"WE SWOOPED DOWN, NOW, ALL OF A SUDDEN"
TOM SAWYER ABROAD
TOM SAWYER, DETECTIVE
AND OTHER STORIES
ETC., ETC.
BY MARK TWAIN
)
ILLUSTRATED
NEW YORK AND LONDON
KARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
1905
Copyright, 1878, by SLOTE, WOODMAN & Co.
Copyright, 1882, by SAMUEL L. CLEMENS
Copyright, 1894, by SAMUEL L. CLEMENS
Copyright, 1896 and 1899, by HARPER & BROTHERS
ILLUSTRATIONS
" WE SWOOPED DOWN, NOW, ALL OF A SUDDEN " Frontispiece
"WE CATCHED FISH" Facing p. 84
MAP OF TOM SAWYER S TRIP 134
"l RECKON I GOT TO BE EXCUSED* ... " 138
MAP OF PARIS Page 435
iii
M101115
CONTENTS
. 1 /
TOM SAWYER ABROAD . I . \. ...... 7
TOM SAWYER, DETECTIVE .. . ... .137
THE STOLEN WHITE ELEPHANT . \ \ * ; . . . . 22Q
SOME RAMBLING NOTES OF AN IDLE EXCURSION . . 254
THE FACTS CONCERNING THE RECENT CARNIVAL OP
CRIME IN CONNECTICUT . \{/V(0 35
ABOUT MAGNANIMOUS-INCIDENT LITERATURE , , .326
PUNCH, BROTHERS, PUNCH .... .... 334
THE GREAT REVOLUTION IN PITCAIRN 341
ON THE DECAY OF THE ART OF LYING . . . . .355
THE CANVASSER S TALE 3^3
AN ENCOUNTER WITH AN INTERVIEWER 371
PARIS NOTES . .... 377
vi Contents
LEGEND OF SAGENFELD, IN GERMANY 380
SPEECH ON THE BABIES 388
SPEECH ON THE WEATHEF 3s,2
CONCERNING THE AMERICAN LANGUAGE 396
ROGERS , .401
THE LOVES OF ALONZO FITZ CLARENCE AND
ROSANNAH ETHELTON 408
MAP OF P\RIS ....,... . . 433
LETTER READ AT A DINNER . , . a 437
TOM SAWYER ABROAD
TOM SAWYER DETECTIVE
AND
OTHER STORIES
TOM SAWYER ABROAD
CHAPTER I. , , , . .
TOM SEEKS NEW ADVENTURES
DO you reckon Tom Sawyer was satisfied after all
them adventures? I mean the adventures we had
down the river, and the time we set the darky Jim free
and Tom got shot in the leg. No, he wasn t. It only
just p isoned him for more. That was all the effect it
had. You*see, when we three came back up the river
in glory, as you may say, from that long travel, and
the village received us with a torchlight procession and
speeches, and everybody hurrah d and shouted, it
made us heroes, and that was what Tom Sawyer had
always been hankering to be.
For a while he was satisfied. Everybody made
much of him, and he tilted up his nose and stepped
around the town as though he owned it. Some called
him Tom Sawyer the Traveler, and that just swelled
him up fit to bust. You see he laid over me and Jim
considerable, because we only went down the river on
a raft and came back by the steamboat, but Tom went
(7)
8 Tom Sawyer Abroad
by the steamboat both ways. The boys envied me and
Jim a good deal, but land ! they just knuckled to the
dirt before TOM.
Well, I don t know; maybe he might have been
satisfied if it hadn t been for old Nat Parsons, which
was postmaster, and powerful long and slim, and kind
o good-hearted and silly, and bald-headed, on account
9f his. ag,e, and; about the talkiest old cretur I ever see.
OFor asVmiiU ri as thirty years he d been the only man in
rtheviliagje that had a reputation I mean a reputation
fof being 1 a traveler, and of course he was mortal proud
of it, and it was reckoned that in the course of that
thirty years he had told about that journey over a
million times and enjoyed it every time. And now
comes along a boy not quite fifteen, and sets everybody
admiring and gawking over his travels, and it just give
the poor old man the high strikes.. It made him sick
to listen to Tom, and to hear the people say " My
land!" "Did you ever!" "My goodness sakes
alive!" and all such things ; but he couldn t pull away
from it, any more than a fly that s got its hind leg fast
in the molasses. And always when Tom come to a
rest, the poor old cretur would chip in on his same old
travels and work them for all they were worth ; but
they were pretty faded, and didn t go for much, and it
was pitiful to see. And then Tom would take another
innings, and then the old man again and so on, and
so on, for an hour and more, each trying to beat out
the other.
You see, Parsons travels happened like this: When
Tom Sawyer Abroad 9
he first got to be postmaster and was green in the busi
ness, there come a letter for somebody he didn t know,
and there wasn t any such person in the village. Well,
he didn t know what to do, nor how to act, and there
the letter stayed and stayed, week in and week out, till
the bare sight of it gave him a conniption. The postage
wasn t paid on it, and that was another thing to worry
about. There wasn t any way to collect that ten cents,
and he reckon d the gov ment would hold him respon
sible for it and maybe turn him out besides, when they
found he hadn t collected it. Well, at last he couldn t
stand it any longer. He couldn t sleep nights, he
couldn t eat, he was thinned down to a shadder, yet
he da sn t ask anybody s advice, for the very person
he asked for advice might go back on him and let the
gov ment know about the letter. He had the letter
buried under the floor, but that did no good ; if he
happened to see a person standing over the place it d
give him the cold shivers, and loaded him up with
suspicions, and he would sit up that night till the town
was still and dark, and then he would sneak there and
get it out and bury it in another place. Of course,
people got to avoiding him and shaking their heads
and whispering, because, the way he was looking and
acting, they judged he had killed somebody or done
something terrible, they didn t know what, and if he
had been a stranger they would ve lynched him.
Well, as I was saying, it got so he couldn t stand it
any longer; so he made up his mind to pull out for
Washington, and just go to the President of the United
10 Tom Sawyer Abroad
States and make a clean breast of the whole thing, not
keeping back an atom, and then fetch the letter out and
lay it before the whole gov ment, and say, "Now,
there she is do with me what you re a mind to;
though as heaven is my judge I am an innocent man
and not deserving of the full penalties of the law and
leaving behind me a family that must starve and yet
hadn t had a thing to do with it, which is the whole
truth and I can swear to it."
So he did it. He had a little wee bit of steamboat-
ing, and some stage-coaching, but all the rest of the
way was horseback, and it took him three weeks to get
to Washington. He saw lots of land and lots of vil
lages and four cities. He was gone most eight weeks,
and there never was such a proud man in the village as
he when he got back. His travels made him the greatest
man in all that region, and the most talked about; and
people come from as much as thirty miles back in the
country, and from over in the Illinois bottoms, too,
just to look at him and there they d stand and gawk,
and he d gabble. You never see anything like it.
Well, there wasn t any way now to settle which was
the greatest traveler ; some said it was Nat, some said
it was Tom. Everybody allowed that Nat had seen
the most longitude, but they had to give in that what
ever Tom was short in longitude he had made up in
latitude and climate. It was about a stand-off; so both
of them had to whoop up their dangerous adventures,
and try to get ahead that way. That bullet-wound in
Tom s leg was a tough thing for Nat Parsons to buck
Tom Sawyer Abroad 11
against, but he bucked the best he could; and at a
disadvantage, too, for Tom didn t set still as he d orter
done, to be fair, but always got up and sauntered
around and worked his limp while Nat was painting up
the adventure that he had in Washington ; for Tom
never let go that limp when his leg got well, but prac
ticed it nights at home, and kept it good as new right
along.
Nat s adventure was like this; I don t know how
true it is ; maybe he got it out of a paper, or some
where, but I will say this for him, that he did know
how to tell it. He could make anybody s flesh crawl,
and he d turn pale and hold his breath when he told
it, and sometimes women and girls got so faint they
couldn t stick it out. Well, it was this way, as near as
I can remember :
He come a-loping into Washington, and put up his
horse and shoved out to the President s house with his
letter, and they told him the President was up to the
Capitol, and just going to start for Philadelphia not
a minute to lose if he wanted to catch him. Nat most
dropped, it made him so sick. His horse was put up,
and he didn t know what to do. But just then along
comes a darky driving an old ramshackly hack, and he
see his chance. He rushes out and shouts: " A half a
dollar if you git me to the Capitol in half an hour, and
a quarter extra if you do it in twenty minutes!"
" Done !" says the darky.
Nat he jumped in and slammed the door, and away
they went a-ripping and a-tearing over the roughest
12 Tom Sawyer Abroad
road a body ever see, and the racket of it was some
thing awful. Nat passed his arms through the loops
and hung on for life and death, but pretty soon the
hack hit a rock and flew up in the air, and the bottom
fell out, and when it come down Nat s feet was on the
ground, and he see he was in the most desperate danger
if he couldn t keep up with the hack. He was horrible
scared, but he laid into his work for all he was worth,
and hung tight to the arm-loops and made his legs
fairly fly. He yelled and shouted to the driver to
stop, and so did the crowds along the street, for they
could see his legs spinning along under the coach, and
his head and shoulders bobbing inside through the
windows, and he was in awful danger; but the more
they all shouted the more the nigger whooped and
yelled and lashed the horses and shouted, " Don t you
fret, I se gwine to git you dah in time, boss; I s gwine
to do it, sho !" for you see he thought they were all
hurrying him up, and, of course, he couldn t hear any
thing for the racket he was making. And so they went
ripping along, and everybody just petrified to see it;
and when they got to the Capitol at last it was the
quickest trip that ever was made, and everybody said
so. The horses laid down, and Nat dropped, all tuck
ered out, and he was all dust and rags and barefooted ;
but he was in time and just in time, and caught the
President and give him the letter, and everything was
all right, and the President give, him a free pardon on
the spot, and Nat give the nigger two extra quarters
instead of one, because he could see that if he hadn t
Tom Sawyer Abroad 13
had the hack he wouldn t a got there in time, nor
anywhere near it.
It was a powerful good adventure, and Tom Sawyer
had to work his bullet-wound mighty lively to hold his
own against it.
Well, by and by Tom s glory got to paling down
gradu ly, on account of other things turning up for the
people to talk about first a horse-race, and on top of
that a house afire, and on top of that the circus, and
on top of that the eclipse ; and that started a revival,
same as it always does, and by that time there wasn t
any more talk about Tom, so to speak, and you never
see a person so sick and disgusted.
Pretty soon he got to worrying and fretting right
along day in and day out, and when I asked him what
was he in such a state about, he said it most broke his
heart to think how time was slipping away, and him
getting older and older, and no wars breaking out and
no way of making a name for himself that he could
see. Now that is the way boys is always thinking, but
he was the first one I ever heard come out and say it.
So then he set to work to get up a plan to make him
celebrated ; and pretty soon he struck it, and offered to
take me and Jim in. Tom Sawyer was always free and
generous that way. There s a-plenty of boys that s
mighty good and friendly when you ve got a good
thing, but when a good thing happens to come their
way they don t say a word to you, and try to hog it
all. That warn t ever Tom lawyer s way, I can say
that for him. There s plenty of boys that will come
14 Tom Sawyer Abroad
hankering and groveling around you when you ve got
an apple and beg the core off of you ; but when they ve
got one, and you beg for the core and remind them
how you give them a core one time, they say thank
you most to death, but there ain t a-going to be no
core. But I notice they always git come up with ; all
you got to do is to wait.
Well, we went out in the woods on the hill, and Tom
told us what it was. It was a crusade.
" What s a crusade?" I says.
He looked scornful, the way he s always done when
he was ashamed of a person, and says:
" Huck Finn, do you mean to tell me you don t
know what a crusade is?"
"No," says I, "I don t. And I don t care to,
nuther. I ve lived till now and done without it, and
had my health, too. But as soon as you tell me, I ll
know, and that s soon enough. I don t see any use in
finding out things and clogging up my head with them
when I mayn t ever have any occasion to use em.
There was Lance Williams, he learned how to talk
Choctaw here till one come and dug his grave for him.
Now, then, what s a crusade? But I can tell you one
thing before you begin; if it s a patent-right, there s
no money in it. Bill Thompson he "
"Patent-right!" says he. "I never see such an
idiot. Why, a crusade is a kind of war."
I thought he must be losing his mind. But no, he
was in real earnest, and went right on, perfectly
ca m:
Tom Sawyer Abroad 15
41 A crusade is a war to recover the Holy Land from
the paynim."
Which Holy Land?"
44 Why, the Holy Land there ain t but one."
" What do we want of it?"
41 Why, can t you understand? It s in the hands oi
the paynim, and it s our duty to take it away from
them."
4< How did we come to let them git hold of it?"
44 We didn t come to let them git hold of it. They
always had it."
" Why, Tom, then it must belong to them, don t it?"
" Why of course it does. Who said it didn t?"
I studied over it, but couldn t seem to git at the
right of it, no way. I says :
44 It s too many for me, Tom Sawyer. If I had a
farm and it was mine, and another person wanted it,
would it be right for him to "
"Oh, shucks! you don t know enough to come in
when it rains, Huck Finn. It ain t a farm, it s entirely
different. You see, it s like this. They own the land,
just the mere land, and that s all they do own; but it
w r as our folks, our Jews and Christians, that made it
holy, and so they haven t any business to be there
defiling it. It s a shame, and we ought not to stand it
a minute. We ought to march against them and take
it away from them."
4 Why, it does seem to me it s the most mixed-up
thing I ever see ! Now, if I had a farm and another
person "
16 Tom Sawyer Abroad
" Don t I tell you it hasn t got anything to do with
farming? Farming is business just common low-down
business: that s all it is, it s all you can say for it; but
this is higher, this is religious, and totally different."
"Religious to go and take the land away from
people that owns it?"
" Certainly; it s always been considered so."
Jim he shook his head, and says:
" Mars Tom, I reckon dey s a mistake about it
somers dey mos sholy is. I s religious myself, en
I knows plenty religious people, but I hain t run across
none dat acts like dat."
It made Tom hot, and he says :
"Well, it s enough to make a body sick, such
mullet-headed ignorance ! If either of you d read any
thing about history, you d know that Richard Cur de
Loon, and the Pope, and Godfrey de Bulleyn, and lots
more of the most noble-hearted and pious people in
the world, hacked and hammered at the paynims for
more than two hundred years trying to take their land
away from them, and swum neck-deep in blood the
whole time and yet here s a couple of sap-headed
country yahoos out in the backwoods of Missouri set
ting themselves up to know more about the rights and
wrongs of it than they did ! Talk about cheek !"
Well, of course, that put a more different light on it,
and me and Jim felt pretty cheap and ignorant, and
wished we hadn t been quite so chipper. I couldn t
say nothing, and Jim he couldn t for a while; then he
says:
Tom Sawyer Abroad 17
"Well, den, I reckon it s all right; beca se ef dey
didn t know, dey ain t no use for po ignorant folks
like us to be trying to know; en so, ef it s our duty,
we got to go en tackle it en do de bes we can. Same
time, I feel as sorry for dem paynims as Mars Tom.
De hard part gwine to be to kill folks dat a body hain t
been quainted wid and dat hain t done him no harm.
Dat s it, you see. Ef we wuz to go mongst em, jist
we three, en say we s hungry, en ast em for a bite to
eat, why, maybe dey s jist like yuther people. Don t
you reckon dey is? Why, dey d give it, I know dey
would, en den "
4 Then what?"
* Well, Mars Tom, my idea is like dis. It ain t no
use, we can t kill dem po strangers dat ain t doin us
no harm, till we ve had practice I knows it perfectly
well, Mars Tom deed I knows it perfectly well. But
ef we takes a axe or two, jist you en me en Huck, en
slips acrost de river to-night arter de moon s gone
down, en kills dat sick fam ly dat s over on the Sny,
en burns dey house down, en "
"Oh, you make me tired!" says Tom. " I don t
want to argue any more with people like you and Huck
Finn, that s always wandering from the subject, and
ain t got any more sense than to try to reason out a
thing that s pure theology by the laws that protect real
estate !
Now that s just where Tom Sawyer warn t fair. Jim
didn t mean no harm, and I didn t mean no harm.
We knowed well enough that he was right and we was
18 Tom Sawyer Abroad
wrong, and all we was after was to get at the how of
it, and that was all; and the only reason he couldn t
explain it so we could understand it was because we
was ignorant yes, and pretty dull, too, I ain t deny
ing that; but, land ! that ain t no crime, I should think.
But he wouldn t hear no more about it just said if
we had tackled the thing in the proper spirit, he would
a raised a couple of thousand knights and put them
in steel armor from head to heel, and made me a lieu
tenant and Jim a sutler, and took the command himself
and brushed the whole paynim outfit into the sea like
flies and come back across the world in a glory like
sunset. But he said we didn t know enough to take
the chance when we had it, and he wouldn t ever offer
it again. And he didn t. When he once got set, you
couldn t budge him.
But I didn t care much. I am peaceable, and don t
get up rows with people that ain t doing nothing to
me. I allowed if the paynim was satisfied I was, and
we would let it stand at that.
Now Tom he got all that notion out of Walter Scott s
book, which he was always reading. And it was a
wild notion, because in my opinion he never could ve
raised the men, and if he did, as like as not he would ve
got licked. I took the book and read all about it, and
as near as I could make it out, most of the folks that
shook farming to go crusading had a mighty rocky
time of it.
CHAPTER II.
THE BALLOON ASCENSION
WELL, Tom got up one thing after another, but
they all had tender spots about em somewheres,
and he had to shove em aside. So at last he was
about in despair. Then the St. Louis papers begun to
talk a good deal about the balloon that was going to
sail to Europe, and Tom sort of thought he wanted
to go down and see what it looked like, but couldn t
make up his mind. But the papers went on talking,
and so he allowed that maybe if he didn t go he
mightn t ever have another chance to see a balloon;
and next, he found out that Nat Parsons was going
down to see it, and that decided him, of course. He
wasn t going to have Nat Parsons coming back brag
ging about seeing the balloon, and him having to listen
to it and keep quiet. So he wanted me and Jim to go
too, and we went.
It was a noble big balloon, and had wings and fans
and all sorts of things, and wasn t like any balloon you
see in pictures. It was away out toward the edge of
town, in a vacant lot, corner of Twelfth street; and
there was a big crowd around it, making fun of it, and
B* (19)
20 Tom Sawyer Abroad
making fun of the man, a lean pale feller with that
soft kind of moonlight in his eyes, you know, and
they kept saying it wouldn t go. It made him hot to
hear them, and he would turn on them and shake his
fist and say they was animals and blind, but some day
they would find they had stood face to face with one
of the men that lifts up nations and makes civilizations,
and was too dull to know it; and right here on this
spot their own children and grandchildren would build
a monument to him that would outlast a thousand
years, but his name would outlast the monument.
And then the crowd would burst out in a laugh again,
and yell at him, and ask him what was his name before
he was married, and what he would take to not do it,
and what was his sister s cat s grandmother s name,
and all the things that a crowd says when they ve got
hold of a feller that they see they can plague. Well,
some things they said was funny, yes, and mighty
witty too, I ain t denying that, but all the same it
warn t fair nor brave, all them people pitching on one,
and they so glib and sharp, and him without any gift
of talk to answer back v/ith. But, good land ! what
did he want to sass back for? You see, it couldn t do
him no good, and it was just nuts for them. They
had him, you know. But that was his way. I reckon
he couldn t help it; he was made so, I judge. He
was a good enough sort of cretur, and hadn t no harm
in him, and was just a genius, as the papers said, which
wasn t his fault. We can t all be sound: we ve got to
be the way we re made. As near as I can make out,
Tom Sawyer Abroad 21
geniuses think they know it all, and so they won t take
people s advice, but always go their own way, which
makes everybody forsake them and despise them, and
that is perfectly natural. If they was humbler, and
listened and tried to learn, it would be better for them.
The part the professor was in was like a boat, and
was big and roomy, and had water-tight lockers around
the inside to keep all sorts of things in, and a body
could sit on them, and make beds on them, too. We
went aboard, and there was twenty people there, snoop
ing around and examining, and old Nat Parsons was
there, too. The professor kept fussing around getting
ready, and the people went ashore, drifting out one at
a time, and old Nat he was the last. Of course it
wouldn t do to let him go out behind us. We mustn t
budge till he was gone, so we could be last ourselves.
But he was gone now, so it was time for us to follow.
I heard a big shout, and turned around the city was
dropping from under us like a shot ! It made me sick
all through, I was so scared. Jim turned gray and
couldn t say a w r ord, and Tom didn t say nothing, but
looked excited. The city went on dropping down,
and down, and down; but we didn t seem to be doing
nothing but just hang in the air and stand still. The
houses got smaller and smaller, and the city pulled
itself together, closer and closer, and the men and
wagons got to looking like ants and bugs crawling
around, and the streets like threads and cracks; and
then it all kind of melted together, and there wasn t
any city any more : it was only a big scar on the earth,
22 Tom Sawyer Abroad
and it seemed to me a body could see up the river and
down the river about a thousand miles, though of
course it wasn t so much. By and by the earth was a
ball just a round ball, of a dull color, with shiny
stripes wriggling and winding around over it, which
was rivers. The Widder Douglas always told me the
earth was round like a ball, but I never took any stock
in a lot of them superstitions o hers, and of course I
paid no attention to that one, because I could see my
self that the world was the shape of a plate, and flat.
I used to go up on the hill, and take a look around
and prove it for myself, because I reckon the best way
to get a sure thing on a fact is to go and examine for
yourself, and not take anybody s say-so. But I had to
give in now that the widder was right. That is, she
was right as to the rest of the world, but she warn t
right about the part our village is in ; that part is the
shape of a plate, and flat, I take my oath !
The professor had been quiet all this time, as if he
was asleep ; but he broke loose now, and he was mighty
bitter. He says something like this :
"Idiots! They said it wouldn t go; and they
wanted to examine it, and spy around and get the
secret of it out of me. But I beat them. Nobody
knows the secret but me. Nobody knows what makes
it move but me; and it s a new power a new power,
and a thousand times the strongest in the earth !
Steam s foolishness to it! They said I couldn t go to
Europe. To Europe ! Why, there s power aboard to
last five years, and feed for three months. They are
Tom Sawyer Abroad 23
fools! What do they know about it? Yes, and they
said my air-ship was flimsy. Why, she s good for
fifty years ! I can sail the skies all my life if I want
to, and steer where I please, though they laughed at
that, and said I couldn t. Couldn t steer ! Come
here, boy; we ll see. You press these buttons as I
tell you."
Ke made Tom steer the ship all about and every
which way, and learnt him the whole thing in nearly
no time; and Tom said it was perfectly easy. He
made him fetch the ship down most to the earth, and
had him spin her along so close to the Illinois prairies
that a body could talk to the farmers, and hear every
thing they said perfectly plain ; and he flung out
printed bills to them that told about the balloon, and
said it was going to Europe. Tom got so he could
steer straight for a tree till he got nearly to it, and then
dart up and skin right along over the top of it. Yes,
and he showed Tom how to land her ; and he done it
first-rate, too, and set her down in the prairies as soft
as wool. But the minute we started to skip out the
professor says, " No, you don t!" and shot her up in
the air again. It was awful. I begun to beg, and so
did Jim; but it only give his temper a rise, and he
begun to rage around and look wild out of his eyes,
and I was scared of him.
Well, then he got on to his troubles again, and
mourned and grumbled about the way he was treated,
and couldn t seem to git over it, and especially people s
saying his ship was flimsy. He scoffed at that, and at
24 Tom Sawyer Abroad
their saying she warn t simple and would be always
getting out of order. Get out of order ! That graveled
him; he said that she couldn t anymore get out of
order than the solar sister.
He got worse and worse, and I never see a person
take on so. It give me the cold shivers to see him,
and so it did Jim. By and by he got to yelling and
screaming, and then he swore the world shouldn t ever
have his secret at all now, it had treated him so mean.
He said he would sail his balloon around the globe just
to show what he could do, and then he would sink it in
the sea, and sink us all along with it, too. Well, it was
the awfulest fix to be in, and here was night coming
on !
He give us something to eat, and made us go to the
other end of the boat, and he laid down on a locker,
where he could boss all the works, and put his old
pepper-box revolver under his head, and said if any
body come fooling around there trying to land her, he
would kill him.
We set scrunched up together, and thought consider
able, but didn t say much only just a word once in a
while when a. body had to say something or bust, we
was so scared and worried. The night dragged along
slow and lonesome. We was pretty low down, and the
moonshine made everything soft and pretty, and the
farmhouses looked snug and homeful, and we could
hear the farm sounds, and wished we could be down
there ; but, laws ! we just slipped along over them like
a ghost, and never left a track.
Tom Sawyer Abroad 25
Away in the night, when all the sounds was late
sounds, and the air had a late feel, and a late smell,
too about a two-o clock feel, as near as I could make
out Tom said the professor was so quiet this time
he must be asleep, and we d better
" Better what?" I says in a whisper, and feeling sick
all over, because I knowed what he was thinking about.
"Better slip back there and tie him, and land the
ship," he says.
I says: * No, sir! Don t you budge, Tom Sawyer."
And Jim well, Jim was kind o gasping, he was so
scared. He says :
14 Oh, Mars Tom, don t! Ef you teches him, we s
gone we s gone sho ! I ain t gwine anear him, not
for nothin in dis worl . Mars Tom, he s plumb crazy.
Tom whispers and says: " That s why we ve got to
do something. If he wasn t crazy I wouldn t give
shucks to be anywhere but here; you couldn t hire me
to get out now that I ve got used to this balloon and
over the scare of being cut loose from the solid ground
- if he was in his right mind. But it s no good politics,
sailing around like this with, a person that s out of his
head, and says he s going round the world and then
drown us all. We ve got to do something, I tell you,
and do it before he wakes up, too, or we mayn t ever
get another chance. Come !"
But it made us turn cold and creepy just to think of
it, and we said we wouldn t budge. So Tom was for
slipping back there by himself to see if he couldn t get
at the steering-gear and land the ship. We begged and
26 Tom Sawyer Abroad
begged him not to, but it warn t no use; so he got
down on his hands and knees, and begun to crawl an
inch at a time, we a-holding our breath and watching.
After he got to the middle of the boat he crept slower
than ever, and it did seem like years to me. But at
last we see him get to the professor s head, and sort
of raise up soft and look a good spell in his face and
listen. Then we see him begin to inch along again
toward the professor s feet where the steering-buttons
was. Well, he got there all safe, and was reaching
slow and steady toward the buttons, but he knocked
down something that made a noise, and we see him
slump down flat an soft in the bottom, and lay still.
The professor stirred, and says, "What s that?" But
everybody kept dead still and quiet, and he begun to
mutter and mumble and nestle, like a person that s
going to wake up, and I thought I was going to die, I
was so worried and scared.
Then a cloud slid over the moon, and I most cried,
I was so glad. She buried herself deeper and deeper
into the cloud, and it got so dark we couldn t see Tom.
Then it began to sprinkle rain, and we could hear the
professor fussing at his ropes and things and abusing
the weather. We was afraid every minute he would
touch Tom, and then we would be goners, and no
help ; but Tom was already on his way back, and when
we felt his hands on our knees my breath stopped
sudden, and my heart fell down mongst my other works,
because I couldn t tell in the dark but it might be the
professor, which I thought it was.
Tom Sawyer Abroad 27
Dear ! I was so glad to have him back that I was
just as near happy as a person could be that was up in
the air that way with a deranged man. You can t land
a balloon in the dark, and so I hoped it would keep on
raining, for I didn t want Tom to go meddling any
more and make us so awful uncomfortable. Well, I
got my wish. It drizzled and drizzled along the rest
of the night, which wasn t long, though it did seem so ;
and at daybreak it cleared, and the world looked
mighty soft and gray and pretty, and the forests and
fields so good to see again, and the horses and cattle
standing sober and thinking. Next, the sun come a-
blazing up gay and splendid, and then we began to feel
rusty and stretchy, and first we knowed we was all
asleep.
CHAPTER III.
TOM EXPLAINS
WE went to sleep about four o clock, and woke up
about eight. The professor was setting back
there at his end, looking glum. He pitched us some
breakfast, but he told us not to come abaft the midship
compass. That was about the middle of the boat.
Well, when you are sharp-set, and you eat and satisfy
yourself, everything looks pretty different from what it
done before. It makes a body feel pretty near com
fortable, even when he is up in a balloon with a genius.
We got to talking together.
There was one thing that kept bothering me, and by
and by I says :
44 Tom, didn t we start east?"
44 Yes."
44 How fast have we been going?"
44 Well, you heard what the professor said when he
was raging round. Sometimes, he said, we was making
fifty miles an hour, sometimes ninety, sometimes a
hundred ; said that with a gale to help he could make
three hundred any time, and said if he wanted the gale,
and wanted it blowing the right direction, he only had
to go up higher or down lower to find it."
(28)
Tom Sawyer Abroad 29
" Well, then, it s just as I reckoned. The professor
lied."
"Why?"
"Because if we was going so fast we ought to be
past Illinois, oughtn t we?"
"Certainly."
"Well, we ain t."
" What s the reason we ain t?"
* I know by the color. We re right over Illinois
yet. And you can see for yourself that Indiana ain t
in sight."
" I wonder what s the matter with you, Huck. You
know by the color ?
"Yes, of course I do."
" What s the color got to do with it?"
" It s got everything to do with it. Illinois is green,
Indiana is pink. You show me any pink down here,
if you can. No, sir; it s green."
Indiana pink f Why, what a lie ! "
14 It ain t no lie; I ve seen it on the map, and it s
pink."
You never see a person so aggravated and disgusted.
He says:
"Well, if I was such a numbskull as you, Huck
Finn, I would jump over. Seen it on the map ! Huck
Finn, did you reckon the States was the same color
out-of-doors as they are on the map?"
" Tom Sawyer, what s a map for? Ain t it to learn
you facts?"
"Of course.
30 Tom Sawyer Abroad
41 Well, then, how s it going to do that if it tells lies?
That s what I want to know."
11 Shucks, you muggins! It don t tell lies."
"It don t, don t it?"
"No, it don t."
"All right, then; if it don t, there ain t no two
States the same color. You git around that, if you
can, Tom Sawyer."
He see I had him, and Jim see it too; and I tell
you, I felt pretty good, for Tom Sawyer was always a
hard person to git ahead of. Jim slapped his leg and
says:
"I tell you ! dat s smart, dat s right down smart.
Ain t no use, Mars Tom; he got you dis time, sho !"
He slapped his leg again, and says, * My Ian , but it
was smart one !"
I never felt so good in my life; and yet / didn t
know I was saying anything much till it was out. I
was just mooning along, perfectly careless, and not
expecting anything was going to happen, and never
thinking of such a thing at all, when, all of a sudden,
out it came. Why, it was just as much a surprise to
me as it was to any of them. It was just the same way
it is when a person is munching along on a hunk of
corn-pone, and not thinking about anything, and all of
a sudden bites into a di mond. Now all that he knows
first off is that it s some kind of gravel he s bit into;
but he don t find out it s a di mond till he gits it out
and brushes off the sand and crumbs and one thing or
another, and has a look at it, and then he s surprised
Tom Sawyer Abroad 31
and glad yes, and proud too; though when you
come to look the thing straight in the eye, he ain t
entitled to as much credit as he would a been if he d
been hunting di monds. You can see the difference
easy if you think it over. You see, an accident, that
way, ain t fairly as big a thing as a thing that s done
a-purpose. Anybody could find that di mond in that
corn-pone; but mind you, it s got to be somebody
that s got that kind of a corn-pone. That s where that
feller s credit comes in, you see; and that s where
mine comes in. I don t claim no great things I
don t reckon I could a* done it again but I done it
that time; that s all I claim. And I hadn t no more
idea I could do such a thing, and warn t any more
thinking about it or trying to, than you be this minute.
Why, I was just as ca m, a body couldn t be any
ca mer, and yet, all of a sudden, out it come. I ve
often thought of that time, and I can remember just
the way everything looked, same as if it was only last
week. I can see it all : beautiful rolling country with
woods and fields and lakes for hundreds and hundreds
of miles all around, and towns and villages scattered
everywheres under us, here and there and yonder; and
the professor mooning over a chart on his little table,
and Tom s cap flopping in the rigging where it was
hung up to dry. And one thing in particular was a
bird right alongside, not ten foot off, going our way
and trying to keep up, but losing ground all the time;
and a railroad train doing the same thing down there,
sliding among the trees and farms, and pouring out a
32 Tom Sawyer Abroad
long cloud of black smoke and now and then a little
puff of white ; and when the white was gone so long
you had almost forgot it, you would hear a little faint
toot, and that was the whistle. And we left the bird
and the train both behind, way behind, and done it
easy, too.
But Tom he was huffy, and said me and Jim was a
couple of ignorant blatherskites, and then he says:
" Suppose there s a brown calf and a big brown dog,
and an artist is making a picture of them. What is the
main thing that that artist has got to do? He has got
to paint them so you can tell them apart the minute
you look at them, hain t he? Of course. Well, then,
do you want him to go and paint both of them brown ?
Certainly you don t. He paints one of them blue,
and then you can t make no mistake. It s just the
same with the maps. That s why they make every
State a different color; it ain t to deceive you, it s to
keep you from deceiving yourself."
But I couldn t see no argument about that, and
neither could Jim. Jim shook his head, and says:
"Why, Mars Tom, if you knowed what chuckle-
heads dem painters is, you d wait a long time before
you d fetch one er dem in to back up a fac . I s
gwine to tell you, den you kin see for you self. I see
one of em a-paintin away, one day, down in ole
Hank Wilson s back lot, en I went down to see, en he
was paintin dat old brindle cow wid de near " horn
gone you knows de one I means. En I ast him
what he s paintin her for, en he say when he git her
Tom Sawyer Abroad 33
painted, de picture s wuth a hundred dollars. Mars
Tom, he could a got de cow fer fifteen, en I tole him
so. Well, sah, if you ll b lieve me, he jes shuck his
head, dat painter did, en went on a-dobbin . Bless
you, Mars Tom, dey don t know nothinV
Tom lost his temper. I notice a person most always
does that s got laid out in an argument. He told us to
shut up, and maybe we d feel better. Then he see a
town clock away off down yonder, and he took up the
glass and looked at it, and then looked at his silver
turnip, and then at the clock, and then at the turnip
again, and says:
That s funny ! That clock s near about an hour
fast."
So he put up his turnip. Then he see another clock,
and took a look, and it was an hour fast too. That
puzzled him.
"That s a mighty curious thing," he says. "I
don t understand it."
Then he took the glass and hunted up another clock,
and sure enough it was an hour fast too. Then his
eyes began to spread and his breath to come out kinder
gaspy like, and he says:
41 Ger-reat Scott, it s the longitude /"
I says, considerably scared :
14 Well, what s been and gone and happened now?"
"Why, the thing that s happened is that this old
bladder has slid over Illinois and Indiana and Ohio like
nothing, and this is the east end of Pennsylvania or
New York, or somewheres around there."
3**
34 Tom Sawyer Abroad
"Tom Sawyer, you don t mean it!"
"Yes, I do, and it s dead sure. We ve covered
about fifteen degrees of longitude since we left St.
Louis yesterday afternoon, and them clocks are right.
We ve come close on to eight hundred miles. *
I didn t believe it, but it made the cold streaks
trickle down my back just the same. In my experi
ence I knowed it wouldn t take much short of two
weeks to do it down the Mississippi on a raft.
