CHAPTER XI. TOM SAWYER DISCOVERS THE MURDERERS
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 cheerfuler, 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 accidental 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 comfort for Aunt Sally and Benny. But he promised he wouldn’t say a word about his murder when others was around, and we was glad of that.
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 ransacking his head.
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 everywheres, of course. The lawyer let him, and the judge let him. He ‘most took the business out of the lawyer’s hands sometimes; which was well enough, because that was only a mud-turtle of a back-settlement lawyer and didn’t know enough to come in when it rains, as the saying is.
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 stone-dead. 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, away in the night, and buried Jubiter, and a man seen him at it.
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 people—my, but it made a stir amongst them!
And when that lawyer was done telling the jury what he was going to prove, he set down and begun to work his witnesses.
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 them he was certain Uncle Silas would up and kill him some time or another.
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 borrowing 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 how miserable ever since.
LEM BEEBE, sworn, said—"I was a-coming along, that day,
second of September, and Jim Lane was with me, and it was
towards sundown, and we heard loud talk, like quarrelling,
and we was very close, only the hazel bushes between (that’s
along the fence); and we heard a voice say, ‘I’ve told you
more’n once I’d kill you,’ and knowed it was this prisoner’s
voice; and then we see a club come up above the bushes and
down out of sight again, and heard a smashing thump and then
a groan or two: and then we crope soft to where we could
see, and there laid Jupiter Dunlap dead, and this prisoner
standing over him with the club; and the next he hauled the
dead man into a clump of bushes and hid him, and then we
stooped low, to be out of sight, and got away.”
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 laying 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 cross-question 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 brown-study, 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 mud-turtle he tackled the witness, but it didn’t amount to nothing; and he made a mess of it.
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 mud-turtle 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 the mud-turtle got out of Lem and Jim was this: he asked them:
“Why didn’t you go and tell what you saw?”
“We was afraid we would get mixed up in it ourselves. And we was just starting down the river a-hunting for all the week besides; but as soon as we come back we found out they’d been searching for the body, so then we went and told Brace Dunlap all about it.”
“When was that?”
“Saturday night, September 9th.”
The judge he spoke up and says:
“Mr. Sheriff, arrest these two witnesses on suspicions of being accessionary after the fact to the murder.”
The lawyer for the prostitution jumps up all excited, and says:
“Your honor! I protest against this extraordi—”
“Set down!” says the judge, pulling his bowie and laying it on his pulpit. “I beg you to respect the Court.”
So he done it. Then he called Bill Withers.
BILL WITHERS, sworn, said: “I was coming along about sundown,
Saturday, September 2d, by the prisoner’s field, and my
brother Jack was with me and we seen a man toting off
something heavy on his back and allowed it was a nigger
stealing corn; we couldn’t see distinct; next we made out that
it was one man carrying another; and the way it hung, so kind
of limp, we judged it was somebody that was drunk; and by the
man’s walk we said it was Parson Silas, and we judged he had
found Sam Cooper drunk in the road, which he was always trying
to reform him, and was toting him out of danger.”
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, and going to bury him like a animal, and him a preacher at that.”
Tom he went on thinking, and never took no notice; so our lawyer took the witness and done the best he could, and it was plenty poor enough.
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 looking very mournful, and most crying; and there was a rustle and a stir all around, and everybody got ready to listen, and lots of the women folks said, “Poor cretur, poor cretur,” and you could see a many of them wiping their eyes.
BRACE DUNLAP, sworn, said: “I was in considerable trouble a
long time about my poor brother, but I reckoned things warn’t
near so bad as he made out, and I couldn’t make myself believe
anybody would have the heart to hurt a poor harmless cretur
like that"—[by jings, I was sure I seen Tom give a kind of a
faint little start, and then look disappointed again]—"and
you know I COULDN’T think a preacher would hurt him—it warn’t
natural to think such an onlikely thing—so I never paid much
attention, and now I sha’n’t ever, ever forgive myself; for if
I had a done different, my poor brother would be with me this
day, and not laying yonder murdered, and him so harmless.” He
kind of broke down there and choked up, and waited to get his
voice; and people all around said the most pitiful things, and
women cried; and it was very still in there, and solemn, and
old Uncle Silas, poor thing, he give a groan right out so
everybody heard him. Then Brace he went on, “Saturday,
September 2d, he didn’t come home to supper. By-and-by I got a
little uneasy, and one of my niggers went over to this
prisoner’s place, but come back and said he warn’t there. So
I got uneasier and uneasier, and couldn’t rest. I went to
bed, but I couldn’t sleep; and turned out, away late in the
night, and went wandering over to this prisoner’s place and
all around about there a good while, hoping I would run across
my poor brother, and never knowing he was out of his troubles
and gone to a better shore—” So he broke down and choked up
again, and most all the women was crying now. Pretty soon he
got another start and says: “But it warn’t no use; so at last
I went home and tried to get some sleep, but couldn’t. Well,
in a day or two everybody was uneasy, and they got to talking
about this prisoner’s threats, and took to the idea, which I
didn’t take no stock in, that my brother was murdered so they
hunted around and tried to find his body, but couldn’t and
give it up. And so I reckoned he was gone off somers to have
a little peace, and would come back to us when his troubles
was kind of healed. But late Saturday night, the 9th, Lem
Beebe and Jim Lane come to my house and told me all—told me
the whole awful ‘sassination, and my heart was broke. And THEN
I remembered something that hadn’t took no hold of me at the
time, because reports said this prisoner had took to walking
in his sleep and doing all kind of things of no consequence,
not knowing what he was about. I will tell you what that
thing was that come back into my memory. Away late that awful
Saturday night when I was wandering around about this
prisoner’s place, grieving and troubled, I was down by the
corner of the tobacker-field and I heard a sound like digging
in a gritty soil; and I crope nearer and peeped through the
vines that hung on the rail fence and seen this prisoner
SHOVELING—shoveling with a long-handled shovel—heaving earth
into a big hole that was most filled up; his back was to me,
but it was bright moonlight and I knowed him by his old green
baize work-gown with a splattery white patch in the middle of
the back like somebody had hit him with a snowball. HE WAS
BURYING THE MAN HE’D MURDERED!”
And he slumped down in his chair crying and sobbing, 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 excitement, and you couldn’t hear yourself think; and right in the midst of it up jumps old Uncle Silas, white as a sheet, and sings out:
“IT’S TRUE, EVERY WORD—I MURDERED HIM IN COLD BLOOD!”
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—order!”
And all the while the old man stood there a-quaking and his eyes a-burning, 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, everybody a-staring 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 words out l
ike a stream of fire:
“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 field; and in the deep night I went with my shovel and buried it where—”
Up jumps Tom and shouts:
“NOW, I’ve got it!” and waves his hand, oh, ever so fine and starchy, towards the old man, and says:
“Set down! A murder WAS done, but you never had no hand in it!”
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 says, perfectly ca’m:
“Your honor, may I speak?”
“For God’s sake, yes—go on!” says the judge, so astonished and mixed up he didn’t know what he was about hardly.
Then Tom he stood there and waited a second or two—that was for to work up an “effect,” as he calls it—then he started in just as ca’m as ever, and says:
The Classic Children's Literature Collection: 39 Classic Novels Page 575