the ear, and then hugged us and kissed us and boxed us again, and just

"Where HAVE you been aloafing to, you goodfor nothing trash! I've been that worried about you I didn't

know what to do. Your traps has been here ever so long, and I've had supper cooked fresh about four times so

as to have it hot and good when you come, till at last my patience is just plumb wore out, and I declare I I

why I could skin you alive! You must be starving, poor things! set down, set down, everybody; don't

It was good to be there again behind all that noble cornpone and spareribs, and everything that you could

ever want in this world. Old Uncle Silas he peeled off one of his bulliest oldtime blessings, with as many

layers to it as an onion, and whilst the angels was haul ing in the slack of it I was trying to study up what to

say about what kept us so long. When our plates was all loadened and we'd got agoing, she asked me, and I

"Huck Finn! Since when am I Mizzes to you? Have I ever been stingy of cuffs or kisses for you since the day

you stood in this room and I took you for Tom Sawyer and blessed God for sending you to me, though you

told me four thousand lies and I believed every one of them like a simpleton? Call me Aunt Sally like you

"Well, me and Tom allowed we would come along afoot and take a smell of the woods, and we run across

Lem Beebe and Jim Lane, and they asked us to go with them blackberrying tonight, and said they could

"Where did they see him?" says the old man; and when I looked up to see how HE come to take an intrust in

a little thing like that, his eyes was just burning into me, he was that eager. It surprised me so it kind of

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

He only said, "Um," in a kind of a disappointed way, and didn't take no more intrust. So I went on. I says:

"That'll do, you needn't go no furder." It was Aunt Sally. She was boring right into me with her eyes, and

very indignant. "Huck Finn," she says, "how'd them men come to talk about going ablack berrying in

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

"And how'd they come to strike that idiot idea of going ablackberrying in the night?"

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

"Now, Tom Sawyer, what kind of a lie are you fix ing YOUR mouth to contribit to this mess of rubbage?

Speak out and I warn you before you begin, that I don't believe a word of it. You and Huck's been up to

something you no business to I know it perfectly well; I know you, BOTH of you. Now you explain that

dog, and them blackberries, and the lantern, and the rest of that rot and mind you talk as straight as a

"It is a pity if Huck is to be talked to that way, just for making a little bit of a mistake that anybody could

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

"Aunt Sally, without knowing it and of course without intending it you are in the wrong. If you'd 'a'

studied natural history the way you ought, you would know that all over the world except just here in

But she busted in on him there and just piled into him and snowed him under. She was so mad she couldn't

get the words out fast enough, and she gushed them out in one everlasting freshet. That was what Tom

Sawyer was after. He allowed to work her up and get her started and then leave her alone and let her burn

herself out. Then she would be so aggravated with that subject that she wouldn't say another word about it,

nor let anybody else. Well, it happened just so. When she was tuckered out and had to hold up, he says, quite

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

BENNY she was looking pretty sober, and she sighed some, now and then; but pretty soon she got to asking

about Mary, and Sid, and Tom's aunt Polly, and then Aunt Sally's clouds cleared off and she got in a good

humor and joined in on the questions and was her lovingest best self, and so the rest of the supper went along

gay and pleasant. But the old man he didn't take any hand hardly, and was absentminded and restless, and

done a considerable amount of sigh ing; and it was kind of heartbreaking to see him so sad and troubled

By and by, a spell after supper, come a nigger and knocked on the door and put his head in with his old straw

hat in his hand bowing and scraping, and said his Marse Brace was out at the stile and wanted his brother, and

was getting tired waiting supper for him, and would Marse Silas please tell him where he was? I never see

"Am I his brother's keeper?" And then he kind of wilted together, and looked like he wished he hadn't spoken

so, and then he says, very gentle: "But you needn't say that, Billy; I was took sudden and irritable, and I ain't

And when the nigger was gone he got up and walked the floor, backwards and forwards, mumbling and

muttering to himself and plowing his hands through his hair. It was real pitiful to see him. Aunt Sally she

whispered to us and told us not to take notice of him, it embarrassed him. She said he was always thinking

and thinking, since these troubles come on, and she allowed he didn't more'n about half know what he was

about when the thinking spells was on him; and she said he walked in his sleep considerable more now than

he used to, and sometimes wandered around over the house and even outdoors in his sleep, and if we catched

him at it we must let him alone and not disturb him. She said she reckoned it didn't do him no harm, and may

be it done him good. She said Benny was the only one that was much help to him these days. Said Benny

So he kept on tramping up and down the floor and muttering, till by and by he begun to look pretty tired; then

Benny she went and snuggled up to his side and put one hand in his and one arm around his waist and walked

with him; and he smiled down on her, and reached down and kissed her; and so, little by little the trouble

went out of his face and she persuaded him off to his room. They had very petting ways together, and it was

Aunt Sally she was busy getting the children ready for bed; so by and by it got dull and tedious, and me and

Tom took a turn in the moonlight, and fetched up in the watermelonpatch and et one, and had a good deal of

talk. And Tom said he'd bet the quarreling was all Jubiter's fault, and he was going to be on hand the first

time he got a chance, and see; and if it was so, he was going to do his level best to get Uncle Silas to turn him

And so we talked and smoked and stuffed water melons much as two hours, and then it was pretty late, and

Tom he always seen everything, and now he see that the old green baize workgown was gone, and said it

wasn't gone when he went out; so he allowed it was curious, and then we went up to bed.

We could hear Benny stirring around in her room, which was next to ourn, and judged she was worried a

good deal about her father and couldn't sleep. We found we couldn't, neither. So we set up a long time, and

smoked and talked in a low voice, and felt pretty dull and downhearted. We talked the murder and the ghost

over and over again, and got so creepy and crawly we couldn't get sleepy nohow and noway.

By and by, when it was away late in the night and all the sounds was late sounds and solemn, Tom nudged

me and whispers to me to look, and I done it, and there we see a man poking around in the yard like he didn't

know just what he wanted to do, but it was pretty dim and we couldn't see him good. Then he started for the

stile, and as he went over it the moon came out strong, and he had a longhandled shovel over his shoulder,

"He's awalking in his sleep. I wish we was allowed to follow him and see where he's going to. There, he's

turned down by the tobackerfield. Out of sight now. It's a dreadful pity he can't rest no better."