Jim was working his mind and studying. Pretty
soon he says :
1 Mars Tom, did you say dem clocks uz right?"
"Yes, they re right."
" Ain t yo watch right, too?"
" She s right for St. Louis, but she s an hour wrong
for here."
* Mars Tom, is you tryin to let on dat de time ain t
de same every wheres?"
" No, it ain t the same every wheres, by a long
shot."
Jim looked distressed, and says:
" It grieves me to hear you talk like dat, Mars Tom;
I s right down ashamed to hear you talk like dat, arter
de way you s been raised. Yassir, it d break yo Aunt
Polly s heart to hear you."
Tom was astonished. He looked Jim over wonder
ing, and didn t say nothing, and Jim went on:
" Mars Tom, who put de people out yonder in St.
Louis? De Lord done it. Who put de people here
whar we is? De Lord done it. Ain dey bofe his
Tom Sawyer Abroad 35
children? Cose dey is. Well, den ! is he gwine to
s criminate twixt em?"
" Scriminate ! I never heard such ignorance. There
ain t no discriminating about it. When he makes you
and some more of his children black, and makes the
rest of us white, what do you call that?"
Jim see the p int. He was stuck. He couldn t
answer. Tom says :
" He does discriminate, you see, when he wants to;
but this case here ain t no discrimination of his, it s
man s. The Lord made the day, and he made the
night; but he didn t invent the hours, and he didn t
distribute them around. Man did that."
" Mars Tom, is dat so? Man done it?"
"Certainly."
"Who tole him he could?"
"Nobody. He never asked."
Jim studied a minute, and says:
"Well, dat do beat me. I wouldn t a* tuck no
sich resk. But some people ain t scared o nothin .
Dey bangs right ahead ; dey don t care what happens.
So den dey s allays an hour s diff unce every whah,
Mars Tom?"
"An hour? No! It s four minutes difference for
every degree of longitude, you know. Fifteen of em s
an hour, thirty of em s two hours, and so on. When
it s one clock Tuesday morning in England, it s eight
o clock the night before in New York."
Jim moved a little way along the locker, and you
could see he was insulted. He kept shaking his head
c**
36 Tom Sawyer Abroad
and muttering, and so I slid along to him and patted
him on the leg, and petted him up, and got him over
the worst of his feelings, and then he says:
44 Mars Tom talkin sich talk as dat ! Choosday in
one place en Monday in t other, bofe in the same day!
Huck, dis ain t no place to joke up here whah we is.
Two days in one day ! How you gwine to get two
days inter one day? Can t git two hours inter one
hour, kin you? Can t git two niggers inter one nigger
skin, kin you? Can t git two gallons of whisky inter a
one-gallon jug, kin you? No, sir, twould strain de
jug. Yes, en even den you couldn t, / don t believe.
Why, looky here, Huck, s posen de Choosday was
New Year s now den ! is you gwine to tell me it s
dis year in one place en las year in t other, bofe in de
identical same minute? It s de beatenest rubbage ! I
can t stan it I can t stan to hear tell bout it."
Then he begun to shiver and turn gray, and Tom
says:
44 Now what s the matter? What s the trouble?"
Jim could hardly speak, but he says :
" Mars Tom, you ain t jokin , en it s so ?"
44 No, I m not, and it is so."
Jim shivered again, and says:
4 Den dat Monday could be de las day, en dey
wouldn t be no las day in England, en de dead
wouldn t be called. We mustn t go over dah, Mars
Tom. Please git him to turn back; I wants to be
whah"
All of a sudden we see something, and all jumped
Tom Sawyer Abroad 37
up, and forgot everything and begun to gaze. Tom
says:
"Ain t that the " He catched his breath, then
says: * It is, sure as you live ! It s the ocean !"
That made me and Jim catch our breath, too. Then
we all stood petrified but happy, for none of us had
ever seen an ocean, or ever expected to. Tom kept
muttering:
" Atlantic Ocean Atlantic. Land, don t it sound
great ! And that s it and we are looking at it we !
Why, it s just too splendid to believe !"
Then we see a big bank of black smoke ; and when
we got nearer, it was a city and a monster she was,
too, with a thick fringe of ships around one edge; and
we wondered if it was New York, and begun to jaw
and dispute about it, and, first we knowed, it slid from
under us and went flying behind, and here we was, out
over the very ocean itself, and going like a cyclone.
Then we woke up, I tell you !
We made a break aft and raised a wail, and begun to
beg the professor to turn back and land us, but
he jerked out his pistol and motioned us back,
and we went, but nobody will ever know how bad we
felt.
The land was gone, all but a little streak, like a
snake, away off on the edge of the water, and down
under us was just ocean, ocean, ocean millions of
miles of it, heaving and pitching and squirming, and
white sprays blowing from the wave-tops, and only a
few ships in sight, wallowing around and laying over,
38 Tom Sawyer Abroad
first on one side and then on t other, and sticking their
bows under and then their sterns; and before long
there warn t no ships at all, and we had the sky and
the whole ocean all to ourselves, and the roomiest place
I ever see and the lonesomest.
CHAPTER IV.
STORM
AND it got lonesomer and lonesomer. There was
the big sky up there, empty and awful deep ; and
the ocean down there without a thing on it but just the
waves. All around us was a ring, where the sky and
the water come together; yes, a monstrous big ring it
was, and we right in the dead center of it plumb in
the center. We was racing along like a prairie fire, but
it never made any difference, we couldn t seem to git
past that center no way. I couldn t see that we ever
gained an inch on that ring. It made a body feel
creepy, it was so curious and unaccountable.
Well, everything was so awful still that we got to
talking in a very low voice, and kept on getting creepier
and lonesomer and less and less talky, till at last the
talk ran dry altogether, and we just set there and
* thunk," as Jim calls it, and never said a word the
longest time.
The professor never stirred till the sun was overhead,
then he stood up and put a kind of triangle to his eye,
and Tom said it was a sextant and he was taking the
sun to see whereabouts the balloon was. Then he
ciphered a little and looked in a book, and then he
(39)
40 Tom Sawyer Abroad
begun to carry on again. He said lots of wild things,
and, among others, he said he would keep up this
hundred-mile gait till the middle of to-morrow after
noon, and then he d land in London.
We said we would be humbly thankful.
He was turning away, but he whirled around when
we said that, and give us a long look of his blackest
kind one of the maliciousest and suspiciousest looks
I ever see. Then he says:
1 You want to leave me. Don t try to deny it."
We didn t know what to say, so we held in and
didn t say nothing at all.
He went aft and set down, but he couldn t seem to
git that thing out of his mind. Every now and then he
would rip out something about it, and try to make us
answer him, but we dasn t.
It got lonesomer and lonesomer right along, and it
did seem to me I couldn t stand it. It was still worse
when night begun to come on. By and by Tom
pinched me and whispers :
"Look!"
I took a glance aft, and see the professor taking a
whet out of a bottle. I didn t like the looks of that.
By and by he took another drink, and pretty soon he
begun to sing. It was dark now, and getting black
and stormy. He went on singing, wilder and wilder,
and the thunder begun to mutter, and the wind to
wheeze and moan among the ropes, and altogether it
was awful. It got so black we couldn t see him any
more, and wished we couldn t hear him, but we could.
Tom Sawyer Abroad 41
Then he got still; but he warn t still ten minutes till
we got suspicious, and wished he would start up his
noise again, so we could tell where he was. By and by
there was a flash of lightning, and we see him start to
get up, but he staggered and fell down. We heard
him scream out in the dark :
" They don t want to go to England. All right, I ll
change the course. They want to leave me. I know
they do. Well, they shall and now /
I most died when he said that. Then he was still
again still so long I couldn t bear it, and it did seem
to me the lightning wouldn t ever come again. But at
last there was a blessed flash, and there he was, on his
hands and knees crawling, and not four feet from us.
My, but his eyes was terrible ! He made a lunge for
Tom, and says, "Overboard you go!" but it was
already pitch-dark again, and I couldn t see whether
he got him or not, and Tom didn t make a sound.
There was another long, horrible wait; then there
was a flash, and I see Tom s head sink down outside
the boat and disappear. He was on the rope-ladder
that dangled down in the air from the gunnel. The
professor let off a shout and jumped for him, and
straight off it was pitch-dark again, and Jim groaned
out, " Po Mars Tom, he s a goner!" and made a
jump for the professor, but the professor warn t there.
Then we heard a couple of terrible screams, and then
another not so loud, and then another that was way
below, and you could only just hear it; and I heard
Jim say, " Po Mars Tom!"
42 Tom Sawyer Abroad
Then it was awful still, and I reckon a person could
a* counted four thousand before the next flash come.
When it come I see Jim on his knees, with his arms
on the locker and his face buried in them, and he was
crying. Before I could look over the edge it was all
dark again, and I was glad, because I didn t want to
see. But when the next flash come, I was watching,
and down there I see somebody a-swinging in the wind
on the ladder, and it was Tom !
"Come up!" I shouts; " come up, Tom !"
His voice was so weak, and the wind roared so, I
couldn t make out what he said, but I thought he asked
was the professor up there. I shouts:
" No, he s down in the ocean! Come up! Can
we help you?"
Of course, all this in the dark.
" Huck, who is you hollerin at?"
"rmhollerin at Tom."
" Oh, Huck, how kin you act so, when you know
po Mars Tom " Then he let off an awful scream,
and flung his head and his arms back and let off another
one, because there was a white glare just then, and he
had raised up his face just in time to see Tom s, as
white as snow, rise above the gunnel and look him right
in the eye. He thought it was Tom s ghost, you
see.
Tom clumb aboard, and when Jim found it was him,
and not his ghost, he hugged him, and called him all
sorts of loving names, and carried on like he was gone
crazy, he was so glad. Says I:
Tom Sawyer Abroad 4)
"What did you wait for, Tom? Why didn t you
come up at first?"
"I dasn t, Huck. I knowed somebody plunged
down past me, but I didn t know who it was in the
dark. It could a been you, it could a been Jim."
That was the way with Tom Sawyer always sound.
He warn t coming up till he knowed where the pro
fessor was.
The storm let go about this time with all its might ;
and it was dreadful the way the thunder boomed and
tore, and the lightning glared out, and the wind sung
and screamed in the rigging, and the rain come down.
One second you couldn t see your hand before you,
and the next you could count the threads in your coat-
sleeve, and see a whole wide desert of waves pitching
and tossing through a kind of veil of rain. A storm
like that is the loveliest thing there is, but it ain t at its
best when you are up in the sky and lost, and it s wet
and lonesome, and there s just been a death in the
family.
We set there huddled up in the bow, and talked low
about the poor professor; and everybody was sorry
for him, and sorry the world had made fun of him and
treated him so harsh, when he was doing the best he
could, and hadn t a friend nor nobody to encourage
him and keep him from brooding his mind away and
going deranged. There was plenty of clothes and
blankets and everything at the other end, but we
thought we d ruther take the rain than go meddling
back there.
CHAPTER V.
LAND
WE tried to make some plans, but we couldn t come
to no agreement. Me and Jim was for turning
around and going back home, but Tom allowed that
by the time daylight come, so we could see our way,
we would be so far toward England that we might as
well go there, and come back in a ship, and have the
glory of saying we done it.
About midnight the storm quit and the moon come
out and lit up the ocean, and we begun to feel com-
tortable and drowsy; so we stretched out on the
lockers and went to sleep, and never woke up again
till sun-up. The sea was sparkling like di monds, and
it was nice weather, and pretty soon our things was all
dry again.
We went aft to find some breakfast, and the first
thing we noticed was that there was a dim light burning
in a compass back there under a hood. Then Tom was
disturbed. He says:
"You know what that means, easy enough. It
means that somebody has got to stay on watch and
steer this thing the same as he would a ship, or she ll
(44)
Tom Sawyer Abroad 45
wander around and go wherever the wind wants her
to."
"Well," I says, "what s she been doing since
er since we had the accident?"
" Wandering," he says, kinder troubled " wander
ing, without any doubt. She s in a wind now that s
blowing her south of east. We don t know how long
that s been going on, either."
So then he p inted her east, and said he would hold
her there till we rousted out the breakfast. The pro-
fessor had laid in everything a body could want; he
couldn t a been better fixed. There wasn t no milk
for the coffee, but there was water, and everything
else you could want, and a charcoal stove and the
fixings for it, and pipes and cigars and matches ; and
wine and liquor, which warn t in our line; and books,
and maps, and charts, and an accordion; and furs,
and blankets, and no end of rubbish, like brass beads
and brass jewelry, which Tom said was a sure sign that
he had an idea of visiting among savages. There was
money, too. Yes, the professor was well enough fixed.
After breakfast Tom learned me and Jim how to
steer, and divided us all up into four-hour watches,
turn and turn about; and when his watch was out I
took his place, and he got out the professor s papers
and pens and wrote a letter home to his aunt Polly, tell
ing her everything that had happened to us, and dated
it "7/2 the Welkin, approaching England," and folded
it together and stuck it fast with a red wafer, and
directed it, and wrote above the direction, in big
46 Tom Sawyer Abroad
writing," From Tom Sawyer, the Erronort" and said
it would stump old Nat Parsons, the postmaster, when
it come along in the mail. I says:
" Tom Sawyer, this ain t no welkin; it s a balloon."
" Well, now, who said it was a welkin, smarty?"
" You ve wrote it on the letter, anyway."
"What of it? That don t mean that the balloon s
the welkin."
"Oh, I thought it did. Well, then, what is a
welkin?"
I see in a minute he was stuck. He raked and
scraped around in his mind, but he couldn t find noth
ing, so he had to say:
"/don t know, and nobody don t know. It s just
a word, and it s a mighty good word, too. There
ain t many that lays over it. I don t believe there s
any that does."
"Shucks!" I says. "But what does it mean?
that s the p int."
"/ don t know what it means, I tell you. It s a
word that people uses for for well, it s orna
mental. They don t put ruffles on a shirt to keep a
person warm, do they?"
" Course they don t."
" But they put them on, don t they?"
"Yes."
"All right, then; that letter I wrote is a shirt, and
the welkin s the ruffle on it."
I judged that that would gravel Jim, and it did.
"Now, Mars Tom, it ain t no use to talk like dat;
Tom Sawyer Abroad 47
en, moreover, it s sinful. You knows a letter ain t no
shirt, en dey ain t no ruffles on it, nuther. Dey ain t
no place to put em on; you can t put em on, and
dey wouldn t stay ef you did."
" Oh, do shut up, and wait till something s started
that you know something about."
"Why, Mars Tom, sholy you can t mean to say I
don t know about shirts, when, goodness knows, I s
toted home de washin ever sence "
" I tell you, this hasn t got anything to do with
shirts. I only "
" Why, Mars Tom, you said yo self dat a letter "
"Do you want to drive me crazy? Keep still. I
only used it as a metaphor."
That word kinder bricked us up for a minute. Then
Jim says rather timid, because he see Tom was get
ting pretty tetchy :
" Mars Tom, what is a metaphor?"
"A metaphor s a well, it s a a- a metaphor s
an illustration." He see that didn t git home, so he
tried again. "When I say birds of a feather flocks
together, it s a metaphorical way of saying "
"But dey don t, Mars Tom. No, sir, deed dey
don t. Dey ain t no feathers dat s more alike den a
bluebird en a jaybird, but ef you waits till you catches
dem birds together, you ll "
"Oh, give us a rest! You can t get the simplest
little thing through your thick skull. Now don t bother
me any more."
Jim was satisfied to stop. He was dreadful pleased
48 Tom Sawyer Abroad
with himself for catching Tom out. The minute Tom
begun to talk about birds I judged he was a goner,
because Jim knowed more about birds than both of us
put together. You see, he had killed hundreds and
hundreds of them, and that s the way to find out
about birds. That s the way people does that writes
books about birds, and loves them so that they ll
go hungry and tired and take any amount of trouble to
find a new bird and kill it. Their name is ornitholo-
gers, and I could have been an ornithologer myself,
because I always loved birds and creatures; and I
started out to learn how to be one, and I see a bird
setting on a limb of a high tree, singing with its head
tilted back and its mouth open, and before I thought I
fired, and his song stopped and he fell straight down
from the limb, all limp like a rag, and I run and picked
him up and he was dead, and his body was warm in my
hand, and his head rolled about this way and that, like
his neck was broke, and there was a little white skin
over his eyes, and one little drop of blood on the side
of his head; and, laws! I couldn t see nothing more
for the tears; and I hain t never murdered no creature
since that warn t doing me no harm, and I ain t going
to.
But I was aggravated about that welkin. I wanted
to know. I got the subject up again, and then Tom
explained, the best he could. He said when a person
made a big speech the newspapers said the shouts of
the people made the welkin ring. He said they always
said that, but none of them ever told what it was, so
Tom Sawyer Abroad 49
he allowed it just meant outdoors and up high. Well,
that seemed sensible enough, so I was satisfied, and
said so. That pleased Tom and put him in a good
humor again, and he says:
"Well, it s all right, then; and we ll let bygones
be bygones. I don t know for certain what a welkin
is, but when we land in London we ll make it ring,
anyway, and don t you forget it."
He said an erronort was a person who sailed around
in balloons ; and said it was a mighty sight finer to be
Tom Sawyer the Erronort than to be Tom Sawyer the
Traveler, and we would be heard of all round the
world, if we pulled through all right, and so he wouldn t
give shucks to be a traveler now.
Toward the middle of the afternoon we got every
thing ready to land, and we felt pretty good, too, and
proud ; and we kept watching with the glasses, like
Columbus discovering America. But we couldn t see
nothing but ocean. The afternoon wasted out and the
sun shut down, a nd still there warn t no land any
wheres. We wondered what was the matter, but
reckoned it would come out all right, so we went on
steering east, but went up on a higher level so we
wouldn t hit any steeples or mountains in the dark.
It was my watch till midnight, and then it was Jim s;
but Tom stayed up, because he said ship captains done
that when they was making the land, and didn t stand
no regular watch.
Well, when daylight come, Jim give a shout, and we
jumped up and looked over, and there was the land
4**
50 Tom Sawyer Abroad
sure enough land all around, as far as you could see,
and perfectly level and yaller. We didn t know how
long we d been over it. There warn t no trees, nor
hills, nor rocks, nor towns, and Tom and Jim had took
it for the sea. They took it for the sea in a dead
ca m; but we was so high up, anyway, that if it had
been the sea and rough, it would a looked smooth, all
the same, in the night, that way.
We was all in a powerful excitement now, and
grabbed the glasses and hunted everywheres for Lon
don, but couldn t find hair nor hide of it, nor any
other settlement nor any sign of a lake or a river,
either. Tom was clean beat. He said it warn t his
notion of England ; he thought England looked like
America, and always had that idea. So he said we
better have breakfast, and then drop down and inquire
the quickest way to London. We cut the breakfast
pretty short, we was so impatient. As we slanted
along down, the weather began to moderate, and
pretty soon we shed our furs. But it kept on moder
ating, and in a precious little while it was most too
moderate. We was close down now, and just blistering !
We settled down to within thirty foot of the land
that is, it was land if sand is land ; for this wasn t any
thing but pure sand. Tom and me clumb down the
ladder and took a run to stretch our legs, and it felt
amazing good that is, the stretching did, but the
sand scorched our feet like hot embers. Next, we see
somebody coming, and started to meet him ; but we
heard Jim shout, and looked around and he was fairly
Tom Sawyer Abroad 51
dancing, and making signs, and yelling. We couldn t
make out what he said, but we was scared anyway, and
begun to heel it back to the balloon. When we got
close enough, we understood the words, and they
made me sick:
" Run! Run fo yo life! Hit s a lion; I kin see
him thoo de glass! Run, boys; do please heel it de
bes you kin. He s bu sted outen de menagerie, en
dey ain t nobody to stop him!"
It made Tom fly, but it took the stiffening all out of
my legs. I could only just gasp along the way you do
in a dream when there s a ghost gaining on you.
Tom got to the ladder and shinned up it a piece and
waited for me ; and as soon as I got a foothold on it
he shouted to Jim to soar away. But Jim had clean
lost his head, and said he had forgot how. So Tom
shinned along up and told me to follow ; but the lion
was arriving, fetching a most ghastly roar with every
lope, and my legs shook so I dasn t try to take one of
them out of the rounds for fear the other one would
give way under me.
But Tom was aboard by this time, and he started the
balloon up a little, and stopped it again as soon as the
end of the ladder was ten or twelve feet above ground.
And there was the lion, a-ripping around under me,
and roaring and springing up in the air at the ladder,
and only missing it about a quarter of an inch, it
seemed to me. It was delicious to be out of his reach,
perfectly delicious, and made me feel good and thank
ful all up one side ; but I was hanging there helpless
D*
52 Tom Sawyer Abroad
and couldn t climb, and that made me feel perfectly
wretched and miserable all down the other. It is most
seldom that a person feels so mixed like that ; and it is
not to be recommended, either.
Tom asked me what he d better do, but I didn t
know. He asked me if I could hold on whilst he sailed
away to a safe place and left the lion behind. I said I
could if he didn t go no higher than he was now; but
if he went higher I would lose my head and fall, sure.
So he said, " Take a good grip," and he started.
"Don t go so fast," I shouted. "It makes my
head swim."
He had started like a lightning express. He slowed
down, and we glided over the sand slower, but still in
a kind of sickening way ; for it is uncomfortable to see
things sliding and gliding under you like that, and not
a sound.
But pretty soon there was plenty of sound, for the
lion was catching up. His noise fetched others. You
could see them coming on the lope from every direc
tion, and pretty soon there was a couple of dozen of
them under me, jumping up at the ladder and snarling
and snapping at each other ; and so we went skimming
along over the sand, and these fellers doing what they
could to help us to not forgit the occasion ; and then
some other beasts come, without an invite, and they
started a regular riot down there.
We see this plan was a mistake. We couldn t ever
git away from them at this gait, and I couldn t hold on
forever. So Tom took a think, and struck another
Tom Sawyer Abroad 53
idea. That was, to kill a lion with the pepper-box
revolver, and then sail away while the others stopped
to fight over the carcass. So he stopped the balloon
still, and done it, and then we sailed off while the fuss
was going on, and come down a quarter of a mile off,
and they helped me aboard ; but by the time we was
out of reach again, that gang was on hand once more.
And when they see we was really gone and they
couldn t get us, they sat down on their hams and
looked up at us so kind of disappointed that it was as
much as a person could do not to see their side of the
matter.
CHAPTER VI.
IT S A CARAVAN
I WAS so weak that the only thing I wanted was a
chance to lay down, so I made straight for my
locker-bunk, and stretched myself out there. But a
body couldn t get back his strength in no such oven as
that, so Tom give the command to soar, and Jim
started her aloft.
We had to go up a mile before we struck comfort
able weather where it was breezy and pleasant and just
right, and pretty soon I was all straight again. Tom
had been setting quiet and thinking; but now he jumps
up and says:
41 1 bet you a thousand to one / know where we are.
We re in the Great Sahara, as sure as guns !"
He was so excited he couldn t hold still; but I
wasn t. I says :
"Well, then, where s the Great Sahara? In Eng
land or in Scotland?"
" Tain t in either; it s in Africa."
Jim s eyes bugged out, and he begun to stare down
with no end of interest, because that was where his
originals come from; but I didn t more than half be-
(54)
Tom Sawyer Abroad 55
lieve it. I couldn t, you know; it seemed too awful
far away for us to have traveled.
But Tom was full of his discovery, as he called it,
and said the lions and the sand meant the Great Desert,
sure. He said he could a found out, before we
sighted land, that we was crowding the land some-
wheres, if he had thought of one thing; and when we
asked him what, he said :
These clocks, They re chronometers. You al
ways read about them in sea voyages. One of them
is keeping Grinnage time, and the other is keeping St.
Louis time, like my watch. When we left St. Louis it
was four in the afternoon by my watch and this clock,
and it was ten at night by this Grinnage clock. Well,
at this time of the year the sun sets at about seven
o clock. Now I noticed the time yesterday evening
when the sun went down, and it was half -past five
o clock by the Grinnage clock, and half past 1 1 A. M.
by my watch and the other clock. You see, the sun
rose and set by my watch in St. Louis, and the Grin
nage clock was six hours fast; but we ve come so far
east that it comes within less than half an hour of set
ting by the Grinnage clock now, and I m away out
more than four hours and a half out. You see, that
meant that we was closing up on the longitude of
Ireland, and would strike it before long if we was
p inted right which we wasn t. No, sir, we ve been
a-wandering wandering way down south of east, and
it s my opinion we are in Africa. Look at this map.
You see how the shoulder of Africa sticks out to the
56 Tom Sawyer Abroad
west. Think how fast we ve traveled ; if we had gone
straight east we would be long past England by this
time. You watch for noon, all of you, and we ll stand
up, and when we can t cast a shadow we ll find that
this Grinnage clock is coming mighty close to marking
twelve. Yes, sir, /think we re in Africa; and it s just
bully."
Jim was gazing down with the glass. He shook his
head and says :
" Mars Tom, I reckon dey s a mistake som er s. I
hain t seen no niggers yit."
"That s nothing; they don t live in the desert.
What is that, way off yonder? Gimme a glass."
He took a long look, and said it was like a black
string stretched across the sand, but he couldn t guess
what it was.
"Well," I says, "I reckon maybe you ve got a
chance now to find out whereabouts this balloon is,
because as like as not that is one of these lines here,
that s on the map, that you call meridians of longi
tude, and we can drop down and look at its number,
and--"
" Oh, shucks, Huck Finn, I never see such a lunk
head as you. Did you s pose there s meridians of
longitude on the earth ?"
"Tom Sawyer, they re set down on the map, and
you know it perfectly well, and here they are, and you
can see for yourself."
44 Of course they re on the map, but that s nothing;
there ain t any on the ground."
Tom Sawyer Abroad 57
" Tom, do you know that to be so?"
"Certainly I do."
"Well, then, that map s a liar again. I never see
such a liar as that map."
He fired up at that, and I was ready for him, and
Jim was warming his opinion, too, and next minute
we d a broke loose on another argument, if Tom
hadn t dropped the glass and begun to clap his hands
like a maniac and sing out :
"Camels! Camels!"
So I grabbed a glass and Jim, too, and took a look,
but I was disappointed, and says:
11 Camels your granny; they re spiders."
"Spiders in a desert, you shad? Spiders walking
in a procession? You don t ever reflect, Huck Finn,
and I reckon you really haven t got anything to
reflect with. Don t you know we re as much as a
mile up in the air, and that that string of crawlers is
two or three miles away? Spiders, good land ! Spiders
as big as a cow? Perhaps you d like to go down
and milk one of em. But they re camels, just the
same. It s a caravan, that s what it is, and it s a mile
long."
"Well, then, let s go down and look at it. I
don t believe in it, and ain t going to till I see it and
know it."
"All right," he says, and give the command:
" Lower away."
As we come slanting down into the hot weather, we
could see that it was camels, sure enough, plodding
58 Tom Sawyer Abroad
along, an everlasting string of them, with bales strapped
to them, and several hundred men in long white robes,
and a thing like a shawl bound over their heads and
hanging down with tassels and fringes ; and some of
the men had long guns and some hadn t, and some
was riding and some was walking. And the weather
well, it was just roasting. And how slow they did
creep along! We swooped down now, all of a
sudden, and stopped about a hundred yards over their
heads.
The men all set up a yell, and some of them fell flat
on their stomachs, some begun to fire their guns at us,
and the rest broke and scampered every which way,
and so did the camels.
We see that we was making trouble, so we went up
again about a mile, to the cool weather, and watched
them from there. It took them an hour to get together
and form the procession again ; then they started along,
but we could see by the glasses that they wasn t pay
ing much attention to anything but us. We poked
along, looking down at them with the glasses, and by
and by we see a big sand mound, and something like
people the other side of it, and there was something
like a man laying on top of the mound that raised his
head up every now and then, and seemed to be watch
ing the caravan or us, we didn t know which. As the
caravan got nearer, he sneaked down on the other side
and rushed to the other men and horses for that is
what they was and we see them mount in a hurry;
and next, here they come, like a house afire, some with
Tom Sawyer Abroad 59
lances and some with long guns, and all of them yell
ing the best they could.
They come a-tearing down on to the caravan, and the
next minute both sides crashed together and was all
mixed up, and there was such another popping of guns
as you never heard, and the air got so full of smoke
you could only catch glimpses of them struggling
together. There must a been six hundred men in
that battle, and it was terrible to see. Then they
broke up into gangs and groups, fighting tooth and
nail, and scurrying and scampering around, and laying
into each other like everything; and whenever the
smoke cleared a little you could see dead and wounded
people and camels scattered far and wide and all about,
and camels racing off in every direction.
At last the robbers see they couldn t win, so their
chief sounded a signal, and all that was left of them
broke away and went scampering across the plain.
The last man to go snatched up a child and carried it
off in front of him on his horse, and a woman run
screaming and begging after him, and followed him
away off across the plain till she was separated a long
ways from her people; but it warn t no use, and she
had to give it up, and we see her sink down on the
sand and cover her face with her hands. Then Tom
took the helium, and started for that yahoo, and we
come a-whizzing down and made a swoop, and knocked
him out of the saddle, child and all; and he was jarred
considerable, but the child wasn t hurt, but laid there
working its hands and legs in the air like a tumble-bug
60 Tom Sawyer Abroad
that s on its back and can t turn over. The man went
staggering off to overtake his horse, and didn t know
what had hit him, for we was three or four hundred
yards up in the air by this time.
We judged the woman would go and get the child
now; but she didn t. We could see her, through the
glass, still setting there, with her head bowed down on
her knees; so of course she hadn t seen the perform
ance, and thought her child was clean gone with the
man. She was nearly a half a mile from her people,
so we thought we might go down to the child, which
was about a quarter of a mile beyond her, and snake
it to her before the caravan people could git to us to
do us any harm ; and besides, we reckoned they had
enough business on their hands for one while, anyway,
with the wounded. We thought we d chance it, and
we did. We swooped down and stopped, and Jim
shinned down the ladder and fetched up the kid, which
was a nice fat little thing, and in a noble good humor,
too, considering it was just out of a battle and been
tumbled off of a horse ; and then we started for the
mother, and stopped back of her and tolerable near
by, and Jim slipped down and crept up easy, and when
he was close back of her the child goo-goo d, the way
a child does, and she heard it, and whirled and fetched
a shriek of joy, and made a jump for the kid and
snatched it and hugged it, and dropped it and hugged
Jim, and then snatched off a gold chain and hung it
around Jim s neck,- and hugged him again, and jerked
up the child again, a-sobbing and glorifying all the
Tom Sawyer Abroad 61
time ; and Jim he shoved for the ladder and up it, and
in a minute we was back up in the sky and the woman
was staring up, with the back of her head between her
shoulders and the child with its arms locked around
her neck. And there she stood, as long as we was in
sight a-sailing away in the skv.
CHAPTER VII.
TOM RESPECTS THE FLEA
\ |OON!" says Tom, and so it was. His shadder
1 ^" was just a blot around his feet. We looked,
and the Grinnage clock was so close to twelve the
difference didn t amount to nothing. So Tom said
London was right north of us or right south of us, one
or t other, and he reckoned by the weather and the
sand and the camels it was north ; and a good many
miles north, too ; as many as from New York to the
city of Mexico, he guessed.
Jim said he reckoned a balloon was a good deal the
fastest thing in the world, unless it might be some
kinds of birds a wild pigeon, maybe, or a railroad.
But Tom said he had read about railroads in England
going nearly a hundred miles an hour for a little ways,
and there never was a bird in the world that could do
that except one, and that was a flea.
"A flea? Why, Mars Tom, in de fust place he
ain t a bird, strickly speakin "
" He ain t a bird, eh? Well, then, what is he?"
" I don t rightly know, Mars Tom, but I speck he s
only jist a animal. No, I reckon dat won t do, nuther,
(62)
Tom Sawyer Abroad 63
he ain t big enough for a animal. He mus be a bug.
Yassir, dat s what he is, he s a bug."
" I bet he ain t, but let it go. What s your second
place?"
" Well, in de second place, birds is creturs dat goes
a long ways, but a flea don t."
" He don t, don t he? Come, now, what is a long
distance, if you know?"
* Why, it s miles, and lots of em anybody knows
dat."
11 Can t a man walk miles?"
"Yassir, he kin."
" As many as a railroad?"
* Yassir, if you give him time."
"Can t a flea?"
"Well I s pose so ef you gives him heaps of
time."
"Now you begin to see, don t you, that distance
ain t the thing to judge by, at all; it s the time it takes
to go the distance /;/ that counts, ain t it?"
"Well, hit do look sorter so, but I wouldn t a
b lieved it, Mars Tom."
" It s a matter of proportion, that s what it is; and
when you come to gauge a thing s speed by its size,
where s your bird and your man and your railroad,
alongside of a flea? The fastest man can t run more
than about ten miles in an hour not much over ten
thousand times his own length. But all the books says
any common ordinary third-class flea can jump a hun
dred and fifty times his own length ; yes, and he can
5
Tom Sawyer Abroad
make five jumps a second too seven hundred and
fifty times his own length, in one little second for he
don t fool away any time stopping and starting he
does them both at the same time; you ll see, if you
try to put your finger on him. Now that s a common,
ordinary, third-class flea s gait; but you take an Eye-
talian^r^/-class, that s been the pet of the nobility all
his life, and hasn t ever knowed what want or sickness
or exposure was, and he can jump more than three
hundred times his own length, and keep it up all clay,
five such jumps every second, which is fifteen hundred
times his own length. Well, suppose a man could go
fifteen hundred times his own length in a second say,
a mile and a half. It s ninety miles a minute; it s
considerable more than five thousand miles an hour.
Where s your man noiv ? yes, and your bird, and
your railroad, and your balloon? Laws, they don t
amount to shucks longside of a flea. A flea is just
a comet b iled down small."
Jim was a good deal astonished, and so was I. Jim
said :
11 Is dem figgers jist edjackly true, en no jokin en
no lies, Mars Tcm?"
"Yes, they are; they re perfectly true."
" Well, den, honey, a body s got to respec a flea.
I ain t had no respec for um befo , sca sely, but dey
ain t no gittin roun it, dey do deserve it, dat s
certain."
"Well, I bet they do. They ve got ever so much
more sense, and brains, and brightness, in proportion
Tom Sawyer Abroad 65
to their size, than any other cretur in the world. A
person can learn them most anything; and they learn
it quicker than any other cretur, too. They ve been
learnt to haul little carriages in harness, and go this
way and that way and t other way according to their
orders; yes, and to march and drill like soldiers, doing
it as exact, according to orders, as soldiers does it.
They ve been learnt to do all sorts of hard and
troublesome things. S pose you could cultivate a flea
up to the size of a man, and keep his natural
smartness a-growing and a-growing right along up,
bigger and bigger, and keener and keener, in the same
proportion where d the human race be, do you
reckon? That flea would be President of the United
States, and you couldn t any more prevent it than you
can prevent lightning."
" My Ian , Mars Tom, I never knowed dey was so
much to de beas . No, sir, I never had no idea of it,
and dat s de fac ."
