Speaker 1: Tom Sawyer Detective by Mark Twain, Chapter one, an invitation
Speaker 1: for Tom and Huck. Note strange as the incidents of
Speaker 1: this story are, they are not inventions but facts, even
Speaker 1: to the public confession of the accused. I take them
Speaker 1: from an old time Swedish criminal trial, change the characters,
Speaker 1: and transfer the scenes to America. I have added some details,
Speaker 1: but only a couple of them are important ones. M
Speaker 1: T Well. It was the next spring after me and
Speaker 1: Tom Sawyer set our old nigger Jim free, the time
Speaker 1: he was chained up for a runaway slave down there
Speaker 1: on Tom's uncle Silas's farm in Arkansas. The frost was
Speaker 1: working out of the ground and out of the air too,
Speaker 1: and it was getting closer and closer onto barefoot time
Speaker 1: every day, and next it would be marble time, and
Speaker 1: next MUMBLETYPEG and next tops and hoops, and next kites,
Speaker 1: and then right away it would be summer and going
Speaker 1: in a swimming It just makes a boy homesick to
Speaker 1: look ahead like that and see how far off summer is, yes,
Speaker 1: and it sets him to sighing and saddening around, And
Speaker 1: there's something the matter with him, and you don't know what,
Speaker 1: but anyway, he gets out by himself and mopes and thinks,
Speaker 1: and mostly he hunts for a lonesome place high up
Speaker 1: on the hill in the edge of the woods, and
Speaker 1: sits there and looks away off on the big Mississippi
Speaker 1: down there, or reaching miles and miles around the points
Speaker 1: where the timber looks smoky and dim. It's so far
Speaker 1: off and still, and everything's so solemn. It seems like
Speaker 1: everybody you've loved is dead and gone, and you most
Speaker 1: wish you was dead and gone too, and done with
Speaker 1: it all. Don't you know what that is? It's spring fever,
Speaker 1: that is what the name of it is. And when
Speaker 1: you've got it, you want, Oh you don't quite know
Speaker 1: what it is you do want, but it just fairly
Speaker 1: makes your heart ache. You want it. So it seems
Speaker 1: to you that mainly what you want is to get away,
Speaker 1: get away from the same old, tedious things you're so
Speaker 1: used to seeing and so tired of, and set something new.
Speaker 1: That is the idea. You want to go and be
Speaker 1: a wanderer. You want to go wandering far away to
Speaker 1: strange countries where everything is mysterious and wonderful and romantic.
Speaker 1: And if you can't do that, you'll put up with
Speaker 1: considerable less. You'll go anywhere you can go, just so
Speaker 1: as to get away and be thankful of the chance too. Well,
Speaker 1: me and Tom Sawyer had the spring fever and had
Speaker 1: it bad too. But it weren't any use to think
Speaker 1: about Tom trying to get away, because, as he said,
Speaker 1: his aunt Polly wouldn't let him quit school and go
Speaker 1: trapsing off Somers wasting time. So we was pretty blue.
Speaker 1: We were sitting on the front steps one day about sundown,
Speaker 1: talking this way, when out comes his aunt Polly with
Speaker 1: a letter in her hand and says, Tom, I reckon,
Speaker 1: you've got to pack up and go down to Arkansas.
Speaker 1: Your aunt Sally wants you. I most jumped out of
Speaker 1: my skin for joy. I reckoned Tom would fly at
Speaker 1: his aunt and hug her head off. But if you
Speaker 1: believe me, he sat there like a rock and never
Speaker 1: said a word. It made me fit to cry to
Speaker 1: see him act so foolish with such a noble chance
Speaker 1: as this opening up. Why we might lose it if
Speaker 1: he didn't speak up and show he was thankful and grateful.
Speaker 1: But he sat there and studied and studied till I
Speaker 1: was that distressed. I didn't know what to do. And
Speaker 1: then he says, very calm, and I could have shot
Speaker 1: him for it. Well, he says, I'm right down, sorry,
Speaker 1: Aunt Polly, But I reckon, I got to be excused
Speaker 1: for the present. His Aunt Polly was knocked so stupid
Speaker 1: and so mad at the cold impudence of it, that
Speaker 1: she couldn't say a word for as much as half
Speaker 1: a minute. And this gave me a chance to nudge
Speaker 1: Tom and whisper, ain't you got any sense spiling such
Speaker 1: a noble chance as this and throwing it away? But
Speaker 1: he warn't disturbed. He mumbled back, huck finn, do you
Speaker 1: want want me to let her see how bad I
Speaker 1: want to go? Why she'd begin to doubt right away,
Speaker 1: and imagine a lot of sickness and dangers and objections,
Speaker 1: and first you know she'd take it all back. You
Speaker 1: let me alone, I reckon, I know how to work
Speaker 1: her now. I never would have thought of that. But
Speaker 1: he was right. Tom Sawyer was always right, the levelest
Speaker 1: head I ever see, and always at himself and ready
Speaker 1: for anything you might spring on him. By this time,
Speaker 1: his Aunt Polly was all straight again, and she let fly.
Speaker 1: She says, you'll be excused you will well, I never
Speaker 1: heard the like of it in all my days, the
Speaker 1: idea of you talking like that to me. Now take
Speaker 1: yourself off and pack your traps. And if I hear
Speaker 1: another word out of you about what you'll be excused
Speaker 1: from and what you won't, I lay I'll excuse you
Speaker 1: with a hickory. She hit his head a thump with
Speaker 1: her thimble as we dodged by, and he led on
Speaker 1: to be whimpering. As we struck for the stairs up
Speaker 1: in his room. He hugged me. He was so out
Speaker 1: of his head for gladness because he was going traveling,
Speaker 1: and he says, before we get away, she'll wish she
Speaker 1: hadn't let me go, but she won't know any way
Speaker 1: to get around it now after what she said, her
Speaker 1: pride won't let her take it back. Tom was packed
Speaker 1: in ten minutes, all except what his aunt and Mary
Speaker 1: would finish up for him. Then we waited ten more
Speaker 1: for her to get cooled down and sweet and gentle again.
Speaker 1: For Tom said it took her ten minutes to unruffle
Speaker 1: in times when half of her feathers was up, but
Speaker 1: twenty when they was all up, And this was one
Speaker 1: of the times when they was all up. Then we
Speaker 1: went down, being in a sweat, to know what the
Speaker 1: letter said. She was setting there in a brown study
Speaker 1: with it laying in her lap. We sat down and
Speaker 1: she says they're in considerable trouble down there, and they
Speaker 1: think you and huck'll be a kind of diversion for
Speaker 1: them comfort. They say much of that they'll get out
Speaker 1: of you and Huck Finn. I reckon. There's a neighbor
Speaker 1: named Brace Dunlap that's been one to marry their benny
Speaker 1: for three months, and at last they told him point
Speaker 1: blank and once for all, he couldn't, so he has
Speaker 1: soured on them, and they're worried about it. I reckon
Speaker 1: he's somebody they think they better be on the good
Speaker 1: side of, for they've tried to please him by hiring
Speaker 1: his no account brother to help on the farm when
Speaker 1: they can't hardly afford it and don't want him round anyhow.
Speaker 1: Who are the Dunlaps. They live about a mile from
Speaker 1: Uncle Silas's place. Aunt Polly. All the farmers live about
Speaker 1: a mile apart down there, and Brace Dunlap is a
Speaker 1: long sight richer than any of the others, and owns
Speaker 1: a whole grist of niggers. He's a widower, thirty six
Speaker 1: years old, without any children, and is proud of his
Speaker 1: money and overbearing, and everybody is a little afraid of him.
Speaker 1: I judge he thought he could have any girl he wanted,
Speaker 1: just for the asking, and it must have set him
Speaker 1: back a good deal when he found he couldn't get Benny.
Speaker 1: Why Benny's only half as old as he is, and
Speaker 1: just as sweet and lovely he is. Well, you've seen her,
Speaker 1: poor old uncle Silas. Why it's pitiful him trying to
Speaker 1: curry favor that way, so hard pushed and poor, and
Speaker 1: yet hiring that useless Jubiter Dunlap to please his ornery brother.
Speaker 1: What a name, Jubiter? Where'd he get it? It's only
Speaker 1: just a nickname, I reckon. They'd forgot his real name
Speaker 1: long before this. He's twenty seven now and has had
Speaker 1: it ever since the first time he ever went in swimming.
Speaker 1: The school teacher's seen a round brown mole the size
Speaker 1: of a dime on his left leg above his knee,
Speaker 1: and four little bits of moles around it when he
Speaker 1: was naked, and he said it minded him of Jubiter
Speaker 1: and his moons, and the children thought it was funny,
Speaker 1: and so they got to calling him Jubiter. And he's
Speaker 1: Jubiter yet he's tall and lazy and sly and sneaky,
Speaker 1: and rather cowardly too, but kind of good natured and
Speaker 1: wears long brown hair and no beard, and hasn't got
Speaker 1: a cent and brace boards him for nothing and gives
Speaker 1: him his old clothes to wear and despises him. Jubiter
Speaker 1: is a twin. What's the other twin like? Just exactly
Speaker 1: like Jubiter, so they say, used to was anyway, but
Speaker 1: he ain't been seen for seven years. He got to
Speaker 1: Robin when he was nineteen or twenty, and they jailed him,
Speaker 1: but he broke jail and got away up north here Somers.
Speaker 1: They used to hear about him robbing and burglaring now
Speaker 1: and then, but that was years ago. He's dead now,
Speaker 1: at least that's what they say. They don't hear about
Speaker 1: him anymore. What was his name, Jake? There wasn't anything
Speaker 1: more said for a considerable while. The old lady was thinking.
Speaker 1: At last, she says, the thing that is mostly worrying
Speaker 1: your aunt Sally is the tempers that that man Jupiter
Speaker 1: gets your uncle into. Tom was astonished and so was I.
Speaker 1: Tom says, tempers, Uncle Silas Land, you must be joking.
Speaker 1: I didn't know he had any temper works him up
Speaker 1: into perfect rages. Your Aunt Sally's says, he acts as
Speaker 1: if he would really hit the man sometimes, Aunt Polly,
Speaker 1: it beats anything I ever heard of. Why he's just
Speaker 1: as gentle as mush? Well, she's worried anyway, says your
Speaker 1: uncle Silas is like a changed man on account of
Speaker 1: all this quarreling, And the neighbors talk about it and
Speaker 1: lay all the blame on your uncle, of course, because
Speaker 1: he's a preacher and ain't got any business to quarrel.
Speaker 1: Your Aunt Sally says, he hates to go into the pulpit.
Speaker 1: He's so ashamed, and the people have begun to cool
Speaker 1: toward him. And he ain't as popular now as he
Speaker 1: used to was. Well, ain't it strange? Why, Aunt Polly,
Speaker 1: he was always so good and kind and moony and
Speaker 1: absent minded and chuckle headed and lovable. Why he was
Speaker 1: just an angel? What can be the matter of him?
Speaker 1: Do you Reckon end of chapter one, Chapter two, Jake
Speaker 1: Dunlap we had powerful good luck because we got a
Speaker 1: chance in a stern wheeler from away north, which was
Speaker 1: bound for one of them by us or one horse
Speaker 1: rivers away down Louisiana Way. And so we could go
Speaker 1: all the way down the Upper Mississippi and all the
Speaker 1: way down the Lower Mississippi to that farm in Arkansas
Speaker 1: without having to change steamboats at Saint Louis not so
Speaker 1: very much short of a thousand miles at one pull
Speaker 1: a pretty lonesome boat. There weren't but few passengers, and
Speaker 1: all old folks that set around wide apart, dozing, and
Speaker 1: was very quiet. We was four days getting out of
Speaker 1: the Upper River because we got aground so much. But
Speaker 1: it weren't dull, couldn't be for boys that was traveling.
Speaker 1: Of course, from the very start me and Tom allowed
Speaker 1: that there was somebody sick in the stateroom next arn,
Speaker 1: because the meals was always toted in there by the
Speaker 1: waiters bye and bye. We asked about it, Tom did,
Speaker 1: and the waiters said he was a man, but he
Speaker 1: didn't look sick. Well, but ain't he sick? I don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe he is, but appears to me he's just letting on.
Speaker 1: What makes you think that, because if he was sick,
Speaker 1: he would pull his clothes off sometime or other. Don't
Speaker 1: you reckon? He would? Well, this one don't. At least
Speaker 1: he don't ever pull off his boots anyway. The mischief
Speaker 1: he don't, not even when he goes to bed. No,
Speaker 1: it was always nuts for Tom Sawyer. A mystery was
Speaker 1: But you'd lay out a mystery and a pie before
Speaker 1: me and him, and you wouldn't have to say, take
Speaker 1: your choice. It was a thing that would regulate itself,
Speaker 1: because in my nature I always run to pie, whilst
Speaker 1: in his nature he has always run to mystery. People
Speaker 1: are made different, and it is the best way. Tom
Speaker 1: says to the waiter, what's the man's name, Phillips? Where'd
Speaker 1: he come aboard? I think he got aboard at Alexandria,
Speaker 1: up on the Iowa line. What do you reckon? He's
Speaker 1: a playing I ain't any notion. I never thought of it,
Speaker 1: I says to myself. Here's another one that runs to pie.
Speaker 1: Anything peculiar about him, the way he acts or talks, No,
Speaker 1: nothing except he seems so scary and keeps his doors
Speaker 1: locked night and day both and when you knock, he
Speaker 1: won't let you in till he opens the door crack
Speaker 1: and sees who it is. By Jimmy, it's interesting. I'd
Speaker 1: like to get a look at him. Say the next
Speaker 1: time you're going in there, don't you reckon. You could
Speaker 1: spread the door and no, indeed, he he's always behind it.
Speaker 1: He would block that game. Tom studied over it, and
Speaker 1: then he says, look a here, you lend me your apron.
Speaker 1: Let me take him his breakfast in the morning. I'll
Speaker 1: give you a quarter. The boy was plenty willing enough
Speaker 1: if the head Stewart wouldn't mind. Tom says, that's all right.
Speaker 1: He reckoned. He could fix it with the head Stewart,
Speaker 1: and he done it. He fixed it so as we
Speaker 1: could both go in with aprons on and toting victuals.
Speaker 1: He didn't sleep much. He was in such a sweat
Speaker 1: to get in there and find out the mystery about Phillips.
Speaker 1: And moreover, he'd done a lot of guessing about it
Speaker 1: all night, which warn't no use. For if you are
Speaker 1: going to find out the facts of a thing, what's
Speaker 1: the sense in guessing out what ain't the facts and
Speaker 1: wasting ammunition. I didn't lose no sleep. I wouldn't give
Speaker 1: a dern to know what's the matter of Phillips, I
Speaker 1: says to myself. Well, in the morning, we put on
Speaker 1: the aprons and got a couple of trays of truck
Speaker 1: and Tom he knocked on the door. The man opened
Speaker 1: at a crack, and then he let us in and
Speaker 1: shut it quick, pat Jackson. When we got sight of him,
Speaker 1: we most dropped the trays, and Tom says, why Jubiter's
Speaker 1: done Lap, where'd you come from? Well the man was astonished,
Speaker 1: of course, and first off he looked like he didn't
Speaker 1: know whether to be scared or glad or both or which.
Speaker 1: But finally he settled down to being glad, and then
Speaker 1: his color come back, though at first his face had
Speaker 1: turned pretty white. So we got to talking together while
Speaker 1: he had his breakfast, and he says, but I ain't
Speaker 1: Jubeter Dunlap. I'd just as soon tell you who I am, though,
Speaker 1: if you'll swear to keep mum, for I ain't no
Speaker 1: Phillips either. Tom said, we'll keep Mum, but there ain't
Speaker 1: any need to tell who you are if you ain't
Speaker 1: Jubiter Dunlap. Why because if you ain't him, you're t'other twin, Jake,
Speaker 1: you're the spitting image of Jubiter. Well, I'm Jake, but
Speaker 1: look here how do you come to know us? Done
Speaker 1: laps Tom told about the adventures we'd had down there
Speaker 1: at his uncle Silas's last summer. And when he see
Speaker 1: that there warn't anything about his folks or him either,
Speaker 1: for that matter, that we didn't know, he opened out
Speaker 1: and talked perfectly, free and candid. He never made any
Speaker 1: bones about his own case. Said he'd been a hard lot,
Speaker 1: was a hard lot yet and reckoned. He'd be a
Speaker 1: hard lot plumb to the end. He said, of course,
Speaker 1: it was a dangerous life, and he gave a kind
Speaker 1: of gasp and set his head like a person that's listening.
Speaker 1: We didn't say anything, and so it was very still
Speaker 1: for a second or so, and there weren't no sounds
Speaker 1: but the screaking of the woodwork and the chug chugging
Speaker 1: of the machinery down below. Then we got him comfortable again,
Speaker 1: telling him about his people, and how Brace's wife had
Speaker 1: been dead three years and Brace wanted to marry Benny
Speaker 1: and she shook him, and Jubiter was working for Uncle Silas,
Speaker 1: and him and Uncle Silas quarreling all the time. And
Speaker 1: then he let go and laughed. Lad. He says, it's
Speaker 1: like old times to hear all this tittle title and
Speaker 1: does me good. It's been seven years and more since
Speaker 1: I heard any How do they talk about me these days? Who?
