by Mark Twain
CHAPTER XXXVII.
THAT was all fixed. ?So then we went away and went to the rubbage-pilein the back yard, where they keep the old boots, and rags, and piecesof bottles, and wore-out tin things, and all such truck, and scratchedaround and found an old tin washpan, and stopped up the holes as well aswe could, to bake the pie in, and took it down cellar and stole it fullof flour and started for breakfast, and found a couple of shingle-nailsthat Tom said would be handy for a prisoner to scrabble his name andsorrows on the dungeon walls with, and dropped one of them in AuntSally's apron-pocket which was hanging on a chair, and t'other we stuckin the band of Uncle Silas's hat, which was on the bureau, because weheard the children say their pa and ma was going to the runaway nigger'shouse this morning, and then went to breakfast, and Tom dropped thepewter spoon in Uncle Silas's coat-pocket, and Aunt Sally wasn't comeyet, so we had to wait a little while.
And when she come she was hot and red and cross, and couldn't hardlywait for the blessing; and then she went to sluicing out coffee with onehand and cracking the handiest child's head with her thimble with theother, and says:
"I've hunted high and I've hunted low, and it does beat all what _has_become of your other shirt."
My heart fell down amongst my lungs and livers and things, and a hardpiece of corn-crust started down my throat after it and got met on theroad with a cough, and was shot across the table, and took one of thechildren in the eye and curled him up like a fishing-worm, and let a cryout of him the size of a warwhoop, and Tom he turned kinder blue aroundthe gills, and it all amounted to a considerable state of things forabout a quarter of a minute or as much as that, and I would a sold outfor half price if there was a bidder. ?But after that we was all rightagain--it was the sudden surprise of it that knocked us so kind of cold.Uncle Silas he says:
"It's most uncommon curious, I can't understand it. ?I know perfectlywell I took it _off_, because--"
"Because you hain't got but one _on_. ?Just _listen_ at the man! ?I knowyou took it off, and know it by a better way than your wool-getheringmemory, too, because it was on the clo's-line yesterday--I see it theremyself. But it's gone, that's the long and the short of it, and you'lljust have to change to a red flann'l one till I can get time to make anew one. And it 'll be the third I've made in two years. ?It just keepsa body on the jump to keep you in shirts; and whatever you do manage to_do_ with 'm all is more'n I can make out. ?A body 'd think you _would_learn to take some sort of care of 'em at your time of life."
"I know it, Sally, and I do try all I can. ?But it oughtn't to bealtogether my fault, because, you know, I don't see them nor havenothing to do with them except when they're on me; and I don't believeI've ever lost one of them _off_ of me."
"Well, it ain't _your_ fault if you haven't, Silas; you'd a done itif you could, I reckon. ?And the shirt ain't all that's gone, nuther.?Ther's a spoon gone; and _that_ ain't all. ?There was ten, and nowther's only nine. The calf got the shirt, I reckon, but the calf nevertook the spoon, _that's_ certain."
"Why, what else is gone, Sally?"
"Ther's six _candles_ gone--that's what. ?The rats could a got thecandles, and I reckon they did; I wonder they don't walk off with thewhole place, the way you're always going to stop their holes and don'tdo it; and if they warn't fools they'd sleep in your hair, Silas--_you'd_never find it out; but you can't lay the _spoon_ on the rats, and that Iknow."
"Well, Sally, I'm in fault, and I acknowledge it; I've been remiss; butI won't let to-morrow go by without stopping up them holes."
"Oh, I wouldn't hurry; next year 'll do. ?Matilda Angelina Araminta_Phelps!_"
Whack comes the thimble, and the child snatches her claws out of thesugar-bowl without fooling around any. ?Just then the nigger woman stepson to the passage, and says:
"Missus, dey's a sheet gone."
"A _sheet_ gone! ?Well, for the land's sake!"
"I'll stop up them holes to-day," says Uncle Silas, looking sorrowful.
"Oh, _do_ shet up!--s'pose the rats took the _sheet_? ?_where's_ it gone,Lize?"