" There s more to him, by a long sight, than there
is to any other cretur, man or beast, in proportion to
size. He s the interestingest of them all. People have
so much to say about an ant s strength, and an ele
phant s, and a locomotive s. Shucks, they don t begin
with a flea. He can lift two or three hundred times his
own weight. And none of them can come anywhere
near it. And, moreover, he has got notions of his
own, and is very particular, and you can t fool him;
his instinct, or his judgment, or whatever it is, is per
fectly sound and clear, and don t ever make a mistake.
5**
66 Tom Sawyer Abroad
People think all humans are alike to a flea. It ain t
so. There s folks that he won t go near, hungry or
not hungry, and I m one of them. I ve never had one
of them on me in my life."
"Mars Tom!"
"It s so; I ain t joking."
44 Well, sah, I hain t ever heard de likes o datbefo ."
Jim couldn t believe it, and I couldn t; so we had to
drop down to the sand and git a supply and see. Tom
was right. They went for me and Jim by the thou
sand, but not a one of them lit on Tom. There warn t
no explaining it, but there it was and there warn t no
getting around it. He said it had always been just so,
and he d just as soon be where there was a million of
them as not; they d never touch him nor bother
him.
We went up to the cold weather to freeze em out,
and stayed a little spell, and then come back to the
comfortable weather and went lazying along twenty or
twenty-five miles an hour, the way we d been doing for
the last few hours. The reason was, that the longer
we was in that solemn, peaceful desert, the more the
hurry and fuss got kind of soothed down in us, and
the more happier and contented and satisfied we got to
feeling, and the more we got to liking the desert, and
then loving it. So we had cramped the speed down,
as I was saying, and was having a most noble good
lazy time, sometimes watching through the glasses,
sometimes stretched out on the lockers reading, some
times taking a nap.
Tom Sawyer Abroad 67
It didn t seem like we was the same lot that was in
such a state to find land and git ashore, but it was.
But we had got over that clean over it. We was
used to the balloon now and not afraid any more, and
didn t want to be anywheres else. Why, it seemed
just like home; it most seemed as if I had been born
and raised in it, and Jim and Tom said the same. And
always I had had hateful people around me, a-nagging
at me, and pestering of me, and scolding, and finding
fault, and fussing and bothering, and sticking to me,
and keeping after me, and making me do this, and
making me do that and t other, and always selecting
out the things I didn t want to do, and then giving me
Sam Hill because I shirked and done something else,
and just aggravating the life out of a body all the time ;
but up here in the sky it was so still and sunshiny and
lovely, and plenty to eat, and plenty of sleep, and
strange things to see, and no nagging and no pester
ing, and no good people, and just holiday all the time.
Land, I warn t in no hurry to git out and buck at
civilization again. Now, one of the worst things about
civilization is, that anybody that gits a letter with
trouble in it comes and tells you all about it and makes
you feel bad, and the newspapers fetches you the
troubles of everybody all over the world, and keeps
you downhearted and dismal most all the time, and
it s such a heavy load for a person. I hate them
newspapers ; and I hate letters ; and if I had my way
I wouldn t allow nobody to load his troubles on to
other folks he ain t acquainted with, on t other side of
68 Tom Sawyer Abroad
the world, that way. Well, up in a balloon there ain t
any of that, and it s the darlingest place there is.
We had supper, and that night was one of the
prettiest nights I ever see. The moon made it just
like daylight, only a heap softer ; and once we see a
lion standing all alone by himself, just all alone on the
earth, it seemed like, and his shadder laid on the sand
by him like a puddle of ink. That s the kind of moon
light to have.
Mainly we laid on our backs and talked; we didn t
want to go to sleep. Tom said we was right in the
midst of the Arabian Nights now. He said it was right
along here that one of the cutest things in that book
happened ; so we looked down and watched while he
told about it, because there ain t anything that is so
interesting to look at as a place that a book has talked
about. It was a tale about a camel-driver that had lost
his camel, and he come along in the desert and met a
man, and says :
" Have you run across a stray camel to-day?"
And the man says :
" Was he blind in his left eye?"
"Yes."
" Had he lost an upper front tooth?"
"Yes."
4 Was his off hind leg lame?"
"Yes."
"Was he loaded with millet-seed on one side and
honey on the other?"
"Yes, but you needn t go into no more details
Tom Sawyer Abroad 69
that s the one, and I m in a hurry. Where did you
see him?"
" I hain t seen him at all," the man says.
" Hain t seen him at all? How can you describe
him so close, then?"
" Because when a person knows how to use his eyes,
everything has got a meaning to it; but most people s
eyes ain t any good to them. I knowed a camel had
been along, because I seen his track. I knowed he
was lame in his off hind leg because he had favored
that foot and trod light on it, and his track showed it.
I knowed he was blind on his left side because he only
nibbled the grass on the right side of the trail. I
knowed he had lost an upper front tooth because where
he bit into the sod his teeth-print showed it. The
millet-seed sifted out on one side the ants told me
that; the honey leaked out on the other the flies
told me that. I know all about your camel, but I
hain t seen him."
Jim says :
" Go on, Mars Tom, hit s a mighty good tale, and
powerful interestin ."
"That s all," Tom says.
"All?" says Jim, astonished. "What come o
de camel?"
"I don t know."
" Mars Tom, don t de tale say?"
"No."
Jim puzzled a minute, then he says:
" Well ! Ef dat ain t de beatenes tale ever / struck.
70 Tom Sawyer Abroad
Jist gits to de place whah de intrust is gittin red-hot,
en down she breaks. Why, Mars Tom, dey ain t no
sense in a tale dat acts like dat. Hain t you got no
idea whether de man got de camel back er not?"
"No, I haven t."
I see myself there warn t no sense in the tale, to
chop square off that way before it come to anything,
but I warn t going to say so, because I could see Tom
was souring up pretty fast over the way it flatted out
and the way Jim had popped on to the weak place in
it, and I don t think it s fair for everybody to pile on
to a feller when he s down. But Tom he whirls on
me and says:
" What foyou think of the tale?"
Of course, then, I had to come out and make a clean
breast and say it did seem to me, too, same as it did
to Jim, that as long as the tale stopped square in the
middle and never got to no place, it really warn t
worth the trouble of telling.
Tom s chin dropped on his breast, and stead of
being mad, as I reckoned he d be, to hear me scoff at
his tale that way, he seemed to be only sad ; and he
says:
"Some people can see, and some can t just as
that man said. Let alone a camel, if a cyclone had
gone by, you duffers wouldn t a noticed the
track."
I don t know what he meant by that, and he didn t
say; it was just one of his irrulevances, I reckon he
was full of them, sometimes, when he was in a close
Tom Sawyer Abroad 71
place and couldn t see no other way out but I didn t
mind. We d spotted the soft place in that tale sharp
enough, he couldn t git away from that little fact. It
graveled him like the nation, too, I reckon, much as
he tried not to let on.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE DISAPPEARING LAKE
WE had an early breakfast in the morning, and set
looking down on the desert, and the weather
was ever so bammy and lovely, although we warn t
high up. You have to come down lower and lower
after sundown in the desert, because it cools off so
fast; and so, by the time it is getting toward dawn,
you are skimming along only a little ways above the
sand.
We was watching the shadder of the balloon slide
along the ground, and now and then gazing off across
the desert to see if anything was stirring, and then
down on the shadder again, when all of a sudden
almost right under us we see a lot of men and camels
laying scattered about, perfectly quiet, like they was
asleep.
We shut off the power, and backed up and stood
over them, and then we see that they was all dead. It
give us the cold shivers. And it made us hush down,
too, and talk low, like people at a funeral. We
dropped down slow and stopped, and me and Tom
dumb down and went among them. There was men,
(72)
Tom Sawyer Abroad 73
and women^ and children. They was dried by the sun
and dark and shriveled and leathery, like the pictures
of mummies you see in books. And yet they looked
just as human, you wouldn t a believed it; just like
they was asleep.
Some of the people and animals was partly covered
with sand, but most of them not, for the sand was
thin there, and the bed was gravel and hard. Most
of the clothes had rotted away ; and when you took
hold of a rag, it tore with a touch, like spider-
web. Tom reckoned they had been laying there for
years.
Some of the men had rusty guns by them, some had
swords on and had shawl belts with long, silver-
mounted pistols stuck in them. All the camels had
their loads on yet, but the packs had busted or rotted
and spilt the freight out on the ground. We didn t
reckon the swords was any good to the dead people
any more, so we took one apiece, and some pistols.
We took a small box, too, because it was so handsome
and inlaid so fine ; and then we wanted to bury the
people ; but there warn t no way to do it that we could
think of, and nothing to do it with but sand, and that
would blow away again, of course.
Then we mounted high and sailed away, and pretty
soon that black spot on the sand was out of sight, and
we wouldn t ever see them poor people again in this
world. We wondered, and reasoned, and tried to
guess how they come to be there, and how it all hap
pened to them, but we couldn t make it out. First we
74 Tom Sawyer Abroad
thought maybe they got lost, and wandered around and
about till their food and water give out and they
starved to death ; but Tom said no wild animals nor
vultures hadn t meddled with them, and so that guess
wouldn t do. So at last we give it up, and judged we
wouldn t think about it no more, because it made us
low-spirited.
Then we opened the box, and it had gems and jewels
in it, quite a pile, and some little veils of the kind the
dead women had on, with fringes made out of curious
gold money that we warn t acquainted with. We
wondered if we better go and try to find them again
and give it back ; but Tom thought it over and said
no, it was a country that was full of robbers, and they
would come and steal it; and then the sin would be on
us for putting the temptation in their way. So we
went on; but I wished we had took all they had, so
there wouldn t a been no temptation at all left.
We had had two hours of that blazing weather down
there, and was dreadful thirsty when we got aboard
again. We went straight for the water, but it was
spoiled and bitter, besides being pretty near hot enough
to scald your mouth. We couldn t drink it. It was
Mississippi river water, the best in the world, and we
stirred up the mud in it to see if that would help, but
no, the mud wasn t any better than the water.
Well, we hadn t been so very, very thirsty before,
while we was interested in the lost people, but we was
now, and as soon as we found we couldn t have a
drink, we was more than thirty-five times as thirsty as
Tom Sawyer Abroad 75
we was a quarter of a minute before. Why, in a little
while we wanted to hold our mouths open and pant
like a dog.
Tom said to keep a sharp lookout, all around, every-
wheres, because we d got to find an oasis or there
warn t no telling what would happen. So we done it.
We kept the glasses gliding around all the time, till our
arms got so tired we couldn t hold them any more.
Two hours three hours just gazing and gazing,
and nothing but sand, sand, sand, and you could see
the quivering heat-shimmer playing over it. Dear,
dear, a body don t know what real misery is till he is
thirsty all the way through and is certain he ain t ever
going to come to any water any more. At last I
couldn t stand it to look around on them baking plains;
I laid down on the locker, and give it up.
But by and by Tom raised a whoop, and there she
was ! A lake, wide and shiny, with pa m-trees leaning
over it asleep, and their shadders in the water just as
soft and delicate as ever you see. I never see anything
look so good. It was a long ways off, but that
warn t anything to us; we just slapped on a hundred-
mile gait, and calculated to be there in seven minutes ;
but she stayed the same old distance away, all the
time; we couldn t seem to gain on her; yes, sir, just as
far, and shiny, and like a dream; but we couldn t get
no nearer; and at last, all of a sudden, she was gone!
Tom s eyes took a spread, and he says:
"Boys, it was a Bridge!" Said it like he was
glad. I didn t see nothing to be glad about. I says:
76 Tom Sawyer Abroad
11 Maybe. I don t care nothing about its name, the
thing I want to know is, what s become of it?"
Jim was trembling all over, and so scared he couldn t
speak, but he wanted to ask that question himself if he
could a done it. Tom says:
"What s become of it? Why, you see yourself it s
gone."
" Yes, I know; but where s it gone to ? "
He looked me over and says :
"Well, now, Huck Finn, where would it go to!
Don t you know what a myridge is?"
"No, I don t. What is it?"
" It ain t anything but imagination. There ain t
anything to it."
It warmed me up a little to hear him talk like that,
and I says :
11 What s the use you talking that kind of stuff, Tom
Sawyer? Didn t I see the lake?"
Yes you think you did."
" I don t think nothing about it, I did see it."
"I tell you you didri 7 see it either because it
warn t there to see."
It astonished Jim to hear him talk so, and he broke
in and says, kind of pleading and distressed :
" Mars Tom, please don t say sich things in sich an
awful time as dis. You ain t only reskin yo own
self, but you s reskin us same way like Anna Nias
en Siffira. De lake wuz dah I seen it jis as plain
as I sees you en Huck dis minute."
I says:
Tom Sawyer Abroad 77
" Why, he seen it himself! He was the very one
that seen it first. Now, then !"
" Yes, Mars Tom, hit s so you can t deny it. We
all seen it, en dat prove it was dah."
" Proves it! How does it prove it?"
"Same way it does in de courts en everywheres,
Mars Tom. One pusson might be drunk, or dreamy
or suthin , en he could be mistaken; en two might,
maybe; but I tell you, sah, when three sees a thing,
drunk er sober, it s so. Dey ain t no gittin aroun
dat, en you knows it, Mars Tom."
" I don t know nothing of the kind. There used to
be forty thousand million people that seen the sun
move from one side of the sky to the other every day.
Did that prove that the sun done it?"
41 Course it did. En besides, dey warn t no casion
to prove it. A body at s got any sense ain t gwine to
doubt it. Dah she is now a sailin thoo de sky,
like she allays done."
Tom turned on me, then, and says:
" What &v you say is the sun standing still?"
Tom Sawyer, what s the use to ask such a jackass
question? Anybody that ain t blind can see it don t
stand still."
"Well," he says, "I m lost in the sky with no
company but a passel of low-down animals that don t
know no more than the head boss of a university did
three or four hundred years ago."
It warn t fair play, and I let him know it. I
says:
78 Tom Sawyer Abroad
11 Throwin mud ain t arguin , Tom Sawyer."
14 Oh, my goodness, oh, my goodness gracious,
dah s de lake agi n!" yelled Jim, just then. "Now,
Mars Tom, what you gwine to say?"
Yes, sir, there was the lake again, away yonder
across the desert, perfectly plain, trees and all, just
the same as it was before. I says:
44 1 reckon you re satisfied now, Tom Sawyer."
But he says, perfectly ca m:
44 Yes, satisfied there ain t no lake there."
Jim says:
"Don t talk so, Mars Tom it sk yers me to hear
you. It s so hot, en you s so thirsty, dat you ain t in
yo right mine, Mars Tom. Oh, but don t she look
good! clah I doan know how I s gwine to wait tell
we gits dah, I s so thirsty."
14 Well., you ll have to wait; and it won t do you no
good, either, because there ain t no lake there, I tell
you."
I says :
44 Jim, don t you take your eye off of it, and I
won t, either."
44 Deed I won t; en bless you, honey, I couldn t ef
I wanted to."
We went a-tearing along toward it, piling the miles
behind us like nothing, but never gaining an inch on it
and all of a sudden it was gone again ! Jim stag
gered, and most fell down. When he got his breath
he says, gasping like a fish :
4 Mars Tom, hit s a ghos\ dat s what it is, en I
Tom Sawyer Abroad 79
hopes to goodness we ain t gwine to see it no mo .
Dey s been a lake, en suthin s happened, en de lake s
dead, en we s seen its ghos ; we s seen it twiste, en
dat s proof. De desert s ha nted, it s ha nted, sho;
oh, Mars Tom, le s git outen it; I d ruther die den
have de night ketch us in it ag in en de ghos er dat
lake come a-mournin aroun us en we asleep en doan
know de danger we s in."
" Ghost, you gander! It ain t anything but air and
heat and thirstiness pasted together by a person s
imagination. If I gimme the glass !"
He grabbed it and begun to gaze off to the right.
"It s a flock of birds," he says. "It s getting
toward sundown, and they re making a bee-line across
our track for somewheres. They mean business
maybe they re going for food or water, or both. Let
her go to starboard ! Port your helium ! Hard down !
There ease up steady, as you go."
We shut down some of the power, so as not to out-
speed them, and took out after them. We went skim
ming along a quarter of a mile behind them, and when
we had followed them an hour and a half and was get
ting pretty discouraged, and was thirsty clean to
unendurableness, Tom says:
1 Take the glass, one of you, and see what that is,
away ahead of the birds."
Jim got the first glimpse, and slumped down on the
locker sick. He was most crying, and says :
11 She s dah ag in, Mars Tom, she s dah ag in, en I
knows I s gwine to die, case when a body sees a ghos
80 Tom Sawyer Abroad
de third time, dat s what it means. I wisht I d never
come in dis balloon, dat I does."
He wouldn t look no more, and what he said made
me afraid, too, because I knowed it was true, for that
has always been the way with ghosts; so then I
wouldn t look any more, either. Both of us begged
Tom to turn off and go some other way, but he
wouldn t, and said we was ignorant superstitious
blatherskites. Yes, and he ll git come up with, one
of these days, I says to myself, insulting ghosts that
way. They ll stand it for a while, maybe, but they
won t stand it always, for anybody that knows about
ghosts knows how easy they are hurt, and how revenge
ful they are.
So we was all quiet and still, Jim and me being
scared, and Tom busy. By and by Tom fetched the
balloon to a standstill, and says:
" Now get up and look, you sapheads."
We done it, and there was the sure-enough water
right under us! clear, and blue, and cool, and deep,
and wavy with the breeze, the loveliest sight that ever
was. And all about it was grassy banks, and flowers,
and shady groves of big trees, looped together with
vines, and all looking so peaceful and comfortable
enough to make a body cry, it was so beautiful.
Jim did cry, and rip and dance and carry on, he was
so thankful and out of his mind for joy. It was my
watch, so I had to stay by the works, but Tom and
Jim clumb down and drunk a barrel apiece, and
fetched me up a lot, and I ve tasted a many a good
Tom Sawyer Abroad 81
thing in my life, but nothing that ever begun with that
water.
Then we went down and had a swim, and then Tom
came up and spelled me, and me and Jim had a swim,
and then Jim spelled Tom, and me and Tom had a
foot-race and a boxing-mill, and I don t reckon I ever
had such a good time in my life. It warn t so very
hot, because it was close on to evening, and we hadn t
any clothes on, anyway. Clothes is well enough in
school, and in towns, and at balls, too, but there ain t
no sense in them when there ain t no civilization nor
other kinds of bothers and fussiness around.
"Lions a-comin ! lions! Quick, Mars Tom!
Jump for yo life, Huck!"
Oh, and didn t we ! We never stopped for clothes,
but waltzed up the ladder just so. Jim lost his head
straight off he always done it whenever he got ex
cited and scared; and so now, stead of just easing the
ladder up from the ground a little, so the animals
couldn t reach it, he turned on a raft of power, and we
went whizzing up and was dangling in the sky before
he got his wits together and seen what a foolish thing
he was doing. Then he stopped her, but he had clean
forgot what to do next; so there we was, so high that
the lions looked like pups, and we was drifting off on
the wind.
But Tom he shinned up and went for the works and
begun to slant her down, and back toward the lake,
where the animals was gathering like a camp-meeting,
and I judged he had lost his head, too; for he knowed
82 Tom Sawyer Abroad
I was too scared to climb, and did he want to dump
me among the tigers and things?
But no, his head was level, he knowed what he was
about. He swooped down to within thirty or forty
feet of the lake, and stopped right over the center, and
sung out:
44 Leggo, and drop !"
I done it, and shot down, feet first, and seemed to
go about a mile toward the bottom ; and when I come
up, he says:
44 Now lay on your back and float till you re rested
and got your pluck back, then I ll dip the ladder in
the water and you can climb aboard "
I done it. Now that was ever so smart in Tom, be
cause if he had started off somewheres else to drop
down on the sand, the menagerie would a come
along, too, and might a kept us hunting a safe place
till I got tuckered out and fell.
And all this time the lions and tigers was sorting out
the clothes, and trying to divide them up so there
would be some for all, but there was a misunderstand
ing about it somewheres, on account of some of them
trying to hog more than their share; so there was
another insurrection, and you never see anything like
it in the world. There must a j been fifty of them, all
mixed up together, snorting and roaring and snapping
and biting and tearing, legs and tails in the air, and
you couldn t tell which was which, and the sand and
fur a-flying. And when they got done, some was
dead, and some was limping off crippled, and the rest
Tom Sawyer Abroad 83
was setting around on the battlefield, some of them
licking their sore places and the others looking up at
us and seemed to be kind of inviting us to come down
and have some fun, but which we didn t want any.
As for the clothes, they warn t any, any more.
Every last rag of them was inside of the animals ; and
not agreeing with them very well, I don t reckon, for
there was considerable many brass buttons on them,
and there was knives in the pockets, too, and smoking
tobacco, and nails and chalk and marbles and fish
hooks and things. But I wasn t caring. All that was
bothering me was, that all we had now was the pro
fessor s clothes, a big enough assortment, but not suit
able to go into company with, if we came across any,
because the britches was as long as tunnels, and the
coats and things according. Still, there was everything
a tailor needed, and Jim was a kind of jack-legged
tailor, and he allowed he could soon trim a suit or two
down for us that would answer.
CHAPTER IX.
TOM DISCOURSES ON THE DESERT
STILL, we thought we would drop down there a
minute, but on another errand. Most of the pro
fessor s cargo of food was put up in cans, in the new
way that somebody had just invented ; the rest was
fresh. When you fetch Missouri beefsteak to the
Great Sahara, you want to be particular and stay up
in the coolish weather. So we reckoned we would
drop down into the lion market and see how we could
make out there.
We hauled in the ladder and dropped down till we
was just above the reach of the animals, then we let
down a rope with a slip-knot in it and hauled up a
dead lion, a small tender one, then yanked up a cub
tiger. We had to keep the congregation off with the
revolver, or they would a took a hand in the proceed
ings and helped.
We carved off a supply from both, and saved the
skins, and hove the rest overboard. Then we baited
some of the professor s hooks with the fresh meat and
went a-fishing. We stood over the lake just a con
venient distance above the water, and catched a lot of
(84)
Tom Sawyer Abroad 85
the nicest fish you ever see. It was a most amazing
good supper we had ; lion steak, tiger steak, fried fish,
and hot corn-pone. I don t want nothing better than
that.
We had some fruit to finish off with. We got it out
of the top of a monstrous tall tree. It was a very slim
tree that hadn t a branch on it from the bottom plumb
to the top, and there it bursted out like a feather-
duster. It was a pa m-tree, of course; anybody knows
a pa m-tree the minute he see it, by the pictures. We
went for cocoanuts in this one, but there warn t none.
There was only big loose bunches of things like over
sized grapes, and Tom allowed they was dates, because
he said they answered the description in the Arabian
Nights and the other books. Of course they mightn t
be, and they might be poison ; so we had to wait a
spell, and watch and see if the birds et them. They
done it; so we done it, too, and they was most amaz
ing good.
By this time monstrous big birds begun to come and
settle on the dead animals. They was plucky creturs ;
they would tackle one end of a lion that was being
gnawed at the other end by another lion. If the lion
drove the bird away, it didn t do no good; he was
back again the minute the lion was busy.
The big birds come out of every part of the sky
you could make them out with the glass while they was
still so far away you couldn t see them with your naked
eye. Tom said the birds didn t find out the meat was
there by the smell ; they had to find it out by seeing
86 Tom Sawyer Abroad
it. Oh, but ain t that an eye for you ! Tom said at
the distance of five mile a patch of dead lions couldn t
look any bigger than a person s finger-nail, and he
couldn t imagine how the birds could notice such a
little thing so far off.
It was strange and unnatural to see lion eat lion,
and we thought maybe they warn t kin. But Jim said
that didn t make no difference. He said a hog was
fond of her own children, and so was a spider, and he
reckoned maybe a lion was pretty near as unprincipled
though maybe not quite. He thought likely a lion
wouldn t eat his own father, if he knowed which was
him, but reckoned he would eat his brother-in-law if
he was uncommon hungry, and eat his mother-in-law
any time. But reckoning don t settle nothing. You
can reckon till the cows come home, but that don t
fetch you to no decision. So we give it up and let it
drop.
Generly it was very still in the Desert nights, but this
time there was music. A lot of other animals come to
dinner; sneaking yelpers that Tom allowed was jackals,
and roached-backed ones that he said was hyenas ; and
all the whole biling of them kept up a racket all the
time. They made a picture in the moonlight that was
more different than any picture I ever see. We had a
line out and made fast to the top of a tree, and didn t
stand no watch, but all turned in and slept; but I was
up two or three times to look down at the animals and
hear the music. It was like having a front seat at a
menagerie for nothing, which I hadn t ever had before,
Tom Sawyer Abroad 87
and so it seemed foolish to sleep and not make the
most of it; I mightn t ever have such a chance
again.
We went a-fishing again in the early dawn, and then
lazied around all day in the deep shade on an island,
taking turn about to watch and see that none of the
animals come a-snooping around there after erronorts
for dinner. We was going to leave the next day, but
couldn t, it was too lovely.
The day after, when we rose up toward the sky and
sailed off eastward, we looked back and watched that
place till it warn t nothing but just a speck in the
Desert, and I tell you it was like saying good-bye to a
friend that you ain t ever going to see any more.
Jim was thinking to himself, and at last he says :
" Mars Tom, we s mos to de end er de Desert now,
I speck."
" Why?"
"Well, hit stan* to reason we is. You knows how
long we s been a-skimmin over it. Mus be mos out
o san . Hit s a wonder to me dat it s hilt out as long
as it has."
" Shucks, there s plenty sand, you needn t worry."
* Oh, I ain t a-worryin , Mars Tom, only wonderin ,
dat s all. De Lord s got plenty san , I ain t doubtin
dat; but nemmine, He ain t gwyne to was e it jist on
dat account; en I allows dat dis Desert s plenty big
enough now, jist de way she is, en you can t spread
her out no mo dout was in san ."
" Oh, go long! we ain t much more than fairly
88 Tom Sawyer Abroad
started across this Desert yet. The United States is a
pretty big country, ain t it? Ain t it, Huck?"
1 Yes," I says, " there ain t no bigger one, I don t
reckon."
"Well," he says, " this Desert is about the shape
of the United States, and if you was to lay it down on
top of the United States, it would cover the land of
the free out of sight like a blanket. There d be a little
corner sticking out, up at Maine and away up north
west, and Florida sticking out like a turtle s tail, and
that s all. We ve took California away from the
Mexicans two or three years ago, so that part of the
Pacific coast is ours now, and if you laid the Great
Sahara down with her edge on the Pacific, she would
cover the United States and stick out past New York
six hundred miles into the Atlantic ocean."
I say:
" Good land ! have you got the documents for that,
Tom Sawyer?"
"Yes, and they re right here, and I ve been study
ing them. You can look for yourself. From New
York to the Pacific is 2,600 miles. From one end of
the Great Desert to the other is 3,200. The United
States contains 3,600,000 square miles, the Desert
contains 4,162,000. With the Desert s bulk you could
cover up every last inch of the United States, and in
under where the edges projected out, you could tuck
England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Denmark, and all
Germany. Yes, sir, you could hide the home of the
brave and all of them countries clean out of sight under
Tom Sawyer Abroad 89
the Great Sahara, and you would still have 2,000
square miles of sand left."
"Well," I says, "it clean beats me. Why, Tom,
it shows that the Lord took as much pains makin this
Desert as makin the United States and all them other
countries."
Jim says: " Huck, dat don stan to reason. I
reckon dis Desert wa n t made at all. Now you take
en look at it like dis you look at it, and see ef I s
right. What s a desert good for? Taint good for
nuthin . Dey ain t no way to make it pay. Hain t
dat so, Huck?"
"Yes, I reckon."
11 Hain t it so, Mars Tom?"
" I guess so. Go on."
" Ef a thing ain t no good, it s made in vain, ain t it?"
"Yes."
"Now, den! Do de Lord make anything in vain?
You answer me dat."
"Well no, He don t."
" Den how come He make a desert?"
" Well, go on. How did He come to make it?"
" Mars Tom, / b lieve it uz jes like when you s buildin
a house; dey s allays a lot o truck en rubbish lef over.
What does you do wid it? Doan you take en k yart
it off en dump it into a ole vacant back lot? Course.
Now, den, it s my opinion hit was jes like dat dat
de Great Sahara warn t made at all, she jes happen* ."
I said it was a real good argument, and I believed it
was the best one Jim ever made. Tom he said the same,
90 Tom Sawyer Abroad
but said the trouble about arguments is, they ain t
nothing but theories , after all, and theories don t prove
nothing, they only give you a place to rest on, a spell,
when you are tuckered out butting around and around
trying to find out something there ain t no way to find
out. And he says:
"There s another trouble about theories: there s
always a hole in them somewheres, sure, if you look
close enough. It s just so with this one of Jim s.
Look what billions and billions of stars there is. How
does it come that there was just exactly enough star-
stuff, and none left over? How does it come there
ain t no sand-pile up there?"
But Jim was fixed for him and says :
"What s de Milky Way? dat s what 7 want to
know. What s de Milky Way? Answer me dat!"
In my opinion it was just a sockdologer. It s only
an opinion, it s only my opinion and others may think
different ; but I said it then and I stand to it now it
was a sockdologer. And moreover, besides, it landed
Tom Sawyer. He couldn t say a word. He had that
stunned look of a person that s been shot in the back
with a kag of nails. All he said was, as for people
like me and Jim, he d just as soon have intellectual
intercourse with a catfish. But anybody can say that
and I notice they always do, when somebody has
fetched them a lifter. Tom Sawyer was tired of that
end of the subject.
So we got back to talking about the size of the
Desert again, and the more we compared it with this
Tom Sawyer Abroad 91
and that and t other thing, the more nobier and bigger
and grander it got to look right along. And so, hunt
ing among the riggers, Tom found, by and by, that it
was just the same size as the Empire of China. Then
he showed us the spread the Empire of China made on
the map, and the room she took up in the world.
Well, it was wonderful to think of, and I says :
"Why, I ve heard talk about this Desert plenty of
times, but 7 never knowed before how important she
was."
Then Tom says :
"Important! Sahara important! That s just the
way with some people. If a thing s big, it s important.
That s all the sense they ve got. All they can see is
size. Why, look at England. It s the most important
country in the world ; and yet you could put it in
China s vest-pocket; and not only that, but you d
have the dickens s own time to find it again the next
time you wanted it. And look at Russia. It spreads
all around and everywhere, and yet ain t no more im
portant in this world than Rhode Island is, and hasn t
got half as much in it that s worth saving."
Away off now we see a little hill, a-standing up just
on the edge of the world. Tom broke off his talk, and
reached for a glass very much excited, and took a look,
and says:
That s it it s the one I ve been looking for,
sure. If I m right, it s the one the dervish took the
man into and showed him all the treasures."
So we begun to gaze, and he begun to tell about it
out of the Arabian Nights.
CHAPTER X.
THE TREASURE-HILL
TOM said it happened like this.
A dervish was stumping it along through the
Desert, on foot, one blazing hot day, and he had come
a thousand miles and was pretty poor, and hungry,
and ornery and tired, and along about where we are
now he run across a camel-driver with a hundred
camels, and asked him for some a ms. But the camel-
driver he asked to be excused. The dervish said:
" Don t you own these camels?"
" Yes, they re mine."
"Are you in debt?"
"Who me? No."
" Well, a man that owns a hundred camels and ain t
in debt is rich and not only rich, but very rich.
Ain t it so?"
The camel-driver owned up that it was so. Then
the dervish says :
" God has made you rich, and He has made me
poor. He has His reasons, and they are wise, blessed
be His name. But He has willed that His rich shall
help His poor, and you have turned away from me,
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Tom Sawyer Abroad 93
your brother, in my need, and He will remember this,
and you will lose by it."
That made the camel-driver feel shaky, but all the
same he was born hoggish after money and didn t like
to let go a cent; so he begun to whine and explain,
and said times was hard, and although he had took a
full freight down to Balsora and got a fat rate for it,
he couldn t git no return freight, and so he warn t
making no great things out of his trip. So the dervish
starts along again, and says:
"All right, if you want to take the risk; but I
reckon you ve made a mistake this time, and missed a
chance."
Of course the camel-driver wanted to know what
kind of a chance he had missed, because maybe there
was money in it; so he run after the dervish, and
begged him so hard and earnest to take pity on him
that at last the dervish gave in, and says:
" Do you see that hill yonder? Well, in that hill is
all the treasures of the earth, and I was looking around
for a man with a particular good kind heart and a
noble, generous disposition, because if I could find just
that man, I ve got a kind of a salve I could put on
his eyes and he could see the treasures and get them
out."
So then the camel-driver was in a sweat; and he
cried, and begged, and took on, and went down on his
knees, and said he was just that kind of a man, and
said he could fetch a thousand people that would say
he wasn t ever described so exact before.
94 Tom Sawyer Abroad
"Well, then," says the dervish, " all right. If we
load the hundred camels, can I have half of them?"
The driver was so glad he couldn t hardly hold in,
and says :
" Now you re shouting."
So they shook hands on the bargain, and the dervish
got out his box and rubbed the salve on the driver s
right eye, and the hill opened and he went in, and
there, sure enough, was piles and piles of gold and
jewels sparkling like all the stars in heaven had fell down.
So him and the dervish laid into it, and they loaded
every camel till he couldn t carry no more; then they
said good-bye, and each of them started off with his
fifty. But pretty soon the camel-driver come a-running
and overtook the dervish and says :
You ain t in society, you know, and you don t
really need all you ve got. Won t you be good, and
let me have ten of your camels?"
" Well," the dervish says, " I don t know but what
you say is reasonable enough."
So he done it, and they separated and the dervish
started off again with his forty. But pretty soon here
comes the camel-driver bawling after him again, and
whines and slobbers around and begs another ten off of
him, saying thirty camel loads of treasures was enough
to see a dervish through, because they live very simple,
you know, and don t keep house, but board around
and give their note.
But that warn t the end yet. That ornery hound
kept coming and coming till he had begged back all
Tom Sawyer Abroad 95
the camels and had the whole hundred. Then he was
satisfied, and ever so grateful, and said he wouldn t
ever forgit the dervish as long as he lived, and nobody
hadn t been so good to him before, and liberal. So
they shook hands good-bye, and separated and started
off again.
But do you know, it warn t ten minutes till the
camel-driver was unsatisfied again he was the low-
downest reptyle in seven counties and he cornea-
running again. And this time the thing he wanted was
to get the dervish to rub some of the salve on his other
eye.
"Why?" said the dervish.
" Oh, you know," says the driver.
44 Know what?"
"Well, you can t fool me," says the driver.
"You re trying to keep back something from me,
you know it mighty well. You know, I reckon, that
if I had the salve on the other eye I could see a lot
more things that s valuable. Come please put it on."
The dervish says :
" I wasn t keeping anything back from you. I
don t mind telling you what would happen if I put it
on. You d never see again. You d be stone-blind the
rest of your days."
But do you know that beat wouldn t believe him.
No, he begged and begged, and whined and cried, till
at last the dervish opened his box and told him to put
it on, if he wanted to. So the man done it, and sure
enough he was as blind as a bat in a minute.
7
96 Tom Sawyer Abroad
Then the dervish laughed at him and mocked at him
and made fun of him ; and says :
"Good-bye a man that s blind hain t got no use
for jewelry."
And he cleared out with the hundred camels, and
left that man to wander around poor and miserable and
friendless the rest of his days in the Desert.
Jim said he d bet it was a lesson to him.