Speaker 1: The farmers and the family. Why they don't talk about
Speaker 1: you at all, at least only just to mention once
Speaker 1: in a long time the nation, He says, surprised. Why
Speaker 1: is that because they think you are dead long ago? No,
Speaker 1: you're speaking true, Honor Bright. Now he jumped up, excited,
Speaker 1: Honor Bright. There ain't anybody thinks you are alive. Then
Speaker 1: I'm saved. I'm saved. Sure, I'll go home. They'll hide
Speaker 1: me and save my life. You keep, mum swear you'll
Speaker 1: mum swear you'll never never tell on me. Oh boys,
Speaker 1: be good to a poor devil it's being hunted day
Speaker 1: and night and doesn't show his face. I've never done
Speaker 1: you any harm. I'll never do you any as God
Speaker 1: is in the heavens. Swear you'll be good to me
Speaker 1: and help me save my life. We'd a swore if
Speaker 1: it had been a dog, and so we done it well.
Speaker 1: He couldn't love us enough for it or be grateful enough.
Speaker 1: Poor cuss. It was all he could do to keep
Speaker 1: from hugging us. We talked along, and he got out
Speaker 1: a little handbag and begun to open it and told
Speaker 1: us to turn our backs. We done it, and when
Speaker 1: he told us to turn again, he was perfectly different
Speaker 1: to what he was before. He had on blue goggles
Speaker 1: and the naturalist look in, long brown whiskers and mustache
Speaker 1: as you ever see. His own mother wouldn't have known him.
Speaker 1: He asked us if he looked like his brother Jubiter.
Speaker 1: Now no, Tom said, there ain't anything left that's like
Speaker 1: him except the long hair. All right, I'll get that
Speaker 1: crop close to my head before I get there, and
Speaker 1: him and Brace will keep my secret, and I'll live
Speaker 1: with them as being a stranger, and the neighbors won't
Speaker 1: ever guess me out. What do you think, Tom? He
Speaker 1: studied a while. Then he says, well, of course me
Speaker 1: and Hack are going to keep Mum there. But if
Speaker 1: you don't keep Mum yourself, there's going to be a
Speaker 1: little bit of a risk. It ain't much, maybe, but
Speaker 1: it's a little. I mean, if you talk, won't people
Speaker 1: notice that your voice is just like Jubiter's? And mightn't
Speaker 1: it make them think of the twin they reckoned was dead?
Speaker 1: But maybe after all was hid all this time under
Speaker 1: another name by George. He says, you're a sharp one.
Speaker 1: You're perfectly right. I've got to play deef and dumb
Speaker 1: when there's a neighbor around. If I had just struck
Speaker 1: for home and forgot that little detail. However, I wasn't
Speaker 1: striking for home. I was breaking for any place where
Speaker 1: I could get away from these fellows that are after me.
Speaker 1: Then I was going to put on this disguise and
Speaker 1: get some different clothes. And he jumped for the outside
Speaker 1: door and laid his ear against it and listened. Pale
Speaker 1: and kind of panting. He whispers, sounded like cocking a gun. Lord,
Speaker 1: what a life to lead. Then he sunk down in
Speaker 1: a chair, all limp and sick like, and wipe the
Speaker 1: sweat off his face. End of chapter two, Chapter three
Speaker 1: A Diamond Robbery. From that time out, we was with
Speaker 1: him most all the time, and one or t'other of
Speaker 1: us slept in his upper berth. He said he had
Speaker 1: been so lonesome, and it was such a comfort to
Speaker 1: him to have company and somebody to talk to in
Speaker 1: his troubles. We was in a sweat to find out
Speaker 1: what his secret was. But Tom said the best way
Speaker 1: was not to seem anxious, then likely he would drop
Speaker 1: into it himself in one of his talks. But if
Speaker 1: we go to asking questions, he would get suspicious and
Speaker 1: shet up his shell. It turned out just so. It
Speaker 1: warn't no trouble to see that he wanted to talk
Speaker 1: about it, but always along at first, he would scare
Speaker 1: away from it when he got on the very edge
Speaker 1: of it and go to talk about something else. The
Speaker 1: way it come about was this. He got to asking
Speaker 1: us kind of indifferent like about the passengers down on deck.
Speaker 1: We told him about them, but he weren't satisfied we
Speaker 1: weren't particular enough. He told us to describe them better.
Speaker 1: Tom done it at last. When Tom was describing one
Speaker 1: of the roughest and raggedest ones, he gave a shiver
Speaker 1: and a gasp and says, oh, lordy, that's one of them.
Speaker 1: They're aboard. Sure, I just knowed it. I sort of
Speaker 1: hoped i'd got away, but I never believed it. Go
Speaker 1: on presently, when Tom was describing another mangy rough deck passenger,
Speaker 1: he gave that shiver again and says, that's him. That's
Speaker 1: the other one. If it'll only come a good black
Speaker 1: stormy night, and I could get ashore. You see, they've
Speaker 1: got spies on me. They've got a right to come
Speaker 1: up and buy drinks at the bar yonder forward, and
Speaker 1: they take that chance to bribe somebody to keep watch
Speaker 1: on me. Porter or Boots or somebody. If I was
Speaker 1: to slip a shor or without anybody seeing me, they would
Speaker 1: know it inside of an hour. So then he got
Speaker 1: to wandering along, and pretty soon sure enough he was
Speaker 1: telling he was poking along through his ups and downs,
Speaker 1: and when he come to that place, he went right along.
Speaker 1: He says it was a confidence game. We played it
Speaker 1: on a julery shop in Saint Louis. What we was
Speaker 1: after was a couple of noble big diamonds, as big
Speaker 1: as hazel nuts, which everybody was running to see. We
Speaker 1: was dressed up fine, and we played it on them
Speaker 1: in broad daylight. We ordered the diamonds sent to the
Speaker 1: hotel for us to see if we wanted to buy,
Speaker 1: and when we was examining them, we had paste counterfeits
Speaker 1: all ready. And then was the things that went back
Speaker 1: to the shop when we said the water wasn't quite
Speaker 1: fine enough for twelve thousand dollars twelve thousand dollars, Tom says,
Speaker 1: was they really worth all that money? Do you reckon
Speaker 1: every cent of it? And you fellows got away with
Speaker 1: them as easy as nothing. I don't reckon the juelery
Speaker 1: people know they've been robbed yet. But it wouldn't be
Speaker 1: good sense to stay round Saint Louis course, So we
Speaker 1: considered where we'd go. One was for going one way,
Speaker 1: one another. So we throwed up heads or tails, and
Speaker 1: the Upper Mississippi won. We'd done up the diamonds in
Speaker 1: the paper and put our names on it, and put
Speaker 1: it in the keep of the hotel clerk and told
Speaker 1: him not to ever let either of us have it
Speaker 1: again without the others was on hand to see it done.
Speaker 1: Then we went downtown, each by his own self, because
Speaker 1: I reckon maybe we all had the same notion. I
Speaker 1: don't know for certain, but I reckon maybe we had
Speaker 1: what notion Tom says, to rob the others? What one
Speaker 1: take everything after all of you had helped to get it.
Speaker 1: Certainly it disgusted Tom Sawyer, and he said it was
Speaker 1: the orneriest, low downest thing he ever heard of. But
Speaker 1: Jake Dunlap said it warn't unusual in the profession said,
Speaker 1: when a person was in that line of business, he'd
Speaker 1: got to look out for his own interest. There warn't
Speaker 1: nobody else going to do it for him. And then
Speaker 1: he went on, he says, you see, the trouble was
Speaker 1: you couldn't divide up two diamonds amongst three if there'd
Speaker 1: been three. But never mind about that there warn't three.
Speaker 1: I loafed along the back street, studying and studying, and
Speaker 1: I says to myself, I'll hog them di'monds the first
Speaker 1: chance I get, and I'll have a disguise all ready,
Speaker 1: and i'll give the boys the slip, and when I'm
Speaker 1: safe away, i'll put it on and then let them
Speaker 1: find me if they can. So I got the false
Speaker 1: whiskers and the goggles and this countryfied suit of clothes
Speaker 1: and fetched them along back in a handbag. And when
Speaker 1: I was passing a shop where they sell all sorts
Speaker 1: of things, I got a glimpse of one of my
Speaker 1: pals through the window. It was Bud Dixon. I was glad,
Speaker 1: you bet, I says to myself, I'll see what he buys.
Speaker 1: So I kept shady and watched. Now what do you reckon?
Speaker 1: It was? He bought Whiskers said, I no goggles. No, oh,
Speaker 1: keep still, huck, Finn, can't you You're only just hendering
Speaker 1: all you can. What was it he bought, Jake, You'd
Speaker 1: never guess it in the world. It was only just
Speaker 1: a screwdriver, just a wee little bit of a screwdriver. Well,
Speaker 1: I declare, but what do he want with that? That's
Speaker 1: what I thought. It was curious? It clean stumped me.
Speaker 1: I says to myself, what can he want with that thing? Well,
Speaker 1: when he come out, I stood back out of sight,
Speaker 1: and then tracked him to a second hand slop shop
Speaker 1: and see him buy a red flannel shirt and some
Speaker 1: old ragged clothes, just the ones he's got on now,
Speaker 1: as you've described. Then I went down to the wharf
Speaker 1: and hid my things aboard the up river boat that
Speaker 1: we had picked out, and then started back and had
Speaker 1: another streak of luck. I seen our other pal lay
Speaker 1: in his stock of old, rusty second handers. We got
Speaker 1: the diamonds and went aboard the boat. But now we
Speaker 1: was up a stump, for we couldn't go to bed.
Speaker 1: We had to set up and watch one another. Pity.
Speaker 1: That was pity to put that kind of a strain
Speaker 1: on us, because there was bad blood between us from
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks back, and we was only friends
Speaker 1: in the way of business, bad anyway, seeing there was
Speaker 1: only two diamonds TwixT three men. First we had supper,
Speaker 1: and then tramped up and down the deck together, smoking
Speaker 1: till most midnight. Then we went and sat down in
Speaker 1: my stateroom and locked the doors, and looked in the
Speaker 1: piece of paper to see if the diamonds was all right.
Speaker 1: Then laid it on the lower berth, right in full sight.
Speaker 1: And there we set and set, and by and by
Speaker 1: it got to be dreadful, hard to keep awake. At last,
Speaker 1: Bud Dixon he dropped off as soon as he was snoring,
Speaker 1: a good regular gait that was likely to last, and
Speaker 1: had his chin on his breast and looked permanent. Hal
Speaker 1: Clayton nodded towards the diamonds and then towards the outside door,
Speaker 1: and I understood. I reached and got the paper, and
Speaker 1: then we stood up and waited perfectly still, but never stirred.
Speaker 1: I turned the key of the outside door very soft
Speaker 1: and slow, then turned the knob the same way, and
Speaker 1: we went tiptoe out on to the guard and shut
Speaker 1: the door, very soft and gentle. There warn't nobody stirring anywhere,
Speaker 1: and the boat was slipping along, swift and steady through
Speaker 1: the big water and the smoky moonlight. We never said
Speaker 1: a word, but went straight up onto the hurricane deck
Speaker 1: and plumb back aft and set down on the end
Speaker 1: of the skylight. Both of us knowed what that meant,
Speaker 1: without having to explain to one another. Bud Dixon would
Speaker 1: wake up and miss the swag and would come straight
Speaker 1: for us, for he ain't afeard of anything or anybody.
Speaker 1: That man ain't. He would come and we would heave
Speaker 1: him overboard or get killed trying. It made me shiver,
Speaker 1: because I ain't as brave as some people. But if
Speaker 1: I showed the white feather, well, I knowed better than
Speaker 1: do that. I kind of hoped the boat would land
Speaker 1: somers and we could skip ashore and not have to
Speaker 1: run the risk of this row. I was so scared
Speaker 1: of Bud Dixon, but she was an upper river tub
Speaker 1: and there warn't no real chance of that. Well, the
Speaker 1: time strung along and along, and that fellow never come.
Speaker 1: Why it strung along till dawn begun to break, and
Speaker 1: still he never come. Thunder I says, what do you
Speaker 1: make out of this? Ain't it suspicious? Land Hell says,
Speaker 1: do you reckon? He's playing us? Open the paper? I
Speaker 1: done it, and by gracious, there warn't anything in it
Speaker 1: but a couple of little pieces of loaf sugar. That's
Speaker 1: the reason he could set there and snooze all night,
Speaker 1: so comfortable. Smart well, I reckon he had had them
Speaker 1: two papers, all fixed and ready, and he had put
Speaker 1: one of them in place of t'other, right under our noses.
Speaker 1: We felt pretty cheap. But the thing to do straight
Speaker 1: off was to make a plan, and we done it.
Speaker 1: We would do up the paper again, just as it was,
Speaker 1: and slip in very elaborate and soft, and lay it
Speaker 1: on the bunk again, and let on we didn't know
Speaker 1: about any trick, and hadn't any idea. He was laughing
Speaker 1: at us behind them bogus snores of his'n and we
Speaker 1: would stick by him, and the first night we was ashore,
Speaker 1: we would get him drunk and search him and get
Speaker 1: the diamonds and do for him too, if it weren't
Speaker 1: too risky, if we got the swag, we'd got to
Speaker 1: do for him, or he would hunt us down and
Speaker 1: do for us, sure, but I didn't have no real hope.
Speaker 1: I knowed we could get him drunk. He was always
Speaker 1: ready for that. But what's the good of it? You
Speaker 1: might search him a year and never fight. Well, right there,
Speaker 1: I catched my breath and broke off my thought for
Speaker 1: an idea went ripping through my head that tore my
Speaker 1: brains to rags and land. But I felt gay and good.
Speaker 1: You see, I had had my boots off to unswell
Speaker 1: my feet, and just then I took up one of
Speaker 1: them to put it on, and I catched a glimpse
Speaker 1: of the heel bottom, and it just took my breath away.
Speaker 1: You remember about that puzzlesome little screwdriver, You bet I do,
Speaker 1: says Tom, all excited. Well, when I catched that glimpse
Speaker 1: of that boot heel, the idea that went smashing through
Speaker 1: my head was I know where he'd hid the di'monds.
Speaker 1: You look at this boot heel. Now, see it's bottom
Speaker 1: with a steel plate, and the plate is fastened on
Speaker 1: with little screws. Now, there wasn't a screw about that
Speaker 1: feller anywhere but in his boot heels. So if he
Speaker 1: needed a screwdriver, I reckoned. I knowed why huck ain't
Speaker 1: it bully, says Tom. Well, I got my boots on
Speaker 1: and we went down and slipped in and laid the
Speaker 1: paper of sugar on the berth, and sat down soft
Speaker 1: and sheepish, and went to listening to Bud Dixon's snore.
Speaker 1: Hal Clayton dropped off pretty soon, but I didn't. I
Speaker 1: wasn't ever so wide awake in my life. I was
Speaker 1: spying out from under the shade of my hat brim,
Speaker 1: searching the floor for leather. It took me a long time,
Speaker 1: and I begun to think maybe my guess was wrong,
Speaker 1: But at last I struck it. It laid over by
Speaker 1: the bulkhead and was nearly the color of the carpet.
Speaker 1: It was a little round plug, about as thick as
Speaker 1: the end of your little finger. And I says to myself,
Speaker 1: there's a diamond in the nest you've come from. Before
Speaker 1: long I spied out the Plug's mate. Think of the
Speaker 1: smartness and coolness of that blatherskite. He put up that
Speaker 1: scheme on us and reasoned out what we would do,
Speaker 1: And we went ahead and done it perfectly exact, like
Speaker 1: a couple of pudd'n heads. He sat there and took
Speaker 1: his own time to unscrew his heel plates and cut
Speaker 1: out his plugs and stick in the diamonds and screw
Speaker 1: on his plates again. He lowed, we would steal the
Speaker 1: bogus swag and wait all night for him to come
Speaker 1: up and get drowned and buy George. It's just what
Speaker 1: we'd done. I think it was powerful, smart. You bet
Speaker 1: your life it was, says Tom, just full of admiration.
Speaker 1: End of Chapter three. Chapter four The three sleepers, well,
Speaker 1: all day we went through the humbug of watching one another,
Speaker 1: and it was pretty sickly business for two of us,
Speaker 1: and hard to act out. I can tell you about night.
Speaker 1: We landed at one of them little Missouri towns, high
Speaker 1: up toward Iowa, and had supper at the tavern, and
Speaker 1: got a room upstairs with a cot and a double
Speaker 1: bed in it. But I dumped my bag under a
Speaker 1: deal table in the dark hall while we was moving
Speaker 1: along it to bed, single file, me last, and the
Speaker 1: landlord in lead. With a tallow candle. We had up
Speaker 1: a lot of whiskey and went to playing high low
Speaker 1: jack for dimes, and as soon as the whisky begun
Speaker 1: to take hold of bud, we stopped drinking, but we
Speaker 1: didn't let him stop. We loaded him till he fell
Speaker 1: out of his chair and laid there snoring. We was
Speaker 1: ready for business now. I said, we'd better pull our
Speaker 1: boots off and his'n too, and not make any noise.
Speaker 1: Then we could pull him and haul him round and
Speaker 1: ransack him without any trouble. So we done it. I
Speaker 1: set my boots and buds side by side where they'd
Speaker 1: be handy. Then we stripped him and searched his seams
Speaker 1: and his pockets and his socks and inside of his
Speaker 1: boots and everything, and searched his bundle. Never found any diamonds.
Speaker 1: We found a screwdriver, and Hal says, oh, what do
Speaker 1: you reckon? He wanted with that? I said I didn't know,
Speaker 1: but when he wasn't looking, I hooked it. At last.
Speaker 1: Hal he looked beat and discouraged and said we'd got
Speaker 1: to give it up. That was what I was waiting for.