We waited a long time, but he didn't come back any more, or if he did he come around the other way; so at

last we was tuckered out and went to sleep and had nightmares, a million of them. But before dawn we was

awake again, because meantime a storm had come up and been raging, and the thunder and lightning was

awful, and the wind was athrashing the trees around, and the rain was driving down in slanting sheets, and

"Looky here, Huck, I'll tell you one thing that's mighty curious. Up to the time we went out last night the

family hadn't heard about Jake Dunlap being mur dered. Now the men that chased Hal Clayton and Bud

Dixon away would spread the thing around in a half an hour, and every neighbor that heard it would shin out

and fly around from one farm to t'other and try to be the first to tell the news. Land, they don't have such a big

thing as that to tell twice in thirty year! Huck, it's mighty strange; I don't understand it."

So then he was in a fidget for the rain to let up, so we could turn out and run across some of the people and

see if they would say anything about it to us. And he said if they did we must be horribly surprised and

We was out and gone the minute the rain stopped. It was just broad day then. We loafed along up the road,

and now and then met a person and stopped and said howdy, and told them when we come, and how we left

the folks at home, and how long we was going to stay, and all that, but none of them said a word about that

thing; which was just astonishing, and no mistake. Tom said he believed if we went to the sycamores we

would find that body laying there solitary and alone, and not a soul around. Said he believed the men chased

the thieves so far into the woods that the thieves prob'ly seen a good chance and turned on them at last, and

First we knowed, gabbling along that away, we was right at the sycamores. The cold chills trickled down my

back and I wouldn't budge another step, for all Tom's persuading. But he couldn't hold in; he'd GOT to see if

the boots was safe on that body yet. So he crope in and the next minute out he come again with his eyes

"It's gone, sure. There ain't a sign of it. The ground is trampled some, but if there was any blood it's all

At last I give in, and went and took a look myself; and it was just as Tom said there wasn't a sign of a

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

"I don't know," I says, disgusted, "and what's more I don't care. They've got the boots, and that's all I cared

Tom didn't feel no more intrust in him neither, only curiosity to know what come of him; but he said we'd lay

low and keep dark and it wouldn't be long till the dogs or somebody rousted him out.

We went back home to breakfast ever so bothered and put out and disappointed and swindled. I warn't ever so

IT warn't very cheerful at breakfast. Aunt Sally she looked old and tired and let the children snarl and fuss at

one another and didn't seem to notice it was going on, which wasn't her usual style; me and Tom had a plenty

to think about without talking; Benny she looked like she hadn't had much sleep, and whenever she'd lift her

head a little and steal a look towards her father you could see there was tears in her eyes; and as for the old

man, his things stayed on his plate and got cold without him knowing they was there, I reckon, for he was

By and by when it was stillest, that nigger's head was poked in at the door again, and he said his Marse Brace

was getting powerful uneasy about Marse Jubiter, which hadn't come home yet, and would Marse Silas please

He was looking at Uncle Silas, and he stopped there, like the rest of his words was froze; for Uncle Silas he

rose up shaky and steadied himself leaning his fingers on the table, and he was panting, and his eyes was set

on the nigger, and he kept swallowing, and put his other hand up to his throat a couple of times, and at last he

"Does he does he think WHAT does he think! Tell him tell him " Then he sunk down in his

chair limp and weak, and says, so as you could hardly hear him: "Go away go away!"

The nigger looked scared and cleared out, and we all felt well, I don't know how we felt, but it was awful,

with the old man panting there, and his eyes set and looking like a person that was dying. None of us could

budge; but Benny she slid around soft, with her tears running down, and stood by his side, and nestled his old

gray head up against her and begun to stroke it and pet it with her hands, and nodded to us to go away, and

Me and Tom struck out for the woods mighty solemn, and saying how different it was now to what it was last

summer when we was here and everything was so peaceful and happy and everybody thought so much of

Uncle Silas, and he was so cheerful and simple hearted and pudd'nheaded and good and now look at

him. If he hadn't lost his mind he wasn't muck short of it. That was what we allowed.

It was a most lovely day now, and bright and sun. shiny; and the further and further we went over the hills

towards the prairie the lovelier and lovelier the trees and flowers got to be and the more it seemed strange and

somehow wrong that there had to be trouble in such a world as this. And then all of a sudden I catched my

breath and grabbed Tom's arm, and all my livers and lungs and things fell down into my legs.

It was setting on a log right in the edge of a little prairie, thinking. I tried to get Tom to come away, but he

wouldn't, and I dasn't budge by myself. He said we mightn't ever get another chance to see one, and he was

going to look his fill at this one if he died for it. So I looked too, though it give me the fan tods to do it. Tom

"Poor Jakey, it's got all its things on, just as he said he would. NOW you see what we wasn't certain about

its hair. It's not long now the way it was: it's got it cropped close to its head, the way he said he would. Huck,

"So would I. It looks perfectly solid and genu wyne, just the way it done before it died."

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

"No, sir, they don't ever come out only at night and then not till after twelve. There's something wrong

about this one, now you mark my words. I don't believe it's got any right to be around in the daytime. But

don't it look natural! Jake was going to play deef and dumb here, so the neighbors wouldn't know his voice.

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

"Why, this. What's the sense of it scratching its head? There ain't anything there to itch; its head is made out

of fog or something like that, and can't itch. A fog can't itch; any fool knows that."

"Well, then, if it don't itch and can't itch, what in the nation is it scratching it for? Ain't it just habit, don't you

"No, sir, I don't. I ain't a bit satisfied about the way this one acts. I've a blame good notion it's a bogus one

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

"Yes, we didJ heard a howl or two. Does that prove anybody was killed? Course it don't. And we seen four

men run, then this one come walking out and we took it for a ghost. No more ghost than you are. It was Jake

Dunlap his own self, and it's Jake Dunlap now. He's been and got his hair cropped, the way he said he would,

and he's playing himself for a stranger, just the same as he said he would. Ghost? Hum! he's as sound as a

Then I see it all, and how we had took too much for granted. I was powerful glad he didn't get killed, and so

was Tom, and we wondered which he would like the best for us to never let on to know him, or how?