Yes," Tom says, "and like a considerable many
lessons a body gets. They ain t no account, because
the thing don t ever happen the same way again and
can t. The time Hen Scovil fell down the chimbly
and crippled his back for life, everybody said it would
be a lesson to him. What kind of a lesson? How
was he going to use it? He couldn t climb chimblies
no more, and he hadn t no more backs to break."
"All de same, Mars Tom, dey is sich a thing as
learnin by expe ence. De Good Book say de burnt
chile shun de fire."
" Well, I ain t denying that a thing s a lesson if it s
a thing that can happen twice just the same way.
There s lots of such things, and they educate a person,
that s what Uncle Abner always said; but there s forty
million lots of the other kind the kind that don t
happen the same way twice and they ain t no real
use, they ain t no more instructive than the small-pox.
When you ve got it, it ain t no good to find out you
ought to been vaccinated, and it ain t no good to git
vaccinated afterward, because the small-pox don t
come but once. But, on the other hand, Uncle Abner
Tom Sawyer Abroad 97
said that the person that had took a bull by the tail
once had learnt sixty or seventy times as much as a
person that hadn t, and said a person that started in to
carry a cat home by the tail was gitting knowledge that
was always going to be useful to him, and warn t ever
going to grow dim or doubtful. But I can tell you,
Jim, Uncle Abner was down on them people that s all
the time trying to dig a lesson out of everything that
happens, no matter whether "
But Jim was asleep. Tom looked kind of ashamed,
because you know a person always feels bad when he
is talking uncommon fine and thinks the other person
is admiring, and that other person goes to sleep that
way. Of course he oughtn t to go to sleep, because
it s shabby; but the finer a person talks the certainer
it is to make you sleep, and so when you come to look
at it it ain t nobody s fault in particular; both of
them s to blame.
Jim begun to snore soft and blubbery at first,
then a long rasp, then a stronger one, then a half a
dozen horrible ones like the last water sucking down
the plug-hole of a bath-tub, then the same with more
power to it, and some big coughs and snorts flung in,
the way a cow does that is choking to death ; and
when the person has got to that point he is at his level
best, and can wake up a man that is in the next block
with a dipperful of loddanum in him, but can t wake
himself up although all that awful noise of his n ain t
but three inches from his own ears. And that is the
curiosest thing in the world, seems to me. But you
98 Tom Sawyer Abroad
rake a match to light the candle, and that little bit of a
noise will fetch him. I wish I knowed what was the
reason of that, but there don t seem to be no way to
find out. Now there was Jim alarming the whole
Desert, and yanking the animals out, for miles and
miles around, to see what in the nation was going on
up there; there warn t nobody nor nothing that was as
close to the noise as he was, and yet he was the only
cretur that wasn t disturbed by it. We yelled at him
and whooped at him, it never done no good; but the
first time there come a little wee noise that wasn t of a
usual kind it woke him up. No, sir, I ve thought it
all over, and so has Tom, and there ain t no way to
find out why a snorer can t hear himself snore.
Jim said he hadn t been asleep; he just shut his eyes
so he could listen better.
Tom said nobody warn t accusing him.
That made him look like he wished he hadn t said
anything. And he wanted to git away from the sub
ject, I reckon, because he begun to abuse the camel-
driver, just the way a person does when he has got
catched in something and wants to take it out of some
body else. He let into the camel-driver the hardest he
knowed how, and I had to agree with him ; and he
praised up the dervish the highest he could, and I had
to agree with him there, too. But Tom says:
" I ain t so sure. You call that dervish so dreadful
liberal and good and unselfish, but I don t quite see it.
He didn t hunt up another poor dervish, did he? No,
he didn t. If he was so unselfish, why didn t he go in
Tom Sawyer Abroad 99
there himself and take a pocketful of jewels and go
along and be satisfied? No, sir, the person he was
hunting for was a man with a hundred camels. He
wanted to get away with all the treasure he could."
l< Why, Mars Tom, he was willin to divide, fair and
square; he only struck for fifty camels."
4 * Because he knowed how he was going to get all of
them by and by."
" Mars Tom, he tole de man de truck would make
him bline."
Yes, because he knowed the man s character. It
was just the kind of a man he was hunting for a
man that never believes in anybody s word or any
body s honorableness, because he ain t got none of his
own. I reckon there s lots of people like that dervish.
They swindle, right and left, but they always make the
other person seem to swindle himself. They keep inside
of the letter of the law all the time, and there ain t no
way to git hold of them. They don t put the salve on
oh, no, that would be sin; but they know how to
fool you into putting it on, then it s you that blinds
yourself. I reckon the dervish and the camel-driver
was just a pair a fine, smart, brainy rascal, and a
dull, coarse, ignorant one, but both of them rascals,
just the same."
" Mars Tom, does you reckon dey s any o dat kind
o salve in de worl now?"
1 Yes, Uncle Abner says there is. He says they ve
got it in New York, and they put it on country people s
eyes and show them all the railroads in the world, and
G*
100 Tom Sawyer Abroad
they go in and git them, and then when they rub the
salve on the other eye the other man bids them good
bye and goes off with their railroads. Here s the
treasure-hill now. Lower away!"
We landed, but it warn t as interesting as I thought
it was going to be, because we couldn t find the place
where they went in to git the treasure. Still, it was
plenty interesting enough, just to see the mere hill
itself where such a wonderful thing happened. Jim
said he wouldn t a missed it for three dollars, and I
felt the same way.
And to me and Jim, as wonderful a thing as any was
the way Tom could come into a strange big country
like this and go straight and find a little hump like that
and tell it in a minute from a million other humps that
was almost just like it, and nothing to help him but
only his own learning and his own natural smartness.
We talked and talked it over together, but couldn t
make out how he done it. He had the best head on
him I ever see ; and all he lacked was age, to make a
name for himself equal to Captain Kidd or George
Washington. I bet you it would a crowded either of
them to find that hill, with all their gifts, but it warn t
nothing to Tom Sawyer; he went across Sahara and
put his finger on it as easy as you could pick a nigger
out of a bunch of angels.
We found a pond of salt water close by and scraped
up a raft of salt around the edges, and loaded up the
lion s skin and the tiger s so as they would keep till Jim
could tan them.
CHAPTER XL,/ j*,]
THE SAND-STORM . V T . :
WE went a-fooling along for a day or two, and then
just as the full moon was touching the ground
on the other side of the desert, we see a string of little
black figgers moving across its big silver face. You
could see them as plain as if they was painted on the
moon with ink. It was another caravan. We cooled
down our speed and tagged along after it, just to have
company, though it warn t going our way. It was a
rattler, that caravan, and a most bully sight to look at
next morning when the sun come a-streaming across
the desert and flung the long shadders of the camels
on the gold sand like a thousand grand-daddy-long-
legses marching in procession. We never went very
near it, because we knowed better now than to act like
that and scare people s camels and break up their cara
vans. It was the gayest outfit you ever see, for rich
clothes and nobby style. Some of the chiefs rode on
dromedaries, the first we ever see, and very tall, and
they go plunging along like they was on stilts, and
they rock the man that is on them pretty violent and
churn up his dinner considerable, I bet you, but they
(101)
102 Tom Sawyer Abroad
make noble good time, and a camel ain t nowheres with
them for speed.
The caravan camped, during the middle part of the
day, and then started again about the middle of the
afternoon. Before long the sun begun to look very
curious. First it kind of turned to brass, and then to
copper, and after that it begun to look like a blood-
rod . p^Hi and the. air got hot and close, and pretty soon
all the sky in the west darkened up and looked thick
and foggy, but fiery and dreadful like it looks
through a piece of red glass, you know. We looked
down and see a big confusion going on in the caravan,
and a rushing every which way like they was scared;
and then they all flopped down flat in the sand and
laid there perfectly still.
Pretty soon we see something coming that stood up
like an amazing wide wall, and reached from the Desert
up into the sky and hid the sun, and it was coming
like the nation, too. Then a little faint breeze struck
us, and then it come harder, and grains of sand begun
to sift against our faces and sting like fire, and Tom
sung out:
" It s a sand-storm turn your backs to it!"
We done it ; and in another minute it was blowing a
gale, and the sand beat against us by the shovelful, and
the air was so thick with it we couldn t see a thing. In
five minutes the boat was level full, and we was setting
on the lockers buried up to the chin in sand, and only
our heads out and could hardly breathe.
Then the storm thinned, and we see that monstrous
Tom Sawyer Abroad 103
wall go a-sailing off across the desert, awful to look at,
I tell you. We dug ourselves out and looked down,
and where the caravan was before there wasn t any
thing but just the sand ocean now, and all still and
quiet. All them people and camels was smothered and
dead and buried buried under ten foot of sand, we
reckoned, and Tom allowed it might be years before
the wind uncovered them, and all that time their friends
wouldn t ever know what become of that caravan.
Tom said :
Now we know what it was that happened to the
people we got the swords and pistols from."
Yes, sir, that was just it. It was as plain as day
now. They got buried in a sand-storm, and the wild
animals couldn t get at them, and the wind never un
covered them again until they was dried to leather and
warn t fit to eat. It seemed to me we had felt as sorry
for them poor people as a person could for anybody,
and as mournful, too, but we was mistaken; this last
caravan s death went harder with us, a good deal
harder. You see, the others was total strangers, and
we never got to feeling acquainted with them at all,
except, maybe, a little with the man that was watching
the girl, but it was different with this last caravan. We
was huvvering around them a whole night and most a
whole day, and had got to feeling real friendly with
them, and acquainted. I have found out that there
ain t no surer way to find out whether you like people
or hate them than to travel with them. Just so with
these. We kind of liked them from the start, and
104 Tom Sawyer Abroad
traveling with them put on the finisher. The longer
we traveled with them, and the more we got used to
their ways, the better and better we liked them, and
the gladder and gladder we was that we run across
them. We had come to know some of them so well
that we called them by name when we was talking
about them, and soon got so familiar and sociable that
we even dropped the Miss and Mister and just used
their plain names without any handle, and it did not
seem unpolite, but just the right thing. Of course, it
wasn t their own names, but names we give them.
There was Mr. Elexander Robinson and Miss Adaline
Robinson, and Colonel Jacob McDougal and Miss
Harryet McDougal , and Judge Jeremiah Butler and
young Bushrod Butler, and these was big chiefs mostly
that wore splendid great turbans and simmeters, and
dressed like the Grand Mogul, and their families. But
as soon as we come to know them good, and like them
very much, it warn t Mister, nor Judge, nor nothing,
any more, but only Elleck, and Addy, and Jake, and
Hattie, and Jerry, and Buck, and so on.
And you know the more you join in with people in
their joys and their sorrows, the more nearer and
dearer they come to be to you. Now we warn t cold
and indifferent, the way most travelers is, we was right
down friendly and sociable, and took a chance in every
thing that was going, and the caravan could depend on
us to be on hand every time, it didn t make no differ
ence what it was.
When they camped, we camped right over them, ten
Tom Sawyer Abroad 105
or twelve hundred feet up in the air. When they et a
meal, we et ourn, and it made it ever so much home-
liker to have their company. When they had a wed
ding that night, and Buck and Addy got married, we
got ourselves up in the very starchiest of the professor s
duds for the blow-out, and when they danced we jined
in. and shook a foot up there.
But it is sorrow and trouble that brings you the
nearest, and it was a funeral that done it with us. It
was next morning, just in the still dawn. We didn t
know the diseased, and he warn t in our set, but that
never made no difference; he belonged to the caravan,
and that was enough, and there warn t no more sincerer
tears shed over him than the ones we dripped on him
from up there eleven hundred foot on high.
Yes, parting with this caravan was much more
bitterer than it was to part with them others, which was
comparative strangers, and been dead so long, anyway.
We had knowed these in their lives, and was fond of
them, too, and now to have death snatch them from
right before our faces while we was looking, and leave
us so lonesome and friendless in the middle of that big
desert, it did hurt so, and we wished we mightn t ever
make any more friends on that voyage if we was
going to lose them again like that.
We couldn t keep from talking about them, and
they was all the time coming up in our memory, and
looking just the way they looked when we was all alive
and happy together. We could see the line marching,
and the shiny spearheads a-winking in the sun; we
106 Tom Sawyer Abroad
could see the dromedaries lumbering along; we could
see the wedding and the funeral; and more oftener
than anything else we could see them praying, because
they don t allow nothing to prevent that; whenever
the call come, several times a day, they would stop
right there, and stand up and face to the east, and lift
back their heads, and spread out their arms and begin,
and four or five times they would go down on their
knees, and then fall forward and touch their forehead
to the ground.
Well, it warn t good to go on talking about them,
lovely as they was in their life, and dear to us in their
life and death both, because it didn t do no good, and
made us too down-hearted. Jim allowed he was going
to live as good a life as he could, so he could see them
again in a better world; and Tom kept still and didn t
tell him they was only Mohammedans; it warn t no
use to disappoint him, he was feeling bad enough just
as it was.
When we woke up next morning we was feeling a
little cheerfuller, and had had a most powerful good
sleep, because sand is the comfortablest bed there is,
and I don t see why people that can afford it don t
have it more. And it s terrible good ballast, too; I
never see the balloon so steady before.
Tom allowed we had twenty tons of it, and wondered
what we better do with it; it was good sand, and it
didn t seem, good sense to throw it away. Jim says:
" Mars Tom, can t we tote it back home en sell it?
How long ll it take?"
Tom Sawyer Abroad 107
" Depends on the way we go."
" Well, sah, she s wuth a quarter of a dollar a load
at home, en I reckon we s got as much as twenty
loads, hain t we? How much would dat be?"
Five dollars,"
" By jings, Mars Tom, le s shove for home right on
de spot! Hit s more n a dollar en a half apiece, hain t
it?"
"Yes."
"Well, ef dat ain t makin money de easiest ever /
struck! She jes rained in never cos us a lick o
work. Le s mosey right along, Mars Tom."
But Tom was thinking and ciphering away so busy
and excited he never heard him. Pretty soon he says:
41 Five dollars sho ! Look here, this sand s worth
worth why, it s worth no end of money."
" How is dat, Mars Tom? Go on, honey, go on!"
" Well, the minute people knows it s genuwyne sand
from the genuwyne Desert of Sahara, they ll just be in
a perfect state of mind to git hold of some of it to
keep on the what-not in a vial with a label on it for a
curiosity. All we got to do is to put it up in vials and
float around all over the United States and peddle them
out at ten cents apiece. We ve got all of ten thousand
dollars worth of sand in this boat."
Me and Jim went all to pieces with joy, and begun
to shout whoopjamboreehoo, and Tom says:
"And we can keep on coming back and fetching
sand, and coming back and fetching more sand, and
just keep it a-going till we ve carted this whole Desert
108 Tom Sawyer Abroad
-..!^ ^
over there and sold it out; and there ain t ever going
to be any opposition, either, because we ll take out a
patent."
" My goodness," I says, 4< we ll be as rich as Creo
sote, won t we, Tom?"
" Yes Creesus, you mean. Why, that dervish was
hunting in that little hill for the treasures of the earth,
and didn t know he was walking over the real ones for
a thousand miles. He was blinder than he made the
driver."
" Mars Tom, how much is we gwyne to be worth?"
" Well, I don t know yet. It s got to be ciphered,
and it ain t the easiest job to do, either, because it s
over four million square miles of sand at ten cents a
vial."
Jim was awful excited, but this faded it out consider
able, and he shook his head and says:
11 Mars Tom, we can t ford all dem vials a king
couldn t. We better not try to take de whole Desert,
Mars Tom, de vials gwyne to bust us, sho ."
Tom s excitement died out, too, now, and I reck
oned it was on account of the vials, but it wasn t. He
set there thinking, and got bluer and bluer, and at last
he says:
" Boys, it won t work; we got to give it up."
"Why, Tom?"
" On account of the duties."
I couldn t make nothing out of that, neither could
Jim. I says:
" What is our duty, Tom? Because if we can t git
Tom Sawyer Abroad 109
around it, why can t we just do it? People often has
to."
But he says :
** Oh, it ain t that kind of duty. The kind I mean
is a tax. Whenever you strike a frontier that s the
border of a country, you know you find a custom
house there, and the gov ment officers comes and rum
mages among your things and charges a big tax, which
they call a duty because it s their duty to bust you if
they can, and if you don t pay the duty they ll hog
your sand. They call it confiscating, but that don t
deceive nobody, it s just hogging, and that s all it is.
Now if we try to carry this sand home the way we re
pointed now, we got to climb fences till we git tired
just frontier after frontier Egypt, Arabia, Hindostan,
and so on, and they ll all whack on a duty, and so you
see, easy enough, we can t go that road."
* Why, Tom," I says, " we can sail right over their
old frontiers; how are they going to stop us?"
He looked sorrowful at me, and says, very grave :
" Huck Finn, do you think that would be honest?"
I hate them kind of interruptions. I never said
nothing, and he went on :
;< Well, we re shut off the other way, too. If we go
back the way we ve come, there s the New York
custom-house, and that is worse than all of them others
put together, on account of the kind of cargo we ve
got."
"Why?"
41 Well, they can t raise Sahara sand in America, of
110 Tom Sawyer Abroad
course, and when they can t raise a thing there, the
duty is fourteen hundred thousand per cent, on it if
you try to fetch it in from where they do raise it."
** There ain t no sense in that, Tom Sawyer."
"Who said there was? What do you talk to me
like that for, Huck Finn? You wait till I say a thing s
got sense in it before you go to accusing me of say
ing it."
" All right, consider me crying about it, and sorry.
Go on."
Jim says:
" Mars Tom, do dey jam dat duty onto everything
we can t raise in America, en don t make no stinction
twix anything?"
11 Yes, that s what they do."
" Mars lorn, ain t de blessin o de Lord de mos
valuable thing dey is?"
"Yes, it is."
" Don t de preacher stan up in de pulpit en call it
down on de people?"
"Yes."
11 Whah do it come from?"
11 From heaven."
" Yassir ! you s jes right, deed you is, honey it
come from heaven, en dat s a foreign country. Now,
den ! do dey put a tax on dat blessin ?"
"No, they don t."
"Course dey don t; en so it stan to reason dat
you s mistaken, Mars Tom. Dey wouldn t put de tax
on po truck like san , dat everybody ain t bleeged to
Tom Sawyer Abroad 111
have, en leave it off n de bes thing dey is, which
nobody can t git along widout."
Tom Sawyer was stumped ; he see Jim had got him
where he couldn t budge. He tried to wiggle out by
saying they had forgot to put on that tax, but they d
be sure to remember about it, next session of Con
gress, and then they d put it on, but that was a poor
lame come-off, and he knowed it. He said there
warn t nothing foreign that warn t taxed but just that
one, and so they couldn t be consistent without taxing
it, and to be consistent was the first law of politics.
So he stuck to it that they d left it out unintentional
and would be certain to do their best to fix it before
they got caught and laughed at.
But I didn t feel no more interest in such things, as
long as we couldn t git our sand through, and it made
me low-spirited, and Jim the same, Tom he tried to
cheer us up by saying he would think up another
speculation for us that would be just as good as this
one and better, but it didn t do no good, we didn t
believe there was any as big as this. It was mighty
hard; such a little while ago we was so rich, and could
a bought a country and started a kingdom and been
celebrated and happy, and now we was so poor and
ornery again, and had our sand left on our hands.
The sand was looking so lovely before, just like gold
and di monds, and the feel of it was so soft and so
silky and nice, but now I couldn t bear the sight of it,
it made me sick to look at it, and I knowed I wouldn t
ever feel comfortable again till we got shut of it, and I
112 Tom Sawyer Abroad
didn t have it there no more to remind us of what we
had been and what we had got degraded down to.
The others was feeling the same way about it that I
was. I knowed it, because they cheered up so, the
minute I says le s throw this truck overboard.
Well, it was going to be work, you know, and pretty
solid work, too; so Tom he divided it up according to
fairness and strength. He said me and him would
clear out a fifth apiece of the sand, and Jim three-
fifths. Jim he didn t quite like that arrangement. He
says:
J Course I s de stronges , en Fs willin to do a share
accordin , but by jings you s kinder pilin it onto ole
Jim, Mars Tom, hain t you?"
11 Well, I didn t think so, Jim, but you try your hand
at fixing it, and let s see."
So Jim reckoned it wouldn t be no more than fair if
me and Tom done a tenth apiece. Tom he turned his
back to git room and be private, and then he smole a
smile that spread around and covered the whole Sahara
to the westward, back to the Atlantic edge of it where
we come from. Then he turned around again and
said it was a good enough arrangement, and we was
satisfied if Jim was. Jim said he was.
So then Tom measured off our two-tenths in the
bow and left the rest for Jim, and it surprised Jim a
good deal to see how much difference there was and
what a raging lot of sand his share come to, and said
he was powerful glad now that he had spoke up in time
and got the first arrangement altered, for he said that
Tom Sawyer Abroad 113
even the way it was now, there was more sand than
enjoyment in his end of the contract, he believed.
Then we laid into it. It was mighty hot work, and
tough ; so hot we had to move up into cooler weather
or we couldn t a stood it. Me and Tom took turn
about, and one worked while t other rested, but there
warn t nobody to spell poor old Jim, and he made all
that part of Africa damp, he sweated so. We couldn t
work good, we was so full of laugh, and Jim he kept
fretting and wanting to know what tickled us so, and
we had to keep making up things to account for it, and
they was pretty poor inventions, but they done well
enough, Jim didn t see through them. At last when
we got done we was most dead, but not with work
but with laughing. By and by Jim was most dead,
too, but it was with work; then we took turns and
spelled him, and he was as thankful as he could be,
and would set on the gunnel and swab the sweat, and
heave and pant, and say how good we was to a poor
old nigger, and he wouldn t ever forgit us. He was
always the gratefulest nigger I ever see, for any little
thing you done for him. He was only nigger outside;
inside he was as white as you be.
CHAPTER XII.
JIM STANDING SIEGE
THE next few meals was pretty . sandy, but that
don t make no difference when you are hungry;
and when you ain t it ain t no satisfaction to eat, any
way, and so a little grit in the meat ain t no particular
drawback, as far as I can see.
Then we struck the east end of the Desert at last,
sailing on a northeast course. Away off on the edge
of the sand, in a soft pinky light, we see three little
sharp roofs like tents, and Tom says:
"It s the pyramids of Egypt."
It made my heart fairly jump. You see, I had seen
a many and a many a picture of them, and heard tell
about them a hundred times, and yet to come on them
all of a sudden, that way, and find they was real, stead
of imaginations, most knocked the breath out of me
with surprise. It s a curious thing, that the more you
hear about a grand and big and bully thing or person,
the more it kind of dreamies out, as you may say, and
gets to be a big dim wavery figger made out of moon
shine and nothing solid to it. It s just so with George
Washington, and the same with them pyramids.
Tom Sawyer Abroad 115
And moreover, besides, the thing they always said
about them seemed to me to be stretchers. There was
a feller come to the Sunday-school once, and had a
picture of them, and made a speech, and said the big
gest pyramid covered thirteen acres, and was most five
hundred foot high, just a steep mountain, all built out
of hunks of stone as big as a bureau, and laid up
in perfectly regular layers, like stair-steps. Thirteen
acres, you see, for just one building; it s a farm. If
it hadn t been in Sunday-school, I would a judged it
was a lie ; and outside I was certain of it. And he
said there was a hole in the pyramid, and you could go
in there with candles, and go ever so far up a long
slanting tunnel, and come to a large room in the
stomach of that stone mountain, and there you would
find a big stone chest with a king in it, four thousand
years old. I said to myself, then, if that ain t a lie I
will eat that king if they will fetch him, for even
Methusalem warn t that old, and nobody claims it.
As we come a little nearer we see the yaller sand
come to an end in a long straight edge like a blanket,
and on to it was joined, edge to edge, a wide country
of bright green, with a snaky stripe crooking through
it, and Tom said it was the Nile. It made my heart
jump again, for the Nile was another thing that wasn t
real to me. Now I can tell you one thing which is
dead certain : if you will fool along over three thou
sand miles of yaller sand, all glimmering with heat so
that it makes your eyes water to look at it, and you ve
been a considerable part of a week doing it, the green
H*
116 Tom Sawyer Abroad
country will look so like home and heaven to you that
it will make your eyes water again.
It was just so with me, and the same with Jim.
And when Jim got so he could believe it was the
land of Egypt he was looking at, he wouldn t enter it
standing up, but got down on his knees and took off
his hat, because he said it wasn t fitten for a humble
poor nigger to come any other way where such men
had been as Moses and Joseph and Pharaoh and the
other prophets. He was a Presbyterian, and had a
most deep respect for Moses which was a Presbyterian,
too, he said. He was all stirred up, and says:
"Hit s de Ian of Egypt, de Ian* of Egypt, en I s
lowed to look at it wid my own eyes ! En dah s de
river dat was turn to blood, en I s looking at de very
same groun whah de plagues was, en de lice, en de
frogs, en de locus , en de hail, en whah dey marked
de door-pos , en de angel o de Lord come by in de
darkness o de night en slew de fust-born in all de Ian
o Egypt. Ole Jim ain t worthy to see dis day!"
And then he just broke down and cried, he was so
thankful. So between him and Tom there was talk
enough, Jim being excited because the land was so full
of history Joseph and his brethren, Moses in the
bulrushers, Jacob coming down into Egypt to buy
corn, the silver cup in the sack, and all them interesting
things; and Tom just as excited too, because the land
was so full of history that was in his line, about
Noureddin, and Bedreddin, and such like monstrous
giants, that made Jim s wool rise, and a raft of other
Tom Sawyer Abroad 117
Arabian Nights folks, which the half of them never
done the things they let on they done, I don t believe.
Then we struck a disappointment, for one of them
early morning fogs started up, and it warn t no use to
sail over the top of it, because we would go by Egypt,
sure, so we judged it was best to set her by compass
straight for the place where the pyramids was gitting
blurred and blotted out, and then drop low and skin
along pretty close to the ground and keep a sharp
lookout. Tom took the helium, I stood by to let go
the anchor, and Jim he straddled the bow to dig
through the fog with his eyes and watch out for danger
ahead. We went along a steady gait, but not very
fast, and the fog got solider and solider, so solid that
Jim looked dim and ragged and smoky through it. It
was awful still, and we talked low and was anxious.
Now and then Jim would say :
" Highst her a p int, Mars Tom, highst her!" and
up she would skip, a foot or two, and we would slide
right over a flat-roofed mud cabin, with people that
had been asleep on it just beginning to turn out and
gap and stretch ; and once when a feller was clear up
on his hind legs so he could gap and stretch better, we
took him a blip in the back and knocked him off. By
and by, after about an hour, and everything dead still
and we a-straining our ears for sounds and holding our
breath, the fog thinned a little, very sudden, and Jim
sung out in an awful scare :
" Oh, for de lan s sake, set her back, Mars Tom,
here s de biggest giant outen de Rabian Nights a-
118 Tom Sawyer Abroad
comin for us!" and he went over backwards in the
boat.
Tom slammed on the back-action, and as we slowed
to a standstill a man s face as big as our house at home
looked in over the gunnel, same as a house looks out
of its windows, and I laid down and died. I must a*
been clear dead and gone for as much as a minute or
more; then I come to, and Tom had hitched a boat-
hook on to the lower lip of the giant and was holding
the balloon steady with it whilst he canted his head
back and got a good long look up at that awful face.
Jim was on his knees with his hands clasped, gazing
up at the thing in a begging way, and working his lips,
but not getting anything out. I took only just a
glimpse, and was fading out again, but Tom says:
" He ain t alive, you fools; it s the Sphinx!"
I never see Tom look so little and like a fly;
but that was because the giant s head was so big and
awful. Awful, yes, so it was, but not dreadful any
more, because you could see it was a noble face,
and kind of sad, and not thinking about you, but about
other things and larger. It was stone, reddish stone,
and its nose and ears battered, and that give it an
abused look, and you felt sorrier for it for that.
We stood off a piece, and sailed around it and over
it, and it was just grand. It was a man s head, or
maybe a woman s, on a tiger s body a hundred and.
twenty-five foot long, and there was a dear little temple
between its front paws. All but the head used to be
under the sand, for hundreds of years, maybe thou-
Tom Sawyer Abroad 119
sands, but they had just lately dug the sand away and
found that little temple. It took a power of sand to
bury that cretur ; most as much as it would to bury a
steamboat, I reckon.
We landed Jim on top of the head, with an American
flag to protect him, it being a foreign land; then we
sailed off to this and that and t other distance, to git
what Tom called effects and perspectives and propor
tions, and Jim he done the best he could, striking all
the different kinds of attitudes and positions he could
study up, but standing on his head and working his
legs the way a frog does was the best. The further we
got away, the littler Jim got, and the grander the
Sphinx got, till at last it was only a clothespin on a
dome, as you might say. That s the way perspective
brings out the correct proportions, Tom said ; he said
Julus Cesar s niggers didn t know how big he was,
they was too close to him.
Then we sailed off further and further, till we
couldn t see Jim at all any more, and then that great
figger was at its noblest, a-gazing out over the Nile
Valley so still and solemn and lonesome, and all the
little shabby huts and things that was scattered about it
clean disappeared and gone, and nothing around it now
but a soft wide spread of yaller velvet, which was the
sand.
That was the right place to stop, and we done it.
We set there a-looking and a-thinking for a half an
hour, nobody a-saying anything, for it made us feel
quiet and kind of solemn to remember it had been
120 Tom Sawyer Abroad
looking over that valley just that same way, and think
ing its awful thoughts all to itself for thousands of
years, and nobody can t find out what they are to this
day.
At last I took up the glass and see some little black
things a-capering around on that velvet carpet, and
some more a-climbing up the cretur s back, and then I
see two or three wee puffs of white smoke, and told
Tom to look. He done it, and says :
1 They re bugs. No hold on ; they why, I be
lieve they re men. Yes, it s men men and horses
both. They re hauling a long ladder up onto the
Sphinx s back now ain t that odd? And now they re
trying to lean it up a there s some more puffs of
smoke it s guns! Huck, they re after Jim."
We clapped on the power, and went for them a-
biling. We was there in no time, and come a-whizzing
down amongst them, and they broke and scattered every
which way, and some that was climbing the ladder after
Jim let go all holts and fell. We soared up and found
him laying on top of the head panting and most
tuckered out, partly from howling for help and partly
from scare. He had been standing a siege a long time
a week, he said, but it warn t so, it only just seemed
so to him because they was crowding him so. They
had shot at him, and rained the bullets all around him,
but he warn t hit, and when they found he wouldn t
stand up and the bullets couldn t git at him when he
was laying down, they went for the ladder, and then
he knowed it was all up with him if we didn t come
Tom Sawyer Abroad 121
pretty quick. Tom was very indignant, and asked him
why he didn t show the flag and command them to git,
in the name of the United States. Jim said he done
it, but they never paid no attention. Tom said he
would have this thing looked into at Washington, and
says:
" You ll see that they ll have to apologize for insult
ing the flag, and pay an indemnity, too, on top of it,
even if they git off that easy."
Jim says :
" What s an indemnity, Mars Tom?"
"It s cash, that s what it is. 1
" Who gits it, Mars Tom?"
"Why, we do. 1
" En who gits de apology?"
"The United States. Or, we can take whichever
we please. We can take the apology, if we want to,
and let the gov ment take the money."
" How much money will it be, Mars Tom?"
"Well, in an aggravated case like this one, it will
be at least three dollars apiece, and I don t know but
more."
" Well, den, we ll take de money, Mars Tom, blame
de pology. Hain t dat yo notion, too? En hain t it
yourn, Huck?"
We talked it over a little and allowed that that was as
good a way as any, so we agreed to take the money.
It was a new business to me, and I asked Tom if
countries always apologized when they had done wrong,
and he says :
122 Tom Sawyer Abroad
"Yes; the little ones does."
We was sailing around examining the pyramids, you
know, and now we soared up and roosted on the flat top
of the biggest one, and found it was just like what the
man said in the Sunday-school. It was like four pairs
of stairs that starts broad at the bottom and slants up
and comes together in a point at the top, only these
stair-steps couldn t be clumb the way you climb other
stairs; no, for each step was as high as your chin, and
you have to be boosted up from behind. The two
other pyramids warn t far away, and the people moving
about on the sand between looked like bugs crawling,
we was so high above them.
Tom he couldn t hold himself he was so worked up
with gladness and astonishment to be in such a cele
brated place, and he just dripped history from every
pore, seemed to me. He said he couldn t scarcely
believe he was standing on the very identical spot the
prince flew from on the Bronze Horse. It was in the
Arabian Night times, he said. Somebody give the
prince a bronze horse with a peg in its shoulder, and
he could git on him and fly through the air like a bird,
and go all over the world, and steer it by turning the
peg, and fly high or low and land wherever he wanted
to.
When he got done telling it there was one of them
uncomfortable silences that comes, you know, when a
person has been telling a whopper and you feel sorry
for him and wish you could think of some way to
change the subject and let him down easy, but git stuck
Tom Sawyer Abroad 123
and don t see no way, and before you can pull your
mind together and do something, that silence has got in
and spread itself and done the business. I was embar
rassed, Jim he was embarrassed, and neither of us
couldn t say a word. Well, Tom he glowered at me a
minute, and says:
" Come, out with it. What do you think?"
I says :
"Tom Sawyer, you don t believe that, yourself,"
"What s the reason I don t? What s to hendei
me?"
"There s one thing to hender you: it couldn t
happen, that s all."
" What s the reason it couldn t happen?"
" You tell me the reason it could happen."
"This balloon is a good enough reason it could
happen, I should reckon."
" JTOj/isit?"
" Why is it? I never saw such an idiot. Ain t this
balloon and the bronze horse the same thing under
different names?"
" No, they re not. One is a balloon and the other s
a horse. It s very different. Next you ll be saying a
house and a cow is the same thing."
" By Jackson, Huck s got him ag in ! Dey ain t no
wigglin outer dat!"
Shut your head, Jim ; you don t know what you re
talking about. And Huck don t. Look here, Huck,
I ll make it plain to you, so you can understand. You
see, it ain t the mere form that s got anything to do
124 Tom Sawyer Abroad
with their being similar or unsimilar, it s the princi
ple involved ; and the principle is the same in both.
Don t you see, now?"
I turned it over in my mind, and says:
"Tom, it ain t no use. Principles is all very well,
but they don t git around that one big fact, that the
thing that a balloon can do ain t no sort of proof of
what a horse can do."
II Shucks, Huck, you don t get the idea at all. Now
look here a minute it s perfectly plain. Don t we
fly through the air?"
"Yes."
"Very well. Don t we fly high or fly low, just as
we please?"
"Yes."
" Don t we steer whichever way we want to?"
"Yes."
"And don t we land when and where we please?"
"Yes."
" How do we move the balloon and steer it?"
" By touching the buttons."
" Now I reckon the thing is clear to you at last. In
the other case the moving and steering was done by
turning a peg. We touch a button, the prince turned
a peg. There ain t an atom of difference, you see. I
knowed I could git it through your head if I stuck to it
long enough."
He felt so happy he begun to whistle. But me and
Jim was silent, so he broke off surprised, and says:
" Looky here, Huck Finn, don t you see it yet?
Tom Sawyer Abroad 125
I says:
" Tom Sawyer, I want to ask you some questions."
"Go ahead," he says, and I see Jim chirk up to
listen.
44 As I understand it, the whole thing is in the buttons
and the peg the rest ain t of no consequence. A
button is one shape, a peg is another shape, but that
ain t any matter?"