Speaker 1: I says, there's one place we hain't searched. What place
Speaker 1: is that? He says, his stomach? By gracious, I never
Speaker 1: thought of that. Now we're on the home stretch to
Speaker 1: a dead moral certainty. How'll we manage well? I says,
Speaker 1: just stay by him till I turn out and hunt
Speaker 1: up a drug store, and I reckon, I'll fetch something
Speaker 1: that'll make them di'monds tired of the company their keeping.
Speaker 1: He said that's the ticket, and with him looking straight
Speaker 1: at me, I slid myself into buds boots instead of
Speaker 1: my own, and he never noticed. They was just a
Speaker 1: shade large for me, but that was considerable better than
Speaker 1: being too small. I got my bag as I went
Speaker 1: a groping through the hall, and in about a minute
Speaker 1: I was out the back way and stretching up the
Speaker 1: river road at a five mile gait, and not feeling
Speaker 1: so very bad. Neither walking on di'monds don't have no
Speaker 1: such effect. When I had gone fifteen minutes, I says
Speaker 1: to myself, there's more'n a mile behind me, and everything quiet.
Speaker 1: Another five minutes and I says there's considerable more land
Speaker 1: behind me now, and there's a man back there that's
Speaker 1: begun to wonder what's the trouble. Another five and I
Speaker 1: says to myself, he's getting real uneasy. He's walking the floor.
Speaker 1: Now Another five and I says to myself there's two
Speaker 1: miles and a half behind me, and he's awful uneasy,
Speaker 1: beginning to cuss. I reckon pretty soon, I says to myself.
Speaker 1: Forty minutes gone, he knows there's somethin up. Fifty minutes
Speaker 1: the truth's busting on him. Now he is reckoning. I
Speaker 1: found the diamonds whilst we was searching, and shoved them
Speaker 1: in my pocket and never let on. Yes, and he's
Speaker 1: starting out to hunt for me. He'll hunt for new
Speaker 1: tracks in the dust, and they'll as likely send him down.
Speaker 1: The river is up. Just then I see a man
Speaker 1: coming down on a mule, and before I thought, I
Speaker 1: jumped into the bush. It was stupid. When he got abreast,
Speaker 1: he stopped and waited a little for me to come out,
Speaker 1: and then he rode on again. But I didn't feel
Speaker 1: gay any more, I says to myself. I've watched my
Speaker 1: chances by that I shall surely have if he meets
Speaker 1: up with hal Clayton. Well, about three in the morning,
Speaker 1: I fetched Alexandria and see this stern wheeler laying there,
Speaker 1: and was very glad because I felt perfectly safe. Now
Speaker 1: you know, it was just daybreak. I went aboard and
Speaker 1: got this stateroom and put on these clothes and went
Speaker 1: up in the pilot house to watch, though I didn't
Speaker 1: reckon there was any need of it. I sat there
Speaker 1: and played with my diamonds and waited and waited for
Speaker 1: the boat to start. But she didn't. You see, they
Speaker 1: was mending her machinery, but I didn't know anything about it,
Speaker 1: not being very much used to steamboats. Well, to cut
Speaker 1: the tail short. We never left there till plumb noon,
Speaker 1: and long before that, I was hid in this stateroom
Speaker 1: for before breakfast. I see a man coming away off
Speaker 1: that had a gate like hal Clayton's, and it made
Speaker 1: me just sick, I says to myself. If he finds
Speaker 1: out I'm aboard this boat, he's got me like a
Speaker 1: rat in a trap. All he's got to do is
Speaker 1: to have me watched and wait till I slip ashore,
Speaker 1: thinking he is a thousand miles away. Then slip after
Speaker 1: me and dog me to a good place and make
Speaker 1: me give up the di'monds, and then he'll, oh, I
Speaker 1: know what he'll do. Ain't it awful? Awful? And now
Speaker 1: to think the other ones aboard too, Oh, ain't it hard? Luck? Boys?
Speaker 1: Ain't it hard? But you'll help save me, won't you? Oh? Boys?
Speaker 1: Be good to a poor devil that's being hunted to death,
Speaker 1: and save me. I'll worship the very ground you walk on.
Speaker 1: We turned in and soothed him down and told him
Speaker 1: we would plan for him and help him, and he
Speaker 1: needn't be so feared, And so by and by he
Speaker 1: got to feeling kind of comfortable again, and unscrewed his
Speaker 1: heel plates and held up his diamonds this way and that,
Speaker 1: admiring them and loving them. And when the light struck
Speaker 1: into them, they was beautiful. Sure why they seemed to
Speaker 1: kind of bust and snap fire out all around, but
Speaker 1: all the same, I judged he was a fool. If
Speaker 1: I had been him, I would have handed the diamonds
Speaker 1: to the pals and got them to go ashore and
Speaker 1: leave me alone. But he was made different. He said
Speaker 1: it was a whole fortune, and he couldn't bear the
Speaker 1: IDEA Twice we stopped to fix the machinery and lay
Speaker 1: it a good while once in the night, but it
Speaker 1: wasn't dark enough, and he was a feared to skip.
Speaker 1: But the third time we had to fix it there
Speaker 1: was a better chance. We laid up at a country
Speaker 1: woodyard about forty mile above Uncle Silas's place a little
Speaker 1: after one at night, and it was thickening up and
Speaker 1: going to storm, so Jake he laid for a chance
Speaker 1: to slide. We began to take in wood. Pretty soon
Speaker 1: the rain come a drenching down and the wind blowed hard.
Speaker 1: Of course, every boat hand fixed a gunnysack and put
Speaker 1: it on like a bonnet, the way they do when
Speaker 1: they are toting wood, and we got one for Jake,
Speaker 1: and he slipped down aft with his hand bag and
Speaker 1: come tramping forward just like the rest, and walked ashore
Speaker 1: with them. And when we see him pass out of
Speaker 1: the light of the torch basket and get swallowed up
Speaker 1: in the dark, we got our breath again and just
Speaker 1: felt great, full and splendid. But it wasn't for long.
Speaker 1: Somebody told I reckon, for in about eight or ten
Speaker 1: minutes them two pals come tearing forward as tight as
Speaker 1: they could jump, and darted ashore and was gone. We
Speaker 1: waited plumb till dawn for them to come back, and
Speaker 1: kept hoping they would, but they never did. We was awful,
Speaker 1: sorry and low spirited. All the hope we had was
Speaker 1: that Jake had got such a start that they couldn't
Speaker 1: get on his track and he would get to his
Speaker 1: brothers and hide there and be safe. He was going
Speaker 1: to take the river road and told us to find
Speaker 1: out if Brace and Jubiter was to home and no
Speaker 1: strangers there, and then slip out about sundown and tell him.
Speaker 1: Said he would wait for us in a little bunch
Speaker 1: of sycamores right back of Tom's uncle Silas's tobackerfield on
Speaker 1: the river road, a lonesome place. We sat and talked
Speaker 1: a long time about his chances, and Tom said he
Speaker 1: was all right if the pals struck up the river
Speaker 1: instead of down, but it wasn't likely because maybe they
Speaker 1: knowed where he was from. More likely they would go
Speaker 1: right and dog him all day, him not suspecting, and
Speaker 1: kill him when it come duck and take the boots.
Speaker 1: So we was pretty sorrowful. End of Chapter four, Chapter five,
Speaker 1: A Tragedy in the Woods. We didn't get done tinkering
Speaker 1: the machinery till away late in the afternoon, and so
Speaker 1: it was so close to sundown when we got home
Speaker 1: that we never stopped on our road, but made a
Speaker 1: break for the sycamores as tight as we could go
Speaker 1: to tell Jake what the delay was and have him
Speaker 1: wait till we could go to Braces and find out
Speaker 1: how things was there. It was getting pretty dim by
Speaker 1: the time we turned the corner of the woods, sweating
Speaker 1: and panting with that long run, and see the sycamores
Speaker 1: thirty yards ahead of us. And just then we see
Speaker 1: a couple of men run into the bunch and heard
Speaker 1: two or three terrible screams for help. Poor Jake is killed, sure,
Speaker 1: we says. We was scared through and through and broke
Speaker 1: for the tobacco field and hid there, trembling so our
Speaker 1: clothes would hardly stay on. And just as we skipped
Speaker 1: in there, a couple of men went tearing by, and
Speaker 1: into the bunch they went, and in a second out
Speaker 1: jumps four men and took out up the road as
Speaker 1: tight as they could go, too, chasing two. We laid down,
Speaker 1: kind of weak and sick and listened for more sounds,
Speaker 1: but didn't hear none for a good while. But just
Speaker 1: our hearts, we was thinking about that awful thing laying
Speaker 1: yonder in the sycamores, and it seemed like being that
Speaker 1: close to a ghost, and it give me the cold shudders.
Speaker 1: The moon comes swellin up out of the ground, now powerful,
Speaker 1: big an round and bright behind a comb of trees,
Speaker 1: like a face looking through prison bars, and the black
Speaker 1: shatters an white places begun to creep around, and it
Speaker 1: was miserable, quiet and still, a night breezy and a
Speaker 1: graveyardy and scary. All of a sudden, Tom whispers, Look
Speaker 1: what's that? Don't, I says, don't take a person by
Speaker 1: surprise that way. I'm most ready to die anyway without
Speaker 1: you doing that. Look. I tell you it's something coming
Speaker 1: out of the sycamores. Don't, Tom, it's terrible tall. Oh lordy, lordy,
Speaker 1: let's keep still. It's comin this way. He was so
Speaker 1: excited he could hardly get breath enough to whisper. I
Speaker 1: had to look. I couldn't help it. So now we
Speaker 1: was both on our knees with our chins on a
Speaker 1: fence rail and gazing yes, and gasping too. It was
Speaker 1: comin down the road, coming in the shatter of the trees,
Speaker 1: and you couldn't see it good, not till it was
Speaker 1: pretty close to us. Then it stepped into a bright
Speaker 1: splotch of moonlight, and we sunk right down in our tracks.
Speaker 1: It was Jake Dunlap's ghost. That was what we said
Speaker 1: to ourselves. We couldn't stir for a minute or two.
Speaker 1: Then it was gone. We talked about it in low voices.
Speaker 1: Tom says, they're mostly dim and smoky, or like they've
Speaker 1: made out of fog. But this one wasn't. No, I says.
Speaker 1: I seen the goggles and the whiskers, perfectly plain, Yes,
Speaker 1: and the very colors in them. Loud Country had Sunday clothes,
Speaker 1: plaid breeches, green and black cotton, velvet waistcoat, fire red
Speaker 1: and yaller squares, leather straps to the bottoms of the
Speaker 1: breech's legs, and one of them hanging unbuttoned. Yes. And
Speaker 1: that hat. What a hat for a ghost to wear?
Speaker 1: You see, it was the first season anybody wore that
Speaker 1: kind a black, stiff brimmed stovepipe, very high and not smooth,
Speaker 1: with a round top, just like a sugar loaf. Did
Speaker 1: you notice if its hair was the same, Huck, No,
Speaker 1: seems to me I did. Then again, it seems to
Speaker 1: me I didn't. I didn't either, But it had its
Speaker 1: bag along. I noticed that, so did I. How can
Speaker 1: there be a ghost bag, Tom show, I wouldn't be
Speaker 1: as ignorant as that if I was. You huck Finn.
Speaker 1: Whatever a ghost has turns to ghost stuff. They've got
Speaker 1: to have their things like anybody else. You see it
Speaker 1: yourself that its clothes was turned to ghost stuff. Well,
Speaker 1: then wants to hander its bag from turning too. Of
Speaker 1: course had done it. That was reasonable. I couldn't find
Speaker 1: no fault with it. Bill Withers and his brother Jack
Speaker 1: come along by talkin and Jack says what he reckon?
Speaker 1: He was totin. I don't know, but it was pretty heavy. Yes,
Speaker 1: all he could lug niggers stealing corn from old pysin Silas.
Speaker 1: I judged, so did I, and so I allowed. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't let on to see him. That's me too. Then
Speaker 1: they both laughed and went on out o hearing. It
Speaker 1: showed how unpopular old Uncle Silas had got to be. Now.
Speaker 1: They wouldn't a let a nigger steal anybody else's corn.
Speaker 1: An never done anything to him. We heard some more
Speaker 1: voices mumbling along towards us and getting louder, and sometimes
Speaker 1: the cackle of a laugh. It was Lem Beebe and
Speaker 1: Jim Lane. Jim Lane says, hoo, Joe better dunlap. Yes, Oh,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I reckon, So I seen him spadin'
Speaker 1: up some ground along about an hour ago, just before
Speaker 1: sundown him An the parson said he guessed he wouldn't
Speaker 1: go to night, but we have his dog if we
Speaker 1: wanted him too. Tired, I reckon, yes, works so hard,
Speaker 1: Oh you bet. They cackled at that and went on by.
Speaker 1: Tom said we'd better jump out and tag along with them,
Speaker 1: because they was going our way and it wouldn't be
Speaker 1: comfortable to run across the ghost all by ourselves. So
Speaker 1: we'd done it and got home all right. That night
Speaker 1: was the second of September, a Saturday. I shan't ever
Speaker 1: forget it. You'll see why pretty soon. End of chapter five.
Speaker 1: Chapter six plans to secure the diamonds. We tramped along
Speaker 1: behind Jim and Lim till we come to the back
Speaker 1: style where old Jim's cabin was that he was captivated
Speaker 1: in the time we set him free, And here come
Speaker 1: the dogs piling around us to say howdie. And there
Speaker 1: was the lights of the house too, so we weren't
Speaker 1: afeared anymore, and was going to climb over, but Tom says,
Speaker 1: hold on, sit down here a minute. By George, what's
Speaker 1: the matter? Says? I matter enough? He says, wasn't you
Speaker 1: expecting we would be the first to tell the family
Speaker 1: who it is that's been killed Yonder and the sycamores,
Speaker 1: and all about them rapscallions that done it, and about
Speaker 1: the diamonds they've smooched off of the corpse, and paint
Speaker 1: it up fine, and have the glory of being the
Speaker 1: ones that knows a lot more about it than anyone else. Why,
Speaker 1: of course it wouldn't be you, Tom Sawyer, if you
Speaker 1: was to let such a chance go by, I reckon
Speaker 1: it ain't goin to suffer none for lack of paint,
Speaker 1: I says, when you started to scollop the facts. Well, now,
Speaker 1: he says, perfectly calm. What would you say if I
Speaker 1: was to tell you I ain't goin to start it
Speaker 1: at all? I was astonished to hear him talk, so
Speaker 1: I says, I'd say it's a lie. You ain't in earnest,
Speaker 1: Tom Sawyer. You'll soon see was the ghost barefooted? No
Speaker 1: he wasn't. What of it? You wait, I'll show you what.
Speaker 1: Did it have its boots on? Yes? I seen them?
Speaker 1: Plain swear it. Yes, I swear it? So do I?
Speaker 1: Now do you know what that means? No? What does
Speaker 1: it mean means? That them thieves didn't get the diamonds. Jimminy,
Speaker 1: what makes you think that? I don't only think it,
Speaker 1: I know it didn't. The breeches and goggles and whiskers
Speaker 1: and handbag and every blessed thing turned to ghost stuff.
Speaker 1: Everything it had on turn, didn't it. It shows that
Speaker 1: the reason its boots turned too was because it still
Speaker 1: had them on after it started to go hatting around.
Speaker 1: And if that ain't proof that them blathers skites didn't
Speaker 1: get the boots, I'd like to know what you'd call
Speaker 1: proof think of that now. I never see such a
Speaker 1: head as that boy had. Why I had eyes and
Speaker 1: I could see things, but they never meant nothing to me.
Speaker 1: But Tom Sawyer was different. When Tom Sawyer seen a thing,
Speaker 1: it just got up on its hind legs and talked
Speaker 1: to him, told him everything it knowed. I'd never see
Speaker 1: such a head Tom Sawyer, I says. I'll say it again,
Speaker 1: as I've said it many a time before. I ain't
Speaker 1: fittin to black your boots. But that's all right, that's
Speaker 1: neither here nor there. God Almighty made us all, and
Speaker 1: some he give eyes that's blind, and some he gives
Speaker 1: eyes that can see, and I reckon, it ain't none
Speaker 1: of our look out what he'd done it for? It's
Speaker 1: all right, or he'd have fixed it some other way.
Speaker 1: And go on, I see plenty plain enough now that
Speaker 1: them thieves didn't get away with the diamonds. Why didn't
Speaker 1: they do? You reckon? Because they got chased away by
Speaker 1: them other two men before they could pull the boots
Speaker 1: off the corpse. That's so, I see it now. But
Speaker 1: look a here, Tom, Why ain't we to go and
Speaker 1: tell about it? Oh? Shucks, huck finn, can't you see
Speaker 1: look at it? What's it going to happen? There's going
Speaker 1: to be an inquest in the mornin' Them two men
Speaker 1: will tell how they heard the yells and rushed there
Speaker 1: just in time to not save the stranger. Then the
Speaker 1: jury'll twaddle and twaddle and twaddle, and finally they'll fetch
Speaker 1: in a verdict that he got shot or stock or
Speaker 1: busted over the head with something and come to his
Speaker 1: death by the inspiration of God. And after they've buried him,
Speaker 1: they'll auction off his things for to pay the expenses.
Speaker 1: And then's our chance, how Tom buy the boots for
Speaker 1: two dollars? Well, it most took my breath, my land. Why, tom,
Speaker 1: we'll get the di'monds. You bet some day there'll be
Speaker 1: a big reward offered for them. A thousand dollars. Sure,
Speaker 1: that's our money. Now we'll trot in and see the folks.
Speaker 1: And mind you, we don't know anything about any murder,
Speaker 1: or any di'monds or any thieves. And don't you forget that.