Tom reckoned the best way would be to go and ask him. So he started; but I kept a little behind, because I

didn't know but it might be a ghost, after all. When Tom got to where he was, he says:

"Me and Huck's mighty glad to see you again, and you needn't be afeared we'll tell. And if you think it'll be

safer for you if we don't let on to know you when we run across you, say the word and you'll see you can

depend on us, and would ruther cut our hands off than get you into the least little bit of danger."

First off he looked surprised to see us, and not very glad, either; but as Tom went on he looked pleasanter,

and when he was done he smiled, and nodded his head several times, and made signs with his hands, and

Just then we see some of Steve Nickerson's people coming that lived t'other side of the prairie, so Tom says:

"You do it elegant; I never see anybody do it better. You're right; play it on us, too; play it on us same as the

others; it'll keep you in practice and prevent you making blunders. We'll keep away from you and let on we

Then we loafed along past the Nickersons, and of course they asked if that was the new stranger yonder, and

where'd he come from, and what was his name, and which communion was he, Babtis' or Methodis', and

which politics, Whig or Democrat, and how long is he staying, and all them other questions that humans

always asks when a stranger comes, and animals does, too. But Tom said he warn't able to make anything out

of deef and dumb signs, and the same with goo gooing. Then we watched them go and bullyrag Jake;

because we was pretty uneasy for him. Tom said it would take him days to get so he wouldn't forget he was a

deef and dummy sometimes, and speak out be fore he thought. When we had watched long enough to see

that Jake was getting along all right and working his signs very good, we loafed along again, allowing to

I was so disappointed not to hear Jake tell about the row in the sycamores, and how near he come to get ting

killed, that I couldn't seem to get over it, and Tom he felt the same, but said if we was in Jake's fix we would

The boys and girls was all glad to see us again, and we had a real good time all through recess. Coming to

school the Henderson boys had come across the new deef and dummy and told the rest; so all the scholars

was chuck full of him and couldn't talk about anything else, and was in a sweat to get a sight of him because

they hadn't ever seen a deef and dummy in their lives, and it made a powerful excitement.

Tom said it was tough to have to keep mum now; said we would be heroes if we could come out and tell all

we knowed; but after all, it was still more heroic to keep mum, there warn't two boys in a million could do it.

That was Tom Sawyer's idea about it, and reckoned there warn't anybody could better it.

IN the next two or three days Dummy he got to be powerful popular. He went associating around with the

neighbors, and they made much of him, and was proud to have such a rattling curiosity among them. They

had him to breakfast, they had him to dinner, they had him to supper; they kept him loaded up with hog and

hominy, and warn't ever tired staring at him and wondering over him, and wishing they knowed more about

him, he was so uncommon and romantic. His signs warn't no good; people couldn't under stand them and he

prob'ly couldn't himself, but he done a sight of googooing, and so everybody was sat isfied, and admired to

hear him go it. He toted a piece of slate around, and a pencil; and people wrote questions on it and he wrote

answers; but there warn't anybody could read his writing but Brace Dunlap. Brace said he couldn't read it

very good, but he could manage to dig out the meaning most of the time. He said Dummy said he belonged

away off somers and used to be well off, but got busted by swindlers which he had trusted, and was poor

Everybody praised Brace Dunlap for being so good to that stranger. He let him have a little logcabin all to

himself, and had his niggers take care of it, and fetch him all the vittles he wanted.

Dummy was at our house some, because old Uncle Silas was so afflicted himself, these days, that anybody

else that was afflicted was a comfort to him. Me and Tom didn't let on that we had knowed him before, and

he didn't let on that he had knowed us before. The family talked their troubles out before him the same as if

he wasn't there, but we reckoned it wasn't any harm for him to hear what they said. Generly he didn't seem to

Well, two or three days went along, and everybody got to getting uneasy about Jubiter Dunlap. Every body

was asking everybody if they had any idea what had become of him. No, they hadn't, they said: and they

shook their heads and said there was something powerful strange about it. Another and another day went by;

then there was a report got around that praps he was murdered. You bet it made a big stir! Every body's

tongue was clacking away after that. Saturday two or three gangs turned out and hunted the woods to see if

they could run across his remainders. Me and Tom helped, and it was noble good times and exciting. Tom he

was so brimful of it he couldn't eat nor rest. He said if we could find that corpse we would be celebrated, and

The others got tired and give it up; but not Tom Sawyer that warn't his style. Saturday night he didn't

sleep any, hardly, trying to think up a plan; and towards daylight in the morning he struck it. He snaked me

In two minutes we was tearing up the river road in the dark towards the village. Old Jeff Hooker had a

"It don't make any difference, Huck. If the body's hid in the woods anywhere around the hound will find it. If

he's been murdered and buried, they wouldn't bury him deep, it ain't likely, and if the dog goes over the spot

he'll scent him, sure. Huck, we're going to be celebrated, sure as you're born!"

He was just ablazing; and whenever he got afire he was most likely to get afire all over. That was the way

this time. In two minutes he had got it all ciphered out, and wasn't only just going to find the corpse no, he

was going to get on the track of that murderer and hunt HIM down, too; and not only that, but he was going

"Well," I says, "you better find the corpse first; I reckon that's aplenty for today. For all we know, there

AIN'T any corpse and nobody hain't been mur dered. That cuss could 'a' gone off somers and not been killed

"Huck Finn, I never see such a person as you to want to spoil everything. As long as YOU can't see anything

hopeful in a thing, you won't let anybody else. What good can it do you to throw cold water on that corpse

and get up that selfish theory that there ain't been any murder? None in the world. I don't see how you can act

so. I wouldn't treat you like that, and you know it. Here we've got a noble good opportunity to make a

"Oh, go ahead," I says. "I'm sorry, and I take it all back. I didn't mean nothing. Fix it any way you want it. HE

ain't any consequence to me. If he's killed, I'm as glad of it as you are; and if he "

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

"There ain't any druthers ABOUT it, Huck Finn; no body said anything about druthers. And as for "

He forgot he was talking, and went tramping along, studying. He begun to get excited again, and pretty soon

"Huck, it'll be the bulliest thing that ever happened if we find the body after everybody else has quit look

ing, and then go ahead and hunt up the murderer. It won't only be an honor to us, but it'll be an honor to

Uncle Silas because it was us that done it. It'll set him up again, you see if it don't."