44 No, that ain t any matter, as long as they ve both
got the same power."
"All right, then. What is the power that s in a
candle and in a match?"
4 It s the fire."
II It s the same in both, then?"
* Yes, just the same in both."
" All right. Suppose I set fire to a carpenter shop
with a match, what will happen to that carpenter
shop?"
44 She ll burn up."
4 4 And suppose I set fire to this pyramid with a
candle will she burn up?"
44 Of course she won t."
4 All right. Now the fire s the same, both times.
Why does the shop burn, and the pyramid don t?"
44 Because the pyramid can t burn."
44 Aha ! and a horse can t fly!"
44 My Ian , ef Huck ain t got him ag in ! Huck s
landed him high en dry dis time, / tell you ! Hit s
de smartes trap I ever see a body walk inter en
ef I "
126 Tom Sawyer Abroad
But Jim was so full of laugh he got to strangling and
couldn t go on, and Tom was that mad to see how neat
I had floored him, and turned his own argument ag in
him and knocked him all to rags and flinders with it,
that all he could manage to say was that whenever he
heard me and Jim try to argue it made him ashamed
of the human race. I never said nothing; I was feel
ing pretty well satisfied. When I have got the best of
a person that way, it ain t my way to go around crow
ing about it the way some people does, for I consider
that if I was in his place I wouldn t wish him to crow
over me. It s better to be generous, that s what I
think.
CHAPTER XIII.
GOING FOR TOM S PIPE
BY AND BY we left Jim to float around up there in
the neighborhood of the pyramids, and we dumb
down to the hole where you go into the tunnel, and
went in with some Arabs and candles, and away in
there in the middle of the pyramid we found a room and
a big stone box in it where they used to keep that king,
just as the man in the Sunday-school said ; but he was
gone, now; somebody had got him. But I didn t take
no interest in the place, because there could be ghosts
there, of course; not fresh ones, but I don t like no
kind.
So then we come out and got some little donkeys and
rode a piece, and then went in a boat another piece,
and then more donkeys, and got to Cairo ; and all the way
the road was as smooth and beautiful a road as ever I
see, and had tall date-pa ms on both sides, and naked
children everywhere, and the men was as red as copper,
and fine and strong and handsome. And the city was
a curiosity. Such narrow streets why, they were
just lanes, and crowded with people with turbans, and
women with veils, and everybody rigged out in blazing
9 (127)
128 Tom Sawyer Abroad
bright clothes and all sorts of colors, and you wondered
how the camels and the people got by each other in
such narrow little cracks, but they done it a perfect
jam, you see, and everybody noisy. The stores warn t
big enough to turn around in, but you didn t have to
go in ; the storekeeper sat tailor fashion on his counter,
smoking his snaky long pipe, and had his things where
he could reach them to sell, and he was just as good as
in the street, for the camel-loads brushed him as they
went by.
Now and then a grand person flew by in a carriage
with fancy dressed men running and yelling in front of
it and whacking anybody with a long rod that didn t
get out of the way. And by and by along comes the
Sultan riding horseback at the head of a procession,
and fairly took your breath away his clothes was so
splendid ; and everybody fell flat and laid on his
stomach while he went by. I forgot, but a feller
helped me to remember. He was one that had a rod
and run in front.
There was churches, but they don t know enough to
keep Sunday; they keep Friday and break the Sab
bath. You have to take off your shoes when you go
in. There was crowds of men and boys in the church,
setting in groups on the stone floor and making no end
of noise getting their lessons by heart, Tom said, out
of the Koran, which they think is a Bible, and people
that knows better knows enough to not let on. I never
see such a big church in my life before, and most awful
high, it was ; it made you dizzy to look up ; our
Tom Sawyer Abroad 129
village church at home ain t a circumstance to it; if
you was to put it in there, people would think it was a
drygoods box.
What I wanted to see was a dervish, because I was
interested in dervishes on accounts of the one that
played the trick on the camel-driver. So we found a
lot in a kind of a church, and they called themselves
Whirling Dervishes; and they did whirl, too. I never
see anything like it. They had tall sugar-loaf hats on,
and linen petticoats; and they spun and spun and
spun, round and round like tops, and the petticoats
stood out on a slant, and it was the prettiest thing I
ever see, and made me drunk to look at it. They was
all Moslems, Tom said, and when I asked him what a
Moslem was, he said it was a person that wasn t a
Presbyterian. So there is plenty of them in Missouri,
though I didn t know it before.
We didn t see half there was to see in Cairo, because
Tom was in such a sweat to hunt out places that was
celebrated in history. We had a most tiresome time to
find the granary where Joseph stored up the grain
before the famine, and when we found it it warn t
worth much to look at, being such an old tumble-down
wreck; but Tom was satisfied, and made more fuss over
it than I would make if I stuck a nail in my foot.
How he ever found that place was too many for me.
We passed as much as forty just like it before we come
to it, and any of them would a done for me, but none
but just the right one would suit him ; I never see any
body so particular as Tom Sawyer. The minute he
9*
130 Tom Sawyer Abroad
struck the right one he reconnized it as easy as I would
reconnize my other shirt if I had one, but how he done
it he couldn t any more tell than he could fly; he said
so himself.
Then we hunted a long time for the house where the
boy lived that learned the cadi how to try the case of
the old olwes and the new ones, and said it was out of
the Arabian Nights, and he would tell me and Jim
about it when he got time. Well, we hunted and
hunted till I was ready to drop, and I wanted Tom to
give it up and come next day and git somebody that
knowed the town and could talk Missourian and could
go straight to the place; but no, he wanted to find it
himself, and nothing else would answer. So on we
went. Then at last the remarkablest thing happened I
ever see. The house was gone gone hundreds of
years ago every last rag of it gone but just one mud
brick. Now a person wouldn t ever believe that a
backwoods Missouri boy that hadn t ever been in that
town before could go and hunt that place over and find
that brick, but Tom Sawyer done it. I know he done
it, because I see him do it. I was right by his very
side at the time, and see him see the brick and see him
reconnize it. Well, I says to myself, how does he do
it? Is it knowledge, or is it instink?
Now there s the facts, just as they happened : let
everybody explain it their own way. I ve ciphered
over it a good deal, and it s my opinion that some of it
is knowledge but the main bulk of it is instink. The
reason is this : Tom put the brick in his pocket to give
Tom Sawyer Abroad 131
to a museum with his name on it and the facts when he
went home, and I slipped it out and put another brick
considerable like it in its place, and he didn t know the
difference but there was a difference, you see. I
think that settles it it s mostly instink, not knowledge.
Instink tells him where the exart place is for the brick to
be in, and so he reconnizes it by the place it s in, not
by the look of the brick. If it was knowledge, not
instink, he would know the brick again by the look of
it the next time he seen it which he didn t. So it
shows that for all the brag you hear about knowledge
being such a wonderful thing, instink is worth forty of
it for real unerringness. Jim says the same.
When we got back Jim dropped down and took us
in, and there was a young man there with a red skull
cap and tassel on and a beautiful silk jacket and baggy
trousers with a shawl around his waist and pistols in it
that could talk English and wanted to hire to us as
guide and take us to Mecca and Medina and Central
Africa and everywheres for a half a dollar a day and his
keep, and we hired him and left, and piled on the
power, and by the time we was through dinner we was
over the place where the Israelites crossed the Red Sea
when Pharaoh tried to overtake them and was caught
by the waters. We stopped, then, and had a good
look at the place, and it done Jim good to see it. He
said he could see it all, now, just the way it happened ;
he could see the Israelites walking along between the
walls of water, and the Egyptians coming, from away
off yonder, hurrying all they could, and see them start
132 Tom Sawyer Abroad
in as the Israelites went out, and then when they was
all in, see the walls tumble together and drown the last
man of them. Then we piled on the power again and
rushed away and huvvered over Mount Sinai, and saw
the place where Moses broke the tables of stone, and
where the children of Israel camped in the plain and
worshiped the golden calf, and it was all just as
interesting as could be, and the guide knowed every
place as well as I knowed the village at home.
But we had an accident, now, and it fetched all the
plans to a standstill. Tom s old ornery corn-cob pipe
had got so old and swelled and warped that she couldn t
hold together any longer, notwithstanding the strings
and bandages, but caved in and went to pieces. Tom
he didn t know what to do. The professor s pipe
wouldn t answer; it warn t anything but a mershum,
and a person that s got used to a cob pipe knows it
lays a long ways over all the other pipes in this world,
and you can t git him to smoke any other. He
wouldn t take mine, I couldn t persuade him. So
there he was.
He thought it over, and said we must scour around
and see if we could roust out one in Egypt or Arabia or
around in some of these countries, but the guide said no,
it warn t no use, they didn t have them. So Tom was
pretty glum for a little while, then he chirked up and said
he d got the idea and knowed what to do. He says :
" I ve got another corn-cob pipe, and it s a prime
one, too, and nearly new. It s laying on the rafter
that s right over the kitchen stove at home in the
Tom Sawyer Abroad 133
village. Jim, you and the guide will go and get it,
and me and Huck will camp here on Mount Sinai till
you come back."
"But, Mars Tom, we couldn t ever find de village.
I could find de pipe, case I knows de kitchen, but my
Ian , we can t ever find de village, nur Sent Louis, nur
none o dem places. We don t know de way, Mars
Tom."
That was a fact, and it stumped Tom for a minute.
Then he said :
11 Looky here, it can be done, sure; and I ll tell you
how. You set your compass and sail west as straight
as a dart, till you find the United States. It ain t any
trouble, because it s the first land you ll strike the other
side of the Atlantic. If it s daytime when you strike it,
bulge right on, straight west from the upper part of the
Florida coast, and in an hour and three quarters you ll
hit the mouth of the Mississippi at the speed that
I m going to send you. You ll be so high up in the
air that the earth will be curved considerable sorter
like a washbowl turned upside down and you ll see a
raft of rivers crawling around every which way, long
before you get there, and you can pick out the Miss
issippi without any trouble. Then you can follow the
river north nearly, an hour and three quarters, till you
see the Ohio come in; then you want to look sharp,
because you re getting near. Away up to your left
you ll see another thread coming in that s the
Missouri and is a little above St. Louis. You ll come
down low then, so as you can examine the villages as
134 Tom Sawyer Abroad
you spin along. You ll pass about twenty-five in the
next fifteen minutes, and you ll recognize ours when
you see it and if you don t, you can yell down and
ask."
" Ef it s dat easy, Mars Tom, I reckon we kin do
it yassir, I knows we kin."
The guide was sure of it, too, and thought that he
could learn to stand his watch in a little while.
"Jim can learn you the whole thing in a half an
hour," Tom said. " This balloon s as easy to manage
as a canoe."
Tom got out the chart and marked out the course
and measured it, and says :
"To go back west is the shortest way, you see.
It s only about seven thousand miles. If you went
east, and so on around, it s over twice as far." Then
he says to the guide, " I want you both to watch the
tell-tale all through the watches, and whenever it don t
mark three hundred miles an hour, you go higher or
drop lower till you find a storm-current that s going
your way. There s a hundred miles an hour in this
old thing without any wind to help. There s two-
hundred-mile gales to be found, any time you want to
hunt for them."
"We ll hunt for them, sir."
" See that you do. Sometimes you may have to
go up a couple of miles, and it ll be p ison cold, but
most of the time you ll find your storm a good deal
lower. If you can only strike a cyclone that s the
ticket for you! You ll see by the professor s books
. fry v 8 ^
Vt^r*^?
s& ffiu
2&~r
V
Tom Sawyer Abroad 135
that they travel west in these latitudes ; and they travel
low, too."
Then he ciphered on the time, and says
"Seven thousand miles, three hundred miles an
hour you can make the trip in a day twenty-four
hours. This is Thursday; you ll be back here Sat
urday afternoon. Come, now, hustle out some blankets
and food and books and things for me and Huck, and
you can start right along. There ain t no occasion to
fool around I want a smoke, and the quicker you
fetch that pipe the better."
All hands jumped for the things, and in eight min
utes our things was out and the balloon was ready for
America. So we shook hands good-bye, and Tom
gave his last orders :
" It s 10 minutes to 2 P.M. now, Mount Sinai time.
In 24 hours you ll be home, and it 11 be 6 to-mor
row morning, village time. When you strike the
village, land a little back of the top of the hill, in the
woods, out of sight; then you rush down, Jim, and
shove these letters in the post-office, and if you see
anybody stirring, pull your slouch down over your face
so they won t know you. Then you go and slip in the
back way to the kitchen and git the pipe, and lay this
piece of paper on the kitchen table, and put something
on it to hold it, and then slide out and git away, and
don t let Aunt Polly catch a sight of you, nor nobody
else. Then you jump for the balloon and shove for
Mount Sinai three hundred miles an hour. You won t
have lost more than an hour. You ll start back at 7 or
136 Tom Sawyer Abroad
8 A.M., village time, and be here in 24 hours, arriving
at 2 or 3 P.M., Mount Sinai time."
Tom he read the piece of paper to us. He had
wrote on it :
"
THURSDAY AFTERNOON. Tom Sawyer the Erro-
nort sends his love to Aunt Polly from Mount Sinai
where the Ark was, and so does Huck Finn, and she
will get it to-morrow morning half -past six*
" TOM SAWYER THE ERRONORT."
That ll make her eyes bulge out and the tears
come," he says. Then he says:
1 Stand by ! One two three away you go ! "
And away she did go ! Why, she seemed to whiz
out of sight in a second.
Then we found a most comfortable cave that looked
out over the whole big plain, and there we camped to
wait for the pipe.
The balloon come back all right, and brung the pipe ;
but Aunt Polly had catched Jim when he was getting
it, and anybody can guess what happened : she sent
for Tom. So Jim he says :
" Mars Tom, she s out on de porch wid her eye sot on
de sky a-layin for you, en she say she ain t gwyne to
budge from dah tell she gits hold of you. Dey s gwyne
to be trouble, Mars Tom, deed dey is."
So then we shoved for home, and not feeling very
gay, neither.
*This misplacing of the Ark is probably Huck s error, not Tom s.
M.T.
O < rue s y\ C
.
vu-V
^- <* -
TOM SAWYER, DETECTIVE*
CHAPTER I.
AN INVITATION FOR TOM AND HUCK
WELL, it was the next spring after me and Tom
Sawyer set our old nigger Jim free, the time he
was chained up for a runaway slave down there on
Tom s uncle Silas s farm in Arkansaw. The frost was
working out of the ground, and out of the air, too, and
it was getting closer and closer onto barefoot time every
day; and next it would be marble time, and next
mumbletypeg, and next tops and hoops, and next
kites, and then right away it would be summer and go
ing in a-swimming. It just makes a boy homesick to
look ahead like that and see how far off summer is.
Yes, and it sets him to sighing and saddening around,
and there s something the matter with him, he don t
know what. But anyway, he gets out by himself and
* Strange as the incidents of this story are, they are not inventions, but
facts even to the public confession of the accused. I take them from an
old-time Swedish criminal trial, change the actors, and transfer the scenes
to America. I have added some details, but only a couple of them are
important ones. M. T.
(137)
Pv*4 if "
138 Tom Sawyer, Detective
mopes and thinks ; and mostly he hunts for a lone
some place high up on the hill in the edge of the woods,
and sets there and looks away off on the big Mississippi
down there a-reaching miles and miles around the points
where the timber looks smoky and dim it s so far off and
still, and everything s so solemn it seems like everybody
you ve loved is dead and gone, and you most wish you
was dead and gone too, and done with it all.
Don t you know what that is? It s spring fever.
That is what the name of it is. And when you ve got
it, you want oh, you don t quite know what it is you
do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you
want it so ! It seems to you that mainly what you want
is to get away ; get away from the same old tedious
things you re so used to seeing and so tired of, and see
something new. That is the idea ; you want to go and
be a wanderer ; you want to go wandering far away to
strange countries where everything is mysterious and
wonderful and romantic. And if you can t, do that,
you ll put up with considerable less; you ll go any
where you can go, just so as to get away, and be thank
ful of the chance, too.
Well, me and Tom Sawyer had the spring fever, and
had it bad, too; but it warn t any use to think about
Tom trying to get away, because, as he said, his Aunt
Polly wouldn t let him quit school and go traipsing off
somers wasting time; so we was pretty blue. We was
setting on the front steps one day about sundown talk
ing this way, when out comes his aunt Polly with a
letter in her hand and says :
I RECKON I GOT TO BE EXCUSED"
Tom Sawyer, Detective 139
" Tom, I reckon you ve got to pack up and go down
to Arkansaw your aunt Sally wants you."
I most jumped out of my skin for joy. I reckoned
Tom would fly at his aunt and hug her head off; but if
you believe me he set there like a rock, and never said
a word. It made me fit to cry to see him act so foolish,
with such a noble chance as this opening up. Why,
we might lose it if he didn t speak up and show he was
thankful and grateful. But he set there and studied
and studied till I was that distressed I didn t know
what to do; then he says, very ca m, and I could a
shot him for it :
"Well," he says, "I m right down sorry, Aunt
Polly, but I reckon I got to be excused for the
present."
His aunt Polly was knocked so stupid and so mad at
the cold impudence of it that she couldn t say a word
for as much as a half a minute, and this gave me a
chance to nudge Tom and whisper :
" Ain t you got any sense? Sp iling such a noble
chance as this and throwing it away?"
But he warn t disturbed. He mumbled back:
" Huck Finn, do you want me to let her see how bad
I want to go? Why, she d begin to doubt, right
away, and imagine a lot of sicknesses and dangers and
objections, and first you know she d take it all back.
You lemme alone; I reckon I know how to work her."
Now I never would a thought of that. But he was
right. Tom Sawyer was always right the levelest
head I ever see, and always at himself and ready for
140 Tom Sawyer, Detective
anything you might spring on him. By this time his
aunt Polly was all straight again, and she let fly. She
says:
"You ll be excused! You will! Well, I never
heard the like of it in all my days ! The idea of you
talking like that to me! Now take yourself off and
pack your traps ; and if I hear another word out of
you about what you ll be excused from and what you
won t, I lay / // excuse you with a hickory!"
She hit his head a thump with her thimble as we
dodged by, and he let on to be whimpering as we
struck for the stairs. Up in his room he hugged me,
he was so out of his head for gladness because he was
going traveling. And he says :
" Before we get away she ll wish she hadn t let me
go, but she won t know any way to get around it now.
After what she s said, her pride won t let her take it
back."
Tom was packed in ten minutes, all except what his
aunt and Mary would finish up for him ; then we waited
ten more for her to get cooled down and sweet and
gentle again ; for Tom said it took her ten minutes to
unruffle in times when half of her feathers was up, but
twenty when they was all up, and this was one of the
times when they was all up. Then we went down,
being in a sweat to know what the letter said.
She was setting there in a brown study, with it laying
in her lap. We set down, and she says :
"They re in considerable trouble down there, and
they think you and Huck 11 be a kind of diversion for
Tom Sawyer, Detective 141
them comfort/ they say. Much of that they ll get
out of you and Huck Finn, I reckon. There s a neigh
bor named Brace Dunlap that s been wanting to marry
their Benny for three months, and at last they told him
pint blank and once for all, he couldn t ; so he has soured
on them, and they re worried about it. I reckon he s
somebody they think they better be on the good side
of, for they ve tried to please him by hiring his no-
account brother to help on the farm when they can t
hardly afford it, and don t want him around anyhow.
Who are the Dunlaps?"
"They live about a mile from Uncle Silas s place,
Aunt Polly all the farmers live about a mile apart
down there and Brace Dunlap is a long sight richer
than any of the others, and owns a whole grist of nig
gers. He s a widower, thirty-six years old, without
any children, and is proud of his money and overbear
ing, and everybody is a little afraid of him. I judge he
thought he could have any girl he wanted, just for the
asking, and it must have set him back a good deal when
he found he couldn t get Benny. Why, Benny s only
half as old as he is, and just as sweet and lovely as
well, you ve seen her. Poor old Uncle Silas why,
it s pitiful, him trying to curry favor that way so hard
pushed and poor, and yet hiring that useless Jubiter
Dunlap to please his ornery brother."
44 What a name Jubiter! Where d he get it?"
" It s only just a nickname. I reckon they ve forgot
his real name long before this. He s twenty-seven,
now, and has had it ever since the first time he ever
142 Tom Sawyer, Detective
went in swimming. The school teacher seen a round
brown mole the size of a dime on his left leg above his
knee, and four little bits of moles around it, when he
was naked, and he said it minded him of Jubiter and
his moons ; and the children thought it was funny, and
so they got to calling him Jubiter, and he s Jubiter yet.
He s tall, and lazy, and sly, and sneaky, and ruther
cowardly, too, but kind of good-natured, and wears
long brown hair and no beard, and hasn t got a cent,
and Brace boards him for nothing, and gives him his old
clothes to wear, and despises him. Jubiter is a twin."
14 What s t other twin like?"
"Just exactly like Jubiter so they say; used to
was, anyway, but he hain t been seen for seven years.
He got to robbing when he was nineteen or twenty,
and they jailed him ; but he broke jail and got away
up North here, somers. They used to hear about him
robbing and burglaring now and then, but that was
years ago. He s dead, now. At least that s what
they say. They don t hear about him any more."
" What was his name?"
"Jake."
There wasn t anything more said for a considerable
while ; the old lady was thinking. At last she says :
" The thing that is mostly worrying your aunt Sally
is the tempers that that man Jubiter gets your uncle
into."
Tom was astonished, and so was I. Tom says:
"Tempers? Uncle Silas? Land, you must be jok
ing! I didn t know he had any temper."
Tom Sawyer, Detective 143
"Works him up into perfect rages, your aunt Sally
says; says he acts as if he would really hit the man,
sometimes."
"Aunt Polly, it beats anything I ever heard of.
Why, he s just as gentle as mush."
"Well, she s worried, anyway. Says your uncle
Silas is like a changed man, on account of all this
quarreling. And the neighbors talk about it, and lay
all the blame on your uncle, of course, because he s a
preacher and hain t got any business to quarrel. Your
aunt Sally says he hates to go into the pulpit he s so
ashamed ; and the people have begun to cool toward
him, and he ain t as popular now as he used to was."
" Well, ain t it strange? Why, Aunt Polly, he was
always so good and kind and moony and absent-minded
and chuckle-headed and lovable why, he was just an
angel ! What can be the matter of him, do you
reckon?"
CHAPTER II.
JAKE DUNLAP
WE had powerful good luck; because we got a
chance in a stern-wheeler from away North which
was bound for one of them bayous or one-horse rivers
away down Louisiana way, and so we could go all the
way down the Upper Mississippi and all the way down
the Lower Mississippi to that farm in Arkansaw with
out having to change steamboats at St. Louis ; not so
very much short of a thousand miles at one pull.
A pretty lonesome boat; there warn t but few
passengers, and all old folks, that set around, wide
apart, dozing, and was very quiet. We was four days
getting out of the " upper river," because we got
aground so much. But it warn t dull couldn t be
for boys that was traveling, of course.
From the very start me and Tom allowed that there
was somebody sick in the stateroom next to ourn, be
cause the meals was always toted in there by the wait
ers. By and by we asked about it Tom did and
the waiter said it was a man, but he didn t look sick.
"Well, buttfzV/he sick?"
" I don t know; maybe he is, but pears to me he s
just letting on."
(144)
Tom Sawyer, Detective 145
" What makes you think that?"
" Because if he was sick he would pull his clothes off
some time or other don t you reckon he would?
Well, this one don t. At least he don t ever pull off
his boots, anyway."
"The mischief he don t! Not even when he goes
to bed?"
"No."
It was always nuts for Tom Sawyer a mystery was.
If you d lay out a mystery and a pie before me and
him, you wouldn t have to say take your choice; it
was a thing that would regulate itself. Because in my
nature I have always run to pie, whilst in his nature he
has always run to mystery. People are made different.
And it is the best way. Tom says to the waiter :
" What s the man s name?"
"Phillips."
II Where d he come aboard ?"
"I think he got aboard at Elexandria, up on the
Iowa line."
" What do you reckon he s a-playing?"
II 1 hain t any notion I never thought of it."
I says to myself, here s another one that runs to pie.
"Anything peculiar about him? the way he acts or
talks?"
"No nothing, except he seems so scary, and
keeps his doors locked night and day both, and when
you knock he won t let you in till he opens the door a
crack and sees who it is."
" By jimminy, it s hit resting ! I d like to get a
10**
146 Tom Sawyer, Detective
look at him. Say the next time you re going in
there, don t you reckon you could spread the door
and"
" No, indeedy ! He s always behind it. He would
block that game."
Tom studied over it, and then he says :
" Looky here. You lend me your apern and let me
take him his breakfast in the morning. I ll give you a
quarter."
The boy was plenty willing enough, if the head
steward wouldn t mind. Tom says that s all right, he
reckoned he could fix it with the head steward ; and he
done it. He fixed it so as we could both go in with
aperns on and toting vittles.
He didn t sleep much, he was in such a sweat to get
in there and find out the mystery about Phillips ; and
moreover he done a lot of guessing about it all night,
which warn t no use, for if you are going to find out
the facts of a thing, what s the sense in guessing out
what ain t the facts and wasting ammunition? I
didn t lose no sleep. I wouldn t give a dern to know
what s the matter of Phillips, I says to myself.
Well, in the morning we put on the aperns and got a
couple of trays of truck, and Tom he knocked on the
door. The man opened it a crack, and then he let us in
and shut it quick. By Jackson, when we got a sight of
him, we most dropped the trays ! and Tom says:
"Why, Jubiter Dunlap, where d you come from?"
Well, the man was astonished, of course; and first
off he looked like he didn t know whether to be scared,
Tom Sawyer, Detective 147
or glad, or both, or which, but finally he settled down
to being glad ; and then his color come back, though at
first his face had turned pretty white. So we got to
talking together while he et his breakfast. And he
says:
"But I aint Jubiter Dunlap. I d just as soon tell
you who I am, though, if you ll swear to keep mum,
for I ain t no Phillips, either."
Tom says :
"We ll keep mum, but there ain t any need to tell
who you are if you ain t Jubiter Dunlap."
"Why?"
" Because if you ain t him you re t other twin, Jake.
You re the spit n image of Jubiter."
"Well, I am Jake. But looky here, how do you
come to know us Dunlaps?"
Tom told about the adventures we d had down there
at his uncle Silas s last summer, and when he see that
there warn t anything about his folks or him either,
for that matter that we didn t know, he opened out
and talked perfectly free and candid. He never made
any bones about his own case; said he d been a hard
lot, was a hard lot yet, and reckoned he d be a hard lot
plumb to the end. He said of course it was a danger
ous life, and
He give a kind of gasp, and set his head like a person
that s listening. We didn t say anything, and so it
was very still for a second or so, and there warn t no
sounds but the screaking of the woodwork and the chug-
chugging of the machinery down below
148 Tom Sawyer, Detective
Then we got him comfortable again, telling him about
his people, and how Brace s wife had been dead three
years, and Brace wanted to marry Benny and she shook
him, and Jubiter was working for Uncle Silas, and him
and Uncle Silas quarreling all the time and then he
let go and laughed.
"Land!" he says, "it s like old times to hear all
this tittle-tattle, and does me good. It s been seven
years and more since I heard any. How do they talk
about me these days?"
"Who?"
" The farmers and the family."
"Why, they don t talk about you at all at least
only just a mention, once in a long time."
" The nation !" he says, surprised ; " why is that?"
" Because they think you are dead long ago."
"No! Are you speaking true? honor bright,
now." He jumped up, excited.
" Honor bright. There ain t anybody thinks you are
alive."
"Then I m saved, I m saved, sure! I ll go home.
They ll hide me and save my life. You keep mum.
Swear you ll keep mum swear you ll never, never tell
on me. Oh, boys, be good to a poor devil that s being
hunted day and night, and dasn t show his face ! I ve
never done you any harm ; I ll never do you any, as
God is in the heavens; swear you ll be good to me
and help me save my life."
We d a swore it if he d been a dog; and so we done
it. Well, he couldn t love us enough for it or be grate-
Tom Sawyer, Detective 149
ful enough, poor cuss; it was all he could do to keep
from hugging us.
We talked along, and he got out a little hand-bag
and begun to open it, and told us to turn our backs.
We done it, and when he told us to turn again he was
perfectly different to what he was before. He had on
blue goggles and the naturalest-looking long brown
whiskers and mustashes you ever see. His own
mother wouldn t a knowed him. He asked us if he
looked like his brother Jubiter, now.
" No," Tom said; " there ain t anything left that s
like him except the long hair."
"All right, I ll get that cropped close to my head be
fore I get there; then him and Brace will keep my
secret, and I ll live with them as being a stranger, and
the neighbors won t ever guess me out. What do you
think?"
Tom he studied awhile, then he says :
" Well, of course me and Huck are going to keep
mum there, but if you don t keep mum yourself there s
going to be a little bit of a risk it ain t much, maybe,
but it s a little. I mean, if you talk, won t people
notice that your voice is just like Jubiter s; and
mightn t it make them think of the twin they reckoned
was dead, but maybe after all was hid all this time
under another name?"
"By George," he says, "you re a sharp one!
You re perfectly right. I ve got to play deef and
dumb when there s a neighbor around. If I d a struck
for home and forgot that little detail However, I
150 Tom Sawyer, Detective
wasn t striking for home. I was breaking for any
place where I could get away from these fellows that
are after me ; then I was going to put on this disguise
and get some different clothes, and "
He jumped for the outside door and laid his ear
against it and listened, pale and kind of panting.
Presently he whispers :
" Sounded like cocking a gun ! Lord, what a life to
lead!"
Then he sunk down in a chair all limp and sick like,
and wiped the sweat off of his face.
CHAPTER III.
A DIAMOND ROBBERY
rROM that time out, we was with him most all the
time, and one or t other of us slept in his upper
berth. He said he had been so lonesome, and it was
such a comfort to him to have company, and somebody
to talk to in his troubles. We was in a sweat to find
out what his secret was, but Tom said the best way was
not to seem anxious, then likely he would drop into it
himself in one of his talks, but if we got to asking
questions he would get suspicious and shet up his shell.
It turned out just so. It warn t no trouble to see that
he wanted to talk about it, but always along at first he
would scare away from it when he got on the very edge
of it, and go to talking about something else. The
way it come about was this: He got to asking us,
kind of indifferent like, about the passengers down on
deck. We told him about them. But he warn t satis
fied ; we warn t particular enough. He told us to de
scribe them better. Tom done it. At last, when Tom
was describing one of the roughest and raggedest ones,
he gave a shiver and a gasp and says :
"Oh, lordy, that s one of them! They re aboard
(151)
152 Tom Sawyer, Detective
sure I just knowed it. I sort of hoped I had got
away, but I never believed it. Go on."
Presently when Tom was describing another mangy,
rough deck passenger, he give that shiver again and
says:
"That s him! that s the other one. If it would
only come a good black stormy night and I could get
ashore. You see, they ve got spies on me. They ve
got a right to come up and buy drinks at the bar
yonder forrard, and they take that chance to bribe
somebody to keep watch on me porter or boots or
somebody. If I was to slip ashore without anybody
seeing me, they would know it inside of an hour."
So then he got to wandering along, and pretty soon,
sure enough, he was telling! He was poking along
through his ups and downs, and when he come to that
place he went right along. He says :
It was a confidence game. We played it on a julery-
shop in St. Louis. What we was after was a couple of
noble big di monds as big as hazel-nuts, which every
body was running to see. We was dressed up fine, and
we played it on them in broad daylight. We ordered
the di monds sent to the hotel for us to see if we
wanted to buy, and when we was examining them we
had paste counterfeits all ready, and them was the things
that went back to the shop when we said the water
wasn t quite fine enough for twelve thousand dollars."
1 Twelve thousand dollars ! Tom says. Was
they really worth all that money, do you reckon?"
11 Every cent of it."
Tom Sawyer, Detective 153
"And you fellows got away with them?"
"As easy as nothing. I don t reckon the julery
people know they ve been robbed yet. But it wouldn t
be good sense to stay around St. Louis, of course, so
we considered where we d go. One was for going one
way, one another, so we throwed up, heads or tails,
and the Upper Mississippi won. We done up the
di monds in a paper and put our names on it and put
it in the keep of the hotel clerk, and told him not to
ever let either of us have it again without the others was
on hand to see it done; then we went down town, each
by his own self because I reckon maybe we all had
the same notion. I don t know for certain, but I
reckon maybe we had."
" What notion?" Tom says.
"To rob the others."
* What one take everything, after all of you had
helped to get it?"
"Cert nly."
It disgusted Tom Sawyer, and he said it was the
orneriest, low-downest thing he ever heard of. But
Jake Dunlap said it warn t unusual in the profession.
Said when a person was in that line of business he d
got to look out for his own intrust, there warn t no
body else going to do it for him. And then he went
on. He says:
"You see, the trouble was, you couldn t divide up
two di monds amongst three. If there d been three
But never mind about that, there warn t three. I
loafed along the back streets studying and studying.
154 Tom Sawyer, Detective
And I says to myself, I ll hog them di monds the first
chance I get, and I ll have a disguise all ready, and I ll
give the boys the slip, and when I m safe away I ll put
it on, and then let them find me if they can. So I got
the false whiskers and the goggles and this countrified
suit of clothes, and fetched them along back in a hand
bag; and when I was passing a shop where they sell all
sorts of things, I got a glimpse of one of my pals
through the window. It was Bud Dixon. I was glad,
you bet. I says to myself, I ll see what he buys. So
I kept shady, and watched. Now what do you reckon
it was he bought?"
"Whiskers?" said I.
"No."
"Goggles?"
"No."
" Oh, keep still, Huck Finn, can t you, you re only
just hendering all you can. What was it he bought,
Jake?"
1 You d never guess in the world. It was only just
a screwdriver just a wee little bit of a screwdriver."
" Well, I declare ! What did he want with that?"
" That s what 7 thought. It was curious. It clean
stumped me. I says to myself, what can he want with
that thing? Well, when he come out I stood back out
of sight, and then tracked him to a second-hand slop
shop and see him buy a red flannel shirt and some old
ragged clothes just the ones he s got on now, as
you ve described. Then I went down to the wharf and
hid my things aboard the up-river boat that we had
Tom Sawyer, Detective 155
picked out, and then started back and had another
streak of luck. I seen our other pal lay in his stock
of old rusty second-handers. We got the di monds
and went aboard the boat.
" But now we was up a stump, for we couldn t go
to bed. We had to set up and watch one another.
Pity, that was; pity to put that kind of a strain on us,
because there was bad blood between us from a
couple of weeks back, and we was only friends in the
way of business. Bad anyway, seeing there was only
two di monds betwixt three men. First we had supper,
and then tramped up and down the deck together
smoking till most midnight; then we went and set
down in my stateroom and locked the doors and looked
in the piece of paper to see if the di monds was all
right, then laid it on the lower berth right in full sight ;
and there we set, and set, and by-and-by it got to be
dreadful hard to keep awake. At last Bud Dixon he
dropped off. As soon as he was snoring a good regular
gait that was likely to last, and had his chin on his
breast and looked permanent, Hal Clayton nodded
towards the di monds and then towards the outside
door, and I understood. I reached and got the paper,
and then we stood up and waited perfectly still ; Bud
never stirred; I turned the key of the outside door
very soft and slow, then turned the knob the same
way, and we went tiptoeing out onto the guard, and
shut the door very soft and gentle.