Speaker 1: I had to sigh a little over the way he
Speaker 1: had got it fixed. I'd have sold them di'monds, yes, sir,
Speaker 1: for twelve thousand dollars, but I didn't say anything. It
Speaker 1: wouldn't have done any good. I says, But what are
Speaker 1: we going to tell your aunt? Sally has made us
Speaker 1: so long getting down here from the village. Tom Oh,
Speaker 1: I'll leave that to you, he says, I reckon, you
Speaker 1: can explain it somehow. He was always just that strict
Speaker 1: and delicate. He never would tell a lie himself. We
Speaker 1: struck across the big yard, noticing this, that and the
Speaker 1: other thing that was so familiar, and we so glad
Speaker 1: to see it again. And when we got to the
Speaker 1: roofed big passageway betwixt the double log house and the
Speaker 1: kitchen part, there was everything hanging on the wall, just
Speaker 1: as it used to was even to Uncle Silas's old
Speaker 1: faded green baize working gown with the hood to it
Speaker 1: and raggedy white patch between the shoulders that always looked
Speaker 1: like somebody had hit him with a snowball. And then
Speaker 1: we lifted the latch and walked in. Aunt Sally. She
Speaker 1: was just a rippin and a tearin' around, and the
Speaker 1: children was huddled in one corner, and the old man,
Speaker 1: he was huddled in the other and praying for help
Speaker 1: in time of need. She jumped for us with joy
Speaker 1: and tears running down her face, and give us a
Speaker 1: whacking box on the ear, and then hugged us and
Speaker 1: kissed us and boxed us again, and just couldn't seem
Speaker 1: to get enough of it. She was so glad to
Speaker 1: see us, and she says, where have you been? A
Speaker 1: loafin two? You good for nothin' trash. I've been that
Speaker 1: worried about you. I didn't know what to do your
Speaker 1: traps has been here ever so long, and I've had
Speaker 1: supper cooked fresh about four times so as to have
Speaker 1: it hot and good when you come. Till at last
Speaker 1: my patience has just plumb war out an I declare,
Speaker 1: I I why I could skin you alive. You must
Speaker 1: be starving, poor things. Sit down, Sit down, everybody, don't
Speaker 1: lose no more time. It was good to be there again,
Speaker 1: behind all that noble corn pone and spare ribs and
Speaker 1: everything that you could ever want in this world. Old
Speaker 1: uncle silas he peeled off one of his bulliest old
Speaker 1: time blessings with as many layers to it as an onion.
Speaker 1: And whilst the angels was hauling in the slack of it,
Speaker 1: I was trying to study up what to say about
Speaker 1: what kept us so long? When our plates was all
Speaker 1: loadened and we'd a got a going, she asked me,
Speaker 1: and I says, well, you see, missus, huck Finn, Since
Speaker 1: when am I missus to you? Have I ever been
Speaker 1: stingy of cuffs or kisses for you? Since the day
Speaker 1: you stood in this room and I took you for
Speaker 1: Tom Sawyer and blessed God for sending you to me.
Speaker 1: Though you told me four thousand lies, and I believed
Speaker 1: every one of them like a simpleton call me Aunt
Speaker 1: Sally like you always done. So I'd done it, and
Speaker 1: I says, well, me and Tom allowed we would come
Speaker 1: along a foot and take a smell of the woods,
Speaker 1: and we run across lem Beebee and Jim Lane, and
Speaker 1: they asked us to go with them black bearing tonight
Speaker 1: and said they could borrow Jubiter Dunlap's dog because he
Speaker 1: had told them just that minute. Where did they see him?
Speaker 1: Says the old man. And when I looked up to
Speaker 1: see how he come to take an interest in a
Speaker 1: little thing like that, his eyes was just burning into me.
Speaker 1: He was that eager. It surprised me, so it kind
Speaker 1: of throwed me off. But I pulled myself together again
Speaker 1: and says it was when we was spading up some
Speaker 1: ground along with you, towards sundown or along there. He
Speaker 1: only said hmm in a kind of a disappointed way,
Speaker 1: and didn't take no more interest. So I went on,
Speaker 1: I says, well, then, as I was a saying that'll
Speaker 1: do you needn't go no further, it was Aunt Sally.
Speaker 1: She was boring right into me with her eyes and
Speaker 1: very indignant. Hut finn. She says, how'd them men come
Speaker 1: to talk about going a black berrying in September in
Speaker 1: this region? I see I had slipped up, and I
Speaker 1: couldn't say a word. She waited, still a gazing at me.
Speaker 1: Then she says, and how'd they come to strike that
Speaker 1: idiot idea of going a blackberrying in the night? Well
Speaker 1: they are They told us they had a lantern, and
Speaker 1: oh shut up, do look here? What was they going
Speaker 1: to do with the dog? Hunt blackberries with it? I think, man?
Speaker 1: They naw, Tom Sawyer, what kind of a lie are
Speaker 1: you fixing your mouth to contribute to this mess of rubbage?
Speaker 1: Speak out? And I warn you before you begin that
Speaker 1: I don't believe a word of it. You and Huck's
Speaker 1: been up to something, you know, business to I know
Speaker 1: it perfect well, I know you, both of you. Now
Speaker 1: you explained that dog and then blackberries and the lantern
Speaker 1: and the rest of that rot And mind you talk
Speaker 1: as straight as a string, d'ye hear? Tom? He looked
Speaker 1: considerable hurt and says, very dignified. It is a pity
Speaker 1: if Huck is to be talked to that way, just
Speaker 1: from making a little bit of a mistake that anybody
Speaker 1: could make. What mistake has he made? Why only the
Speaker 1: mistake of saying blackberries, when, of course he meant strawberries,
Speaker 1: Tom Sawyer, I lay, if you aggravate me a little more,
Speaker 1: I'll Aunt Sally, without knowing it, and of course without
Speaker 1: intending it, you are in the wrong. If you'd have
Speaker 1: studied natural history the way you walked to you would
Speaker 1: know that all over the world except just here in Arkansas,
Speaker 1: they always hunt strawberries with a dog and a lantern.
Speaker 1: But she busted in on him there and just piled
Speaker 1: into him and snowed him under. She was so mad
Speaker 1: she couldn't get the words out fast enough, and she
Speaker 1: gushed them out in one everlasting fresh That was what
Speaker 1: Tom Sawyer was after. He allowed to work her up
Speaker 1: and get her started, and then leave her alone and
Speaker 1: let her burn herself out. Then she would be so
Speaker 1: aggravated with that subject that she wouldn't say another word
Speaker 1: about it, nor let anybody else. Well, it happened just
Speaker 1: so when she was tuckered out and had to hold up,
Speaker 1: he says, quite calm, and yet all the same, Aunt
Speaker 1: Sally shut up. She says, I don't want to hear
Speaker 1: another word out of you. So we was perfectly safe
Speaker 1: then and didn't have no more trouble about that delay.
Speaker 1: Tom done it elegant. End of chapter six, Chapter seven,
Speaker 1: A Night's Vigil Banny. She was looking pretty sober, and
Speaker 1: she sighed some now and then, but pretty soon she
Speaker 1: got to asking about Mary and Sid and Tom's Aunt Polly,
Speaker 1: and then Aunt Sally's clouds cleared off, and she got
Speaker 1: in a good humor and joined in on the questions
Speaker 1: and was her lovingest, best self. And so the rest
Speaker 1: of the supper went along, gay and pleasant. But the
Speaker 1: old man he didn't take any hand hardly, and was
Speaker 1: absent minded and restless, and done a considerable amount of sighing,
Speaker 1: And it was kind of heartbreaking to see him so
Speaker 1: sad and troubled and worried by and by a spell
Speaker 1: after supper come a nigger and knocked on the door
Speaker 1: and put his head in with his old straw hat
Speaker 1: in his hand, bowing and scraping, and said his Mar's
Speaker 1: brace was out at the style, and wanted his brother,
Speaker 1: and was getting tired waiting supper for him, and would
Speaker 1: Mars Silas please tell him where he was? I never
Speaker 1: see Uncle Silas speak up so sharp and fractious before
Speaker 1: he says, am I his brother's keeper? And then he
Speaker 1: kind of wilted together and looked like he wished he
Speaker 1: hadn't spoken so, and then he says, very gentle, but
Speaker 1: you needn't say that. Billy. I was took sudden and irritable,
Speaker 1: and I ain't very well these days, and not hardly responsible.
Speaker 1: Tell him he ain't he And when the nigger was gone,
Speaker 1: he got up and walked the floor backwards and forwards,
Speaker 1: mumbling and muttering to himself and plowing his hands through
Speaker 1: his hair. It was real pitiful to see him, aunt Sally,
Speaker 1: she whispered to us, and told us not to take
Speaker 1: notice of him. It embarrassed him. She said he was
Speaker 1: always thinking and thinking since these troubles come on, And
Speaker 1: she allowed he didn't more'n bout half know what he
Speaker 1: was about when the thinking spells was on him. And
Speaker 1: she said he walked in his sleep considerable more now
Speaker 1: than he used to, and sometimes wandered around over the
Speaker 1: house and even outdoors in his sleep. And if we
Speaker 1: catched him at it, we must let him alone and
Speaker 1: not disturb him, she said, she reckoned it didn't do
Speaker 1: no harm, and maybe it done him good. She said
Speaker 1: Benny was the only one that was much help to
Speaker 1: him these days. Said Benny appeared to know just when
Speaker 1: to try to soothe him and when to leave him alone.
Speaker 1: So he kept on tramping up and down the floor
Speaker 1: and muttering till by and by he begun to look
Speaker 1: pretty tired. Then, Benny, she went and snuggled up to
Speaker 1: his side, and put one hand in his and one
Speaker 1: arm around his waist, and walked with him, and he
Speaker 1: smiled down on her and reached down and kissed her,
Speaker 1: and so little by little the trouble went out of
Speaker 1: his face, and she persuaded him off to his room.
Speaker 1: They had very petting ways together, and it was uncommon
Speaker 1: pretty to see Aunt Sally. She was busy getting the
Speaker 1: children ready for bed, So by and by it got
Speaker 1: dull and tedious, and me and Tom took a turn
Speaker 1: in the moonlight and fetched up in the watermelon patch
Speaker 1: and et one and had a good deal of talk.
Speaker 1: And Tom said he'd bet the quarreling was all Jubiter's fault,
Speaker 1: and he was going to be on hand the first
Speaker 1: time he got a chance and see, and if it
Speaker 1: was so, he was going to do his level best
Speaker 1: to get Uncle Silas to turn him off. And so
Speaker 1: we talked and smoked and stuffed watermelons much as two hours,
Speaker 1: and then it was pretty late, and when we got
Speaker 1: back the house was quiet and dark, and everybody gone
Speaker 1: to bed. Tom he always seen everything, and now he
Speaker 1: see that the old green baize work gown was gone,
Speaker 1: and said it wasn't gone when he went out, so
Speaker 1: he allowed it was curious, and then we went up
Speaker 1: to bed. We could hear Benny stirring round in her room,
Speaker 1: which was next time, and judged she was worried a
Speaker 1: good deal about her father and couldn't sleep. We found
Speaker 1: we couldn't either, so we set up a long time
Speaker 1: and smoked and talked in a low voice and felt
Speaker 1: pretty dull and downhearted. We talked the murderer and the
Speaker 1: ghost over and over again and got so creepy and
Speaker 1: crawley we couldn't get sleepy. Nohow and no way bye bye.
Speaker 1: When it was away late in the night and all
Speaker 1: the sounds was late sounds and solemn. Tom nudged me
Speaker 1: and whispers to me, look and I'd done it. And
Speaker 1: there we see a man poking around in the yard
Speaker 1: like he didn't know just what he wanted to do,
Speaker 1: but it was pretty dim and we couldn't see him good.
Speaker 1: Then he started for the style, and as he went
Speaker 1: over it, the moon came out strong and he had
Speaker 1: a long handled shovel over his shoulder, and we see
Speaker 1: the white patch on the old workgown. So Tom says,
Speaker 1: he's walking in his sleep. I wish we was allowed
Speaker 1: to follow him and see where he's going to. There
Speaker 1: he's turned down by the tobacco field, out of sight.
Speaker 1: Now it's a dreadful pity. He can't rest no better.
Speaker 1: We waited a long time, but he didn't come back anymore,
Speaker 1: or if he did, he'd come around the other way.
Speaker 1: So at last we was tuckered out and went to
Speaker 1: sleep and had nightmares, a million of them. But before
Speaker 1: dawn we was awake again because meantime a storm had
Speaker 1: come up and been raging, and the thunder and lightning
Speaker 1: was awful, and the wind was a thrashing the trees around,
Speaker 1: and the rain was driving down and slanting sheets, and
Speaker 1: the gullies was running rivers. Tom says, lookye here, huck,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you one thing that's mighty curious. Up to
Speaker 1: the time we went out last night, the family hadn't
Speaker 1: heard about Jake Dunlap being murdered. Now, the men that
Speaker 1: chased Hal Clayton and Bud Dixon away would spread the
Speaker 1: thing around in half an hour, and neighbor that heard
Speaker 1: it would shin out and fly around from one farm
Speaker 1: to' other and try to be the first to tell
Speaker 1: the news. Land. They don't have such a big thing
Speaker 1: as that to tell twice in thirty year, Huck, it's
Speaker 1: mighty strange. I don't understand it. So then he was
Speaker 1: in a fidget for the rain to let up so
Speaker 1: we could turn out and run across some of the
Speaker 1: people and see if they would say anything about it
Speaker 1: to us. And he said, if they did, we must
Speaker 1: be horribly surprised and shocked. We was out and gone
Speaker 1: a minute the rain stopped. It was just broad day.
Speaker 1: Then we loafed along up the road and now and
Speaker 1: then met a person and stopped and said howdy, and
Speaker 1: told them when we come, and how we left the
Speaker 1: folks at home, and how long we was going to
Speaker 1: stay and all that. But none of them said a
Speaker 1: word about that thing, which was just astonishing, and no mistake.
Speaker 1: Tom said he believed if we went to the sycamores,
Speaker 1: we would find that body laying there, solitary and alone,
Speaker 1: and not a soul around. Said he believed the men
Speaker 1: chased the thieves so far into the woods that the thieves.
Speaker 1: Probably I've seen a good chance and turned on them
Speaker 1: at last, and maybe they all killed each other, and
Speaker 1: so there wasn't anybody left to tell. First renowed gabbling
Speaker 1: along that way. We was right at the sycamores. The
Speaker 1: cold chills trickled down my back, and I wouldn't budge
Speaker 1: another step for all Tom's persuading, But he couldn't hold in.
Speaker 1: He'd got to see if the boots were safe on
Speaker 1: that body yet, so he crope in and the next
Speaker 1: minute out he comes again, with his eyes bulging. He
Speaker 1: was so excited and says, Huck, it's gone. I was astonished.
Speaker 1: I says, Tom, you don't meet it. It's gone. Sure,
Speaker 1: there ain't a sign of it. The ground has trampled some,
Speaker 1: but if there was any blood, it's all washed away
Speaker 1: by the storm, for it's all puddles and slush in there.
Speaker 1: At last, I gave in and went and took a
Speaker 1: look myself, and it was just as Tom said. There
Speaker 1: wasn't a sign of a corpse. Turn it, I says,
Speaker 1: the di'monds is gone. Don't you reckon? The thieves slunk
Speaker 1: back and lugged him off. Tom looks like it. It
Speaker 1: just does now where'd they hide him? Do you reckon?
Speaker 1: I don't know, I says, disgusted. And what's more, I
Speaker 1: don't care. They've got the boots, and that's all I
Speaker 1: cared about. He'll lay around these woods a long time
Speaker 1: before I hunt him up. Tom didn't feel no more
Speaker 1: interest in him, neither, only curiosity to know what come
Speaker 1: of him. But he said we'd lay low and keep dark,
Speaker 1: and it wouldn't belonged till the dogs or somebody roused
Speaker 1: him out. We went back home to breakfast. Ever so
Speaker 1: bothered and put out and disappointed and swindled. I warn't
Speaker 1: ever so down on a corpse before end of chapter seven,
Speaker 1: Chapter eight, talking with the ghost, it warn't very cheerful
Speaker 1: at breakfast. Aunt Sally she looked old and tired and
Speaker 1: let the children snarl and s fuss at one another,
Speaker 1: and didn't seem to notice it was going on, which
Speaker 1: wasn't her usual style. Me and Tom had plenty to
Speaker 1: think about without talking. Benny, she looked like she hadn't
Speaker 1: had much sleep, and whenever she'd lift her head a
Speaker 1: little and steal a look towards her father, you could
Speaker 1: see there was tears in her eyes. And as for
Speaker 1: the old man. His thing stayed on his plate and
Speaker 1: got cold without him knowing they was there. I reckon,
Speaker 1: for he was thinking and thinking all the time, and
Speaker 1: never said a word, and never read a bite. By
Speaker 1: and by when it was stillest, that nigger's head was
Speaker 1: poked in at the door again, and he said his
Speaker 1: Mar's brace was getting powerful, uneasy about Mars Jubiter, which
Speaker 1: hadn't come home yet, and would Mars Silas please. He
Speaker 1: was looking at Uncle Silas, and he stopped there like
Speaker 1: the rest of his words was froze. For Uncle Silas.
Speaker 1: He rose up shaky and steadied himself, leaning his fingers
Speaker 1: on the table, and he was panting, and his eyes
Speaker 1: was set on the nigga, and he kept swallowing and
Speaker 1: put his other hand up to his throat a couple
Speaker 1: of times, and at last he got his words started
Speaker 1: and says, does he does he think? What does he think?