But Old Jeff Hooker he throwed cold water on the whole business when we got to his blacksmith shop and

"You can take the dog," he says, "but you ain't agoing to find any corpse, because there ain't any corpse to

find. Everybody's quit looking, and they're right. Soon as they come to think, they knowed there warn't no

corpse. And I'll tell you for why. What does a person kill another person for, Tom Sawyer? answer me

"Wait. One thing at a time. Revenge, says you; and right you are. Now who ever had anything agin that poor

Tom was stuck. I reckon he hadn't thought of a person having to have a REASON for killing a person be

fore, and now he sees it warn't likely anybody would have that much of a grudge against a lamb like Jubiter

"The revenge idea won't work, you see. Well, then, what's next? Robbery? B'gosh, that must 'a' been it, Tom!

Yes, sirree, I reckon we've struck it this time. Some feller wanted his gallusbuckles, and so he "

But it was so funny he busted out laughing, and just went on laughing and laughing and laughing till he was

'most dead, and Tom looked so put out and cheap that I knowed he was ashamed he had come, and he wished

he hadn't. But old Hooker never let up on him. He raked up everything a person ever could want to kill

another person about, and any fool could see they didn't any of them fit this case, and he just made no end of

fun of the whole business and of the people that had been hunting the body; and he said:

"If they'd had any sense they'd 'a' knowed the lazy cuss slid out because he wanted a loafing spell after all this

work. He'll come pottering back in a couple of weeks, and then how'll you fellers feel? But, laws bless you,

Then he busted out, and had another of them forty rod laughs of hisn. Tom couldn't back down after all this,

so he said, "All right, unchain him;" and the blacksmith done it, and we started home and left that old man

It was a lovely dog. There ain't any dog that's got a lovelier disposition than a bloodhound, and this one

knowed us and liked us. He capered and raced around ever so friendly, and powerful glad to be free and have

a holiday; but Tom was so cut up he couldn't take any intrust in him, and said he wished he'd stopped and

thought a minute before he ever started on such a fool errand. He said old Jeff Hooker would tell every

So we loafed along home down the back lanes, feel ing pretty glum and not talking. When we was pass ing

the far corner of our tobacker field we heard the dog set up a long howl in there, and we went to the place and

he was scratching the ground with all his might, and every now and then canting up his head sideways and

It was a long square, the shape of a grave; the rain had made it sink down and show the shape. The minute we

come and stood there we looked at one another and never said a word. When the dog had dug down only a

few inches he grabbed something and pulled it up, and it was an arm and a sleeve. Tom kind of gasped out,

I just felt awful. We struck for the road and fetched the first men that come along. They got a spade at the crib

and dug out the body, and you never see such an excitement. You couldn't make anything out of the face, but

Some rushed off to spread the news and tell the justice of the peace and have an inquest, and me and Tom lit

out for the house. Tom was all afire and 'most out of breath when we come tearing in where Uncle Silas and

"Me and Huck's found Jubiter Dunlap's corpse all by ourselves with a bloodhound, after everybody else had

quit hunting and given it up; and if it hadn't a been for us it never WOULD 'a' been found; and he WAS

murdered too they done it with a club or something like that; and I'm going to start in and find the mur

Aunt Sally and Benny sprung up pale and astonished, but Uncle Silas fell right forward out of his chair on to

THEM awful words froze us solid. We couldn't move hand or foot for as much as half a minute. Then we

kind of come to, and lifted the old man up and got him into his chair, and Benny petted him and kissed him

and tried to comfort him, and poor old Aunt Sally she done the same; but, poor things, they was so broke up

and scared and knocked out of their right minds that they didn't hardly know what they was about. With Tom

it was awful; it 'most petrified him to think maybe he had got his uncle into a thousand times more trouble

than ever, and maybe it wouldn't ever happened if he hadn't been so ambitious to get celebrated, and let the

corpse alone the way the others done. But pretty soon he sort of come to himself again and says:

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

Aunt Sally and Benny was thankful to hear him say that, and they said the same; but the old man he wagged

It was dreadful to hear him say it. Then he went on and told about it, and said it happened the day me and

Tom come along about sundown. He said Jubiter pestered him and aggravated him till he was so mad he

just sort of lost his mind and grabbed up a stick and hit him over the head with all his might, and Jubiter

dropped in his tracks. Then he was scared and sorry, and got down on his knees and lifted his head up, and

begged him to speak and say he wasn't dead; and before long he come to, and when he see who it was

holding his head, he jumped like he was 'most scared to death, and cleared the fence and tore into the woods,

"But laws," he says, "it was only just fear that gave him that last little spurt of strength, and of course it soon

played out and he laid down in the bush, and there wasn't anybody to help him, and he died."

