“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 being too small. I got my bag as I went a-groping through the hall, and in about a minute I was out the back way and stretching up the river road at a five-mile gait.
“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—beginning to cuss, I reckon. Pretty soon I says to myself, forty minutes gone—he KNOWS there’s something up! Fifty minutes—the truth’s a-busting 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 Clayton.
“Well, about three in the morning I fetched Elexandria and see this stern-wheeler laying there, and was very glad, because I felt perfectly safe, now, you know. It was just daybreak. I went aboard and got this stateroom 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 much used to steamboats.
“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 hunted to death, and save me—I’ll worship the very ground you walk on!”
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 different. 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 a-drenching down, and the wind blowed hard. Of course every boat-hand 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 hand-bag 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 torch-basket 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 low-spirited. All the hope we had was that Jake had got such a start that they couldn’t get on his track, and he would get to his brother’s and hide there and be safe.
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 was pretty sorrowful.
CHAPTER V. A TRAGEDY IN THE WOODS
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 two.
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 a-swelling up out of the ground, now, powerful big and round and bright, behind 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 night-breezy and graveyardy and scary. All of a sudden Tom whispers:
“Look!—what’s that?”
“Don’t!” I says. “Don’t take a person by surprise that way. I’m ‘most ready to die, anyway, without you doing that.”
“Look, I tell you. It’s something coming out of the sycamores.”
“Don’t, Tom!”
“It’s terrible tall!”
“Oh, lordy-lordy! let’s—”
“Keep still—it’s a-coming this way.”
He was so excited he could hardly get breath enough to whisper. I had 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 Dunlap’s ghost! That was what we said to ourselves.
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.”
“No,” I says
; “I seen the goggles and the whiskers perfectly plain.”
“Yes, and the very colors in them loud countrified Sunday clothes—plaid breeches, green and black—”
“Cotton velvet westcot, fire-red and yaller squares—”
“Leather straps to the bottoms of the breeches legs and one of them hanging unbottoned—”
“Yes, and that hat—”
“What a hat for a ghost to wear!”
You see it was the first season anybody wore that kind—a black stiff-brim stove-pipe, very high, and not smooth, with a round top—just like a sugar-loaf.
“Did you notice if its hair was the same, Huck?”
“No—seems to me I did, then again it seems to me I didn’t.”
“I didn’t either; but it had its bag along, I noticed that.”
“So did I. How can there be a ghost-bag, Tom?”
“Sho! I wouldn’t be as ignorant as that if I was you, Huck Finn. Whatever a ghost has, turns to ghost-stuff. They’ve got to have their things, like anybody else. You see, yourself, that its clothes was turned to ghost-stuff. 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, and Jack says:
“What do you reckon he was toting?”
“I dunno; but it was pretty heavy.”
“Yes, all he could lug. Nigger stealing corn from old Parson Silas, I judged.”
“So did I. And so I allowed I wouldn’t let on to see him.”
“That’s me, too.”
Then they both laughed, and went on out of hearing. It showed 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 laugh. It was Lem Beebe and Jim Lane. Jim Lane says:
“Who?—Jubiter Dunlap?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I reckon so. I seen him spading up some ground along about an hour ago, just before sundown—him and the parson. Said he guessed he wouldn’t go to-night, but we could have his dog if we wanted him.”
“Too tired, I reckon.”
“Yes—works so hard!”
“Oh, you bet!”
They cackled at that, and went on by. Tom said we better jump out 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 got home all right.
That night was the second of September—a Saturday. I sha’n’t ever forget it. You’ll see why, pretty soon.
CHAPTER VI. PLANS TO SECURE THE DIAMONDS
WE tramped along behind Jim and Lem till we come to the back stile 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:
“Hold on; set down here a minute. By George!”
“What’s the matter?” says I.
“Matter enough!” he says. “Wasn’t you expecting we would be the 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 more about it than anybody else?”
“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 was astonished to hear him talk so. I says:
“I’d say it’s a lie. You ain’t in earnest, Tom Sawyer?”
“You’ll soon see. Was the ghost barefooted?”
“No, it wasn’t. What of it?”
“You wait—I’ll show you what. Did it have its boots on?”
“Yes. I seen them plain.”
“Swear it?”
“Yes, I swear it.”
“So do I. Now do you know what that means?”
“No. What does it mean?”
“Means that them thieves DIDN’T GET THE DI’MONDS.”
“Jimminy! What makes you think that?”
“I don’t only think it, I know it. Didn’t the breeches and goggles and whiskers and hand-bag and every blessed thing turn to ghost-stuff? Everything it had on turned, didn’t it? It shows that the reason 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 get way with the di’monds. Why didn’t they, do you reckon?”
“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 a-going 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 inspiration 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, Tom?”
“Buy the boots for two dollars!”
Well, it ‘most took my breath.
“My land! Why, Tom, WE’LL get the di’monds!”
“You bet. Some day there’ll be a big reward offered for them—a 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 di’monds, or any thieves—don’t you forget that.”
I had to sigh a little over the way he had got it fixed. I’d ‘a’ SOLD them di’monds—yes, sir—for twelve thousand dollars; but I didn’t say anything. It wouldn’t done any good. I says:
“But what are we going to tell your aunt Sally has made us so long getting down here from the village, Tom?”
“Oh, I’ll leave that to you,” he says. “I reckon you can explain it somehow.”
He was always just that strict and delicate. He never would tell a lie himself.
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 working-gown with the hood to it, and raggedy 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 a-ripping and a-tearing 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 couldn’t seem to get enough of it, she was so glad to see us; and she says:
“Where HAVE you been a-loafing to, you good-for-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 lose no more time.”
It was good to be there again behind all that noble corn-pone and spareribs, and everything that you could ever want in this world. Old Uncle Silas he peeled off one of his bulliest old-time blessings, with as many layers to it as an onion, and whilst the angels was hauling 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 a-going, she asked me, and I says:
“Well, you see,—er—Mizzes—”
“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 always done.”
So I done it. And I says:
“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 to-night, and said they could borrow Jubiter Dunlap’s dog, because he had told them just that minute—”
The Classic Children's Literature Collection: 39 Classic Novels Page 572