Speaker 1: Tell him? Tell him? Then he sunk down in his
Speaker 1: chair and weak and says, so as you could hardly
Speaker 1: hear him, go away, go away. Nigga looked scared and
Speaker 1: cleared out, and we all felt well, I don't know
Speaker 1: how we felt it, but it was awful with the
Speaker 1: old man panting there, and his eyes set and looking
Speaker 1: like a person that was dying. None of us could budge.
Speaker 1: But Benny she slid around, soft, with her tears running down,
Speaker 1: and stood by his side, and nestled his old gray
Speaker 1: head up against her, and begun to stroke it and
Speaker 1: pet it with her hands, and nodded to us to
Speaker 1: go away. And we done it, going out, very quiet,
Speaker 1: like the dead was there. Me and Tom struck out
Speaker 1: for the woods, mighty solemn, and saying, how different it
Speaker 1: was now to what it was last summer when we
Speaker 1: was here, and everything was so peaceful and happy, and
Speaker 1: everybody thought so much of Uncle Silas, and he was
Speaker 1: so cheerful and simple hearted and putting headed and good.
Speaker 1: And now look at him. If he hadn't lost his mind,
Speaker 1: he wasn't much short of it. That was what we allowed.
Speaker 1: It was a most lovely day, now, bright and sunshiny.
Speaker 1: And the further and further we went over the hills
Speaker 1: towards the prairie, the lovelier and lovelier the trees an
Speaker 1: flowers got to be, and the more it seemed strange
Speaker 1: and somehow wrong that there had to be trouble in
Speaker 1: such a world as this, And then all of a
Speaker 1: sudden I catched my breath and grabbed Tom's arm, and
Speaker 1: all my livers and lungs an things fell down in
Speaker 1: my legs. There it is, I says. We jumped back
Speaker 1: behind a bus, shivering, and Tom says, sh don't make
Speaker 1: a noise. It was settin on a log right in
Speaker 1: the edge of a little prairie thinkin. I tried to
Speaker 1: get Tom to come away, but he wouldn't. I doesn't
Speaker 1: budge him by myself. He said we mightn't ever get
Speaker 1: another chance to see one. An he was goin to
Speaker 1: look his fill at this one if he died for it.
Speaker 1: So I looked too, though it give me the fan
Speaker 1: TODs to do it. Tom he had to talk, and
Speaker 1: he talked low. He says, poor Jakie, it's got all
Speaker 1: its things on, just as he said he would. Now
Speaker 1: you see what we wasn't certain about. It's it's not
Speaker 1: long now the way it was. It's got it cropped
Speaker 1: close to its head the way he said he would.
Speaker 1: HU can never see anything look any more naturaler than
Speaker 1: what it does, nor I neither. I says I'd recognize
Speaker 1: it anywheres, so would I. It looks perfectly solid and genuine,
Speaker 1: just the way it done before it died. So we
Speaker 1: kept gazing. Pretty soon, Tom says, Huck, there's something mighty
Speaker 1: curious about this one, don't you know? It oughtn't to
Speaker 1: be going around in the daytime. That's so, Tom, I
Speaker 1: never heard the like of it before, No, sir, they
Speaker 1: don't ever come out. Only at night, and then not
Speaker 1: till after twelve. There's something wrong about this one, now,
Speaker 1: you mark my words. I don't believe it's got any
Speaker 1: right to be around in the daytime, But don't it
Speaker 1: look natural? Jake was going to play deef and dumb here,
Speaker 1: so the neighbors wouldn't know his voice. Do you reckon?
Speaker 1: It would do that if we was to holler at it. Lordy,
Speaker 1: Tom don't talk, So if you was to holler at
Speaker 1: I'd die in my tracks, don't you worry. I ain't
Speaker 1: going to holler at it. Look, Huck, it's a scratch
Speaker 1: in its head, don't you see? Well? What of it?
Speaker 1: Why this? What's the sense of it scratching its head?
Speaker 1: There ain't anything there to itch. Its head is made
Speaker 1: out of fog or something like that, and can't itch
Speaker 1: a fog can't itch. Any fool knows that. Well, then
Speaker 1: if it don't itch and can't itch, what the nation
Speaker 1: is it scratching it for? Ain't it just habit? Don't
Speaker 1: you reckon? No, sir, I don't. I ain't a bit
Speaker 1: satisfied about the way this one acts. I've a blame
Speaker 1: good notion. It's a bogus one. I have as sure
Speaker 1: as I'm a sitting here, because if it, Huck, well,
Speaker 1: what's the matter now? You can't see the bushes through it? Well? Tom,
Speaker 1: it's so sure, it's as solid as a cow. Ah
Speaker 1: sort of begin to think, Huck, it's biting off a
Speaker 1: chaw off tobaccer by George. They don't chaw, they ain't
Speaker 1: got anything to chaw with. Uck, I'm listenin. He ain't
Speaker 1: a ghost at all. It's Jake Dunlap his own self.
Speaker 1: Oh you're granny, I says Cuck. Finn. Did we find
Speaker 1: any corpse in the sycamores? No, or any sign of one? No?
Speaker 1: Mighty good reason hadn't ever been any corpse there? Why? Tom?
Speaker 1: You know we heard, Yes, we did, heard a howl
Speaker 1: or two. Does that prove anybody was killed? Course it don't.
Speaker 1: And we see four men run, Then this one come
Speaker 1: walkin' out an we took it for a ghost, no
Speaker 1: more ghost than you are. It was Jake Dunlap his
Speaker 1: own self, and it's Jake Dunlap. Now he's been and
Speaker 1: got his hair cropped the way he said he would,
Speaker 1: and he's playing himself for a stranger, just the same
Speaker 1: as he said he would. Ghost. M he's as sound
Speaker 1: as a nut. Then I see it all, and how
Speaker 1: we had took too much for granted, I was powerful
Speaker 1: glad he didn't get killed, and so is Tom. And
Speaker 1: we wondered which he would like the best for us
Speaker 1: to never let on to know him, or how Tom
Speaker 1: reckoned the best way would be to go and ask him,
Speaker 1: so he started, but I kept a little behind because
Speaker 1: I didn't know if it might be a ghost after all.
Speaker 1: When Tom got to where he was, he says me,
Speaker 1: and Huck's mighty glad to see you again, and you
Speaker 1: needn't be afeared. We'll tell And if you think it'll
Speaker 1: be safer for you if we don't let on to
Speaker 1: know you, when we run across you, say the word
Speaker 1: and you'll see you can depend on us. And would
Speaker 1: rather cut our hands off than get you into the
Speaker 1: least little bit of danger. First off, he looked surprised
Speaker 1: to see us, not very glad either, But as Tom
Speaker 1: went on he looked pleasanter and when he was done,
Speaker 1: he smiled and nodded his head several times and made
Speaker 1: signs with his hands and says, gool gool ghoul the
Speaker 1: way beef and dummies does. Just then we see some
Speaker 1: of Steve Nickerson's people coming that lived to other side
Speaker 1: of the prairie. So Tom says, you'd do it elegant.
Speaker 1: I never see anybody do it. You're right. Play it
Speaker 1: on us too, Play it on us same as the others.
Speaker 1: It'll keep you in practice and prevent you making blunders.
Speaker 1: We'll keep away from you and let on. We don't
Speaker 1: know you, but anytime we can be any help you,
Speaker 1: just let us know. Then we loafed along past the Nickersons,
Speaker 1: and of course they asked if that was the new
Speaker 1: stranger yonder, and where'd he come from, and what was
Speaker 1: his name? And which communion was he Baptists or Methodist?
Speaker 1: And which politics Whig or Democrat? And how long is
Speaker 1: he staying and all them other questions that humans always
Speaker 1: ask when a stranger comes and animals does too, but
Speaker 1: Tom said he weren't able to make anything out of
Speaker 1: deef and dumb signs, and the same with googooing. Then
Speaker 1: we watched them go and bullyrag Jake because we was
Speaker 1: pretty uneasy for him. Tom said it would take him
Speaker 1: days to get so he wouldn't forget he was a
Speaker 1: deef and dummy sometimes and speak out before he thought.
Speaker 1: When we had watched long enough to see that Jake
Speaker 1: was getting along all right and working his signs very good,
Speaker 1: we loafed along again, allowing to strike the schoolhouse about
Speaker 1: recess time, which was a three mile tramp. I was
Speaker 1: so disappointed not to hear Jake tell about the row
Speaker 1: and the sycamores and how near he come to getting killed,
Speaker 1: that I couldn't seem to get over it. And Tom
Speaker 1: he felt the same, but said if we was in
Speaker 1: Jake's fix, we would want to go careful and keep
Speaker 1: still and not take any chances. The boys and girls
Speaker 1: was all glad to see us again, and we had
Speaker 1: a real good time all through recess. Coming to school,
Speaker 1: the Henderson boys had come across the new deef and
Speaker 1: dummy and told the rest, so all the scholars was
Speaker 1: chuck full of him and couldn't talk about anything else,
Speaker 1: and was in a sweat to get a sight of him,
Speaker 1: because they hadn't ever seen a deef and dummy in
Speaker 1: their lives, and it made a powerful excitement. Tom said
Speaker 1: it was tough to have to keep mum now, said
Speaker 1: we would be heroes if we could come out and
Speaker 1: tell all we knowed. But after all it was still
Speaker 1: more heroic to keep mum. And weren't two boys and
Speaker 1: a million could do it. That was Tom Sawyer's idea
Speaker 1: about it, and I reckoned there warn't anybody could better it.
Speaker 1: End of chapter eight. Chapter nine finding of Jubiter Dunlop.
Speaker 1: In the next two or three days, dummy, he got
Speaker 1: to be powerful popular. He went associating around with the neighbors,
Speaker 1: and they made much of him, and was proud to
Speaker 1: have such a rattling curiosity among them. They had him
Speaker 1: to breakfast, they had him to dinner, they had him
Speaker 1: to supper. They kept him loaded up with hog and hominy,
Speaker 1: and warn't ever tired staring at him and wondering over
Speaker 1: him and wishing they knowed more about him. He was
Speaker 1: so uncommon and romantic. His signs warn't no good. People
Speaker 1: couldn't understand them, and he probably couldn't himself, But he
Speaker 1: did his sight of good gooing, and so everybody was
Speaker 1: satisfied and admired to hear him go it. He toted
Speaker 1: a piece of slate around and a pencil, and people
Speaker 1: wrote questions on it, and he wrote answers. But there
Speaker 1: warn't anybody could read his writing, but Brace Dunlap. Brace
Speaker 1: said he couldn't read it very good, but he could
Speaker 1: manage to dig out the meaning most of the time,
Speaker 1: he said. Dummy said he belonged a way off somers
Speaker 1: and used to be well off, but got busted by
Speaker 1: swindlers which he had trusted, and was poor now and
Speaker 1: hadn't any way to make a living. Everybody praised Brace
Speaker 1: Dunlap for being so good to that stranger. He let
Speaker 1: him have a little log cabin all to himself and
Speaker 1: had his knittas take care of it and fetch him
Speaker 1: all of it'lls he wanted. Dummy was at our house
Speaker 1: some because old Silas was so afflicted himself these days
Speaker 1: that anybody else that was afflicted was a comfort to him.
Speaker 1: Me and Tom didn't let on that we had knowed
Speaker 1: him before, and he didn't let on that he had
Speaker 1: known us before. The family talked their troubles out before him,
Speaker 1: the same as if he wasn't there, but we reckoned.
Speaker 1: It wasn't any harm for him to hear what they said.
Speaker 1: Generally he didn't seem to notice, but sometimes he did well.
Speaker 1: Two or three days when long and everybody got to
Speaker 1: getting uneasy about Jubiter Dunlap. Everybody was asking everybody if
Speaker 1: they had any idea what had become of him. No,
Speaker 1: they hadn't, they said, And they shook their heads and
Speaker 1: said there was something powerful strange about it. Another and
Speaker 1: another day went by. Then there was a report got
Speaker 1: around that perhaps he was murdered. He'd bet it made
Speaker 1: a big stir. Everybody's tongue was clacking away. After that Saturday,
Speaker 1: two or three gangs turned out and hunted the woods
Speaker 1: to see if they could run across his remainders. Me
Speaker 1: and Tom helped, and it was noble, good times and exciting.
Speaker 1: Tom he was so brim full of it he couldn't
Speaker 1: eat nor rest. He said, if we could find that corpse,
Speaker 1: we would be celebrated and more talked about than if
Speaker 1: we got drowned. The others got tired and give it up,
Speaker 1: but not Tom Sawyer. That warn't his style. Saturday night
Speaker 1: he didn't sleep any hardly trying to think up a plan,
Speaker 1: and towards daylight in the morning he struck it. He
Speaker 1: snaked me out of bed and was all excited and says, quick,
Speaker 1: snatch on your clothes. I've got it, bloodhound. In two
Speaker 1: minutes we was tearin up the river road in the dark,
Speaker 1: towards the village. Old Jeff Hooker had a bloodhound and
Speaker 1: Tom was goin to borrow him. I says, the trail's
Speaker 1: too old, Tom, An, besides, it's rained, you know it
Speaker 1: don't make any difference, Huck. If the body's hid in
Speaker 1: the woods anywhere around, the hound will find it. If
Speaker 1: he's been murdered an buried, they wouldn't bury him deep.
Speaker 1: It ain't likely. An. If the dog goes over the spot,
Speaker 1: he'll send him. Sure, Huck, we're going to be celebrated.
Speaker 1: Sure as you're born. He was just a blazing and
Speaker 1: whenever he got a fire, he was most likely to
Speaker 1: get a fire all over. That was the way this time.
Speaker 1: In two minutes he got it all ciphered out an
Speaker 1: wasn't only just going to find the corpse. No, he
Speaker 1: was going to get on the track of that murderer
Speaker 1: and hunt him down too. And not only that, but
Speaker 1: he was goin to stick to him till well. I says,
Speaker 1: you better find the corpse first. I reckon, that's a
Speaker 1: plenty for today. For all we know, there ain't any corpse,
Speaker 1: and nobody hain't been murdered. That Cuss could have gone
Speaker 1: all summer's and not been killed at all. That graveled him.
Speaker 1: And he says, huck Finn, I never see such a
Speaker 1: person as you to want to spoil everything. As long
Speaker 1: as you can't see anything hopeful in the thing, you
Speaker 1: won't let anybody else. What good can it do you
Speaker 1: to throw cold water on that corpse and get up
Speaker 1: that selfish theory that there ain't been any murder none
Speaker 1: in the world. I don't see how you can act.
Speaker 1: So I wouldn't treat you like that. And you know it.
Speaker 1: Here we've got a noble, good opportunity to make a reputation,
Speaker 1: and I'll go ahead. I says, I'm sorry, and I
Speaker 1: take it all back. I didn't mean nothing, fix it
Speaker 1: any way you wanted. He ain't any consequence to me.
Speaker 1: If he's killed, I'm as glad of it as you are.
Speaker 1: And if I never said anything about being glad, I
Speaker 1: only well, then I'm as sorry as you are. Anyway
Speaker 1: you'd rather have it, that is the way I'd rather
Speaker 1: have it. He there ain't any druthers about it, Huck Finn.
Speaker 1: Nobody said anything about druthers. And as for he forgot
Speaker 1: he was talking and went tramping along studying. He began
Speaker 1: to get excited again, and pretty soon he says, Huck,
Speaker 1: it'll be the bulliest thing that ever happened. If we
Speaker 1: find the body after everybody else has quit looking, and
Speaker 1: then go ahead and hunt up the murderer. It won't
Speaker 1: only be an honor to us, but it'll be an
Speaker 1: honor to Uncle Silas because it was us that done it.
Speaker 1: It'll set him up again, you see, if it don't.
Speaker 1: But oh, Jeff Hooker, he throwed cold water on the
Speaker 1: whole business when we got to his blacksmith's shop and
Speaker 1: told him what we come for. You can take the dog,
Speaker 1: he says, But you ain't a going to find any
Speaker 1: corpse because there ain't any corpse to find. Everybody's quit
Speaker 1: looking and they're right soon as they come to think,
Speaker 1: they know there warn't no corpse. And I'll tell you
Speaker 1: for why what does a person kill another person for?
Speaker 1: Tom Sawyer answer me that? Why? He? Uh? Answer up?
Speaker 1: He ain't no fool. What did he kill him for? Well?
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's for revenge. And wait, one thing at a time. Revenge,
Speaker 1: says you, And right you are. Now whoever had anything again,
Speaker 1: that poor trifling no accountant, who do you reckon would
Speaker 1: want to kill him? That rabbit? Tom was stuck, I reckon.
Speaker 1: He hadn't thought of a person having to have a
Speaker 1: reason for killing a person before, and now he sees
Speaker 1: it warn't likely anybody would have that much of a
Speaker 1: grudge against a lamb like Jupiter Dunlap. The blacksmith says,
Speaker 1: by and bye, the revenge idea won't work. You see,
Speaker 1: Well then what's next? Robbery? But gosh, that must have
Speaker 1: been it Tom, Yes, sir, I reckon, we've struck. At
Speaker 1: this time some feller wanted his Gallas buckles, and so
Speaker 1: he bet it was so funny. He busted out laughing
Speaker 1: and just went on laughing and laughing and laughing till
Speaker 1: he was most dead. And Tom looked so put out
Speaker 1: and cheap that I knowed. He was ashamed he had come,
Speaker 1: and he wished he hadn't, But old Hooker never let
Speaker 1: up on him. He raked up everything a person ever
Speaker 1: could want to kill another person about, and any fool
Speaker 1: could see they didn't any of them fit this case.