Then the old man cried and grieved, and said he was a murderer and the mark of Cain was on him, and he had

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

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

He looked up kind of like he hoped some of us could mention somebody that could have a grudge against that

harmless noaccount, but of course it warn't no use he HAD us; we couldn't say a word. He noticed that,

and he saddened down again, and I never see a face so miserable and so pitiful to see. Tom had a sudden idea,

He shut off sudden. I knowed the reason. It give me the cold shudders when he said them words, because

right away I remembered about us seeing Uncle Silas prowling around with a longhandled shovel away in

the night that night. And I knowed Benny seen him, too, because she was talking about it one day. The

minute Tom shut off he changed the subject and went to begging Uncle Silas to keep mum, and the rest of us

done the same, and said he MUST, and said it wasn't his business to tell on himself, and if he kept mum

nobody would ever know; but if it was found out and any harm come to him it would break the family's

hearts and kill them, and yet never do anybody any good. So at last he promised. We was all of us more

com fortable, then, and went to work to cheer up the old man. We told him all he'd got to do was to keep

still, and it wouldn't be long till the whole thing would blow over and be forgot. We all said there wouldn't

any body ever suspect Uncle Silas, nor ever dream of such a thing, he being so good and kind, and having

"Why, just look at it a minute; just consider. Here is Uncle Silas, all these years a preacher at his own

expense; all these years doing good with all his might and every way he can think of at his own ex

pense, all the time; always been loved by everybody, and respected; always been peaceable and minding his

own business, the very last man in this whole deestrict to touch a person, and everybody knows it. Suspect

"By authority of the State of Arkansaw, I arrest you for the murder of Jubiter Dunlap!" shouts the sheriff at

It was awful. Aunt Sally and Benny flung themselves at Uncle Silas, screaming and crying, and hugged him

and hung to him, and Aunt Sally said go away, she wouldn't ever give him up, they shouldn't have him, and

the niggers they come crowding and crying to the door and well, I couldn't stand it; it was enough to break

They took him up to the little onehorse jail in the village, and we all went along to tell him goodbye; and

Tom was feeling elegant, and says to me, "We'll have a most noble good time and heaps of danger some dark

night getting him out of there, Huck, and it'll be talked about everywheres and we will be celebrated;" but the

old man busted that scheme up the minute he whispered to him about it. He said no, it was his duty to stand

whatever the law done to him, and he would stick to the jail plumb through to the end, even if there warn't no

door to it. It disappointed Tom and graveled him a good deal, but he had to put up with it.

But he felt responsible and bound to get his uncle Silas free; and he told Aunt Sally, the last thing, not to

worry, because he was going to turn in and work night and day and beat this game and fetch Uncle Silas out

innocent; and she was very loving to him and thanked him and said she knowed he would do his very best.

And she told us to help Benny take care of the house and the children, and then we had a goodbye cry all

around and went back to the farm, and left her there to live with the jailer's wife a month till the trial in

WELL, that was a hard month on us all. Poor Benny, she kept up the best she could, and me and Tom tried to

keep things cheerful there at the house, but it kind of went for nothing, as you may say. It was the same up at

the jail. We went up every day to see the old people, but it was awful dreary, because the old man warn't

sleeping much, and was walking in his sleep considerable and so he got to looking fagged and miserable, and

his mind got shaky, and we all got afraid his troubles would break him down and kill him. And whenever we

tried to persuade him to feel cheer fuler, he only shook his head and said if we only knowed what it was to

carry around a murderer's load in your heart we wouldn't talk that way. Tom and all of us kept telling him it

WASN'T murder, but just acci dental killing! but it never made any difference it was murder, and he

wouldn't have it any other way. He actu'ly begun to come out plain and square towards trial time and

acknowledge that he TRIED to kill the man. Why, that was awful, you know. It made things seem fifty times

as dreadful, and there warn't no more com fort for Aunt Sally and Benny. But he promised he wouldn't say a

Tom Sawyer racked the head off of himself all that month trying to plan some way out for Uncle Silas, and

many's the night he kept me up 'most all night with this kind of tiresome work, but he couldn't seem to get on

the right track no way. As for me, I reckoned a body might as well give it up, it all looked so blue and I was

so downhearted; but he wouldn't. He stuck to the business right along, and went on planning and thinking and

So at last the trial come on, towards the middle of October, and we was all in the court. The place was

jammed, of course. Poor old Uncle Silas, he looked more like a dead person than a live one, his eyes was so

hollow and he looked so thin and so mournful. Benny she set on one side of him and Aunt Sally on the other,

and they had veils on, and was full of trouble. But Tom he set by our lawyer, and had his finger in every

wheres, of course. The lawyer let him, and the judge let him. He 'most took the business out of the law yer's

hands sometimes; which was well enough, be cause that was only a mudturtle of a backsettlement lawyer

They swore in the jury, and then the lawyer for the prostitution got up and begun. He made a terrible speech

against the old man, that made him moan and groan, and made Benny and Aunt Sally cry. The way HE told

about the murder kind of knocked us all stupid it was so different from the old man's tale. He said he was

going to prove that Uncle Silas was SEEN to kill Jubiter Dunlap by two good witnesses, and done it

deliberate, and SAID he was going to kill him the very minute he hit him with the club; and they seen him

hide Jubiter in the bushes, and they seen that Jubiter was stonedead. And said Uncle Silas come later and

lugged Jubiter down into the tobacker field, and two men seen him do it. And said Uncle Silas turned out,

I says to myself, poor old Uncle Silas has been lying about it because he reckoned nobody seen him and he

couldn't bear to break Aunt Sally's heart and Benny's; and right he was: as for me, I would 'a' lied the same

way, and so would anybody that had any feeling, to save them such misery and sorrow which THEY warn't

no ways responsible for. Well, it made our lawyer look pretty sick; and it knocked Tom silly, too, for a little

spell, but then he braced up and let on that he warn't worried but I knowed he WAS, all the same. And the

And when that lawyer was done telling the jury what he was going to prove, he set down and begun to work

First, he called a lot of them to show that there was bad blood betwixt Uncle Silas and the diseased; and they

told how they had heard Uncle Silas threaten the diseased, at one time and another, and how it got worse and

worse and everybody was talking about it, and how diseased got afraid of his life, and told two or three of

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

Next, they called up Lem Beebe, and he took the stand. It come into my mind, then, how Lem and Jim Lane

had come along talking, that time, about borrow ing a dog or something from Jubiter Dunlap; and that

brought up the blackberries and the lantern; and that brought up Bill and Jack Withers, and how they passed

by, talking about a nigger stealing Uncle Silas's corn; and that fetched up our old ghost that come along about

the same time and scared us so and here HE was too, and a privileged character, on accounts of his being

deef and dumb and a stranger, and they had fixed him a chair inside the railing, where he could cross his legs

and be comfortable, whilst the other people was all in a jam so they couldn't hardly breathe. So it all come

back to me just the way it was that day; and it made me mournful to think how pleasant it was up to then, and

Well, it was awful. It kind of froze everybody's blood to hear it, and the house was 'most as still whilst he was

telling it as if there warn't nobody in it. And when he was done, you could hear them gasp and sigh, all over

the house, and look at one another the same as to say, "Ain't it perfectly terrible ain't it awful!"