"There warn t nobody stirring anywhere, and the
boat was slipping along, swift and steady, through the
156 Tom Sawyer, Detective
big water in the smoky moonlight. We never said a
word, but went straight up onto the hurricane-deck and
plumb back aft, and set down on the end of the sky
light. Both of us knowed what that meant, without
having to explain to one another. Bud Dixon would
wake up and miss the swag, and would come straight
for us, for he ain t afeard of anything or anybody, that
man ain t. He would come, and we would heave him
overboard, or get killed trying. It made me shiver,
because I ain t as brave as some people, but if I
showed the white feather well, I knowed better than
do that. I kind of hoped the boat would land somers,
and we could skip ashore and not have to run the risk
of this row, I was so scared of Bud Dixon, but she
was an upper-river tub and there warn t no real chance
of that.
"Well, the time strung along and along, and that
fellow never come ! Why, it strung along till dawn
begun to break, and still he never come. Thunder/ I
says, what do you make out of this? ain t it sus
picious? Land! Hal says, do you reckon he s
playing us? open the paper! I done it, and by
gracious there warn t anything in it but a couple of
little pieces of loaf-sugar ! That s the reason he could
set there and snooze all night so comfortable. Smart?
Well, I reckon ! He had had them two papers all fixed
and ready, and he had put one of them in place of
t other right under our noses.
11 We felt pretty cheap. But the thing to do, straight
off, was to make a plan ; and we done it. We would
Tom Sawyer, Detective 157
do up the paper again, just as it was, and slip in, very
elaborate and soft, and lay it on the bunk again, and
let on we didn t know about any trick, and hadn t any
idea he was a-laughing at us behind them bogus snores
of his n; and we would stick by him, and the first
night we was ashore we would get him drunk and
search him, and get the di monds; and do for him,
too, if it warn t too risky. If we got the swag, we d
got to do for him, or he would hunt us down and do for
us, sure. But I didn t have no real hope. I knowed
we could get him drunk he was always ready for
that but what s the good of it? You might search
him a year and never find
"Well, right there I catched my breath and broke
off my thought ! For an idea went ripping through my
head that tore my brains to rags and land, but I felt
gay and good ! You see, I had had my boots off, to
unswell my feet, and just then I took up one of them
to put it on, and I catched a glimpse of the heel-
bottom, and it just took my breath away. You re
member about that puzzlesome little screwdriver? *
You bet I do," says Tom, all excited.
"Well, when I catched that glimpse of that boot
heel, the idea that went smashing through my head
was, /know where he s hid the di monds! You look
at this boot heel, now. See, it s bottomed with a steel
plate, and the plate is fastened on with little screws.
Now there wasn t a screw about that feller anywhere
but in his boot heels; so, if he needed a screwdriver,
I reckoned I knowed why."
158 Tom Sawyer, Detective
11 Huck, ain t it bully!" says Tom.
"Well, I got my boots on, and we went down and
slipped in and laid the paper of sugar on the berth,
and sat down soft and sheepish and went to listening to
Bud Dixon snore. Hal Clayton dropped off pretty
soon, but I didn t; I wasn t ever so wide awake in my
life. I was spying out from under the shade of my
hat brim, searching the floor for leather. It took me a
long time, and I begun to think maybe my guess was
wrong, but at last I struck it. It laid over by the
bulkhead, and was nearly the color of the carpet. It
was a little round plug about as thick as the end of your
little finger, and I says to myself there s a di mond in
the nest you ve come from. Before long I spied out
the plug s mate.
"Think of the smartness and coolness of that
blatherskite ! He put up that scheme on us and
reasoned out what we would do, and we went ahead
and done it perfectly exact, like a couple of pudd n-
heads. He set there and took his own time to un
screw his heelplates and cut out his plugs and stick in
the di monds and screw on his plates again. He
allowed we would steal the bogus swag and wait all
night for him to come up and get drownded, and by
George it s just what we done! /think it was power
ful smart."
" You bet your life it was !" says Tom, just full of
admiration.
CHAPTER IV.
THE THREE SLEEPERS
f{\V/ELL, all day we went through the humbug of
VV watching one another, and it was pretty sickly
business for two of us and hard to act out, I can tell
you. About night we landed at one of them little
Missouri towns high up toward Iowa, and had supper
at the tavern, and got a room upstairs with a cot and a
double bed in it, but I dumped my bag under a deal
table in the dark hall while we was moving along it to
bed, single file, me last, and the landlord in the lead
with a tallow candle. We had up a lot of whisky, and
went to playing high-low-jack for dimes, and as soon
as the whisky begun to take hold of Bud we stopped
drinking, but we didn t let him stop. We loaded him
till he fell out of his chair and laid there snoring.
" We was ready for business now. I said we better
pull our boots off, and his n too, and not make any
noise, then we could pull him and haul him around and
ransack him without any trouble. So we done it. I
set my boots and Bud s side by side, where they d be
handy. Then we stripped him and searched his seams
and his pockets and his socks and the inside of his
boots, and everything, and searched his bundle. Never
" (159)
160 Tom Sawyer, Detective
found any di monds. We found the screwdriver, and
Hal says, What do you reckon he wanted with that?
I said I didn t know; but when he wasn t looking I
hooked it. At last Hal he looked beat and discour
aged, and said we d got to give it up. That was what
I was waiting for. I says :
14 There s one place we hain t searched.
11 What place is that? he says.
" His stomach.
By gracious, I never thought of that ! Now we re
on the homestretch, to a dead moral certainty. How 11
we manage?
Well, I says, just stay by him till I turn out and
hunt up a drug store, and I reckon I ll fetch something
that ll make them di monds tired of the company
they re keeping/
"He said that s the ticket, and with him looking
straight at me I slid myself into Bud s boots instead of
my own, and he never noticed. They was just a shade
large for me, but that was considerable better than be
ing too small. I got my bag as I went a-groping
through the hall, and in about a minute I was out the
back way and stretching up the river road at a five-mile
gait.
"And not feeling so very bad, neither walking on
di monds don t have no such effect. When I had gone
fifteen minutes I says to myself, there s more n a mile
behind me, and everything quiet. Another five minutes
and I says there s considerable more land behind me
now, and there s a man back there that s begun to
Tom Sawyer, Detective 161
wonder what s the trouble. Another five and I says to
myself he s getting real uneasy he s walking the floor
now. Another five, and I says to myself, there s two
mile and a half behind me, and he s awful uneasy be
ginning to cuss, I reckon. Pretty soon I says to my
self , forty minutes gone he knows there s something
up! Fifty minutes the truth s a-busting on him
now! he is reckoning I found the di monds whilst we
was searching, and shoved them in my pocket and never
let on yes, and he s starting out to hunt for me.
He ll hunt for new tracks in the dust, and they ll as
likely send him down the river as up.
" Just then I see a man coming down on a mule, and
before I thought I jumped into the bush. It was
stupid ! When he got abreast he stopped and waited
a little for me to come out; then he rode on again.
But I didn t feel gay any more. I says to myself I ve
botched my chances by that; I surely have, if he meets
up with Hal Clayton,
"Well, about three in the morning I fetched Elex-
andria and see this stern- wheeler laying there, and was
very glad, because I felt perfectly safe, now, you know.
It was just daybreak. I went aboard and got this state
room and put on these clothes and went up in the pilot
house to watch, though I didn t reckon there was
any need of it. I set there and played with my
di monds and waited and waited for the boat to start,
but she didn t. You see, they was mending her
machinery, but I didn t know anything about it, not
being very much used to steamboats.
162 Tom Sawyer, Detective
" Well, to cut the tale short, we never left there till
plumb noon; and long before that I was hid in this
stateroom ; for before breakfast I see a man coming,
away off, that had a gait like Hal Clayton s, and it
made me just sick. I says to myself, if he finds out
I m aboard this boat, he s got me like a rat in a trap.
All he s got to do is to have me watched, and wait
wait till I slip ashore, thinking he is a thousand miles
away, then slip after me and dog me to a good place
and make me give up the di monds, and then he ll
oh, / know what he ll do! Ain t it awful awful!
And now to think the other one s aboard, too! Oh,
ain t it hard luck, boys ain t it hard ! But you ll help
save me, won t you? oh, boys, be good to a poor
devil that s being hunted to death, and save me I ll
worship the very ground you walk on ! "
We turned in and soothed him down and told him
we would plan for him and help him, and he needn t
be so afeard ; and so by and by he got to feeling kind
of comfortable again, and unscrewed his heelplates and
held up his di monds this way and that, admiring them
and loving them ; and when the light struck into them
they was beautiful, sure ; why, they seemed to kind of
bust, and snap fire out all around. But all the same I
judged he was a fool. If I had been him I would a
handed the di monds to them pals and got them to go
ashore and leave me alone. But he was made differ
ent. He said it was a whole fortune and he couldn t
bear the idea.
Twice we stopped to fix the machinery and laid a
Tom Sawyer, Detective 163
good while, once in the night; but it wasn t dark
enough, and he was afeard to skip. But the third
time we had to fix it there was a better chance. We
laid up at a country woodyard about forty mile above
Uncle Silas s place a little after one at night, and it was
thickening up and going to storm. So Jake he laid for
a chance to slide. We begun to take in wood. Pretty
soon the rain come a-drenching down, and the wind
blowed hard. Of course every boat-hand fixed a
gunny sack and put it on like a bonnet, the way they
do when they are toting wood, and we got one for
Jake, and he slipped down aft with his hand-bag and
come tramping forrard just like the rest, and walked
ashore with them, and when we see him pass out of the
light of the torch-basket and get swallowed up in the
dark, we got our breath again and just felt grateful and
splendid. But it wasn t for long. Somebody told, I
reckon; for in about eight or ten minutes them two
pals come tearing forrard as tight as they could jump
and darted ashore and was gone. We waited plumb
till dawn for them to come back, and kept hoping they
would, but they never did. We was awful sorry and
low-spirited. All the hope we had was that Jake had
got such a start that they couldn t get on his track, and
he would get to his brother s and hide there and be
safe.
He was going to take the river road, and told us to
find out if Brace and Jubiter was to home and no
strangers there, and then slip out about sundown and
tell him. Said he would wait for us in a little bunch of
164 Tom Sawyer, Detective
sycamores right back of Tom s uncle Silas s tobacker
field on the river road, a lonesome place.
We set and talked a long time about his chances, and
Tom said he was all right if the pals struck up the
river instead of down, but it wasn t likely, because
maybe they knowed where he was from ; more likely
they would go right, and dog him all day, him not
suspecting, and kill him when it come dark, and take
the boots. So we was pretty sorrowful.
CHAPTER V.
A TRAGEDY IN THE WOODS
WE didn t get done tinkering the machinery till away
late in the afternoon, and so it was so close to
sundown when we got home that we never stopped on
our road, but made a break for the sycamores as tight
as we could go, to tell Jake what the delay was, and
have him wait till we could go to Brace s and find out
how things was there. It was getting pretty dim by the
time we turned the corner of the woods, sweating and
panting with that long run, and see the sycamores thirty
yards ahead of us ; and just then we see a couple of
men run into the bunch and heard two or three terrible
screams for help. Poor Jake is killed, sure," we
says. We was scared through and through, and broke
for the tobacker field and hid there, trembling so our
clothes would hardly stay on ; and just as we skipped
in there, a couple of men went tearing by, and into the
bunch they went, and in a second out jumps four men
and took out up the road as tight as they could go,
two chasing two.
We laid down, kind of weak and sick, and listened
for more sounds, but didn t hear none for a good while
(165)
166 Tom Sawyer, Detective
but just our hearts. We was thinking of that awful
thing laying yonder in the sycamores, and it seemed
like being that close to a ghost, and it give me the cold
shudders. The moon come a-swelling up out of the
ground, now, powerful big and round and bright, be
hind a comb of trees, like a face looking through prison
bars, and the black shadders and white places begun to
creep around, and it was miserable quiet and still and
night-breezy and graveyardy and scary. All of a sud
den Tom whispers :
-Look! what s that?"
"Don t!" I says. " Don t take a person by sur
prise that way. I m most ready to die, anyway, with
out you doing that."
"Look, I tell you. It s something coming out of
the sycamores."
"Don t, Tom!"
"It s terrible tall!"
"Oh, lordy-lordy! let s"
" Keep still it s a-coming this way."
He was so excited he could hardly get breath enough
to whisper. I had to look. I couldn t help it. So
now we was both on our knees with our chins on a
fence rail and gazing yes, and gasping, too. It was
coming down the road coming in the shadder of the
trees, and you couldn t see it good; not till it was
pretty close to us ; then it stepped into a bright splotch
of moonlight and we sunk right down in our tracks
it was Jake Dunlap s ghost! That was what we said
to ourselves.
Tom Sawyer, Detective 167
We couldn t stir for a minute or two; then it was
gone. We talked about it in low voices. Tom
says:
"They re mostly dim and smoky, or like they re
made out of fog, but this one wasn t."
"No," I says ; "I seen the goggles and the whiskers
perfectly plain."
" Yes, and the very colors in them loud countrified
Sunday clothes plaid breeches, green and black "
"Cotton-velvet westcot, fire-red and yaller squares "
" Leather straps to the bottoms of the breeches legs
and one of them hanging unbuttoned "
"Yes, and that hat "
"What a hat for a ghost to wear !"
You see it was the first season anybody wore that
kind a black stiff-brim stove-pipe, very high, and
not smooth, with a round top just like a sugar-loaf.
" Did you notice if its hair was the same, Huck?"
" No seems to me I did, then again it seems to me
I didn t."
" I didn t either; but it had its bag along, I noticed
that."
" So did I. How can there be a ghost-bag, Tom?"
" Sho ! I wouldn t be as ignorant as that if I was
you, Huck Finn. Whatever a ghost has, turns to ghost-
stuff. They ve got to have their things, like anybody
else. You see, yourself, that its clothes was turned to
ghost-stuff. Well, then, what s to hender its bag from
turning, too? Of course it done it."
That was reasonable. I couldn t find no fault with
168 Tom Sawyer, Detective
it. Bill Withers and his brother Jack come along by,
talking, and Jack says :
" What do you reckon he was toting?"
" I dunno ; but it was pretty heavy."
" Yes, all he could lug. Nigger stealing corn from
old Parson Silas, I judged."
" So did I. And so I allowed I wouldn t let on to
see him."
"That s me, too."
Then they both laughed, and went on out of hearing.
It showed how unpopular old Uncle Silas had got to be
now. They wouldn t a let a nigger steal anybody
else s corn and never done anything to him.
We heard some more voices mumbling along towards
us and getting louder, and sometimes a cackle of a
laugh. It was Lem Beebe and Jim Lane. Jim Lane
says:
Who? Jubiter Dunlap?"
"Yes."
" Oh, I don t know. I reckon so. I seen him spad
ing up some ground along about an hour ago, just be
fore sundown him and the parson. Said he guessed
he wouldn t go to-night, but we could have his dog if
we wanted him."
"Too tired, I reckon."
Yes works so hard !
"Oh, you bet!"
They cackled at that, and went on by. Tom said we
better jump out and tag along after them, because they
was going our way and it wouldn t be comfortable to
Tom Sawyer, Detective 169
run across the ghost all by ourselves. So we done it,
and got home all right.
That night was the second of September a Satur
day. I sha n t ever forget it. You ll see why, pretty
soon.
CHAPTER VI.
PLANS TO SECURE THE DIAMONDS
WE tramped along behind Jim and Lem till we come
to the back stile where old Jim s cabin was that
he was captivated in, the time we set him free, and here
come the dogs piling around us to say howdy, and
there was the lights of the house, too ; so we warn t
afeard any more, and was going to climb over, but
Tom says :
" Hold on; set down here a minute. By George !"
" What s the matter?" says I.
" Matter enough !" he says. " Wasn t you expect
ing we would be the first to tell the family who it is
that s been killed yonder in the sycamores, and all
about them rapscallions that done it, and about the
di monds they ve smouched off of the corpse, and paint
it up fine, and have the glory of being the ones that
knows a lot more about it than anybody else?"
"Why, of course. It wouldn t be you, Tom Sawyer,
if you was to let such a chance go by. I reckon it
ain t going to suffer none for lack of paint," I says,
" when you start in to scollop the facts/
11 Well, now," he says, perfectly ca m, " what would
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Tom Sawyer, Detective 171
you say if I was to tell you I ain t going to start in % at
all?"
I was astonished to hear him talk so. I says:
"I d say it s a lie. You ain t in earnest, Tom
Sawyer?"
"You ll soon see. Was the ghost barefooted?"
" No, it wasn t. What of it?"
"You wait I ll show you what. Did it have its
boots on?"
" Yes. I seen them plain."
"Swear it?"
"Yes, I swear it."
" So do I. Now do you know what that means?"
" No. What does it mean?"
" Means that them thieves didn t get the diamonds ."
" Jimminy ! What makes you think that?"
"I don t only think it, I know it. Didn t the
breeches and goggles and whiskers and hand-bag and
every blessed thing turn to ghost-stuff? Everything it
had on turned, didn t it? It shows that the reason its
boots turned too was because it still had them on after
it started to go ha nting around, and if that ain t proof
that them blatherskites didn t get the boots, I d like to
know what you d call proof."
Think of that now. I never see such a head as that
boy had. Why, / had eyes and I could see things, but
they never meant nothing to me. But Tom Sawyer
was different. When Tom Sawyer seen a thing it just
got up on its hind legs and talked to him told him
everything it knowed. 7 never see such a head.
172 Tom Sawyer, Detective
"Tom Sawyer," I says, "I ll say it again as I ve
said it a many a time before: I ain t fitten to black
your boots. But that s all right that s neither here
nor there. God Almighty made us all, and some He
gives eyes that s blind, and some He gives eyes that
can see, and I reckon it ain t none of our lookout what
He done it for; it s all right, or He d a fixed it some
other way. Go on I see plenty plain enough, now,
that them thieves didn t get way with the di monds.
Why didn t they, do you reckon?"
" Because they got chased away by them other two
men before they could pull the boots off of the corpse."
"That s so! I see it now. But looky here, Tom,
why ain t we to go and tell about it?"
" Oh, shucks, Huck Finn, can t you see? Look at
it. What s a-going to happen? There s going to be
an inquest in the morning. Them two men will tell
how they heard the yells and rushed there just in time
to not save the stranger. Then the jury 11 twaddle
and twaddle and twaddle, and finally they ll fetch in a
verdict that he got shot or stuck or busted over the
head with something, and come to his death by the in
spiration of God. And after they ve buried him they ll
auction off his things for to pay the expenses, and
then s our chance."
"How, Tom?"
" Buy the boots for two dollars !"
Well, it most took my breath.
" My land ! Why, Tom, we ll get the di monds !"
"You bet. Some day there ll be a big reward
Tom Sawyer, Detective 173
offered for them a thousand dollars, sure. That s
our money! Now we ll trot in and see the folks.
And mind you we don t know anything about any
murder, or any di monds, or any thieves don t you
forget that."
I had to sigh a little over the way he had got it fixed,
/ d a sold them di monds yes, sir for twelve
thousand dollars; but I didn t say anything. It
wouldn t done any good. I says:
1 But what are we going to tell your aunt Sally has
made us so long getting down here from the village,
Tom?"
"Oh, I ll leave that to you," he says. " I reckon
you can explain it somehow."
He was always just that strict and delicate. He
never would tell a lie himself.
We struck across the big yard, noticing this, that,
and t other thing that was so familiar, and we so glad
to see it again, and when we got to the roofed big
passageway betwixt the double log house and the
kitchen part, there was everything hanging on the wall
just as it used to was, even to Uncle Silas s old faded
green baize working-gown with the hood to it, and rag
gedy white patch between the shoulders that always
looked like somebody had hit him with a snowball ; and
then we lifted the latch and walked in. Aunt Sally she
was just a-ripping and a-tearing around, and the
children was huddled in one corner, and the old man
he was huddled in the other and praying for help in
time of need. She jumped for us with joy and tears
174 Tom Sawyer, Detective
running down her face and give us a whacking box on
the ear, and then hugged us and kissed us and boxed
us again, and just couldn t seem to get enough of it,
she was so glad to see us ; and she says :
"Where have you been a-loafmg to, you good-for-
nothing trash! I ve been that worried about you I
didn t know what to do. Your traps has been here
ever so long, and I ve had supper cooked fresh about
four times so as to have it hot and good when you
come, till at last my patience is just plumb wore out,
and I declare I I why I could skin you alive ! You
must be starving, poor things! set down, set down,
everybody; don t lose no more time."
It was good to be there again behind all that noble
corn-pone and spareribs, and everything that you could
ever want in this world. Old Uncle Silas he peeled off
one of his bulliest old-time blessings, with as many
layers to it as an onion, and whilst the angels was haul
ing in the slack of it I was trying to study up what to
say about what kept us so long. When our plates was
all leadened and we d got a-going, she asked me, and
I says:
"Well, you see, er Mizzes "
11 Huck Finn! Since when am I Mizzes to you?
Have I ever been stingy of cuffs or kisses for you since
the day you stood in this room and I took you for Tom
Sawyer and blessed God for sending you to me, though
you told me four thousand lies and I believed every
one of them like a simpleton? Call me Aunt Saliy
like you always done."
Tom Sawyer, Detective 175
So I done it. And I says :
" Well, me and Tom allowed we would come along
afoot and take a smell of the woods, and we run across
Lem Beebe and Jim Lane, and they asked us to go with
them blackberrying to-night, and said they could bor
row Jubiter Dunlap s dog, because he had told them
just that minute "
"Where did they see him?" says the old man; and
when I looked up to see how he come to take an intrust
in a little thing like that, his eyes was just burning into
me, he was that eager. It surprised me so it kind of
throwed me off, but I pulled myself together again and
says :
" It was when he was spading up some ground along
with you, towards sundown or along there."
He only said, "Um," in a kind of a disappointed
way, and didn t take no more intrust. So I went on.
I says :
"Well, then, as I was a-saying "
That ll do, you needn t go no furder." It was
Aunt Sally. She was boring right into me with her
eyes, and very indignant. " Huck Finn," she says,
" how d them men come to talk about going a-black-
berrying in September in this region?"
I see I had slipped up, and I couldn t say a word.
She waited, still a-gazing at me, then she says :
"And how d they come to strike that idiot idea of
going a-blackberrying in the night?"
"Well, m m, they er they told us they had a
lantern, and "
176 Tom Sawyer, Detective
"Oh, shet up do! Looky here; what was they
going to do with a dog? hunt blackberries with it?"
"I think, m m, they"
11 Now, Tom Sawyer, what kind of a lie are you fix
ing your mouth to contribit to this mess of rubbage?
Speak out and I warn you before you begin, that
I don t believe a word of it. You and Huck s been up
to something you no business to /know it perfectly
well; / know you, both of you. Now you explain that
dog, and them blackberries, and the lantern, and the
rest of that rot and mind you talk as straight as a
string do you hear?"
Tom he looked considerable hurt, and says, very
dignified :
" It is a pity if Huck is to be talked to that way, just
for making a little bit of a mistake that anybody could
make."
" What mistake has he made?"
" Why, only the mistake of saying blackberries when
of course he meant strawberries."
"Tom Sawyer, I lay if you aggravate me a little
more, I ll"
"Aunt Sally, without knowing it and of course
without intending it you are in the wrong. If you d
a studied natural history the way you ought, you
would know that all over the world except just here in
Arkansaw they always hunt strawberries with a dog
and a lantern "
But she busted in on him there and just piled into
him and snowed him under. She was so mad she
Tom Sawyer, Detective 177
couldn t get the words out fast enough, and she gushed
them out in one everlasting freshet. That was what
Tom Sawyer was after. He allowed to work her up
and get her started and then leave her alone and let her
burn herself out. Then she would be so aggravated
with that subject that she wouldn t say another word
about it, nor let anybody else. Well, it happened just
so. When she was tuckered out and had to hold up,
he says, quite ca m:
"And yet, all the same, Aunt Sally "
" Shet up!" she says, "I don t want to hear
another word out of you."
So we was perfectly safe, then, and didn t have no
more trouble about that delay. Tom done it elegant.
12 <
CHAPTER VII.
A NIGHT S VIGIL
BENNY she was looking pretty sober, and she sighed
some, now and then ; but pretty soon she got to
asking about Mary, and Sid, and Tom s aunt Polly,
and then Aunt Sally s clouds cleared off and she got in
a good humor and joined in on the questions and was
her lovingest best self, and so the rest of the supper
went along gay and pleasant. But the old man he
didn t take any hand hardly, and was absent-minded
and restless, and done a considerable amount of sigh
ing ; and it was kind of heart-breaking to see him so
sad and troubled and worried.
By and by, a spell after supper, come a nigger and
knocked on the door and put his head in with his old
straw hat in his hand bowing and scraping, and said his
Marse Brace was out at the stile and wanted his
brother, and was getting tired waiting supper for him,
and would Marse Silas please tell him where he was?
I never see Uncle Silas speak up so sharp and fractious
before. He says :
"Am / his brother s keeper?" And then he kind
of wilted together, and looked like he wished he hadn t
spoken so, and then he says, very gentle: " But you
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Tom Sawyer, Detective 179
needn t say that, Billy; I was took sudden and irritable,
and I ain t very well these days, and not hardly respon
sible. Tell him he ain t here."
And when the nigger was gone he got up and
walked the floor, backwards and forwards, mumbling
and muttering to himself and plowing his hands through
his hair. It was real pitiful to see him. Aunt Sally she
whispered to us and told us not to take notice of him,
it embarrassed him. She said he was always thinking
and thinking, since these troubles come on, and she
allowed he didn t more n about half know what he was
about when the thinking spells was on him ; and she
said he walked in his sleep considerable more now than
he used to, and sometimes wandered around over the
house and even outdoors in his sleep, and if we catched
him at it we must let him alone and not disturb him.
She said she reckoned it didn t do him no harm, and
may be it done him good. She said Benny was the
only one that was much help to him these days. Said
Benny appeared to know just when to try to soothe
him and when to leave him alone.
So he kept on tramping up and down the floor and
muttering, till by and by he begun to look pretty tired ;
then Benny she went and snuggled up to his side and
put one hand in his and one arm around his waist and
walked with him; and he smiled down on her, and
reached down and kissed her; and so, little by little
the trouble went out of his face and she persuaded him
off to his room. They had very petting ways together,
and it was uncommon pretty to see.
L**
180 Tom Sawyer, Detective
Aunt Sally she was busy getting the children ready
for bed ; so by and by it got dull and tedious, and me
and Tom took a turn in the moonlight, and fetched up
in the watermelon-patch and et one, and had a good
deal of talk. And Tom said he d bet the quarreling
was all Jubiter s fault, and he was going to be on hand
the first time he got a chance, and see; and if it was
so, he was going to do his level best to get Uncle Silas
to turn him off.
And so we talked and smoked and stuffed water
melons much as two hours, and then it was pretty late,
and when we got back the house was quiet and dark,
and everybody gone to bed.
Tom he always seen everything, and now he see that
the old green baize work-gown was gone, and said it
wasn t gone when he went out; so he allowed it was
curious, and then we went up to bed.
We could hear Benny stirring around in her room,
which was next to ourn, and judged she was worried a
good deal about her father and couldn t sleep. We
found we couldn t, neither. So we set up a long time,
and smoked and talked in a low voice, and felt pretty
dull and down-hearted. We talked the murder and the
ghost over and over again, and got so creepy and
crawly we couldn t get sleepy nohow and noway.
By and by, when it was away late in the night and all
the sounds was late sounds and solemn, Tom nudged
me and whispers to me to look, and I done it, and there
we see a man poking around in the yard like he didn t
know just what he wanted to do, but it was pretty dim
Tom Sawyer, Detective 181
and we couldn t see him good. Then he started for
the stile, and as he went over it the moon came out
strong, and he had a long-handled shovel over his
shoulder, and we see the white patch on the old work-
gown. So Tom says:
" He s a-walking in his sleep. I wish we was
allowed to follow him and see where he s going to.
There, he s turned down by the tobacker-field. Out
of sight now. It s a dreadful pity he can t rest no
better."
We waited a long time, but he didn t come back any
more, or if he did he come around the other way; so
at last we was tuckered out and went to sleep and had
nightmares, a million of them. But before dawn we
was awake again, because meantime a storm had come
up and been raging, and the thunder and lightning
was awful, and the wind was a- thrashing the trees
around, and the rain was driving down in slanting
sheets, and the gullies was running rivers. Tom says :
" Looky here, Huck, I ll tell you one thing that s
mighty curious. Up to the time we went out last night
the family hadn t heard about Jake Dunlap being mur
dered. Now the men that chased Hal Clayton and
Bud Dixon away would spread the thing around in a
half an hour, and every neighbor that heard it would
shin out and fly around from one farm to t other and
try to be the first to tell the news. Land, they don t
have such a big thing as that to tell twice in thirty year !
Huck, it s mighty strange; I don t understand it."
So then he was in a fidget for the rain to let up, so
182 Tom Sawyer, Detective
we could turn out and run across some of the people
and see if they would say anything about it to us.
And he said if they did we must be horribly surprised
and shocked.
We was out and gone the minute the rain stopped.
It was just broad day then. We loafed along up the
road, and now and then met a person and stopped and
said howdy, and told them when we come, and how we
left the folks at home, and how long we was going to
stay, and all that, but none of them said a word about
that thing; which was just astonishing, and no mistake.
Tom said he believed if we went to the sycamores we
would find that body laying there solitary and alone,
and not a soul around. Said he believed the men
chased the thieves so far into the woods that the thieves
prob ly seen a good chance and turned on them at last,
and maybe they all killed each other, and so there
wasn t anybody left to tell.
First we knowed, gabbling along that away, we was
right at the sycamores. The cold chills trickled down
my back and I wouldn t budge another step, for all
Tom s persuading. But he couldn t hold in; he d got
to see if the boots was safe on that body yet. So he
crope in and the next minute out he come again with
his eyes bulging he was so excited, and says:
<4 Huck, it s gone!"
I was astonished ! I says :
II Tom, you don t mean it."
"It s gone, sure. There ain t a sign of it. The
ground is trampled some, but if there was any blood
Tom Sawyer, Detective 183
it s all washed away by the storm, for it s all puddles
and slush in there."
At last I give in, and went and took a look myself;
and it was just as Tom said there wasn t a sign of a
corpse.
"Bern it," I says, "the di monds is gone. Don t
you reckon the thieves slunk back and lugged him off,
Tom?"
"Looks like it. It just does. Now where d they
hide him, do you reckon?"
"I don t know," I says, disgusted, "and what s
more I don t care. They ve got the boots, and that s
all / cared about. He ll lay around these woods a
long time before /hunt him up."
Tom didn t feel no more intrust in him neither, only
curiosity to know what come of him ; but he said we d
lay low and keep dark and it wouldn t be long till the
dogs or somebody rousted him out.
We went back home to breakfast ever so bothered
and put out and disappointed and swindled. I warn t
ever so down on a corpse before.
CHAPTER VIII.
TALKING WITH THE GHOST
IT warn t very cheerful at breakfast. Aunt Sally she
looked old and tired and let the children snarl and
fuss at one another and didn t seem to notice it was
going on, which wasn t her usual style; me and Tom
had a plenty to think about without talking ; Benny she
looked like she hadn t had much sleep, and whenever
she d lift her head a little and steal a look towards her
father you could see there was tears in her eyes ; and
as for the old man, his things stayed on his plate and
got cold without him knowing they was there, I reckon,
for he was thinking and thinking all the time, and never
said a word and never et a bite.
By and by when it was stillest, that nigger s head
was poked in at the door again, and he said his Marse
Brace was getting powerful uneasy about Marse Jubiter,
which hadn t come home yet, and would Marse Silas
please
He was looking at Uncle Silas, and he stopped there,
like the rest of his words was froze ; for Uncle Silas he
rose up shaky and steadied himself leaning his fingers
on the table, and he was panting, and his eyes was set
on the nigger, and he kept swallowing, and put his
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Tom Sawyer, Detective 185
other hand up to his throat a couple of times, and at
last he got his words started, and says:
1 Does he does he think what does he think !
Tell him tell him " Then he sunk down in his
chair limp and weak, and says, so as you could hardly
hear him : Go away go away !
The nigger looked scared and cleared out, and we
all felt well, I don t know how we felt, but it was
awful, with the old man panting there, and his eyes set
and looking like a person that was dying. None of us
could budge ; but Benny she slid around soft, with her
tears running down, and stood by his side, and nestled
his old gray head up against her and begun to stroke it
and pet it with her hands, and nodded to us to go
away, and we done it, going out very quiet, like the
dead was there.
Me and Tom struck out for the woods mighty
solemn, and saying how different it was now to what it
was last summer when we was here and everything was
so peaceful and happy and everybody thought so much
of Uncle Silas, and he was so cheerful and simple-
hearted and pudd n-headed and good and now look
at him. If he hadn t lost his mind he wasn t much
short of it. That was what we allowed.
It was a most lovely day now, and bright and sun
shiny ; and the further and further we went over the
hills towards the prairie the lovelier and lovelier the
trees and flowers got to be and the more it seemed
strange and somehow wrong that there had to be
trouble in such a world as this. And then all of a
186 Tom Sawyer, Detective
sudden I catched my breath and grabbed Tom s arm, and
all my livers and lungs and things fell down into my legs.
4 * There it is!" I says. We jumped back behind a
bush shivering, and Tom says :
" Sh! don t make a noise."
It was setting on a log right in the edge of a little
prairie, thinking. I tried to get Tom to come away,
but he wouldn t, and I dasn t budge by myself. He
said we mightn t ever get another chance to see one,
and he was going to look his fill at this one if he died
for it. So I looked too, though it give me the fan-
tods to do it. Tom he had to talk, but he talked low.
He says:
"Poor Jakey, it s got all its things on, just as he
said he would. Now you see what we wasn t certain
about its hair. It s not long now the way it was:
it s got it cropped close to its head, the way he said he
would. Huck, I never see anything look any more
naturaler than what It does."
"Nor I neither," I says; "I d recognize it any
wheres."
"So would I. It looks perfectly solid and genu-
wyne, just the way it done before it died."
So we kept a-gazing. Pretty soon Tom says :
" Huck, there s something mighty curious about this
one, don t you know? It oughtn t to be going around
in the daytime."
"That s so, Tom I never heard the like of it
before."
" No, sir, they don t ever come out only at night
Tom Sawyer, Detective 187
and then not till after twelve. There s something
wrong about this one, now you mark my words. I
don t believe it s got any right to be around in the
daytime. But don t it look natural! Jake was going
to play deef and dumb here, so the neighbors wouldn t
know his voice. Do you reckon it would do that if we
was to holler at it?"
44 Lordy, Tom, don t talk so ! If you was to holler
at it I d die in my tracks."
44 Don t you worry, I ain t going to holler at it.
Look, Huck, it s a-scratching its head don t you see?"
"Well, what of it?"
44 Why, this. What s the sense of it scratching its
head? There ain t anything there to itch; its head is
made out of fog or something like that, and can t itch.
A fog can t itch; any fool knows that."
44 Well, then, if it don t itch and can t itch, what in
the nation is it scratching it for? Ain t it just habit,
don t you reckon?"
44 No, sir, I don t. I ain t a bit satisfied about the
way this one acts. I ve a blame good notion it s a
bogus one I have, as sure as I m a-sitting here.
Because, if it Huck!"