Speaker 1: And he just made no end of fun of the
Speaker 1: whole business and of the people that had been hunting
Speaker 1: the body. And he said, if they had had any sense,
Speaker 1: they'd have knowed. The lazy cuss slid out because he
Speaker 1: wanted a loaf and spell after all this work. He'll
Speaker 1: come pottering back in a couple of weeks and then
Speaker 1: how you fellers feel, But laws bless you take the
Speaker 1: dog and go and hunt his remainders, do Tom? Then
Speaker 1: he busted out and had another of them forty row
Speaker 1: laughs of his. Tom couldn't back down after all this,
Speaker 1: so he said, all right, unchain him and the blacksmith
Speaker 1: done it, and we started home and left that old
Speaker 1: man laughing. Yet it was a lovely dog. There ain't
Speaker 1: any dog that's got a lovelier position and a bloodhound,
Speaker 1: and this one knowed us and liked us. He capered
Speaker 1: and raced around, ever so friendly and powerful, glad to
Speaker 1: be free and have a holiday. But Tom was so
Speaker 1: cut up he couldn't take any interest in him, and
Speaker 1: said he wished he'd stopped and thought a minute before
Speaker 1: he ever started on such a fool Errand he said,
Speaker 1: old Jeff Hooker would tell everybody, and we'd never hear
Speaker 1: the last of it. So we loafed along home down
Speaker 1: the back lanes, feeling pretty glum and not talking. When
Speaker 1: we was passing the far corner of our tobacco field,
Speaker 1: we heard the dog set up a long howl in there,
Speaker 1: and we went to the place and he was scratching
Speaker 1: the ground with all his might and ever now and
Speaker 1: then canting up his head sideways and fetching another howl.
Speaker 1: It was a long square, the shape of a grave.
Speaker 1: The rain had made it sink down and show the
Speaker 1: shape the minute we come and stood there, we looked
Speaker 1: at one another and never said a word. When the
Speaker 1: dog had dug down only a few inches, he grabbed
Speaker 1: somethinulled it up, and it was an arm and a sleeve.
Speaker 1: Tom kind of gasped out and says, come away, huck,
Speaker 1: it's found. I just felt awful. We struck for the
Speaker 1: road and fetched. The first men that come along. They
Speaker 1: got a spade at the crib and dug out the body.
Speaker 1: And you never see such an excitement. You couldn't make
Speaker 1: anything out of the face, but you didn't need to.
Speaker 1: Everybody said, poor Jubiter, it's his clothes to the last rag.
Speaker 1: Some rushed off to spread the news and tell the
Speaker 1: justice of the peace and have an inquest, and me
Speaker 1: and Tom lit out for the house. Tom was all
Speaker 1: afire and most out of breath when we come tearing
Speaker 1: in where Uncle Silas and that Sally and Benny was.
Speaker 1: Tom sung out. Me and Hucks found Jubiter Dunlap's corpse
Speaker 1: all by ourselves with a bloodhound, after everybody else had
Speaker 1: quit hunting and give it up. And if it hadn't
Speaker 1: been for us, it never would have been found. And
Speaker 1: he was murdered too. They'd done it with a club
Speaker 1: or something like that. I'm going to start in and
Speaker 1: find the murderer next, and I bet i'll do it.
Speaker 1: Aunt Sally and Benny sprung up, pale and astonished. But
Speaker 1: Uncle Silas fell right forward out of his chair onto
Speaker 1: the floor and groans out, oh my god, you've found
Speaker 1: him now. End of chapter nine chapter ten, The arrest
Speaker 1: of Uncle Silas. Them awful words froze us solid. We
Speaker 1: couldn't move hand or foot for as much as half
Speaker 1: a minute. Then we kind of come to and lifted
Speaker 1: the old man up and got him into his chair,
Speaker 1: and Benny petted him and kissed him and tried to
Speaker 1: comfort him. And poor old Aunt Sally she done the same.
Speaker 1: But poor things, they was so broke up and scared
Speaker 1: and knocked out of their right minds that they didn't
Speaker 1: hardly know what they was about. With Tom, it was awful.
Speaker 1: It most petrified him to think maybe he got his
Speaker 1: uncle into a thousand times more trouble than ever, and
Speaker 1: maybe it wouldn't ever happened if he hadn't been so
Speaker 1: ambitious to get celebrated and let the corpse alone the
Speaker 1: way the others done. But pretty soon he sort of
Speaker 1: come to himself again and says, Uncle Silas, don't you
Speaker 1: say another word like that. It's dangerous and there ain't
Speaker 1: a shatter of truth in it. Aunt Sally and Benny
Speaker 1: was thankful to hear him say that, and they said
Speaker 1: the same. But the old man he wagged his head,
Speaker 1: sorrowful and hopeless, and the tears run down his face,
Speaker 1: and he says, no, I'd done it, poor Jubiter, I'd
Speaker 1: done it. It was dreadful to hear him say it.
Speaker 1: Then he went on and told about it, and said
Speaker 1: it happened to day me and Tom come along about sundown.
Speaker 1: He said, Jubiter pestered him and aggravated him till he
Speaker 1: was so mad he just sort of lost his mind
Speaker 1: and grabbed up a stick and hit him over the
Speaker 1: head with all his might, and Jubiter dropped in his tracks.
Speaker 1: Then he was scared and sorry, and got down on
Speaker 1: his knees and lifted his head up and begged him
Speaker 1: to speak and say he wasn't dead. And before long
Speaker 1: he come too, And when he see who it was
Speaker 1: holding his head, he jumped like he was most scared
Speaker 1: to death, and cleared the fence and tore into the
Speaker 1: woods and was gone. So he hoped he wasn't hurt
Speaker 1: by but laws, he says, it was only just fear
Speaker 1: that gave him that last little spurt of strength, And
Speaker 1: of course it soon played out, and he laid down
Speaker 1: in the bush and there wasn't anybody to help him,
Speaker 1: and he died. Then the old man cried and grieved
Speaker 1: and said he was a murderer and the mark of
Speaker 1: Cain was on him, and he had disgraced his family
Speaker 1: and was going to be found out an hung. But
Speaker 1: Tom said, no, you ain't goin to be found out.
Speaker 1: You didn't kill him. One lick wouldn't kill him. Somebody
Speaker 1: else done it? Oh, yes, he says, I'd done it.
Speaker 1: Nobody else who wells had anything against him? Who else
Speaker 1: could have anything against him? He looked up kind of
Speaker 1: like he hoped some of us could mention somebody that
Speaker 1: could have a grudge against that harmless no count. But
Speaker 1: of course it warn't no use he had us. We
Speaker 1: couldn't say a word. He noticed that, and he saddened
Speaker 1: down again. And I never see a face so miserable
Speaker 1: and so pitiful to see. Tom had a sudden idea
Speaker 1: and says, but hold on, somebody buried him? Now? Who
Speaker 1: he shut off? Sudden? I knowed the reason. It gave
Speaker 1: me the cold shudders when he said them words, because
Speaker 1: right away I remembered about us seeing Uncle Silas prowling
Speaker 1: around with a long handled shovel away in the night
Speaker 1: that night. And I knowed Benny's seeing him too, because
Speaker 1: she was talking about it one day. The minute Tom
Speaker 1: shut off, he changed the subject and went to begging
Speaker 1: Uncle Silas to keep mum, And the rest of us
Speaker 1: done the same, and said he must, and said it
Speaker 1: wasn't his business to tell on himself, and if he
Speaker 1: kept mum, no one would ever know. But if it
Speaker 1: was found out and any harm come to him, it
Speaker 1: would break the family's hearts and kill them, and yet
Speaker 1: never do anybody any good. So at last he promised,
Speaker 1: We was all of us more comfortable then, and went
Speaker 1: to work. To cheer up the old man. We told
Speaker 1: him all he'd got to do was to keep still,
Speaker 1: and it wouldn't be long till the whole thing would
Speaker 1: blow over and be for God. We all said, there
Speaker 1: wouldn't anybody ever suspect Uncle Silas, nor ever dream of
Speaker 1: such a thing, he being so good and kind and
Speaker 1: having such a good character. And Tom says, cordial and hearty,
Speaker 1: he says, why just look at it a minute. Just
Speaker 1: consider here is Uncle Silas, all these years, a preacher
Speaker 1: at his own expense, all these years, doing good with
Speaker 1: all his might, and every way he can think of,
Speaker 1: at his own expense, all the time, always been loved
Speaker 1: by every Anne respected, always been peaceable and minding his
Speaker 1: own business. The very last man in this whole district
Speaker 1: to touch a person, and everybody knows it. Suspect him.
Speaker 1: Why it ain't any more possible than by thirty of
Speaker 1: the State of Arkansas. I arrest you for the murder
Speaker 1: of Jupiter Dunlap, shouts the sheriff at the door. It
Speaker 1: was awful. Aunt Sally and Benny flung themselves at Uncle Silas,
Speaker 1: screaming and crying and hugged him and hung to him,
Speaker 1: and Aunt Sally said go away. She wouldn't ever give
Speaker 1: him up. They shouldn't have him. And the niggers they come,
Speaker 1: crowding and crying to the door, and well, I couldn't
Speaker 1: stand it. It was enough to break a person's heart,
Speaker 1: so I got out. They took him up to the
Speaker 1: little one horse jail in the village, and we all
Speaker 1: went along to tell him goodbye. And Tom was feeling
Speaker 1: elegant and says to me, we'll have a most noble
Speaker 1: good time and heaps of danger some dark night getting
Speaker 1: him out of there, huck, and it'll be talked about
Speaker 1: everywheres an we will be celebrated. But the old man
Speaker 1: busted that scheme up. The minute he whispered to him
Speaker 1: about it, he said, no, it was his duty to
Speaker 1: stand whatever the law done to him, and he would
Speaker 1: stick to the jail plumb through to the end, even
Speaker 1: if there warn't no door to it. It disappointed Tom
Speaker 1: and graveled him a good deal, but he had to
Speaker 1: put up with it. But he felt responsible and bound
Speaker 1: to get his uncle Silas free. And he told Aunt
Speaker 1: Sally the last thing not to worry, because he was
Speaker 1: going to turn in and work night and day and
Speaker 1: beat this game and fetch Uncle Silas out innocent. And
Speaker 1: she was very loving to him and thanked him and
Speaker 1: said she knowed he would do his very best. And
Speaker 1: she told us to help Benny take care of the
Speaker 1: house and the children. And then we had a good
Speaker 1: bye cry all around, and went back to the farm
Speaker 1: and left her there to live with the jailer's wife
Speaker 1: a month till the trial. In October. End of chapter ten,
Speaker 1: chapter eleven, Tom sawyer discovers the murderers. Well, that was
Speaker 1: a hard month on us all. Poor Benny. She kept
Speaker 1: up the best she could, and me and Tom tried
Speaker 1: to keep things cheerful there at the house, but it
Speaker 1: kind of went for nothing. As you may say. It
Speaker 1: was the same up at the jail. We went up
Speaker 1: every day to see the old people. But it was awful,
Speaker 1: dreary because the old man warn't sleeping much and was
Speaker 1: walking in his sleep considerable, and so he got to
Speaker 1: look in fact and miserable, and his mind got shaky,
Speaker 1: and we all got afraid his troubles would break him
Speaker 1: down and kill him. And whenever we tried to persuade
Speaker 1: him to feel cheerfuler, he only shook his head and said,
Speaker 1: if we only knowed what it was to carry around
Speaker 1: a murderer's load in your heart, we wouldn't talk that way.
Speaker 1: Tom and all of us kept telling him it wasn't murder,
Speaker 1: but just accidental killing, but it never made any difference.
Speaker 1: It was murder, and he wouldn't have it any other way.
Speaker 1: He actively begun to out playing and squared towards trial
Speaker 1: time and acknowledged that he tried to kill the man.
Speaker 1: Why that was awful, you know, it made things seem
Speaker 1: fifty times as dreadful, and there weren't no more comfort
Speaker 1: for Aunt Sally and Benny. But he promised he wouldn't
Speaker 1: say a word about his murder when others was around,
Speaker 1: and we was glad of that. Tom Sawyer racked the
Speaker 1: head off of himself all that month trying to plan
Speaker 1: some way out for Uncle Silas, and many as the night.
Speaker 1: He kept me up most all night with this kind
Speaker 1: of tiresome work. But he couldn't seem to get on
Speaker 1: the right track. No way. As for me, I reckoned
Speaker 1: a body might as well give it up. It all
Speaker 1: looked so blue, and I was so downhearted. But he wouldn't.
Speaker 1: He stuck to the business right along and went on
Speaker 1: planning and thinking and ransacking his head. So at last
Speaker 1: the trial come on towards the middle of October, and
Speaker 1: we was all in the court. The place was jammed.
Speaker 1: Of course, poor old Uncle Silas he looked more like
Speaker 1: a dead person than a live one. His eyes were
Speaker 1: so hollow, and he looked so thin and so mournful. Benny,
Speaker 1: she sat on one side of him, and Aunt Sally
Speaker 1: on the other, and they had veils on, and was
Speaker 1: full of trouble. But Tom he set by our lawyer
Speaker 1: and had his finger in everywheres. Of course, the lawyer
Speaker 1: let him, and the judge led him. He most took
Speaker 1: the business out of the lawyer's hands sometimes, which was
Speaker 1: well enough, because that was only a mud turtle of
Speaker 1: a back settlement lawyer, and didn't know enough to come
Speaker 1: in when it rains. As the saying is, they swore
Speaker 1: in the jury. And then the lawyer for the prostitution
Speaker 1: got up and begun. He made a terrible speech against
Speaker 1: the old man that made him moan and groan, and
Speaker 1: made Benny and Aunt Sally cry. The way he told
Speaker 1: about the murder kind of knocked us all stupid. It
Speaker 1: was so different from the old man's tail. He said
Speaker 1: he was going to prove that Uncle Silas was seen
Speaker 1: to kill Jubiter Dunlap by two good witnesses, and done
Speaker 1: it deliberate, and said he was going to kill him
Speaker 1: the very minute he hit him with the club, and
Speaker 1: they seen him hide Jubiter in the bushes, and they
Speaker 1: seen that Jubiter was stone dead, and said Uncle Silas
Speaker 1: come later and lugged Jubiter down into the tobacco field.
Speaker 1: And two men seen him do it, and said Uncle
Speaker 1: Silas turned out away in the night and buried Jubiter,
Speaker 1: and a man seen him at it. I says to myself,
Speaker 1: poor old uncle Silas has been lying about it, because
Speaker 1: he reckoned nobody's seen him, and he couldn't bear to
Speaker 1: break Aunt Sally's heart and Benny's, and right he was.
Speaker 1: As for me, I would allied the same way, and
Speaker 1: so would anybody that had any feeling to save them
Speaker 1: such misery and sorrow which they warn't no ways responsible for. Well,
Speaker 1: it made our lawyer look pretty sick, and it knocked
Speaker 1: Tom silly too for a little spell. But then he
Speaker 1: braced up and let on that he warn't worried, but
Speaker 1: I knowed he was all the same, and the people
Speaker 1: my But it made us stir amongst them. And when
Speaker 1: that lawyer was done telling the jury what he was
Speaker 1: going to prove, he sat down and begun to work
Speaker 1: his witnesses. First, he called a lot of them to
Speaker 1: show that there was bad blood betwixt Uncle Silas and
Speaker 1: the diseased. And they told how they had heard Uncle
Speaker 1: Silas threaten the diseased at one time and another, and
Speaker 1: how it got worse and worse, and everybody was talking
Speaker 1: about it, and how diseased got afraid of his life,
Speaker 1: and told two or three of them he was certain
Speaker 1: Uncle Silas would up and kill him some time or
Speaker 1: another Tom and our lawyer asked them some questions, but
Speaker 1: it warn't no use. They stuck to what they said.
Speaker 1: Next they called up lem Beebe and he took the stand.
Speaker 1: It come into my mind then, how Limb and Jim
Speaker 1: Lane had come along talking that time about borrowing a
Speaker 1: dog or something from Jubiter Dunlap, and that brought up
Speaker 1: the blackberries and the lantern, and that brought up Bill
Speaker 1: and Jack Withers, and how they passed by talking about
Speaker 1: a nigger stealing Uncle Silas's corn, and that fetched up
Speaker 1: our old ghosts had come along about the same time
Speaker 1: and scared us so. And here he was, too, and
Speaker 1: a privileged character on accounts of his being deef and
Speaker 1: dumb and a stranger. And they had fixed him a
Speaker 1: chair inside the railing where he could cross his legs
Speaker 1: and be comfortable, whilst the other people was all in
Speaker 1: a jam so they couldn't hardly breathe. So it all
Speaker 1: come back to me just the way it was that day,
Speaker 1: and it made me mournful to think how pleasant it
Speaker 1: was up to then, and how miserable ever since lem
Speaker 1: Beebe sworn said I was coming along that day tewod
Speaker 1: September and Jim Lane was with me, and it was
Speaker 1: towards sundown, and we heard loud talk like quarreling, and
Speaker 1: we was very close only the hazel bushes between that's
Speaker 1: a long the fence, and we heard a voice say,
Speaker 1: I told you more than once, I'd kill you, and
Speaker 1: knowed it was this prisoner's voice. And then we see
Speaker 1: a club come up the bushes and down out of
Speaker 1: sight again, and heard a smashing thump and then a
Speaker 1: groan or two, and then we croped soft to where
Speaker 1: we could see, and there laid Jubiter Dunlap dead, and
Speaker 1: this prisoner standing over him with the club. And the next
Speaker 1: he hauled the dead man into a clump of bushes
Speaker 1: and hid him, and then we stooped low to be
Speaker 1: cut of sight. Man got away. Well, it was awful.