"Clah to goodness I hain't no notion, Miss' Sally. ?She wuz on declo'sline yistiddy, but she done gone: ?she ain' dah no mo' now."
"I reckon the world _is_ coming to an end. ?I _never_ see the beat of itin all my born days. ?A shirt, and a sheet, and a spoon, and six can--"
"Missus," comes a young yaller wench, "dey's a brass cannelstickmiss'n."
"Cler out from here, you hussy, er I'll take a skillet to ye!"
Well, she was just a-biling. ?I begun to lay for a chance; I reckonedI would sneak out and go for the woods till the weather moderated. ?Shekept a-raging right along, running her insurrection all by herself, andeverybody else mighty meek and quiet; and at last Uncle Silas, lookingkind of foolish, fishes up that spoon out of his pocket. ?She stopped,with her mouth open and her hands up; and as for me, I wished I was inJeruslem or somewheres. But not long, because she says:
"It's _just_ as I expected. ?So you had it in your pocket all the time;and like as not you've got the other things there, too. ?How'd it getthere?"
"I reely don't know, Sally," he says, kind of apologizing, "or you knowI would tell. ?I was a-studying over my text in Acts Seventeen beforebreakfast, and I reckon I put it in there, not noticing, meaning to putmy Testament in, and it must be so, because my Testament ain't in; butI'll go and see; and if the Testament is where I had it, I'll know Ididn't put it in, and that will show that I laid the Testament down andtook up the spoon, and--"
"Oh, for the land's sake! ?Give a body a rest! ?Go 'long now, the wholekit and biling of ye; and don't come nigh me again till I've got back mypeace of mind."
I'D a heard her if she'd a said it to herself, let alone speaking itout; and I'd a got up and obeyed her if I'd a been dead. ?As we waspassing through the setting-room the old man he took up his hat, and theshingle-nail fell out on the floor, and he just merely picked it up andlaid it on the mantel-shelf, and never said nothing, and went out. ?Tomsee him do it, and remembered about the spoon, and says:
"Well, it ain't no use to send things by _him_ no more, he ain'treliable." Then he says: ?"But he done us a good turn with the spoon,anyway, without knowing it, and so we'll go and do him one without _him_knowing it--stop up his rat-holes."
There was a noble good lot of them down cellar, and it took us a wholehour, but we done the job tight and good and shipshape. ?Then we heardsteps on the stairs, and blowed out our light and hid; and here comesthe old man, with a candle in one hand and a bundle of stuff in t'other,looking as absent-minded as year before last. ?He went a mooning around,first to one rat-hole and then another, till he'd been to them all.?Then he stood about five minutes, picking tallow-drip off of his candleand thinking. ?Then he turns off slow and dreamy towards the stairs,saying:
"Well, for the life of me I can't remember when I done it. ?I couldshow her now that I warn't to blame on account of the rats. ?But nevermind--let it go. ?I reckon it wouldn't do no good."
And so he went on a-mumbling up stairs, and then we left. ?He was amighty nice old man. ?And always is.
Tom was a good deal bothered about what to do for a spoon, but he saidwe'd got to have it; so he took a think. ?When he had ciphered it outhe told me how we was to do; then we went and waited around thespoon-basket till we see Aunt Sally coming, and then Tom went tocounting the spoons and laying them out to one side, and I slid one ofthem up my sleeve, and Tom says:
"Why, Aunt Sally, there ain't but nine spoons _yet_."
She says:
"Go 'long to your play, and don't bother me. ?I know better, I counted'm myself."
"Well, I've counted them twice, Aunty, and I can't make but nine."
She looked out of all patience, but of course she come to count--anybodywould.
"I declare to gracious ther' _ain't_ but nine!" she says. ?"Why, what inthe world--plague _take_ the things, I'll count 'm again."
So I slipped back the one I had, and when she got done counting, shesays:
"Hang the tro
ublesome rubbage, ther's _ten_ now!" and she looked huffyand bothered both. ?But Tom says:
"Why, Aunty, I don't think there's ten."