44 Well, what s the matter now?"
4 You can t see the bushes through it /"
44 Why, Tom, it s so, sure! It s as solid as a cow.
I sort of begin to think "
44 Huck, it s biting off a chaw of tobacker ! By
George, they don t chaw they hain t got anything to
chaw with. Huck !
188 Tom Sawyer, Detective
11 I m a-listening."
" It ain t a ghost at all. It s Jake Dunlap his own
self!"
" Oh your granny!" I says.
" Huck Finn, did we find any corpse in the syca
mores?"
"No."
11 Or any sign of one?"
"No."
11 Mighty good reason. Hadn t ever been any corpse
there."
" Why, Tom, you know we heard "
"Yes, we did heard a howl or two. Does that
prove anybody was killed? Course it don t. And we
seen four men run, then this one come walking out and
we took it for a ghost. No more ghost than you are.
It was Jake Dunlap his own self, and it s Jake Dunlap
now. He s been and got his hair cropped, the way he
said he would, and he s playing himself for a stranger,
just the same as he said he would. Ghost? Hum!
he s as sound as a nut."
Then I see it all, and how we had took too much for
granted. I was powerful glad he didn t get killed, and
so was Tom, and we wondered which he would like the
best for us to never let on to know him, or how?
Tom reckoned the best way would be to go and ask
him. So he started; but I kept a little behind, because
I didn t know but it might be a ghost, after all. When
Tom got to where he was, he says:
" Me and Huck s mighty glad to see you again,
Tom Sawyer, Detective 189
and you needn t be afeared we ll tell. And if you
think it ll be safer for you if we don t let on to know
you when we run across you, say the word and you ll
see you can depend on us, and would ruther cut our
hands off than get you into the least little bit of
danger."
First off he looked surprised to see us, and not very
glad, either; but as Tom went on he looked pleasanter,
and when he was done he smiled, and nodded his head
several times, and made signs with his hands, and says :
" Goo-goo goo-goo," the way deef and dummies
does.
Just then we see some of Steve Nickerson s people
coming that lived t other side of the prairie, so Tom
says:
* You do it elegant ; I never see anybody do it
better. You re right; play it on us, too; play it on
us same as the others; it ll keep you in practice and
prevent you making blunders. We ll keep away from
you and let on we don t know you, but any time we
can be any help, you just let us know."
Then we loafed along past the Nickersons, and of
course they asked if that was the new stranger yonder,
and where d he come from, and what was his name,
and which communion was he, Babtis or Methodis ,
and which politics, Whig or Democrat, and how long
is he staying, and all them other questions that humans
always asks when a stranger comes, and animals does,
too. But Tom said he warn t able to make anything
out of deef and dumb signs, and the same with goo-
190 Tom Sawyer, Detective
gooing. Then we watched them go and bullyrag Jake ;
because we was pretty uneasy for him. Tom said it
would take him days to get so he wouldn t forget he
was a deef and dummy sometimes, and speak out be
fore he thought. When we had watched long enough
to see that Jake was getting along all right and working
his signs very good, we loafed along again, allowing to
strike the schoolhouse about recess time, which was a
three-mile tramp.
I was so disappointed not to hear Jake tell about the
row in the sycamores, and how near he come to get
ting killed, that I couldn t seem to get over it, and
Tom he felt the same, but said if we was in Jake s fix
we would want to go careful and keep still and not take
any chances.
The boys and girls was all glad to see us again, and
we had a real good time all through recess. Coming
to school the Henderson boys had come across the new
deef and dummy and told the rest ; so all the scholars
was chuck full of him and couldn t talk about anything
else, and was in a sweat to get a sight of him because
they hadn t ever seen a deef and dummy in their lives,
and it made a powerful excitement.
Tom said it was tough to have to keep mum now ;
said we would be heroes if we could come out and tell
all we knowed ; but after all, it was still more heroic to
keep mum, there warn t two boys in a million could do
it. That was Tom Sawyer s idea about it, and I
reckoned there warn t anybody could better it.
CHAPTER IX.
FINDING OF JUBITER DUNLAP
IN the next two or three days Dummy he got to be
powerful popular. He went associating around with
the neighbors, and they made much of him, and was
proud to have such a rattling curiosity among them.
They had him to breakfast, they had him to dinner,
they had him to supper; they kept him loaded up
with hog and hominy, and warn t ever tired staring at
him and wondering over him, and wishing they knowed
more about him, he was so uncommon and romantic.
His signs warn t no good; people couldn t under
stand them and he prob ly couldn t himself, but he
done a sight of goo-gooing, and so everybody was sat
isfied, and admired to hear him go it. He toted a
piece of slate around, and a pencil; and people wrote
questions on it and he wrote answers ; but there warn t
anybody could read his writing but Brace Dunlap.
Brace said he couldn t read it very good, but he could
manage to dig out the meaning most of the time. He
said Dummy said he belonged away off somers and
used to be well off, but got busted by swindlers which
he had trusted, and was poor now, and hadn t any way
to make a living.
13 (191)
192 Tom Sawyer, Detective
Everybody praised Brace Dunlap for being so good
to that stranger. He let him have a little log-cabin all
to himself, and had his niggers take care of it, and fetch
him all the vittles he wanted.
Dummy was at our house some, because old Uncle
Silas was so afflicted himself, these days, that anybody
else that was afflicted was a comfort to him. Me and
Tom didn t let on that we had knowed him before, and
he didn t let on that he had knowed us before. The
family talked their troubles out before him the same as
if he wasn t there, but we reckoned it wasn t any harm
for him to hear what they said. Generly he didn t
seem to notice, but sometimes he did.
Well, two or three days went along, and everybody
got to getting uneasy about Jubiter Dunlap. Every
body was asking everybody if they had any idea what
had become of him. No, they hadn t, they said: and
they shook their heads and said there was something
powerful strange about it. Another and another day
went by; then there was a report got around that praps
he was murdered. You bet it made a big stir ! Every
body s tongue was clacking away after that. Saturday
two or three gangs turned out and hunted the woods to
see if they could run across his remainders. Me and
Tom helped, and it was noble good times and exciting.
Tom he was so brimful of it he couldn t eat nor rest.
He said if we could find that corpse we would be
celebrated, and more talked about than if we got
drownded.
The others got tired and give it up ; but not Tom
Tom Sawyer, Detective 193
Sawyer that warn t his style. Saturday night he
didn t sleep any, hardly, trying to think up a plan;
and towards daylight in the morning he struck it. He
snaked me out of bed and was all excited, and says:
"Quick, Huck, snatch on your clothes I ve got
it! Bloodhound!"
In two minutes we was tearing up the river road in
the dark towards the village. Old Jeff Hooker had a
bloodhound, and Tom was going to borrow him. I
says:
The trail s too old, Tom and besides, it s rained,
you know."
" It don t make any difference, Huck. If the body s
hid in the woods anywhere around the hound will find
it. If he s been murdered and buried, they wouldn t
bury him deep, it ain t likely, and if the dog goes over
the spot he ll scent him, sure. Huck, we re going to
be celebrated, sure as you re born !"
He was just a-blazing; and whenever he got afire he
was most likely to get afire all over. That was the way
this time. In two minutes he had got it all ciphered
out, and wasn t only just going to find the corpse
no, he was going to get on the track of that murderer
and hunt him down, too ; and not only that, but he
was going to stick to him till
" Well," I says, " you better find the corpse first; I
reckon that s a-plenty for to-day. For all we know,
there ain t any corpse and nobody hain t been mur
dered. That cuss could a gone off somers and not
been killed at all."
194 Tom Sawyer, Detective
That graveled him, and he says:
" Huck Finn, I never see such a person as you to
want to spoil everything. As long as you can t see
anything hopeful in a thing, you won t let anybody
else. What good can it do you to throw cold water on
that corpse and get up that selfish theory that there
ain t been any murder? None in the world. I don t
see how you can act so. I wouldn t treat you like
that, and you know it. Here we ve got a noble good
opportunity to make a ruputation, and "
" Oh, go ahead," I says. " I m sorry, and I take it
all back. I didn t mean nothing. Fix it any way
you want it. He ain t any consequence to me. If
he s killed, I m as glad of it as you are; and if he "
" I never said anything about being glad ; I only "
"Well, then, I m as sorry as you are. Any way
you druther have it, that is the way / druther have it.
He"
" There ain t any druthers about it, Huck Finn; no
body said anything about druthers. And as for"
He forgot he was talking, and went tramping along,
studying. He begun to get excited again, and pretty
soon he says :
*"? V
" Huck, it 11 be the bulliest" thing that ever happened
if we find the body after everybody else has quit look
ing, and then go ahead and hunt up the murderer. It
won t only be an honor to us, but it 11 be an honor to
Uncle Silas because it was us that done it. It 11 set
him up again, you see if it don t."
But Old Jeff Hooker he throwed cold water on the
Tom Sawyer, Detective 195
whole business when we got to his blacksmith shop and
told him what we come for.
"You can take the dog," he says, "but you ain t
a-going to find any corpse, because there ain t any
corpse to find. Everybody s quit looking, and they re
right. Soon as they come to think, they knowed there
warn t no corpse. And I ll tell you for why. What
does a person kill another person for, Tom Sawyer?
answer me that."
"Why, he er "
"Answer up ! You ain t no fool. What does he kill
him for? "
"Well, sometimes it s for revenge, and "
4 Wait. One thing at a time. Revenge, says you;
and right you are. Now who ever had anything agin
that poor trifling no-account? Who do you reckon
would want to kill him ? that rabbit !
Tom was stuck. I reckon he hadn t thought of a
person having to have a reason for killing a person be
fore, and now he sees it warn t likely anybody would
have that much of a grudge against a lamb like Jubiter
Dunlap. The blacksmith says, by and by:
The revenge idea won t work, you see. Well,
then, what s next? Robbery? B gosh, that must a*
been it, Tom ! Yes, sirree, I reckon we ve struck it
this time. Some feller wanted his gallus-buckles, and
so he"
But it was so funny he busted out laughing, and just
went on laughing and laughing and laughing till he was
most dead, and Tom looked so put out and cheap that
196 Tom Sawyer, Detective
I knowed he was ashamed he had come, and he wished
he hadn t. But old Hooker never let up on him. He
raked up everything a person ever could want to kill
another person about, and any fool could see they
didn t any of them fit this case, and he just made no
end of fun of the whole business and of the people
that had been hunting the body ; and he said :
" If they d had any sense they d a knowed the lazy
cuss slid out because he wanted a loafing spell after all
this work. He ll come pottering back in a couple of
weeks, and then how 11 you fellers feel? But, laws
bless you, take the dog, and go and hunt his re
mainders. Do, Tom."
Then he busted out, and had another of them forty-
rod laughs of hisn. Tom couldn t back down after all
this, so he said, "All right, unchain him;" and the
blacksmith done it, and we started home and left that
old man laughing yet.
It was a lovely dog. There ain t any dog that s got
a lovelier disposition than a bloodhound, and this one
knowed us and liked us. He capered and raced
around ever so friendly, and powerful glad to be free
and have a holiday; but Tom was so cut up he couldn t
take any intrust iahim, and said he wished he d stopped
and thought a minute before he ever started on such a
fool errand. He said old Jeff Hooker would tell every
body, and we d never hear the last of it.
So we loafed along home down the back lanes, feel
ing pretty glum and not talking. When w r e was pass
ing the far corner of our tobacker field we heard the
Tom Sawyer, Detective 197
dog set up a long howl in there, and we went to the
place and he was scratching the ground with all his
might, and every now and then canting up his head
sideways and fetching another howl.
It was a long square, the shape of a grave ; the rain
had made it sink down and show the shape. The
minute we come and stood there we looked at one
another and never said a word. When the dog had
dug down only a few inches he grabbed something and
pulled it up, and it was an arm and a sleeve. Tom
kind of gasped out, and says :
" Come away, Huck it s found."
I just felt awful. We struck for the road and
fetched the first men that come along. They got a
spade at the crib and dug out the body, and you never
see such an excitement. You couldn t make anything
out of the face, but you didn t need to. Everybody
said:
" Poor Jubiter; it s his clothes, to the last rag!"
Some rushed off to spread the news and tell the
justice of the peace and have an inquest, and me and
Tom lit out for the house. Tom was all afire and most
out of breath when we come tearing in where Uncle
Silas and Aunt Sally and Benny was. Tom sung
out:
" Me and Huck s found Jubiter Dunlap s corpse all
by ourselves with a bloodhound, after everybody else
had quit hunting and given it up; and if it hadn t a
been for us it never would a been found; and he was
murdered too they done it with a club or something
198 Tom Sawyer, Detective
like that; and I m going to start in and find the mur
derer, next, and I bet I ll do it!"
Aunt Sally and Benny sprung up pale and astonished,
but Uncle Silas fell right forward out of his chair on to
the floor and groans out:
" Oh, my God, you ve found him now!"
CHAPTER X.
THE ARREST OF UNCLE SILAS
THEM awful words froze us solid. We couldn t
move hand or foot for as much as half a minute.
Then we kind of come to, and lifted the old man up
and got him into his chair, and Benny petted him and
kissed him and tried to comfort him, and poor old
Aunt Sally she done the same; but, poor things, they
was so broke up and scared and knocked out of their
right minds that they didn t hardly know what they was
about. With Tom it was awful; it most petrified him
to think maybe he had got his uncle into a thousand
times more trouble than ever, and maybe it wouldn t
ever happened if he hadn t been so ambitious to get
celebrated, and let the corpse alone the way the others
done. But pretty soon he sort of come to himself
again and says :
11 Uncle Silas, don t you say another word like that.
It s dangerous, and there ain t a shadder of truth in it."
Aunt Sally and Benny was thankful to hear him say
that, and they said the same; but the old man he
wagged his head sorrowful and hopeless, and the tears
run down his face, and he says:
(i99)
200 Tom Sawyer, Detective
"No I done it ; poor Jubiter, I done it ! "
It was dreadful to hear him say it. Then he went
on and told about it, and said it happened the day
me and Tom come along about sundown. He said
Jubiter pestered him and aggravated him till he was so
mad he just sort of lost his mind and grabbed up a stick
and hit him over the head with all his might, and
Jubiter dropped in his tracks. Then he was scared and
sorry, and got down on his knees and lifted his head
up, and begged him to speak and say he wasn t dead;
and before long he come to, and when he see who it
was holding his head, he jumped like he was most
scared to death, and cleared the fence and tore into the
woods, and was gone. So he hoped he wasn t hurt
bad.
"But laws," he says, "it was only just fear that
gave him that last little spurt of strength, and of course
it soon played out and he laid down in the bush, and
there wasn t anybody to help him, and he died."
Then the old man cried and grieved, and said he was
a murderer and the mark of Cain was on him, and he
had disgraced his family and was going to be found
out and hung. But Tom said :
" No, you ain t going to be found out. You didn t
kill him. One lick wouldn t kill him. Somebody else
done it."
"Oh, yes," he says, "I done it nobody else.
Who else had anything against him? Who else could
have anything against him?"
He looked up kind of like he hoped some of us could
Tom Sawyer, Detective 201
mention somebody that could have a grudge against
that harmless no-account, but of course it warn t no
use he had us; we couldn t say a word. He
noticed that, and he saddened down again, and I never
see a face so miserable and so pitiful to see. Tom
had a sudden idea, and says :
"But hold on! somebody buried him. Now
who"
He shut off sudden. I knowed the reason. It give
me the cold shudders when he said them words, because
right away I remembered about us seeing Uncle Silas
prowling around with a long-handled shovel away in
the night that night. And I knowed Benny seen him,
too, because she was talking about it one day. The
minute Tom shut off he changed the subject and went
to begging Uncle Silas to keep mum, and the rest of us
done the same, and said he must, and said it wasn t his
business to tell on himself, and if he kept mum nobody
would ever know; but if it was found out and any
harm come to him it would break the family s hearts
and kill them, and yet never do anybody any good.
So at last he promised. We was all of us more com
fortable, then, and went to work to cheer up the old
man. We told him all he d got to do was to keep still,
and it wouldn t be long till the whole thing would blow
over and be forgot. We all said there wouldn t any
body ever suspect Uncle Silas, nor ever dream of such
a thing, he being so good and kind, and having such a
good character ; and Tom says, cordial and hearty, he
says :
202 Tom Sawyer, Detective
"Why, just look at it a minute; just consider.
Here is Uncle Silas, all these years a preacher at his
own expense ; all these years doing good with all his
might and every way he can think of at his own ex
pense, all the time ; always been loved by everybody,
and respected ; always been peaceable and minding his
own business, the very last man in this whole deestrict
to touch a person, and everybody knows it. Suspect
him ? Why, it ain t any more possible than "
* By authority of the State of Arkansaw, I arrest
you for the murder of Jubiter Dunlap!" shouts the
sheriff at the door.
It was awful. Aunt Sally and Benny flung themselves
at Uncle Silas, screaming and crying, and hugged him
and hung to him, and Aunt Sally said go away, she
wouldn t ever give him up, they shouldn t have him,
and the niggers they come crowding and crying to the
door and- well, I couldn t stand it; it was enough to
break a person s heart; so I got out.
They took him up to the little one-horse jail in the
village, and we all went along to tell him good-bye;
and Tom was feeling elegant, and says to me, " We ll
have a most noble good time and heaps of danger some
dark night getting him out of there, Huck, and it 11 be
talked about everywheres and we will be celebrated;"
but the old man busted that scheme up the minute he
whispered to him about it. He said no, it was his duty
to stand whatever the law done to him, and he would
stick to the jail plumb through to the end, even if
there warn t no door to it. It disappointed Tom
Tom Sawyer, Detective 203
and graveled him a good deal, but he had to put up
with it.
But he felt responsible and bound to get his uncle
Silas free ; and he told Aunt Sally, the last thing, not
to worry, because he was going to turn in and work
night and day and beat this game and fetch Uncle Silas
out innocent; and she was very loving to him and
thanked him and said she knowed he would do his very
best. And she told us to help Benny take care of the
house and the children, and then we had a good-bye
cry all around and went back to the farm, and left her
there to live with the jailer s wife a month till the trial
in October.
CHAPTER XI.
TOM SAWYER DISCOVERS THE MURDERERS
WELL, that was a hard month on us all. Poor
Benny, she kept up the best she could, and me
and Tom tried to keep things cheerful there at the
house, but it kind of went for nothing, as you may say.
It was the same up at the jail. We went up every day
to see the old people, but it was awful dreary, because
the old man warn t sleeping much, and was walking in
his sleep considerable; and so he got to looking fagged
and miserable, and his mind got shaky, and we all got
afraid his troubles would break him down and kill him.
And whenever we tried to persuade him to feel cheer-
fuler, he only shook his head and said if we only
knowed what it was to carry around a murderer s load
on your heart we wouldn t talk that way. Tom and all
of us kept telling him it wasn t murder, but just acci
dental killing, but it never made any difference it was
murder, and he wouldn t have it any other way. He
actu ly begun to come out plain and square towards
trial time and acknowledge that he tried to kill the man.
Why, that was awful, you know. It made things seem
fifty times as dreadful, and there warn t no more com-
(204)
Tom Sawyer, Detective 205
fort for Aunt Sally and Benny. But he promised he
wouldn t say a word about his murder when others
was around, and v/e was glad of that.
Tom Sawyer racked the head off of himself all that
month trying to plan some way out for Uncle Silas, and
many s the night he kept me up most all night with
this kind of tiresome work, but he couldn t seem to get
on the right track no way. As for me, I reckoned a
body might as well give it up, it all looked so blue and
I was so downhearted; but he wouldn t. He stuck to
the business right along, and went on planning and
thinking and ransacking his head.
So at last the trial come on, towards the middle of
October, and we was all in the court. The place was
jammed, of course. Poor old Uncle Silas, he looked
more like a dead person than a live one, his eyes was so
hollow and he looked so thin and so mournful. Benny
she set on one side of him and Aunt Sally on the other,
and they had veils on, and was full of trouble. But
Tom he set by our lawyer, and had his finger in every-
wheres, of course. The lawyer let him, and the judge
let him. He most took the business out of the law
yer s hands sometimes; which was well enough, be
cause that was only a mud-turtle of a back-settlement
lawyer and didn t know enough to come in when it
rains, as the saying is.
They swore in the jury, and then the lawyer for the
jDIosJtitutjon got up and begun. He made a terrible
speech against the old man, that made him moan and
groan, and made Benny and Aunt Sally cry. The way
206 Tom Sawyer, Detective
he told about the murder kind of knocked us all stupid
it was so different from the old man s tale. He said
he was going to prove that Uncle Silas was seen to
kill Jubiter Dunlap by two good witnesses, and done it
deliberate, and said he was going to kill him the very
minute he hit him with the club ; and they seen him hide
Jubiter in the bushes, and they seen that Jubiter was
stone-dead. And said Uncle Silas come later and
lugged Jubiter down into the tobacker field, and two
men seen him do it. And said Uncle Silas turned out,
away in the night, and buried Jubiter, and a man seen
him at it.
I says to myself, poor old Uncle Silas has been lying
about it because he reckoned nobody seen him and he
couldn t bear to break Aunt Sally s heart and Benny s;
and right he was: as for me, I would a lied the
same way, and so would anybody that had any feeling,
to save them such misery and sorrow which tliey warn t
no ways responsible for. Well, it made our lawyer
look pretty sick; and it knocked Tom silly, too, for a
little spell, but then he braced up and let on that he
warn t worried but I knowed he was, all the same.
And the people my, but it made a stir amongst
them!
And when that lawyer was done telling the jury what
he was going to prove, he set down and begun to work
his witnesses.
First, he called a lot of them to show that there was
bad blood betwixt Uncle Silas and the diseased ; and
they told how they had heard Uncle Silas threaten the
Tom Sawyer, Detective 207
diseased, at one time and another, and how it got
worse and worse and everybody was talking about it,
and how diseased got afraid of his life, and told two or
three of them he was certain Uncle Silas would up and
kill him some time or another.
Tom and our lawyer asked them some questions;
but it warn t no use, they stuck to what they said.
Next, they called up Lem Beebe, and he took the
stand. It come into my mind, then, how Lem and Jim
Lane had come along talking, that time, about borrow
ing a dog or something from Jubiter Dunlap ; and that
brought up the blackberries and the lantern ; and that
brought up Bill and Jack Withers, and how they passed
by, talking about a nigger stealing Uncle Silas s corn;
and that fetched up our old ghost that come along
about the same time and scared us so and here he
was too, and a privileged character, on accounts of his
being deef and dumb and a stranger, and they had fixed
him a chair inside the railing, where he could cross his
legs and be comfortable, whilst the other people was all
in a jam so they couldn t hardly breathe. So it all
come back to me just the way it was that day; and it
made me mournful to think how pleasant it was up to
then, and how miserable ever since.
Lem Beebe > sworn, said: " I was a-coming along, that day, second of
September, and Jim Lane was with me, and it was towards sundown, and
we heard loud talk, like quarrelling, and we was very close, only the hazel
bushes between (that s along the fence); and we heard a voice say, * I ve
told you more n once I d kill you, and knowed it was this prisoner s voice;
and then we see a club come up above the bushes and down out of sight
again, and heard a smashing thump and then a groan or two; and then we
14
208 Tom Sawyer, Detective
crope soft to where we could see, and there laid Jupiter Dunlap dead, and
this prisoner standing over him with the club; and the next he hauled the
dead man into a clump of bushes and hid him, and then we stooped low,
to be out of sight, and got away."
Well, it was awful. It kind of froze everybody s
blood to hear it, and the house was most as still whilst
he was telling it as if there warn t nobody in it. And
when he was done, you could hear them gasp and sigh,
all over the house, and look at one another the same
as to say, " Ain t it perfectly terrible ain t it awful !"
Now happened a thing that astonished me. All the
time the first witnesses was proving the bad blood and
the threats and all that, Tom Sawyer was alive and lay
ing for them; and the minute they was through, he
went for them, and done his level best to catch them in
lies and spile their testimony. But now, how different.
When Lem first begun to talk, and never said anything
about speaking to Jubiter or trying to borrow a dog
off of him, he was all alive and laying for Lem, and you
could see he was getting ready to cross-question him to
death pretty soon, and then I judged him and me would
go on the stand by and by and tell what we heard him
and Jim Lane say. But the next time I looked at Tom
I got the cold shivers. Why, he was in the brownest
study you ever see miles and miles away. He warn t
hearing a word Lem Beebe was saying; and when he
got through he was still in that brown-study, just the
same. Our lawyer joggled him, and then he looked up
startled, and says, " Take the witness if you want him.
Lemme alone I want to think."
Tom Sawyer, Detective 209
Well, that beat me. I couldn t understand it. And
Benny and her mother oh, they looked sick, they
was so troubled. They shoved their veils to one side
and tried to get his eye, but it warn t any use, and I
couldn t get his eye either. So the mud-turtle he
tackled the witness, but it didn t amount to nothing;
and he made a mess of it.
Then they called up Jim Lane, and he told the very
same story over again, exact. Tom never listened to
this one at all, but set there thinking and thinking, miles
and miles away. So the mud-turtle went in alone
again and come out just as flat as he done before. The
lawyer for the prostitution looked very comfortable,
but the judge looked disgusted. You see, Tom was
just the same as a regular lawyer, nearly, because it
was Arkansaw law for a prisoner to choose anybody he
wanted to help his lawyer, and Tom had had Uncle
Silas shove him into the case, and now he was botching
it and you could see the judge didn t like it much.
All that the mud-turtle got out of Lem and Jim was
this : he asked them :
" Why didn t you go and tell what you saw?"
* We was afraid we would get mixed up in it our
selves. And we was just starting down the river
a-hunting for all the week besides ; but as soon as we
come back we found out they d been searching for the
body, so then we went and told Brace Dunlap all
about it."
"When was that?"
" Saturday night, September 9th, M
14**
210 Tom Sawyer, Detective
The judge he spoke up and says :
" Mr. Sheriff, arrest these two witnesses on suspicions
of being accessionary after the fact to the murder."
The lawyer for the prostitution jumps up all excited,
and says:
"Your honor! I protest against this extraordi "
" Set down !" says the judge, pulling his bowie and
laying it on his pulpit. "I beg you to respect the
Court."
So he done it. Then he called Bill Withers.
Bill Wither s> sworn, said: "I was coming along about sundown,
Saturday, September 2d, by the prisoner s field, and my brother Jack was
with me, and we seen a man toting off something heavy on his back and
allowed it was a nigger stealing corn; we couldn t see distinct; next we
made out that it was one man carrying another: and the way it hung, so
kind of limp, we judged it was somebody that was drunk; and by the
man s walk we said it was Parson Silas, and we judged he had found Sam
Cooper drunk in the road, which he was always trying to reform him, and
was toting him out of danger. 5
It made the people shiver to think of poor old Uncle
Silas toting off the diseased down to the place in his
tobacker field where the dog dug up the body, but
there warn t much sympathy around amongst the faces,
and I heard one cuss say, " Tis the coldest blooded
work I ever struck, lugging a murdered man around
like that, and going to bury him like a animal, and him
a preacher at that.
Tom he went on thinking, and never took no notice ;
so our lawyer took the witness and done the best he
could, and it was plenty poor enough.
Tom Sawyer, Detective 211
Then Jack Withers he come on the stand and told the
same tale, just like Bill done.
And after him comes Brace Dunlap, and he was look
ing very mournful, and most crying; and there was a
rustle and a stir all around, and everybody got ready to
listen, and lots of the women folks said, " Poor cretur,
poor cretur," and you could see a many of them wip
ing their eyes.
Brace Dunlap, sworn, said: "I was in considerable trouble a long
time about my poor brother, but I reckoned things warn t near so bad as
he made out, and I couldn t make myself believe anybody would have the
heart to hurt a poor harmless cretur like that " [by jings, I was sure I seen
Tom give a kind of a faint little start, and then look disappointed again]
"and you know I couldn t think a preacher would hurt him it warn t
natural to think such an onlikely thing so I never paid much attention,
and now I sha n t ever, ever forgive myself; for if I had a done different,
my poor brother would be with me this day, and not laying yonder mur
dered, and him so harmless." He kind of broke down there and choked
up, and waited to get his voice; and people all around said the most pitiful
things, and women cried; and it was very still in there, and solemn, and
old Uncle Silas, poor thing, he give a groan right out so everybody heard
him. Then Brace he went on, " Saturday, September 2d, he didn t come
home to supper. By-and-by I got a little uneasy, and one of my niggers
went over to this prisoner s place, but come back and said he warn t there.
So I got uneasier and uneasier, and couldn t rest. I went to bed, but I
couldn t sleep; and turned out, away late in the night, and went wander
ing over to this prisoner s place and all around about there a good while,
hoping I would run across my poor brother, and never knowing he was out
of his troubles and gone to a better shore " So he broke down and
choked up again, and most all the women was crying now. Pretty soon he
got another start and says: " But it warn t no use; so at last I went home
and tried to get some sleep, but couldn t. Well, in a day or two everybody
was uneasy, and they got to talking about this prisoner s threats, and took
to the idea, which I didn t take no stock in, that my brother was murdered;
so they hunted around and tried to find his body, but couldn t and give it
212 Tom Sawyer, Detective
up. And so I reckoned he was gone off somers to have a little peace, and
would come back to us when his troubles was kind of healed. But late
Saturday night, the 9th, Lem Beebe and Jim Lane come to my house and
told me all told me the whole awful sassination, and my heart was
broke. And then I remembered something that hadn t took no hold of me
at the time, because reports said this prisoner had took to walking in his
sleep and doing all kind of things of no consequence, not knowing what he
was about. I will tell you what that thing was that come back into my
memory. Away late that awful Saturday night when I was wandering
around about this prisoner s place, grieving and troubled, I was down by
the corner of the tobacker-field and I heard a sound like digging in a gritty
soil; and I crope nearer and peeped through the vines that hung on the
rail fence and seen this prisoner shoveling shoveling with a long-handled
shovel heaving earth into a big hole that was most filled up; his back
was to me, but it was bright moonlight and I knowed him by his old green
baize work-gown with a splattery white patch in the middle of the back
like somebody had hit him with a snowball. He was burying the man he^d
murdered! "
And he slumped down in his chair crying and sob
bing, and most everybody in the house busted out
wailing, and crying, and saying, "Oh, it s awful
awful horrible ! and there was a most tremendous ex
citement, and you couldn t hear yourself think; and
right in the midst of it up jumps old Uncle Silas, white
as a sheet, and sings out :
"I?s true , every word / murdered him in cold
blood!"
By Jackson, it petrified them ! People rose up wild
all over the house, straining and staring for a better look
at him, and the judge was hammering with his mallet
and the sheriff yelling " Order order in the court
order!"
And all the while the old man stood there a-quaking
and his eyes a-burning, and not looking at his wife and
Tom Sawyer, Detective 213
daughter, which was clinging to him and begging him
to keep still, but pawing them off with his hands and
saying he would clear his black soul from crime, he
would heave off this load that was more than he could
bear, and he wouldn t bear it another hour! And
then he raged right along with his awful tale, every
body a-staring and gasping, judge, jury, lawyers, and
everybody, and Benny and Aunt Sally crying their
hearts out. And by George, Tom Sawyer never
looked at him once! Never once just set there
gazing with all his eyes at something else, I couldn t
tell what. And so the old man raged right along,
pouring his words out like a stream of fire :
* I killed him ! I am guilty ! But I never had the
notion in my life to hurt him or harm him, spite of all
them lies about my threatening him, till the very
minute I raised the club then my heart went cold !
then the pity all went out of it, and I struck to kill ! In
that one moment all my wrongs come into my mind ;
all the insults that that man and the scoundrel his
brother, there, had put upon me, and how they laid in
together to ruin me with the people, and take away
my good name, and drive me to some deed that would
destroy me and my family that hadn t ever done tliem
no harm, so help me God ! And they done it in a mean
revenge for why? Because my innocent pure girl
here at my side wouldn t marry that rich, insolent,
ignorant coward, Brace Dunlap, who s been sniveling
here over a brother he never cared a brass farthing
for " [I see Tom give a jump and look glad this time,
214 Tom Sawyer, Detective
to a dead certainty] "and in that moment I ve told
you about, I forgot my God and remembered only my
heart s bitterness, God forgive me, and I struck to kill.
In one second I was miserably sorry oh, filled with
remorse ; but I thought of my poor family, and I must
hide what I d done for their sakes; and I did hide that
corpse in the bushes ; and presently I carried it to the
tobacker field ; and in the deep night I went with my
shovel and buried it where "
Up jumps Tom and shouts:
" Now, I ve got it!" and waves his hand, oh, ever
so fine and starchy, towards the old man, and says :
" Set down! A murder was done, but you never
had no hand in it!"
Well, sir, you could a heard a pin drop. And the
old man he sunk down kind of bewildered in his seat
and Aunt Sally and Benny didn t know it, because they
was so astonished and staring at Tom with their
mouths open and not knowing what they was about.
And the whole house the same. / never seen people
look so helpless and tangled up, and I hain t ever seen
eyes bug out and gaze without a blink the way theirn
did. Tom says, perfectly ca m:
Your honor, may I speak?"
" For God s sake, yes go on!" says the judge, so
astonished and mixed up he didn t know what he was
about hardly.
Then Tom he stood there and waited a second or two
that was for to work up an " effect," as he calls it
then he started in just as ca m as ever, and says:
Tom Sawyer, Detective 215
4< For about two weeks now there s been a little bill
sticking on the front of this courthouse offering two
thousand dollars reward for a couple of big di monds
stole at St. Louis. Them di monds is worth twelve
thousand dollars. But never mind about that till I get
to it. Now about this murder. I will tell you all
about it how it happened who done it every
afctail."
You could see everybody nestle now, and begin to
listen for all they was worth.
This man here, Brace Dunlap, that s been sniveling
so about his dead brother that you know he never
cared a straw for, wanted to marry that young girl
there, and she wouldn t have him. So he told Uncle
Silas he would make him sorry. Uncle Silas knowed
how powerful he was, and how little chance he had
against such a man, and he was scared and worried, and
done everything he could think of to smooth him over
arid get him to be good to him : he even took his no-
account brother Jubiter on the farm and give him wages
and stinted his own family to pay them ; and Jubiter
done everything his brother could contrive to insult
Uncle Silas, and fret and worry him, and try to drive
Uncle Silas into doing him a hurt, so as to injure Uncle
Silas with the people. And it done it. Everybody
turned against him and said the meanest kind of things
about him, and it graduly broke his heart yes, and
he was so worried and distressed that often he warn t
hardly in his right mind.
"Well, on that Saturday that we ve had so much
216 Tom Sawyer, Detective
trouble about, two of these witnesses here, Lem Beebe
and Jim Lane, come along by where Uncle Silas and
Jubiter Dunlap was at work and that much of what
they ve said is true, the rest is lies. They didn t hear
Uncle Silas say he would kill Jubiter; they didn t hear
no blow struck; they didn t see no dead man, and they
didn t see Uncle Silas hide anything in the bushes.
Look at them now how they set there, wishing they
hadn t been so handy with their tongues; anyway,
they ll wish it before I get done.
" That same Saturday evening Bill and Jack Withers
did see one man lugging off another one. That much
of what they said is true, and the rest is lies. First off
they thought it was a nigger stealing Uncle Silas s corn
you notice it makes them look silly, now, to find out
somebody overheard them say that. That s because
they found out by and by who it was that was doing
the lugging, and they know best why they swore here
that they took it for Uncle Silas by the gait which it
wasn t, and they knowed it when they swore to that lie.