Speaker 1: It kind of froze everybody's blood to hear it. And
Speaker 1: the house was most as still whilst he was telling it,
Speaker 1: as if there weren't nobody in it. And when he
Speaker 1: was done, you could hear them gasp and sigh all
Speaker 1: over the house and look at one another the same
Speaker 1: as to say, he eat it perfectly terrible. He did
Speaker 1: it awful. Now happened a thing that astonished me. All
Speaker 1: the time the first witnesses was proving the bad blood
Speaker 1: and the threats and all that Tom Sawyer was alive
Speaker 1: and laying for them, And the minute they was through,
Speaker 1: he went for them and done his level best to
Speaker 1: catch them and lies an spy their testimony. But now,
Speaker 1: how different when lemb first begun to talk and never
Speaker 1: said anything about speaking to Jubiter or trying to borrow
Speaker 1: a dog off of him, he was all alive and
Speaker 1: laying for Lemb and you could see he was getting
Speaker 1: ready to cross question him to death pretty soon. And
Speaker 1: then I judged him and me he would go on
Speaker 1: to stand by and by and tell what we heard
Speaker 1: him and Jim Lane say. But the next time I
Speaker 1: looked at Tom, I got the cold shivers. Why he
Speaker 1: was in the brownest study you ever see, miles an
Speaker 1: miles away. He warn't hearing a word lem Beebe was saying.
Speaker 1: And when he got through, he was still in that
Speaker 1: brown study just the same. Our lawyer joggled him, and
Speaker 1: then he looked up, startled and says, take the witness
Speaker 1: if you want him, let me alone. I want to think. Well,
Speaker 1: that beat me. I couldn't understand it, and Benny and
Speaker 1: her mother, Oh, they looked sick. They was so true troubled.
Speaker 1: They shoved their veils to one side and tried to
Speaker 1: get his eye, but it warn't any use. And I
Speaker 1: couldn't get his eye either. So the mud turtle he
Speaker 1: tackled the witness, but it didn't amount to nothing, and
Speaker 1: he made a mess of it. Then they called up
Speaker 1: Jim Lane and he told the very same story over
Speaker 1: again exact. Tom never listened to this one at all,
Speaker 1: but set there thinking and thinking miles and miles away.
Speaker 1: So the mud turtle went in alone again and come
Speaker 1: out just as flat as he done before. The lawyer
Speaker 1: for the prostitution looked very comfortable, but the judge looked disgusted.
Speaker 1: You see, Tom was just the same as a regular lawyer, nearly,
Speaker 1: because it was Arkansas law for a prisoner to choose anybody.
Speaker 1: He wanted to help his lawyer, and Tom had had
Speaker 1: Uncle Silas shove him into the case, and now he
Speaker 1: was botching it. And you could see the judge didn't
Speaker 1: like it much. All that the mud turtle got out
Speaker 1: of lem and Jim was this. He asked them, why
Speaker 1: didn't you go and tell what you saw. We was
Speaker 1: afraid we would get mixed up in it ourselves, and
Speaker 1: we was just starting down the river hunting for all
Speaker 1: the week besides. But as soon as we come back,
Speaker 1: we found out they'd been searching for the body. So
Speaker 1: then we went and told Brace Dunlap all about it.
Speaker 1: When was that Saturday night, September ninth. The judge he
Speaker 1: spoke up and says, mister Sheriff, arrest these two witnesses
Speaker 1: on suspicions of being accessionary after the fact to the murder.
Speaker 1: The lawyer for the prostitution jumps up all excited and says,
Speaker 1: your honor, I protest against this extraordinary sit down, says
Speaker 1: the judge, pulling his bowie and laying it on his pulpit.
Speaker 1: I beg you to respect the court. So he done it,
Speaker 1: and he called Bill Withers. Bill Withers sworn said, I
Speaker 1: was coming along about sundown Saturday, September seventh by the
Speaker 1: prisoner's field, and my brother Jack was with me, and
Speaker 1: we seen a man toting off something heavy on his back,
Speaker 1: and allowed it was a nigga stealing corn. Couldn't see distinct.
Speaker 1: Next we made out that it was one man carrying another,
Speaker 1: and the way it hung so kind of limp, we
Speaker 1: judged it was somebody that was drunk. And by the
Speaker 1: man's walk, we said it was Parson Silas, and we
Speaker 1: judged he had found Sam Cooper drunk in the road,
Speaker 1: which he was always trying to reform him, and was
Speaker 1: toting him out of danger. He made the people shiver
Speaker 1: to think of poor old Uncle Silas toting off the
Speaker 1: diseased down to the place in his tobacco field where
Speaker 1: the dog dug up the body. But there warn't much
Speaker 1: sympathy around amongst the faces. And I heard one cuss says,
Speaker 1: the coldest blooded work I ever struck, lugging and murdered
Speaker 1: man around like that, and going to bury him like
Speaker 1: an animal, and him a preacher at that tom he
Speaker 1: went on thinking and never took no notice. So our
Speaker 1: lawyer took the witness and done the best he could,
Speaker 1: and it was plenty poor enough. Then Jack Withers he
Speaker 1: come on the stand and told the same tale, just
Speaker 1: like Bill done. And after him comes Brace Dunlap, and
Speaker 1: he was looking very mournful and most crying, And there
Speaker 1: was a rustle and a stir all around, and everybody
Speaker 1: got ready to listen, and lots of the women folks said,
Speaker 1: poor critter, poor critter, and you could see many of
Speaker 1: them wiping their eyes. Brace Dunlap swore and said, I
Speaker 1: was in considerable trouble a long time about my poor brother,
Speaker 1: But I reckon things weren't near so bad as he
Speaker 1: made out, And I couldn't make myself believe anybody would
Speaker 1: have the heart to hurt a poor, harmless critter like that.
Speaker 1: By Jings, I was sure I seen Tom give that
Speaker 1: kind of a faint little start, and then looked disappointed again.
Speaker 1: And you know, I couldn't think a preacher would hurt him.
Speaker 1: It warn't natural to think such an unlikely thing. So
Speaker 1: I never paid much attention. And now I shout, ever
Speaker 1: ever forgive myself, for if I had a done different,
Speaker 1: my poor brother would be with me this day, and
Speaker 1: not lying yonder murdered, and him so harmless he can't
Speaker 1: have broke down there and choked up and waited to
Speaker 1: get his voice, and people all around said the most
Speaker 1: pitiful things, and women cried, and it was very still
Speaker 1: in there, and solemn, and old uncle silas. Poor thing.
Speaker 1: He gave a groan right out, so everybody heard him
Speaker 1: then brace he went. On Saturday, September second, he didn't
Speaker 1: come home to supper by and by I got a
Speaker 1: little uneasy, and one of my niggers went over to
Speaker 1: this prisoner's place, but come back and said he warn't there.
Speaker 1: So I got uneasier and uneasier and couldn't rest. I
Speaker 1: went to bed, but I couldn't sleep, and turned out
Speaker 1: away late in the night and went wandering over to
Speaker 1: this prisoner's place and all around about there a good while,
Speaker 1: hoping I wouldn't run across my poor brother, and never
Speaker 1: knowing he was out of his troubles gone to a
Speaker 1: better shore. So he broke down and choked up again,
Speaker 1: and most all the women was crying. Now pretty soon
Speaker 1: he got another start and says, but there weren't no use.
Speaker 1: So at last I went home and tried to get
Speaker 1: some sleep, but couldn't well. In a day or two,
Speaker 1: everybody was uneasy, and they got to talking about this
Speaker 1: prisoner's threats and took to the idea which I didn't
Speaker 1: take no stock in, that my brother was murdered. So
Speaker 1: they hunted around and tried to find his body, but
Speaker 1: couldn't and give it up, And so I reckoned. He
Speaker 1: was gone off summers to have a little peace and
Speaker 1: would come back to us when his troubles was kind
Speaker 1: of healed. But late Saturday night, the ninth, lem Beebe
Speaker 1: and Jim Lane come to my house and told me
Speaker 1: all told me the whole awful sassination, and my heart
Speaker 1: was broke. And then I remembered something that hadn't took
Speaker 1: no hold of me at the time, because reports said
Speaker 1: this prisoner had took to walking in his sleep and
Speaker 1: doing all kinds of things of no consequence, not knowing
Speaker 1: what he was about. I will tell you what that
Speaker 1: thing was that come back into my memory away late
Speaker 1: that awful Saturday night, when I was wandering around about
Speaker 1: this prisoner's place, grieving and troubled. I was down by
Speaker 1: the corner of the tobaccer field, and I heard a
Speaker 1: sound like digging in a gritty soil, and I crope
Speaker 1: nearer and peeped through the vines that hung on the
Speaker 1: rail fence and seen this prisoner shoveling, shoveling with a
Speaker 1: long handled shovel, heaving earth into a big hole that
Speaker 1: was most filled up. His back was to me, but
Speaker 1: it was bright moonlight, and I knowed him by his
Speaker 1: old green baize worked down with a splattery white patch
Speaker 1: in the middle of the back, like somebody had hit
Speaker 1: him with a snowball. He was burying the man he murder.
Speaker 1: He slumped down in his chair, crying and sobbing, and
Speaker 1: most everybody in the house busted out wailing and crying
Speaker 1: and saying, oh, it's awful, awful, horrible, And there was
Speaker 1: a most tremendous excitement, and you couldn't hear yourself think.
Speaker 1: And right in the midst of it, up jumps old
Speaker 1: uncle Silas white as a sheet, and sings out it's true,
Speaker 1: every word. I murdered him in cold blood by Jackson.
Speaker 1: It petrified them. People rose up wild all over the house,
Speaker 1: straining and staring for a better look at him. And
Speaker 1: the judge was hammering with his mallet, and the sheriff
Speaker 1: yelling order order in the court order, and all the
Speaker 1: while the old man stood there a quaking in his
Speaker 1: eyes are burning, and not looking at his wife and daughter,
Speaker 1: which was clinging to him and begging him to keep still,
Speaker 1: but pawing them off with his hands and saying he
Speaker 1: would clear his black soul from crime. He would heave
Speaker 1: off this load that was more than he could bear,
Speaker 1: and he wouldn't bear it another hour. And then he
Speaker 1: raged right along with his awful tale, everybody staring and gasping, Judge, jury,
Speaker 1: lawyers and everybody, and Benny and Aunt Sally crying their
Speaker 1: hearts out by George Tom Sawyer never looked at him once,
Speaker 1: never once, just set there gazing with all his eyes
Speaker 1: at something else. I couldn't tell what. And so the
Speaker 1: old man raged right along, pouring his words out like
Speaker 1: a stream of fire. I killed him, I am duty,
Speaker 1: but I never had the notion in my life to
Speaker 1: hurt him or harm him, spite of all them lies
Speaker 1: about my threatening him, till the very minute I raised
Speaker 1: the club. Then my heart went cold. Then the pity
Speaker 1: all went out of it, and I struck to kill
Speaker 1: in that one moment, and all my wrongs come into
Speaker 1: my mind, all the insults that that man and the
Speaker 1: scoundrel his brother there had put upon me, and how
Speaker 1: they laid in together to ruin me with the people
Speaker 1: and take away my good name and drive me to
Speaker 1: some deed that would destroy me and my family that
Speaker 1: hadn't ever done them no harm, so help me God,
Speaker 1: And they'd done it in a mean revenge. For why
Speaker 1: because my innocent, pure girl here at my side wouldn't
Speaker 1: marry that rich, insolent, ignorant cowered brace Dunlap, who's been
Speaker 1: sniveling here over a brother he never cared to brace
Speaker 1: farthing for I see Tom give a jump and look
Speaker 1: glad this time to a dead certainty. And in that
Speaker 1: moment I've told you about, I forgot my God and
Speaker 1: remembered only my heart's bitterness. God forgive me, and I
Speaker 1: struck to kill. In one second I was I'm miserably sorry, oh,
Speaker 1: filled with remorse. But I thought of my poor family,
Speaker 1: and I must hide what I had done for their sakes.
Speaker 1: And I did hide that corpse in the bushes, and
Speaker 1: presently I carried it to the tobacco field, and in
Speaker 1: the deep night I went with my shovel and buried it,
Speaker 1: where up jumps Tom and shouts, now I've got it,
Speaker 1: and waves his hand. Oh, ever, so fine and starchy
Speaker 1: towards the old man that says, sit down, A murder
Speaker 1: was done, but you never had no hand in it. Well, sir,
Speaker 1: you could hurt a pin drop. And the old man
Speaker 1: he sunk down kind of bewildered in his seat, and
Speaker 1: Aunt Sally and Benny didn't know it because they were
Speaker 1: so astonished and staring at Tom with their mouths open
Speaker 1: and not knowing what they was about, and the whole
Speaker 1: house the same. I never seen people look so helpless
Speaker 1: and tangled up, and I hate ever seen eyes bug
Speaker 1: out and gaze without a blink the way there and
Speaker 1: did Tom says perfectly, Tom, you're writer, May I speak
Speaker 1: for goodness sakes? Yes? Go on, says the judge, so
Speaker 1: astonished and mixed up, he didn't know what he was about.
Speaker 1: Hardly then Tom, he stood there and waited a second
Speaker 1: or two. That was to work up and effect, as
Speaker 1: he calls it. Then he started in just as calm
Speaker 1: as ever, and says, for about two weeks now, there's
Speaker 1: been a little bill sticking on the front of this
Speaker 1: courthouse offering two thousand dollars reward for a couple of
Speaker 1: big diamonds stole at Saint Louis. Then diamonds is worth
Speaker 1: twelve thousand dollars. But never mind about that till I
Speaker 1: get to it. Now, about this murder, I will tell
Speaker 1: you all about it, how it happened, who done it,
Speaker 1: every detail you could see everybody nestle down and begin
Speaker 1: to listen for all they was worth. This man here,
Speaker 1: brace Dunlap, that's been sniveling so about his dead brother,
Speaker 1: that you know he never cared a straw for wanted
Speaker 1: to marry that young girl there, and she wouldn't have him.
Speaker 1: So he told Uncle Silas he would make him. Sorry.
Speaker 1: Uncle Silas knowed how powerful he was and how little
Speaker 1: chance he had against such a man, and he was
Speaker 1: scared and worried and done everything he could think of
Speaker 1: to smooth him over and get him to be good
Speaker 1: to him. And he even took his no account brother Jubiter,
Speaker 1: on the farm and give him wages, and stinted his
Speaker 1: own family to pay them. And Jubiter done everything his
Speaker 1: brother could contrive to insult Uncle Silas and fret and
Speaker 1: worry him and try to drive Uncle Silas into doing
Speaker 1: him a hurt so as to injure Uncle Silas with
Speaker 1: the people. And it done it. Everybody turned against him
Speaker 1: and said the meanest kind of things about him, and
Speaker 1: it gradly broke his heart. Yes, and he was so
Speaker 1: worried and distressed that often he warn't hardly in his
Speaker 1: right mind. Well on that Saturday, that we've had so
Speaker 1: much trouble about two of these witnesses here, lam him
Speaker 1: Beebe and Jim Lane come along by where Uncle Silas
Speaker 1: and Jubiter Dunlap was at work, and that much of
Speaker 1: what they said is true, the rest is lies. They
Speaker 1: didn't hear Uncle Silas say he would kill Jubiter. They
Speaker 1: didn't hear no blows struck, they didn't see no dead man,
Speaker 1: and they didn't see Uncle Silas hide anything in the bushes.
Speaker 1: Look at them now, how they set there wishing they
Speaker 1: hadn't been so handy with their tongues. Anyway, they'll wish
Speaker 1: it before I get done. That Saturday evening, Bill and
Speaker 1: Jack Withers did see one man lugging off another one.
Speaker 1: That much of what they said is true, and the
Speaker 1: rest is lies. First off, they thought it was a
Speaker 1: nigger stealing Uncle Silas's corn. You notice it makes them
Speaker 1: look silly now to find out somebody overheard them say that.
Speaker 1: That's because they found out by and by who it
Speaker 1: was that was doing the lugging. And they know best why.
Speaker 1: They swore here that they took it for Uncle Silas
Speaker 1: by the gate, which it wasn't. And they knowed it
Speaker 1: when they swore to that lie. A man out in
Speaker 1: the moonlight did see a murdered person put underground in
Speaker 1: the tobacco field. But it wasn't Uncle Silas that had
Speaker 1: done the baring. He was in his bed at that
Speaker 1: very time. Now, then, before I go on, I want
Speaker 1: to ask you if you've ever noticed this, that people,
Speaker 1: when they're thinking deep or when they're worried, are most
Speaker 1: always doing something with their hands, and they don't know
Speaker 1: it and don't notice what it is their hands are doing.
Speaker 1: Some stroke their chins, some stroke their noses, some stroke
Speaker 1: up under their chin with their hand, Some twirl a chain,
Speaker 1: some fumble a button. Then there's some that draws a
Speaker 1: figure or a letter with their finger on their cheek
Speaker 1: or under their chin, or on their under lip. That's
Speaker 1: my way when I'm restless or worried or thinking hard,
Speaker 1: I draw capital v's on my cheek or on my
Speaker 1: underlip or under my chin, and never anything but capital v's.
Speaker 1: And half the time I don't notice it and don't
Speaker 1: know I'm doing it. That was aw That is just
Speaker 1: what I do. Only I make an oh. And I
Speaker 1: could see people nodding to one another, same as they
Speaker 1: do when they mean that's so now, then I'll go on.