Now happened a thing that astonished me. All the time the first witnesses was proving the bad blood and the

threats and all that, Tom Sawyer was alive and lay ing for them; and the minute they was through, he went

for them, and done his level best to catch them in lies and spile their testimony. But now, how different.

When Lem first begun to talk, and never said anything about speaking to Jubiter or trying to borrow a dog off

of him, he was all alive and laying for Lem, and you could see he was getting ready to crossquestion him to

death pretty soon, and then I judged him and me would go on the stand by and by and tell what we heard him

and Jim Lane say. But the next time I looked at Tom I got the cold shivers. Why, he was in the brownest

study you ever see miles and miles away. He warn't hearing a word Lem Beebe was saying; and when he

got through he was still in that brownstudy, just the same. Our lawyer joggled him, and then he looked up

startled, and says, "Take the witness if you want him. Lemme alone I want to think."

Well, that beat me. I couldn't understand it. And Benny and her mother oh, they looked sick, they was so

troubled. They shoved their veils to one side and tried to get his eye, but it warn't any use, and I couldn't get

his eye either. So the mudturtle he tackled the witness, but it didn't amount to nothing; and he made a mess

Then they called up Jim Lane, and he told the very same story over again, exact. Tom never listened to this

one at all, but set there thinking and thinking, miles and miles away. So the mudturtle went in alone again

and come out just as flat as he done before. The lawyer for the prostitution looked very comfortable, but the

judge looked disgusted. You see, Tom was just the same as a regular lawyer, nearly, because it was

Arkansaw law for a prisoner to choose anybody he wanted to help his lawyer, and Tom had had Uncle Silas

shove him into the case, and now he was botching it and you could see the judge didn't like it much. All that

"We was afraid we would get mixed up in it our selves. And we was just starting down the river ahunting

for all the week besides; but as soon as we come back we found out they'd been searching for the body, so

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

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

It made the people shiver to think of poor old Uncle Silas toting off the diseased down to the place in his

tobacker field where the dog dug up the body, but there warn't much sympathy around amongst the faces, and

I heard one cuss say "'Tis the coldest blooded work I ever struck, lugging a murdered man around like that,

Tom he went on thinking, and never took no notice; so our lawyer took the witness and done the best he

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

And after him comes Brace Dunlap, and he was look ing very mournful, and most crying; and there was a

rustle and a stir all around, and everybody got ready to listen, and lost of the women folks said, "Poor cretur,

And he slumped down in his chair crying and sob bing, and 'most everybody in the house busted out

wailing, and crying, and saying, "Oh, it's awful awful horrible! and there was a most tremendous ex

citement, and you couldn't hear yourself think; and right in the midst of it up jumps old Uncle Silas, white as

By Jackson, it petrified them! People rose up wild all over the house, straining and staring for a better look at

him, and the judge was hammering with his mallet and the sheriff yelling "Order order in the court

And all the while the old man stood there aquaking and his eyes aburning, and not looking at his wife and

daughter, which was clinging to him and begging him to keep still, but pawing them off with his hands and

saying he WOULD clear his black soul from crime, he WOULD heave off this load that was more than he

could bear, and he WOULDN'T bear it another hour! And then he raged right along with his awful tale,

every body astaring and gasping, judge, jury, lawyers, and everybody, and Benny and Aunt Sally crying

their hearts out. And by George, Tom Sawyer never looked at him once! Never once just set there gazing

with all his eyes at something else, I couldn't tell what. And so the old man raged right along, pouring his

"I killed him! I am guilty! But I never had the notion in my life to hurt him or harm him, spite of all them lies

about my threatening him, till the very minute I raised the club then my heart went cold! then the pity

all went out of it, and I struck to kill! In that one moment all my wrongs come into my mind; all the insults

that that man and the scoundrel his brother, there, had put upon me, and how they laid in together to ruin me

with the people, and take away my good name, and DRIVE me to some deed that would destroy me and my

family that hadn't ever done THEM no harm, so help me God! And they done it in a mean revenge for

why? Because my innocent pure girl here at my side wouldn't marry that rich, insolent, ignorant coward,

Brace Dunlap, who's been sniveling here over a brother he never cared a brass farthing for "[I see Tom

give a jump and look glad THIS time, to a dead certainty]" and in that moment I've told you about, I

forgot my God and remembered only my heart's bitterness, God forgive me, and I struck to kill. In one

second I was miserably sorry oh, filled with remorse; but I thought of my poor family, and I MUST hide

what I'd done for their sakes; and I did hide that corpse in the bushes; and presently I carried it to the tobacker

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

Well, sir, you could a heard a pin drop. And the old man he sunk down kind of bewildered in his seat and

Aunt Sally and Benny didn't know it, because they was so astonished and staring at Tom with their mouths

open and not knowing what they was about. And the whole house the same. I never seen people look so

helpless and tangled up, and I hain't ever seen eyes bug out and gaze without a blink the way theirn did. Tom

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

Then Tom he stood there and waited a second or two that was for to work up an "effect," as he calls it

"For about two weeks now there's been a little bill sticking on the front of this courthouse offering two

thousand dollars reward for a couple of big di'monds stole at St. Louis. Them di'monds is worth twelve

thousand dollars. But never mind about that till I get to it. Now about this murder. I will tell you all about it

"This man here, Brace Dunlap, that's been sniveling so about his dead brother that YOU know he never cared

a straw for, wanted to marry that young girl there, and she wouldn't have him. So he told Uncle Silas he

would make him sorry. Uncle Silas knowed how powerful he was, and how little chance he had against such

a man, and he was scared and worried, and done everything he could think of to smooth him over and get him

to be good to him: he even took his no account brother Jubiter on the farm and give him wages and stinted

his own family to pay them; and Jubiter done everything his brother could contrive to insult Uncle Silas, and

fret and worry him, and try to drive Uncle Silas into doing him a hurt, so as to injure Uncle Silas with the

people. And it done it. Everybody turned against him and said the meanest kind of things about him, and it

graduly broke his heart yes, and he was so worried and distressed that often he warn't hardly in his right