"You numskull, didn't you see me _count 'm?_"
"I know, but--"
"Well, I'll count 'm _again_."
So I smouched one, and they come out nine, same as the other time.?Well, she _was_ in a tearing way--just a-trembling all over, she was somad. ?But she counted and counted till she got that addled she'd startto count in the basket for a spoon sometimes; and so, three times theycome out right, and three times they come out wrong. ?Then she grabbedup the basket and slammed it across the house and knocked the catgalley-west; and she said cle'r out and let her have some peace, and ifwe come bothering around her again betwixt that and dinner she'd skinus. ?So we had the odd spoon, and dropped it in her apron-pocket whilstshe was a-giving us our sailing orders, and Jim got it all right, alongwith her shingle nail, before noon. ?We was very well satisfied withthis business, and Tom allowed it was worth twice the trouble it took,because he said _now_ she couldn't ever count them spoons twice alikeagain to save her life; and wouldn't believe she'd counted them right ifshe _did_; and said that after she'd about counted her head off for thenext three days he judged she'd give it up and offer to kill anybodythat wanted her to ever count them any more.
So we put the sheet back on the line that night, and stole one out ofher closet; and kept on putting it back and stealing it again for acouple of days till she didn't know how many sheets she had any more,and she didn't _care_, and warn't a-going to bullyrag the rest of hersoul out about it, and wouldn't count them again not to save her life;she druther die first.
So we was all right now, as to the shirt and the sheet and the spoonand the candles, by the help of the calf and the rats and the mixed-upcounting; and as to the candlestick, it warn't no consequence, it wouldblow over by and by.
But that pie was a job; we had no end of trouble with that pie. ?Wefixed it up away down in the woods, and cooked it there; and we got itdone at last, and very satisfactory, too; but not all in one day; and wehad to use up three wash-pans full of flour before we got through, andwe got burnt pretty much all over, in places, and eyes put out withthe smoke; because, you see, we didn't want nothing but a crust, and wecouldn't prop it up right, and she would always cave in. ?But of coursewe thought of the right way at last--which was to cook the ladder, too,in the pie. ?So then we laid in with Jim the second night, and toreup the sheet all in little strings and twisted them together, and longbefore daylight we had a lovely rope that you could a hung a personwith. ?We let on it took nine months to make it.
And in the forenoon we took it down to the woods, but it wouldn't gointo the pie. ?Being made of a whole sheet, that way, there was ropeenough for forty pies if we'd a wanted them, and plenty left overfor soup, or sausage, or anything you choose. ?We could a had a wholedinner.
But we didn't need it. ?All we needed was just enough for the pie, andso we throwed the rest away. ?We didn't cook none of the pies in thewash-pan--afraid the solder would melt; but Uncle Silas he had a noblebrass warming-pan which he thought considerable of, because it belongedto one of his ancesters with a long wooden handle that come over fromEngland with William the Conqueror in the Mayflower or one of them earlyships and was hid away up garret with a lot of other old pots and thingsthat was valuable, not on account of being any account, because theywarn't, but on account of them being relicts, you know, and we snakedher out, private, and took her down there, but she failed on the firstpies, because we didn't know how, but she come up smiling on the lastone. ?We took and lined her with dough, and set her in the coals, andloaded her up with rag rope, and put on a dough roof, and shut down thelid, and put hot embers on top, and stood off five foot, with the longhandle, cool and comfortable, and in fifteen minutes she turned out apie that was a satisfaction to look at. But the person that et it wouldwant to fetch a couple of kags of toothpicks along, for if that ropeladder wouldn't cramp him down to business I don't know nothing what I'mtalking about, and lay him in enough stomach-ache to last him till nexttime, too.
Nat didn't look when we put the witch pie in Jim's pan; and we put thethree tin plates in the bottom of the pan under the vittles; and so Jimgot everything all right, and as soon as he was by himself he bustedinto the pie and hid the rope ladder inside of his straw tick,and scratched some marks on a tin plate and throwed it out of thewindow-hole.