Speaker 1: That's same Saturday. No, it was the night before. There
Speaker 1: was a steamboat laying at Flagler's landing forty miles above here,
Speaker 1: and it was raining and storming like the nation, and
Speaker 1: there was a thief aboard, and he had them two
Speaker 1: big di'monds that's advertised out here on this court house door.
Speaker 1: And he slipped ashore with his hand bag and struck
Speaker 1: out into the dark in the storm. And he was
Speaker 1: a hoping he could get to this town all right
Speaker 1: an be safe. But he had two pals aboard the
Speaker 1: boat hiding, and he knowed they was going to kill
Speaker 1: him the first chance they got and take the di'monds,
Speaker 1: because all three stole them, and then this fellow he
Speaker 1: got a hold of them and skipped. Well, he hadn't
Speaker 1: been gone more'n ten minutes before his pals found it out,
Speaker 1: and they jumped ashore and lit out after him. Probably
Speaker 1: they'd burnt matches and found his tracks. Anyway, they dogged
Speaker 1: along after him all day Saturday and kept out of
Speaker 1: his sight, and towards sundown he come to the bunch
Speaker 1: of sycamores down by Uncle Silas's field, and he went
Speaker 1: in there to get a disguise out of his handbag
Speaker 1: and put it on before he showed himself here in
Speaker 1: the town. And mind you, he'd done that just a
Speaker 1: little after the time that Uncle Silas was hitting Jubiter
Speaker 1: Dunlap over the head with the club, for he did
Speaker 1: hit him. But the minute the pal see that thief
Speaker 1: slide into the bunch of sycamores, they jumped out of
Speaker 1: the bushes and slid in after him. They fell on
Speaker 1: him and clubbed him to death. Yes, for all he
Speaker 1: screamed and howled, so they never had no mercy on him,
Speaker 1: but clubbed him to death. And two men that was
Speaker 1: running along the road heard him yelling that way, and
Speaker 1: they made a rush into the sycamore bunch, which was
Speaker 1: where they was bound for anyway. And when the pals
Speaker 1: saw them, they lit out, and the two men after
Speaker 1: them at chasing them as tight as they could go.
Speaker 1: But only a minute or two. Then these two new
Speaker 1: men slipped back, very quiet into the sycamores. Then what
Speaker 1: did they do? I will tell you what they'd done.
Speaker 1: They found where the thief had got his disguise out
Speaker 1: of his carpet sack to put on so one of
Speaker 1: them strips and puts on that disguise. Tom waited a
Speaker 1: little here for some more effect. Then he says, very deliberate,
Speaker 1: the man that put on that dead man's disguise was
Speaker 1: Jubiter Dunlap, Great Scott. Everybody shouted all over the house,
Speaker 1: and old Uncle Silas he looked perfectly astonished. Yes it
Speaker 1: was Jubiter Dunlap, not Dad, you see. Then they pulled
Speaker 1: off the dead man's boots and put Jubiter Dunlap's old
Speaker 1: ragged shoes on the corpse, and put the corpse's boots
Speaker 1: on Jubiter Dunlap. Then Jubiter Dunlap stayed where he was,
Speaker 1: and the other man lugged the dead body off in
Speaker 1: the twilight. And after midnight he went to Uncle Silas's
Speaker 1: house and took his old green work robe off the
Speaker 1: peg where it all was hangs in the passage betwixt
Speaker 1: the house and the kitchen, and put it on, and
Speaker 1: stole the long handled shovel and went off down into
Speaker 1: the tobacco field and buried the murdered man. He stopped
Speaker 1: and stood half a minute. Then, and who do you
Speaker 1: reckon the murdered man? Was? It was Jake Dunlap, the
Speaker 1: long lost burglar, Great Scott, and the man that buried
Speaker 1: him was Brace Dunlap, his brother, Great Scott. And who
Speaker 1: do you reckon? Is this mowing idiot here that's letting
Speaker 1: on all these weeks to be a deef and dumb stranger.
Speaker 1: It's Jubiter Dunlap, my land. They all busted out in
Speaker 1: a howl, and you never see the like of that
Speaker 1: excitement since the day you was born. And Tom he
Speaker 1: made a jump for Jubiter and snaked off his goggles
Speaker 1: and his false whiskers. And there was the murdered man,
Speaker 1: sure enough, just as alive as anybody. And Aunt Sally
Speaker 1: and Benny they went to hugging and crying and kissing
Speaker 1: and smothering old Uncle Silas. To that degree he was
Speaker 1: more muddled and confused and mushed up in his mind
Speaker 1: than he ever was before, And that is saying considerable.
Speaker 1: And next people began to yell Tom Sawyer. Tom Sawyer
Speaker 1: shut up everybody and let him go on, go on,
Speaker 1: Tom Sawyer, which made him feel uncommon bully, for it
Speaker 1: was nuts for Tom Sawyer to be a public character
Speaker 1: that way, and a hero, as he calls it, so
Speaker 1: when it was all quiet, he says, there ain't much left,
Speaker 1: only this, when that man there, Brace Dunlap, had most
Speaker 1: worried the life and sense out of Uncle Silas, till
Speaker 1: at last he plumb lost his mind and hit this
Speaker 1: other Blatherskype his brother with a club. I reckon, he's
Speaker 1: seen his chance. Jupiter broke for the woods to hide,
Speaker 1: and I reckon the game was for him to slide
Speaker 1: out in the night and leave the country. Then Brace
Speaker 1: would make everybody believe Uncle Silas killed him and hid
Speaker 1: his body summers, and that would ruin Uncle Silas and
Speaker 1: drive him out of the country hang him maybe, I
Speaker 1: don't know. But when they found their dead brother and
Speaker 1: the sycamores without knowing him, because he was so battered up,
Speaker 1: they see they had a better thing. Disguise both and
Speaker 1: barry Jake and dig him up presently, all dressed up
Speaker 1: in Jubiter's clothes, and hire Jim Lane and Bill Withers
Speaker 1: and the others to swear to some handy lies, which
Speaker 1: they done. And there they sat now, And I told
Speaker 1: them they would be looking sick before I got done,
Speaker 1: And that is the way they're looking now. Well, Me
Speaker 1: and Huck Finn here. We come down on the boat
Speaker 1: with the thieves, and the dead one told us all
Speaker 1: about the diamonds and said the others would murder him
Speaker 1: if they got the chance, and we was going to
Speaker 1: help him all we could. We was bound for the
Speaker 1: sycamores when we heard them killing him in there. But
Speaker 1: we was in there in the early morning after the
Speaker 1: storm and loud nobody hadn't been killed after all. And
Speaker 1: when we see Jubiter Dunlap here spreading around in the
Speaker 1: very same disguise Jake told us he was going to wear,
Speaker 1: we thought it was his own self, and he was
Speaker 1: googooing deef and dumb, and that was according to agreement. Well,
Speaker 1: me and Huck went on hunting for the corpse after
Speaker 1: the others quit, and we found it and was proud too,
Speaker 1: But Uncle Silas he knocked us crazy by telling us
Speaker 1: he killed the man. So we was mighty sorry. We
Speaker 1: found the body and was bound to save Uncle Silas's
Speaker 1: neck if we could. And it was going to be
Speaker 1: tough work too, because he wouldn't let us break him
Speaker 1: out of prison the way we done with our old
Speaker 1: nigger Jim. I done everything I could the whole month
Speaker 1: to think up some way to save Uncle Silas. But
Speaker 1: I couldn't strike a thing. So when we come into
Speaker 1: court to day, I come empty and couldn't see no
Speaker 1: chance anywheres. But bye and bye. I had a glimpse
Speaker 1: of something that set me thinking, just a little wee glimpse,
Speaker 1: only that, and not enough to make sure. But it
Speaker 1: set me thinking hard and watching when I was only
Speaker 1: letting on to think, and by and bye. Sure enough,
Speaker 1: when Uncle Silas was piling out that stuff about him
Speaker 1: killing Jubiter Dunlap, I catched that glimpse again, and this
Speaker 1: time I jumped up and shut down the proceedings because
Speaker 1: I knowed Jubiter Dunlap was a settin here before me.
Speaker 1: I knowed him by a thing which I seen him do,
Speaker 1: and I remembered it. I'd seen him do it when
Speaker 1: I was here a year ago. He stopped then and
Speaker 1: studied a minute, laying for an effect. I knowed it perfectly. Well.
Speaker 1: Then he turned off like he was going to leave
Speaker 1: the platform and says, kind of lazy and indifferent. Well,
Speaker 1: I believe that is all. Wow, you never heard such
Speaker 1: a howl, and it come from the whole house. What
Speaker 1: was it you seen him do? Stay where you were,
Speaker 1: you little devil. You think you were going to work
Speaker 1: a body up till his mouth a watering and stop there?
Speaker 1: What was it he done? That was it? You see?
Speaker 1: He just done it to get an effect. You couldn't
Speaker 1: have pulled him off that platform with a yoke of oxen.
Speaker 1: Oh it wasn't anything much, he says. I've seen him
Speaker 1: looking a little excited when he found Uncle Silas was
Speaker 1: actually fixing to hang himself for a murder that warn't
Speaker 1: ever done. And he got more and more nervous and worried.
Speaker 1: I watching him sharp, but not seeming to look at him,
Speaker 1: And all of a sudden his hands begun to work
Speaker 1: and fidget, and pretty soon his left crept up and
Speaker 1: his finger drawed across on his cheek, And then I
Speaker 1: had him. Well. Then they ripped and howled and stomped
Speaker 1: and clapped their hands till Tom Sawyer was that proud
Speaker 1: and happy he didn't know what to do with himself.
Speaker 1: And then the judge, he looked down over his pulpit
Speaker 1: and says, my boy, did you see all the various
Speaker 1: details of this strange conspiracy and tragedy that you've been describing? No,
Speaker 1: your honor I didn't see any of them, didn't see
Speaker 1: any of them. Why you've told the whole history straight through,
Speaker 1: just the same as if you'd seen it with your eyes,
Speaker 1: had jamage that, Tom says, kind of easy and comfortable. Oh,
Speaker 1: just noticing the evidence and piecing this and that together,
Speaker 1: Your honor, just an ordinary little bit of detective work.
Speaker 1: Anybody could have done it, nothing of the kind, not
Speaker 1: two in a million could have done it. You are
Speaker 1: a very remarkable boy. Then they let go and give
Speaker 1: Tom another smashing round, and he well, he wouldn't sold
Speaker 1: out for a silver mine. Then the judge says, but
Speaker 1: are you certain you've got this curious history straight perfectly?
Speaker 1: Your Honor, here is brace dunlap. Let him deny his
Speaker 1: share of it. If he wants to take the chance,
Speaker 1: I'll engage to make him wish he hadn't said anything. Well,
Speaker 1: you see, he's pretty quiet, and his brother's pretty quiet.
Speaker 1: And then four witnesses that lied so and got paid
Speaker 1: for it, they're pretty quiet. And as for Uncle Silas,
Speaker 1: it ain't any use for him to put in his oar,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't believe him under oath. Well, sir, that fairly
Speaker 1: made them shout and even the judge. He let go
Speaker 1: and laughed. Tom, he was just feeling like a rainbow.
Speaker 1: When they was done laughing, he looks up at the
Speaker 1: judge and says, your honor, there's a thief in this house,
Speaker 1: a thief, yes, sir, and he's got them twelve thousand
Speaker 1: dollars diamonds on him, by gracious. But it made a stir.
Speaker 1: Everybody went shouting, witch is him? Witch is him? Pint
Speaker 1: him out? And the judge says, point him out, my
Speaker 1: lad Sheriff, you will arrest him. Which one is it?
Speaker 1: Tom says, this late dead man here Jubiter Dunlap. Then
Speaker 1: there was another thundering let go of astonishment and excitement.
Speaker 1: But Jubiter, which was astonished enough before, was just fairly
Speaker 1: putrified with astonishment this time. And he spoke up about
Speaker 1: half crying and says, no, that's a lie, your honor,
Speaker 1: it ain't fire. I have plenty bad enough without that.
Speaker 1: I'd done the other things. Brace he put me up
Speaker 1: to it and persuaded me and promised he'd make me
Speaker 1: rich someday, and I'd done it, and I'm sorry i'd
Speaker 1: done it, and I wished I hadn't, but I ain't
Speaker 1: stole no diamonds, and I ain't got no di'monds. I
Speaker 1: wished I may never stir if it ain't, so the
Speaker 1: sheriff can search me and see. Tom says, your honor,
Speaker 1: it wasn't right to call him a thief, and I'll
Speaker 1: let up on that a little. He did steal the diamonds,
Speaker 1: but he didn't know it. He stole them from his
Speaker 1: brother Jake when he was laying dead, after Jake had
Speaker 1: stole them from the other thieves, but Jubiter didn't know
Speaker 1: he was stealing them. And he's been swelling around here
Speaker 1: with them a month, Yes, sir, twelve thousand dollars worth
Speaker 1: of diamonds on him, all that riches, and going around
Speaker 1: here every day, just like a poor man. Yes, Your Honor,
Speaker 1: he's got them on him now. The judge spoke up
Speaker 1: and says, search him, sheriff, Well, Sir, the sheriff he
Speaker 1: ransacked him high and low and everywhere, searched his hat, socks, seams, boots, everything,
Speaker 1: and Tom he stood there quiet, laying for another of
Speaker 1: them effects of his Finally the if he give it up,
Speaker 1: and everybody looked disappointed, and Jubiter says, they are now
Speaker 1: what I tell you, And the judge says, it appears
Speaker 1: you were mistaken this time, my bar Then Tom took
Speaker 1: an attitude and led on to be studying with all
Speaker 1: his might and scratching his head. Then all of a
Speaker 1: sudden he glanced up Chipper and says, oh, now I've
Speaker 1: got it. I'd forgot, which was a lie, and I
Speaker 1: noted it. Then he says, will somebody be good enough
Speaker 1: to lend me a little small screwdriver? There was one
Speaker 1: in your brother's handbag that you smooched, Jubiter, But I
Speaker 1: reckon you didn't fetch it with you. No, I didn't.
Speaker 1: I didn't want it, and I give it away. That's
Speaker 1: because you didn't know what it was for. Jubiter had
Speaker 1: his boots on again by now. And when the thing
Speaker 1: Tom wanted was passed over the people's heads till it
Speaker 1: got to him, he says to Jubiter, put up your
Speaker 1: boot on this chair, and he kneeled down and begun
Speaker 1: to unscrew the heel plate, everybody watching. And when he
Speaker 1: got that big diamond out of that boot, heel and
Speaker 1: held it up and let it flash and blaze and
Speaker 1: squirt sunlight every which way. It just took everybody's breath
Speaker 1: and jubiter. He looked so sick and sorry, you never
Speaker 1: see the like of it. And when Tom held up
Speaker 1: the other diamond, he looked sorrier than ever land. He
Speaker 1: was thinking how he would have skipped out and been
Speaker 1: rich and independent in a foreign country if he'd only
Speaker 1: had the luck to guess what the screwdriver was in
Speaker 1: the carpet bag. For well, it was the most exciting
Speaker 1: time to take it all round, and Tom got cords
Speaker 1: of glory. The judge took the diamonds and stood up
Speaker 1: in his pulpit and cleared his throat and shoved his
Speaker 1: spectacles back on his head and says, I'll keep them
Speaker 1: and notify the owners, and when they send for them,
Speaker 1: it will be a real pleasure to me to hand
Speaker 1: you the two thousand dollars, for you've earned the money, yes,
Speaker 1: and you've earned the deepest and most sincereous thanks of
Speaker 1: this community. He besides for lifting a wronged and innocent
Speaker 1: family out of ruin and shame, and saving a good
Speaker 1: and honorable man from a felon's death, and for exposing
Speaker 1: to infamy and the punishment of the law a cruel
Speaker 1: and odious scoundrel and his miserable creatures. Well, sir, if
Speaker 1: there's been a brass band to bust out some music,
Speaker 1: then it would have been just the perfectest thing I
Speaker 1: ever see. And Tom Sawry he said the same. Then
Speaker 1: the sheriff he now braced Dunlap in his crowd, and
Speaker 1: by and by next month the judge had them up
Speaker 1: for trial and jailed a whole lot, and everybody crowded
Speaker 1: back to Uncle Silas's little old church and was ever
Speaker 1: so loving and kind to him and the family, and
Speaker 1: couldn't do enough for them. And Uncle Silas he preached
Speaker 1: them the blamedest, jumbledest idiotic sermons you ever struck, and
Speaker 1: would tangle you up so you couldn't find your way
Speaker 1: home in daylight. But the people never let on. But
Speaker 1: they thought it was the clearest and brightest and elegantest
Speaker 1: sermons that ever was. And they would set there and
Speaker 1: cry for love and pity. But by George, they'd give
Speaker 1: me the jim jambs and the fan TODs and caked
Speaker 1: up my brains I had and turned them solid. But
Speaker 1: by and by they loved the old man's intellects back
Speaker 1: into him again, and he was as sound and his
Speaker 1: skull as he ever was, which ain't no flattery, I reckon.
Speaker 1: And so the whole family was as happy as birds,
Speaker 1: and nobody could be gratefuller and lovinger than what they
Speaker 1: was to Tom Sawyer, and the same to me, though
Speaker 1: I hadn't done nothing. And when the two thousand dollars come,
Speaker 1: Tom give half of it to me, and never told
Speaker 1: anybody so, which didn't surprise me because I knowed him.
Speaker 1: End of Chapter eleven and end of Tom Sawyer Detective