"Well, on that Saturday that we've had so much trouble about, two of these witnesses here, Lem Beebe and

Jim Lane, come along by where Uncle Silas and Jubiter Dunlap was at work and that much of what

they've said is true, the rest is lies. They didn't hear Uncle Silas say he would kill Jubiter; they didn't hear no

blow struck; they didn't see no dead man, and they didn't see Uncle Silas hide anything in the bushes. Look at

them now how they set there, wishing they hadn't been so handy with their tongues; anyway, they'll wish

"That same Saturday evening Bill and Jack Withers DID see one man lugging off another one. That much of

what they said is true, and the rest is lies. First off they thought it was a nigger stealing Uncle Silas's corn

you notice it makes them look silly, now, to find out somebody overheard them say that. That's because they

found out by and by who it was that was doing the lugging, and THEY know best why they swore here that

they took it for Uncle Silas by the gait which it WASN'T, and they knowed it when they swore to that lie.

"A man out in the moonlight DID see a murdered person put under ground in the tobacker field but it

"Now, then, before I go on, I want to ask you if you've ever noticed this: that people, when they're thinking

deep, or when they're worried, are most always doing something with their hands, and they don't know it, and

don't notice what it is their hands are doing. some stroke their chins; some stroke their noses; some stroke up

UNDER their chin with their hand; some twirl a chain, some fumble a button, then there's some that draws a

figure or a letter with their finger on their cheek, or under their chin or on their under lip. That's MY way.

When I'm restless, or worried, or thinking hard, I draw capital V's on my cheek or on my under lip or under

my chin, and never anything BUT capital V's and half the time I don't notice it and don't know I'm doing

That was odd. That is just what I do; only I make an O. And I could see people nodding to one another, same

"Now, then, I'll go on. That same Saturday no, it was the night before there was a steamboat laying at

Flagler's Landing, forty miles above here, and it was raining and storming like the nation. And there was a

thief aboard, and he had them two big di'monds that's advertised out here on this courthouse door; and he

slipped ashore with his handbag and struck out into the dark and the storm, and he was ahoping he could

get to this town all right and be safe. But he had two pals aboard the boat, hiding, and he knowed they was

going to kill him the first chance they got and take the di'monds; because all three stole them, and then this

"Well, he hadn't been gone more'n ten minutes be fore his pals found it out, and they jumped ashore and lit

out after him. Prob'ly they burnt matches and found his tracks. Anyway, they dogged along after him all day

Saturday and kept out of his sight; and towards sundown he come to the bunch of sycamores down by Uncle

Silas's field, and he went in there to get a disguise out of his handbag and put it on before he showed himself

here in the town and mind you he done that just a little after the time that Uncle Silas was hitting Jubiter

"But the minute the pals see that thief slide into the bunch of sycamores, they jumped out of the bushes and

"Yes, for all he screamed and howled so, they never had no mercy on him, but clubbed him to death. And two

men that was running along the road heard him yelling that way, and they made a rush into the syca i more

bunch which was where they was bound for, anyway and when the pals saw them they lit out and the

two new men after them achasing them as tight as they could go. But only a minute or two then these

"THEN what did they do? I will tell you what they done. They found where the thief had got his disguise out

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

"Yes, it was Jubiter Dunlap. Not dead, you see. Then they pulled off the dead man's boots and put Jubiter

Dunlap's old ragged shoes on the corpse and put the corpse's boots on Jubiter Dunlap. Then Jubiter Dunlap

stayed where he was, and the other man lugged the dead body off in the twilight; and after midnight he went

to Uncle Silas's house, and took his old green workrobe off of the peg where it always hangs in the passage

betwixt the house and the kitchen and put it on, and stole the longhandled shovel and went off down into the

"And who do you reckon the murdered man WAS? It was JAKE Dunlap, the longlost burglar!"

"And who do you reckon is this mowing idiot here that's letting on all these weeks to be a deef and dumb

My land, they all busted out in a howl, and you never see the like of that excitement since the day you was

born. And Tom he made a jump for Jubiter and snaked off his goggles and his false whiskers, and there was

the murdered man, sure enough, just as alive as anybody! And Aunt Sally and Benny they went to hugging

and crying and kissing and smothering old Uncle Silas to that degree he was more muddled and confused and

mushed up in his mind than he ever was before, and that is saying considerable. And next, people begun to

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

Which made him feel uncommon bully, for it was nuts for Tom Sawyer to be a public character that away,

"There ain't much left, only this. When that man there, Bruce Dunlap, had most worried the life and sense out

of Uncle Silas till at last he plumb lost his mind and hit this other blatherskite, his brother, with a club, I

reckon he seen his chance. Jubiter broke for the woods to hide, and I reckon the game was for him to slide

out, in the night, and leave the country. Then Brace would make everybody believe Uncle Silas killed him

and hid his body somers; and that would ruin Uncle Silas and drive HIM out of the country hang him,

maybe; I dunno. But when they found their dead brother in the sycamores without knowing him, because he

was so battered up, they see they had a better thing; disguise BOTH and bury Jake and dig him up presently

all dressed up in Jubiter's clothes, and hire Jim Lane and Bill Withers and the others to swear to some handy

lies which they done. And there they set, now, and I told them they would be looking sick before I got

"Well, me and Huck Finn here, we come down on the boat with the thieves, and the dead one told us all about

the di'monds, and said the others would murder him if they got the chance; and we was going to help him all

we could. We was bound for the sycamores when we heard them killing him in there; but we was in there in

the early morning after the storm and allowed nobody hadn't been killed, after all. And when we see Jubiter

Dunlap here spreading around in the very same disguise Jake told us HE was going to wear, we thought it

was Jake his own self and he was googooing deef and dumb, and THAT was according to agreement.

"Well, me and Huck went on hunting for the corpse after the others quit, and we found it. And was proud,

too; but Uncle Silas he knocked us crazy by telling us HE killed the man. So we was mighty sorry we found

the body, and was bound to save Uncle Silas's neck if we could; and it was going to be tough work, too,

because he wouldn't let us break him out of prison the way we done with our old nigger Jim.

"I done everything I could the whole month to think up some way to save Uncle Silas, but I couldn't strike a

thing. So when we come into court today I come empty, and couldn't see no chance anywheres. But by and

by I had a glimpse of something that set me thinking just a little wee glimpse only that, and not enough

to make sure; but it set me thinking hard and WATCHING, when I was only letting on to think; and by

and by, sure enough, when Uncle Silas was pil ing out that stuff about HIM killing Jubiter Dunlap, I catched

that glimpse again, and this time I jumped up and shut down the proceedings, because I KNOWED Jubiter

Dunlap was asetting here before me. I knowed him by a thing which I seen him do and I remem bered

He stopped then, and studied a minute laying for an "effect" I knowed it perfectly well. Then he turned

off like he was going to leave the platform, and says, kind of lazy and indifferent:

"What WAS it you seen him do? Stay where you are, you little devil! You think you are going to work a

That was it, you see he just done it to get an "effect "; you couldn't 'a' pulled him off of that plat form

"Oh, it wasn't anything much," he says. "I seen him looking a little excited when he found Uncle Silas was

actuly fixing to hang himself for a murder that warn't ever done; and he got more and more nervous and

worried, I awatching him sharp but not seeming to look at him and all of a sudden his hands begun to

work and fidget, and pretty soon his left crept up and HIS FINGER DRAWED A CROSS ON HIS CHEEK,

Well, then they ripped and howled and stomped and clapped their hands till Tom Sawyer was that proud and

"My boy, did you SEE all the various details of this strange conspiracy and tragedy that you've been de

"Didn't see any of them! Why, you've told the whole history straight through, just the same as if you'd seen it

"Oh, just noticing the evidence and piecing this and that together, your honor; just an ordinary little bit of

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

Then they let go and give Tom another smashing round, and he well, he wouldn't 'a' sold out for a silver

"Perfectly, your honor. Here is Brace Dunlap let him deny his share of it if he wants to take the chance;

I'll engage to make him wish he hadn't said anything...... Well, you see HE'S pretty quiet. And his brother's

pretty quiet, and them four witnesses that lied so and got paid for it, they're pretty quiet. And as for Uncle

Silas, it ain't any use for him to put in his oar, I wouldn't believe him under oath!"

Well, sir, that fairly made them shout; and even the judge he let go and laughed. Tom he was just feeling like

Then there was another thundering letgo of astonish ment and excitement; but Jubiter, which was

astonished enough before, was just fairly putrified with astonish ment this time. And he spoke up, about half

"Now THAT'S a lie. Your honor, it ain't fair; I'm plenty bad enough without that. I done the other things

Brace he put me up to it, and persuaded me, and promised he'd make me rich, some day, and I done it, and

I'm sorry I done it, and I wisht I hadn't; but I hain't stole no di'monds, and I hain't GOT no di'monds; I wisht I

"Your honor, it wasn't right to call him a thief, and I'll let up on that a little. He did steal the di'monds, but he

didn't know it. He stole them from his brother Jake when he was laying dead, after Jake had stole them from

the other thieves; but Jubiter didn't know he was stealing them; and he's been swelling around here with them

a month; yes, sir, twelve thousand dollars' worth of di'monds on him all that riches, and going around here

Well, sir, the sheriff he ransacked him high and low, and everywhere: searched his hat, socks, seams, boots,

everything and Tom he stood there quiet, laying for another of them effects of hisn. Finally the sheriff he

Then Tom took an attitude and let on to be studying with all his might, and scratching his head. Then all of a

"Will somebody be good enough to lend me a little small screwdriver? There was one in your brother's

Jubiter had his boots on again, by now, and when the thing Tom wanted was passed over the people's heads

"Put up your foot on this chair." And he kneeled down and begun to unscrew the heelplate, everybody

watching; and when he got that big di'mond out of that bootheel and held it up and let it flash and blaze and

squirt sunlight everwhichaway, it just took every body's breath; and Jubiter he looked so sick and sorry you

never see the like of it. And when Tom held up the other di'mond he looked sorrier than ever. Land! he was

thinking how he would 'a' skipped out and been rich and independent in a foreign land if he'd only had the

Well, it was a most exciting time, take it all around, and Tom got cords of glory. The judge took the

di'monds, and stood up in his pulpit, and cleared his throat, and shoved his spectacles back on his head, and

"I'll keep them and notify the owners; and when they send for them it will be a real pleasure to me to hand

you the two thousand dollars, for you've earned the money yes, and you've earned the deepest and most

sincerest thanks of this community besides, for lifting a wronged and innocent family out of ruin and shame,

and saving a good and honorable man from a felon's death, and for exposing to infamy and the pun ishment

Well, sir, if there'd been a brass band to bust out some music, then, it would 'a' been just the perfectest thing I

Then the sheriff he nabbed Brace Dunlap and his crowd, and by and by next month the judge had them up for

trial and jailed the whole lot. And everybody crowded back to Uncle Silas's little old church, and was ever so

loving and kind to him and the family and couldn't do enough for them; and Uncle Silas he preached them the

blamedest jumbledest idiotic sermons you ever struck, and would tangle you up so you couldn't find your

way home in daylight; but the peo ple never let on but what they thought it was the clear est and brightest

and elegantest sermons that ever was; and they would set there and cry, for love and pity; but, by George,

they give me the jimjams and the fan tods and caked up what brains I had, and turned them solid; but by

and by they loved the old man's intellects back into him again, and he was as sound in his skull as ever he

was, which ain't no flattery, I reckon. And so the whole family was as happy as birds, and nobody could be

gratefuler and lovinger than what they was to Tom Sawyer; and the same to me, though I hadn't done

nothing. And when the two thousand dollars come, Tom give half of it to me, and never told any body so,