"A man out in the moonlight did see a murdered
person put under ground in the tobacker field - but it
wasn t Uncle Silas that done the burying. He was in
his bed at that very time.
"Now, then, before I go on, I want to ask you if
you ve ever noticed this: that people, when they re
thinking deep, or when they re worried, are most always
doing something with their hands, and they don t know
it, and don t notice what it is their hands are doing.
Some stroke their chins ; some stroke their noses ; some
Tom Sawyer, Detective 217
stroke up under their chin with their hand ; some twirl
a chain, some fumble a button, then there s some that
draws a figure or a letter with their finger on their
cheek, or under their chin or on their under lip. That s
my way. When I m restless, or worried, or thinking
hard, I draw capital V s on my cheek or on my under
lip or under my chin, and never anything but capital
V s and half the time I don t notice it and don t
know I m doing it."
That was odd. That is just what I do; only I make
an O. And I could see people nodding to one another,
same as they do when they mean " Thaf s so."
" Now, then, I ll go on. That same Saturday no,
it was the night before there was a steamboat laying
at Flagler s Landing, forty miles above here, and it
was raining and storming like the nation. And there
was a thief aboard, and he had them two big di monds
that s advertised out here on this courthouse door;
and he slipped ashore with his hand-bag and struck
out into the dark and the storm, and he was a-hoping
he could get to this town all right and be safe. But he
had two pals aboard the boat, hiding, and he knowed
they was going to kill him the first chance they got and
take the di monds; because all three stole them, and
then this fellow he got hold of them and skipped.
;< Well, he hadn t been gone more n ten minutes be
fore his pals found it out, and they jumped ashore and
lit out after him. Prob ly they burnt matches and
found his tracks. Anyway, they dogged along after
him all day Saturday and kept out of his sight; and
218 Tom Sawyer, Detective
towards sundown he come to the bunch of sycamores
down by Uncle Silas s field, and he went in there to
get a disguise out of his hand-bag and put it on before
he showed himself here in the town and mind you he
done that just a little after the time that Uncle Silas was
hitting Jubiter Dunlap over the head with a club for
he did hit him.
" But the minute the pals see that thief slide into the
bunch of sycamores, they jumped out of the bushes
and slid in after him.
They fell on him and clubbed him to death.
1 Yes, for all he screamed and howled so, they never
had no mercy on him, but clubbed him to death. And
two men that was running along the road heard him
yelling that way, and they made a rush into the syca
more bunch which was where they was bound for,
anyway and when the pals saw them they lit out and
the two new men after them a-chasing them as tight as
they could go. But only a minute or two then these
two new men slipped back very quiet into the syca
mores.
Then what did they do ? I will tell you what they
done. They found where the thief had got his disguise
out of his carpet-sack to put on ; so one of them strips
and puts on that disguise."
Tom waited a little here, for some more " effect "^
then he says, very deliberate:
The man that put on that dead man s disguise was
Jubiter Dunlap !
"Great Scott!" everybody shouted, all over the
Tom Sawyer, Detective 219
house, and old Uncle Silas he looked perfectly
astonished.
"Yes, it was Jubiter Dunlap. Not dead, you see.
Then they pulled off the dead man s boots and put
Jubiter Dunlap s old ragged shoes on the corpse and put
the corpse s boots on Jubiter Dunlap. Then Jubiter
Dunlap stayed where he was, and the other man lugged
the dead body off in the twilight ; and after midnight
he went to Uncle Silas s house, and took his old green
work-robe off of the peg where it always hangs in the
passage betwixt the house and the kitchen and put it on,
and stole the long-handled shovel and went off down
into the tobacker field and buried the murdered man."
He stopped, and stood half a minute. Then
"And who do you reckon the murdered man was f
It was Jake Dunlap, the long-lost burglar!"
"Great Scott!"
"And the man that buried him was Brace Dunlap,
his brother!"
"Great Scott!"
"And who do you reckon is this mowing idiot here
that s letting on all these weeks to be a deef and dumb
stranger? It s Jubiter Dunlap !"
My land, they all busted out in a howl, and you
never see the like of that excitement since the day you
was born. And Tom he made a jump for Jubiter and
snaked off his goggles and his false whiskers, and there
was the murdered man, sure enough, just as alive as
anybody ! And Aunt Sally and Benny they went to
hugging and crying and kissing and smothering old
220 Tom Sawyer, Detective
Uncle Silas to that degree he was more muddled and
confused and mushed up in his mind than he ever was
before, and that is saying considerable. And next,
people begun to yell :
Tom Sawyer! Tom Sawyer! Shut up every
body, and let him go on ! Go on, Tom Sawyer !"
Which made him feel uncommon bully, for it was
nuts for Tom Sawyer to be a public character that-
away, and a hero, as he calls it, So when it was all
quiet, he says :
" There ain t much left, only this. When that man
there, Bruce Dunlap, had most worried the life and
sense out of Uncle Silas till at last he plumb lost his
mind and hit this other blatherskite, his brother, with a
club, I reckon he seen his chance. Jubiter broke for
the woods to hide, and I reckon the game was for him
to slide out, in the night, and leave the country.
Then Brace would make everybody believe Uncle Silas
killed him and hid his body somers ; and that would
ruin Uncle Silas and drive him out of the country
hang him, maybe; I dunno. But when they found
their dead brother in the sycamores without knowing
him, because he was so battered up, they see they had
a better thing; disguise both and bury Jake and dig
him up presently all dressed up in Jubiter s clothes,
and hire Jim Lane and Bill Withers and the others to
swear to some handy lies which they done. And
there they set, now, and I told them they would be
looking sick before I got done, and that is the way
they re looking now.
Tom Sawyer, Detective 221
"Well, me and Huck Finn here, we come down on
the boat with the thieves, and the dead one told us all
about the di monds, and said the others would murder
him if they got the chance ; and we was going to help
him all we could. We was bound for the sycamores
when we heard them killing him in there ; but we was
in there in the early morning after the storm and
allowed nobody hadn t been killed, after all. And
when we see Jubiter Dunlap here spreading around in
the very same disguise Jake told us he was going to
wear, we thought it was Jake his own self and he was
goo-gooing deef and dumb, and that was according to
agreement.
" Well, me and Huck went on hunting for the corpse
after the others quit, and we found it. And was proud,
too ; but Uncle Silas he knocked us crazy by telling us
he killed the man. So we was mighty sorry we found
the body, and was bound to save Uncle Silas s neck if
we could; and it was going to be tough work, too,
because he wouldn t let us break him out of prison the
way we done with our old nigger Jim.
" I done everything I could the whole month to think
up some way to save Uncle Silas, but I couldn t strike
a thing. So when we come into court to-day I come
empty, and couldn t see no chance anywheres. But
by and by I had a glimpse of something that set me
thinking just a little wee glimpse only that, and
not enough to make sure ; but it set me thinking hard
and watching, when I was only letting on to think ;
and by and by, sure enough, when Uncle Silas was pil-
222 Tom Sawyer, Detective
ing out that stuff about him killing Jubiter Dunlap, I
catched that glimpse again, and this time I jumped up
and shut down the proceedings, because I knowed
Jubiter Dunlap was a-setting here before me. I knowed
him by a thing which I seen him do and I remem
bered it. I d seen him do it when I was here a year
ago."
He stopped then, and studied a minute laying for
an "effect" I knowed it perfectly well. Then he
turned off like he was going to leave the platform, and
says, kind of lazy and indifferent:
"Well, I believe that is all."
Why, you never heard such a howl ! and it come
from the whole house :
" What was it you seen him do? Stay where you
are, you little devil ! You think you are going to
work a body up till his mouth s a-watering and stop
there? What was it he done?"
That was it, you see he just done it to get an
11 effect " ; you couldn t a pulled him off of that plat
form with a yoke of oxen.
" Oh, it wasn t anything much," he says. " I seen
him looking a little excited when he found Uncle Silas
was actuly fixing to hang himself for a murder that
warn t ever done; and he got more and more nervous
and worried, I a-watching him sharp but not seeming
to look at him and all of a sudden his hands begun
to work and fidget, and pretty soon his left crept up
and his finger drawed a cross on Jiis cheek, and then I
had him !"
Tom Sawyer, Detective 223
Well, then they ripped and howled and stomped and
clapped their hands till Tom Sawyer was that proud
and happy he didn t know what to do with him
self.
And then the judge he looked down over his pulpit
and says :
" My boy, did you see all the various details of this
strange conspiracy and tragedy that you ve been de
scribing?"
" No, your honor, I didn t see any of them."
"Didn t see any of them! Why, you ve told the
whole history straight through, just the same as if
you d seen it with your eyes. How did you manage
that?"
Tom says, kind of easy and comfortable:
" Oh, just noticing the evidence and piecing this and
that together, your honor; just an ordinary little bit of
detective work; anybody could a done it."
" Nothing of the kind ! Not two in a million could
a done it. You are a very remarkable boy."
Then they let go and give Tom another smashing
round, and he well, he wouldn t a sold out for a
silver mine. Then the judge says :
" But are you certain you ve got this curious history
straight?"
84 Perfectly, your honor. Here is Brace Dunlap
let him deny his share of it if he wants to take the
chance; I ll engage to make him wish he hadn t said
anything Well, you see he s pretty quiet. And
his brother s pretty quiet, and them four witnesses that
15
224 Tom Sawyer, Detective
lied so and got paid for it, they re pretty quiet. And
as for Uncle Silas, it ain t any use for him to put in
his oar, I wouldn t believe him under oath!"
Well, sir, that fairly made them shout; and even the
judge he let go and laughed. Tom he was just feeling
like a rainbow. When they was done laughing he
looks up at the judge and says :
Your honor, there s a thief in this house."
"A thief?"
Yes, sir. And he s got them twelve-thousand-
dollar di monds on him."
By gracious, but it made a stir ! Everybody went
shouting:
"Which is him? which is him? p int him out!"
And the judge says :
" Point him out, my lad. Sheriff, you will arrest
him. Which one is it?"
Tom says :
This late dead man here Jubiter Dunlap."
Then there was another thundering let-go of astonish
ment and excitement; but Jubiter, which was astonished
enough before, was just fairly putrified with astonish
ment this time. And he spoke up, about half crying,
and says:
" Now that s a lie. Your honor, it ain t fair; I m
plenty bad enough without that. I done the other
things Brace he put me up to it, and persuaded me,
and promised he d make me rich, some day, and I done
it, and I m sorry I done it, and I wisht I hadn t; but I
hain t stole no di monds, and I hain t got no di monds;
Tom Sawyer, Detective 225
I wisht I may never stir if it ain t so. The sheriff can
search me and see."
Tom says :
Your honor, it wasn t right to call him a thief, and
I ll let up on that a little. He did steal the di monds,
but he didn t know it. He stole them from his brother
Jake when he was laying dead, after Jake had stole them
from the other thieves; but Jubiter didn t know he was
stealing them; and he s been swelling around here with
them a month; yes, sir, twelve thousand dollars worth
of di monds on him all that riches, and going around
here every day just like a poor man. Yes, your honor,
he s got them on him now."
The judge spoke up and says :
" Search him, sheriff."
Well, sir, the sheriff he ransacked him high and low,
and everywhere: searched his hat, socks, seams, boots,
everything and Tom he stood there quiet, laying for
another of them effects of hisn. Finally the sheriff he
give it up, and everybody looked disappointed, and
Jubiter says :
"There, now! what d I tell you?"
And the judge says :
14 It appears you were mistaken this time, my
boy."
Then Tom took an attitude and let on to be studying
with all his might, and scratching his head. Then all
of a sudden he glanced up chipper, and says :
" Oh, now I ve got it! I d forgot."
Which was a lie, and I knowed it. Then he says:
226 Tom Sawyer, Detective
" Will somebody be good enough to lend me a little
small screwdriver? There was one in your brother s
hand-bag that you smouched, Jubiter, but I reckon
you didn t fetch it with you."
"No, I didn t. I didn t want it, and I give it
away."
"That was because you didn t know what it was
for."
Jubiter had his boots on again, by now, and when
the thing Tom wanted was passed over the people s
heads till it got to him, he says to Jubiter:
" Put up your foot on this chair." And he kneeled
down and begun to unscrew the heel-plate, everybody
watching; and when he got that big di mond out of
that boot-heel and held it up and let it flash and blaze
and squirt sunlight everwhichaway, it just took every
body s breath; and Jubiter he looked so sick and sorry
you never see the like of it. And when Tom held up
the other di mond he looked sorrier than ever. Land !
he was thinking how he would a skipped out and been
rich and independent in a foreign land if he d only had
the luck to guess what the screwdriver was in the
carpet-bag for.
Well, it was a most exciting time, take it all around,
and Tom got cords of glory. The judge took the
di monds, and stood up in his pulpit, and cleared his
throat, and shoved his spectacles back on his head, and
says:
"I ll keep them and notify the owners; and when
they send for them it will be a real pleasure to rne to
Tom Sawyer, Detective 22?
hand you the two thousand dollars, for you ve earned
the money yes, and you ve earned the deepest and
most sincerest thanks of this community besides, for
lifting a wronged and innocent family out of ruin and
shame, and saving a good and honorable man from a
felon s death, and for exposing to infamy and the pun
ishment of the law a cruel and odious scoundrel and his
miserable creatures!"
Well, sir, if there d been a brass band to bust out
some music, then, it would a been just the perfectest
thing I ever see, and Tom Sawyer he said the same.
Then the sheriff he nabbed Brace Dunlap and his
crowd, and by and by next month the judge had them
up for trial and jailed the whole lot. And everybody
crowded back to Uncle Silas s little old church, and was
ever so loving and kind to him and the family and
couldn t do enough for them; and Uncle Silas he
preached them the blamedest jumbledest idiotic sermons
you ever struck, and would tangle you up so you
couldn t find your way home in daylight; but the peo
ple never let on but what they thought it was the clear
est and brightest and elegantest sermons that ever was ;
and they would set there and cry, for love and pity ;
but, by George, they give me the jim-jams and the fan-
tods and caked up what brains I had, and turned them
solid ; but by and by they loved the old man s intellects
back into him again, and he was as sound in his skull as
ever he was, which ain t no flattery, I reckon. And
so the whole family was as happy as birds, and nobody
could be gratefuler and lovinger than what they was to
o*
228 Tom Sawyer, Detective
Tom Sawyer; and the same to me, though I hadn t
done nothing. And when the two thousand dollars
come, Tom give half of it to me, and never told any
body so, which didn t surprise me, because I knowed
him.
THE STOLEN WHITE ELEPHANT*
THE following curious history was related to me by
a chance railway acquaintance. He was a gentle
man more than seventy years of age, and his thoroughly
good and gentle face and earnest and sincere manner
imprinted the unmistakable stamp of truth upon every
statement which fell from his lips. He said :
You know in what reverence the royal white elephant
of Siam is held by the people of that country. You
know it is sacred to kings, only kings may possess it,
and that it is, indeed, in a measure even superior to
kings, since it receives not merely honor but worship.
Very well; five years ago, when the troubles concern
ing the frontier line arose between Great Britain and
Siam, it was presently manifest that Siam had been in
the wrong. Therefore every reparation was quickly
made, and the British representative stated that he
was satisfied and the past should be forgotten. This
*Left out of " A Tramp Abroad," because it was feared that some of
the particulars had been exaggerated, and that others were not true. Before
these suspicions had been proven groundless, the book had gone to press.
M. T.
(229)
230 The Stolen White Elephant
greatly relieved the King of Siam, and partly as a
token of gratitude, but partly also, perhaps, to wipe
out any little remaining vestige of unpleasantness
which England might feel toward him, he wished to
send the Queen a present the sole sure way of
propitiating an enemy, according to Oriental ideas.
This present ought not only to be a royal one, but
transcendently royal. Wherefore, what offering could
be so meet as that of a white elephant? My position
in the Indian civil service was such that I was deemed
peculiarly worthy of the honor of conveying the present
to her Majesty. A ship was fitted out for me and my
servants and the officers and attendants of the elephant,
and in due time I arrived in New York harbor and
placed my royal charge in admirable quarters in Jersey
City. It was necessary to remain awhile in order to
recruit the animal s health before resuming the voyage.
All went well during a fortnight then my calamities
began. The white elephant was stolen ! I was called
up at dead of night and informed of this fearful mis
fortune. For some moments I was beside myself with
terror and anxiety; I was helpless. Then I grew
calmer and collected my faculties. I soon saw my
course for, indeed, there was but the one course for
an intelligent man to pursue. Late as it was, I flew to
New York and got a policeman to conduct me to the
headquarters of the detective force. Fortunately I
arrived in time, though the chief of the force, the cele
brated Inspector Blunt, was just on the point of leaving
for his home. He was a man of middle size and com
pact frame, and when he was thinking deeply he had a
way of knitting his brows and tapping his forehead
reflectively with his ringer, which impressed you at
once with the conviction that you stood in the presence
of a person of no common order. The very sight of
him gave me confidence and made me hopeful. I
The Stolen White Elephant 2}1
stated my errand. It did not flurry him in the least;
it had no more visible effect upon his iron self-
possession that if I had told him somebody had stolen
my dog. He motioned me to a seat, and said, calmly:
" Allow me to think a moment, please."
So saying, he sat down at his office table and leaned
his head upon his hand. Several clerks were at work
at the other end of the room ; the scratching of their
pens was all the sound I heard during the next six or
seven minutes. Meantime the inspector sat there,
buried in thought. Finally he raised his head, and
there was that in the firm lines of his face which
showed me that his brain had done its work and his
plan was made. Said he and his voice was low and
impressive :
"This is no ordinary case. Every step must be
warily taken ; each step must be made sure before the
next is ventured. And secrecy must be observed
secrecy profound and absolute. Speak to no one
about the matter, not even the reporters. I will take
care of them ; I will see that they get only what it may
suit my ends to let them know." He touched a bell;
a youth appeared. " Alaric, tell the reporters to re
main for the present." The boy retired. " Now let
us proceed to business and systematically. Nothing
can be accomplished in this trade of mine without strict
and minute method."
He took a pen and some paper. " Now name of
the elephant?"
" Hassan Ben Ali Ben Selim Abdallah Mohammed
Moise Alhammal Jamsetjejeebhoy Dhuleep Sultan Ebu
Bhudpoor."
Very well. Given name?"
"Jumbo."
Very well. Place of birth?"
" The capital city of Siam."
I
232 The Stolen White Elephant
" Parents living?"
"No dead."
" Had they any other issue beside this one?"
" None. He was an only child."
Very well. These matters are sufficient under that
head. Now please describe the elephant, and leave
out no particular, however insignificant that is, insig
nificant from your point of view. To men in my pro
fession there are no insignificant particulars ; they dq
not exist."
I described he wrote. When I was done, hq
said :
" Now listen. If I have made any mistakes, correct
me."
He read as follows :
"Height, 19 feet; length from apex of forehead to
insertion of tail, 26 feet; length of trunk, 16 feet;
length of tail, 6 feet; total length, including trunk and
tail, 48 feet; length of tusks, 9*^ feet; ears in keeping
with these dimensions ; footprint resembles the mark
left when one up-ends a barrel in the snow; color of
the elephant, a dull white ; has a hole the size of a
plate in each ear for the insertion of jewelry, and pos
sesses the habit in a remarkable degree of squirting
water upon spectators and of maltreating with his trunk
not only such persons as he is acquainted with, but
even entire strangers ; limps slightly with his right hind
leg, and has a small scar in his left armpit caused by a
former boil; had on, when stolen, a castle containing
seats for fifteen persons, and a gold-cloth saddle-
blanket the size of an ordinary carpet."
There were no mistakes. The inspector touched the
bell, handed the description to Alaric, and said:
* Have fifty thousand copies of this printed at once
and mailed to every detective office and pawnbroker s
shop on the continent." Alaric retired. There
The Stolen White Elephant 233
so far, so good. Next, I must have a photograph of
the property."
I gave him one. He examined it critically, and said :
" It must do, since we can do no better; but he has
his trunk curled up and tucked into his mouth. That
is unfortunate, and is calculated to mislead, for of
course he does not usually have it in that position."
He touched his bell.
44 Alaric, have fifty thousand copies of this photo
graph made the first thing in the morning, and mail
them with the descriptive circulars."
Alaric retired to execute his orders. The inspector
said :
" It will be necessary to offer a reward, of course.
Now as to the amount?"
" What sum would you suggest?"
To begin with, I should say well, twenty-five
thousand dollars. It is an intricate and difficult busi
ness ; there are a thousand avenues of escape and op
portunities of concealment. These thieves have friends
and pals everywhere "
" Bless me, do you know who they are?"
The wary face, practiced in concealing the thoughts
and feelings within, gave me no token, nor yet the
replying words, so quietly uttered :
" Never mind about that. I may, and I may not,
We generally gather a pretty shrewd inkling of who
our man is by the manner of his work and the size of
the game he goes after. We are not dealing with a
pickpocket or a hall thief now, make up your mind to
that. This property was not * lifted by a novice.
But, as I was saying, considering the amount of travel
which will have to be done, and the diligence with
which the thieves will cover up their traces as they move
along, twenty-five thousand may be too small a sum
to offer, yet I think it worth while to start with that."
234 The Stolen White Elephant
So we determined upon that figure as a beginning.
Then this man, whom nothing escaped which could by
any possibility be made to serve as a clew, said :
There are cases in detective history to show that
criminals have been detected through peculiarities in
their appetites. Now, what does this elephant eat, and
how much?"
"Well, as to what he eats he will eat anything.
He will eat a man, he will eat a Bible he will eat
anything between a man and a Bible."
" Good very good, indeed, but too general. De
tails are necessary details are the only valuable things
in our trade. Very well as to men. At one meal
or, if you prefer, during one day how many men
will he eat, if fresh?"
" He would not care whether they were fresh or
not; at a single meal he would eat five ordinary men."
Very good; five men; we will put that down.
What nationalities would he prefer?"
" He is indifferent about nationalities. He prefers
acquaintances, but is not prejudiced against strangers."
Very good. Now, as to Bibles. How many Bibles
would he eat at a meal?"
" He would eat an entire edition."
"It is hardly succinct enough. Do you mean the
ordinary octavo, or the family illustrated?"
"I think he would be indifferent to illustrations;
that is, I think he would not value illustrations above
simple letter-press."
"No, you do not get my idea. I refer to bulk.
The ordinary octavo Bible weighs about two pounds
and a half, while the great quarto with the illustrations
weighs ten or twelve. How many Dore Bibles would
he eat at a meal?"
" If you knew this elephant, you could not ask. He
would take what they had."
The Stolen White Elephant 235
"Well, put it in dollars and cents, then. We must
get at it somehow. The Dore costs a hundred dollars
a copy, Russia leather, beveled."
"He would require about fifty thousand dollars
worth say an edition of five hundred copies."
"Now that is more exact. I will put that down.
Very well; he likes men and Bibles; so far, so good.
What else will he eat? I want particulars."
" He will leave Bibles to eat bricks, he will leave
bricks to eat bottles, he will leave bottles to eat
clothing, he will leave clothing to eat cats, he will
leave cats to eat oysters, he will leave oysters to eat
ham, he will leave ham to eat sugar, he will leave sugar
to eat pie, he will leave pie to eat potatoes, he will
leave potatoes to eat bran, he will leave bran to eat hay,
he will leave hay to eat oats, he will leave oats to eat
rice, for he was mainly raised on it. There is nothing
whatever that he will not eat but European butter, and
he would eat that if he could taste it."
"Very good. General quantity at a meal say
about "
" Well, anywhere from a quarter to half a ton."
"And he drinks"
"Everything that is fluid. Milk, water, whisky,
molasses, castor oil, camphene, carbolic acid- it is
no use to go into particulars ; whatever fluid occurs to
you set it down. He will drink anything that is fluid,
except European coffee."
" Very good. As to quantity?"
"Put it down five to fifteen barrels his thirst
varies; his other appetites do not."
" These things are unusual. They ought to furnish
quite good clews toward tracing him."
He touched the bell.
" Alaric, summon Captain Burns."
Burns appeared. Inspector Blunt unfolded the whole
236 The Stolen White Elephant
matter to him, detail by detail. Then he said in the
clear, decisive tones of a man whose plans are clearly
defined in his head, and who is accustomed to com
mand :
" Captain Burns, detail Detectives Jones, Davis,
Halsey, Bates, and Hackett to shadow the elephant/
"Yes, sir."
"Detail Detectives Moses, Dakin, Murphy, Rogers,
Tupper ; Higgins, and Bartholomew to shadow the
thieves/
"Yes, sir."
"Place a strong guard a guard of thirty picked
men, with a relief of thirty- over the place from
whence the elephant was stolen, to keep strict watch
there night and day, and allow none to approach
except reporters without written authority from me.
"Yes, sir."
" Place detectives in plain clothes in the railway,
steamship, and ferry depots, and upon all roadways
leading out of Jersey City, with orders to search all
suspicious persons."
"Yes, sir."
" Furnish all these men with photograph and accom
panying description of the elephant, and instruct them
to search all trains and outgoing ferry-boats and other
vessels."
"Yes, sir."
" If the elephant should be found, let him be seized,
and the information forwarded to me by telegraph."
"Yes, sir."
" Let me be informed at once if any clews should be
found footprints of the animal, or anything of that
kind."
"Yes, sir."
" Get an order commanding the harbor police to
patrol the frontages vigilantly."
The Stolen White Elephant 237
"Yes, sir."
"Despatch detectives in plain clothes over all the
railways, north as far as Canada, west as far as Ohio,
south as far as Washington."
4 Yes, sir."
" Place experts in all the telegraph offices to listen
to all messages; and let them require that all cipher
dispatches be interpreted to them."
"Yes, sir."
" Let all these things be done with the utmost
secrecy mind, the most impenetrable secrecy."
"Yes, sir."
" Report to me promptly at the usual hour."
"Yes, sir."
"Go!"
"Yes, sir."
He was gone.
Inspector Blunt was silent and thoughtful a moment,
while the fire in his eye cooled down and faded out.
Then he turned to me and said in a placid voice :
"I am not given to boasting, it is not my habit;
but we shall find the elephant."
I shook him warmly by the hand and thanked him ;
and I felt my thanks, too. The more I had seen of
the man the more I liked him and the more I admired
him and marveled over the mysterious wonders of his
profession. Then we parted for the night, and I went
home with a far happier heart than I had carried with
me to his office.
238 The Stolen White Elephant
II.
NEXT morning it was all in the newspapers, in the
minutest detail. It even had additions consisting
of Detective This, Detective That, and Detective
The Other s " Theory " as to how the robbery was
done, who the robbers were, and whither they had
flown with their booty. There were eleven of these
theories, and they covered all the possibilities; and
this single fact shows what independent thinkers detect
ives are. No two theories were alike, or even much
resembled each other, save in one striking particular,
and in that one all the other eleven theories were abso^
lutely agreed. That was, that although the rear of my
building was torn out and the only door remained
locked, the elephant had not been removed through the
rent, but by some other (undiscovered) outlet. All
agreed that the robbers had made that rent only to
mislead the detectives. That never would have oc
curred to me or to any other layman, perhaps, but it
had not deceived the detectives for a moment. Thus,
what I had supposed was the only thing that had no
mystery about it was in fact the very thing I had gone
furthest astray in. The eleven theories all named the
supposed robbers, but no two named the same robbers:
the total number of suspected persons was thirty-seven.
The various newspaper accounts all closed with the
most important opinion of all that of Chief Inspector
Blunt. A portion of this statement read as follows :
"The chief knows who the two principals are, namely, Brick Duffy
and Red McFadden. Ten days before the robbery was achieved he was
already aware that it was to be attempted, and had quietly proceeded to
shadow these two noted villains; but unfortunately on the night in ques-
The Stolen White Elephant 239
tion their track was lost, and before it could be found again the bird was
flown that is, the elephant.
"Duffy and McFadden are the boldest scoundrels in the profession;
the chief has reasons for believing that they are the men who stole the stove
out of the detective headquarters on a bitter night last winter in conse
quence of which the chief and every detective present were in the hands of
the physicians before morning, some with frozen feet, others with frozen
fingers, ears, and other members."
When I read the first half of that I was more aston
ished than ever at the wonderful sagacity of this strange
man. He not only saw everything in the present with
a clear eye, but even the future could not be hidden
from him. I was soon at his office, and said I could
not help wishing he had had those men arrested, and
so prevented the trouble and loss ; but his reply was
simple and unanswerable :
"It is not our province to prevent crime, but to
punish it. We cannot punish it until it is com
mitted."
I remarked that the secrecy with which we had begun
had been marred by the newspapers ; not only all our
facts but all our plans and purposes had been revealed ;
even all the suspected persons had been named ; these
would doubtless disguise themselves now, or go into
hiding.
" Let them. They will find that when I am ready
for them my hand will descend upon them, in their
secret places, as unerringly as the hand of fate. As to
the newspapers, we must keep in with them. Fame,
reputation, constant public mention these are the
detective s bread and butter. He must publish his
facts, else he will be supposed to have none; he must
publish his theory, for nothing is so strange or striking
as a detective s theory, or brings him so much wonder
ing respect; we must publish our plans, for these the
journals insist upon having, and we could not deny
16
240 The Stolen White Elephant
them without offending. We must constantly show the
public what we are doing, or they will believe we are
doing nothing. It is much pleasanter to have a news
paper say, Inspector Blunt s ingenious and extraordi
nary theory is as follows/ than to have it say some
harsh thing, or, worse still, some sarcastic one."
"I see the force of what you say. But I noticed
that in one part of your remarks in the papers this
morning you refused to reveal your opinion upon a
certain minor point."
Yes, we always do that; it has a good effect.
Besides, I had not formed any opinion on that point,
anyway."
I deposited a considerable sum of money with the
inspector, to meet current expenses, and sat down to
wait for news. We were expecting the telegrams to
begin to arrive at any moment now. Meantime I re
read the newspapers and also our descriptive circular,
and observed that our $2 5,000 reward seemed to be
offered only to detectives. I said I thought it ought to
be offered to anybody who would catch the elephant.
The inspector said :
" It is the detectives who will find the elephant, hence
the reward will go to the right place. If other people
found the animal, it would only be by watching the
detectives and taking advantage of clews and indications
stolen from them, and that would entitle the detectives
to the reward, after all. The proper office of a reward
is to stimulate the men who deliver up their time and
their trained sagacities to this sort of work, and not to
confer benefits upon chance citizens who stumble upon
a capture without having earned the benefits by their
own merits and labors."
This was reasonable enough, certainly. Now the
telegraphic machine in the corner began to click, and
the following dispatch was the result:
The Stolen White Elephant 241
FLOWER STATION, N. Y., 7.30 A.M.
Have got a clew. Found a succession of deep tracks across a farm near
here. Followed them two miles east without result; think elephant went
west. Shall now shadow him in that direction.
DARLEY, Detective.
" Barley s one of the best men on the force," said
the inspector. "We shall hear from him again be
fore long."
Telegram No. 2 came:
BARKER S, N. J., 7.40 A.M.
Just arrived. Glass factory broken open here during night, and eight
hundred bottles taken. Only water in large quantity near here is five miles
distant. Shall strike for there. Elephant will be thirsty. Bottles were
empty.
BAKER, Detective.
" That promises well, too," said the inspector. " I
told you the creature s appetites would not be bad
clews."
Telegram No 3 :
TAYLORVILLE, L. I., 8.15 A.M.
A haystack near here disappeared during night. Probably eaten.
Have got a clue, and am off.
HUBBARD, Detective.
"How he does move around!" said the inspector.
" I knew we had a difficult job on hand, but we shall
catch him yet."
FLOWER STATION, N. Y., 9 A.M.
Shadowed the tracks three miles westward. Large, deep, and ragged.
Have just met a farmer who says they are not elephant tracks. Says they
are holes where he dug up saplings for shade-trees when ground was frozen
last winter. Give me orders how to proceed.
DARLEY, Detective.
"Aha! a confederate of the thieves! The thing
grows warm," said the inspector.
16**
242 The Stolen White Elephant
He dictated the following telegram to Darley :
Arrest the man and force him to name his pals. Continue to follow the
tracks to the Pacific, if necessary.
Chief BLUNT.
Next telegram:
CONEY POINT, PA., 8.45 A.M.
Gas office broken open here during night and three months unpaid gas
bills taken. Have got a clue and am away.
MURPHY, Detective.
" Heavens!" said the inspector; " would he eat gas
bills?"
"Through ignorance yes; but they cannot sup
port life. At least, unassisted."
Now came this exciting telegram :
IRONVILLE, N. Y., 9.30 A.M.
Just arrived. This village in consternation. Elephant passed through
here at five this morning. Some say he went east, some say west, some
north, some south but all say they did not wait to notice particularly.
He killed a horse; have secured a piece of it for a clew. Killed it with
his trunk; from style of blow, think he struck it left-handed. From posi
tion in which horse lies, think elephant traveled northward along line of
Berkley railway. Has four and a half hours start, but I move on his track
at once.
HAWES, Detective.
I uttered exclamations of joy. The inspector was as
self-contained as a graven image. He calmly touched
his bell.
" Alaric, send Captain Burns here."
Burns appeared.
14 How many men are ready for instant orders?"
" Ninety-six, sir."
14 Send them north at once. Let them concentrate
along the line of the Berkley road north of Ironville."
"Yes, sir."
The Stolen White Elephant 243
" Let them conduct their movements with the utmost
secrecy. As fast as others are at liberty, hold them for
orders."
"Yes, sir/ 1
"Go!"
"Yes, sir."
Presently came another telegram :
SAGE CORNERS, N. Y., 10.30.
Just arrived. Elephant passed through here at 8.15. All escaped from
the town but a policeman. Apparently elephant did not strike at police
man, but at the lamp-post. Got both. I have secured a portion of the
policeman as clew.
STUMM, Detective.
"So the elephant has turned westward," said the
inspector. " However, he will not escape, for my men
are scattered all over that region."
The next telegram said :
GLOVER S, 11.15.
Just arrived. Village deserted, except sick and aged. Elephant passed
through three-quarters of an hour ago. The anti-temperance mass-meeting
was in session; he put his trunk in at a window and washed it out with
water from cistern. Some swallowed it since dead; several drowned.
Detectives Cross and O Shaughnessy were passing through town, but going
south so missed elephant. Whole region for many miles around in ter
ror people flying from their homes. Wherever they turn they meet
elephant, and many are killed.
BRANT, Detective.
I could have shed tears, this havoc so distressed me.
But the inspector only said :
" You see we are closing in on him. He feels our
presence; he has turned eastward again."
Yet further troublous news was in store for us. The
telegraph brought this :
HOGANSPORT, 12.19.
Just arrived. Elephant passed through half an hour ago, creating wild-
244 The Stolen White Elephant
est fright and excitement. Elephant raged around streets; two plumbers
going by, killed one other escaped. Regret general.
O FLAHERTY, Detective.
" Now he is right in the midst of my men," said the
inspector. " Nothing can save him."
A succession of telegrams came from detectives who
were scattered through New Jersey and Pennsylvania,
and who were following clews consisting of ravaged
barns, factories, and Sunday-school libraries, with high
hopes hopes amounting to certainties, indeed. The
inspector said :
" I wish I could communicate with them and order
them north, but that is impossible. A detective only
visits a telegraph office to send his report ; then he is
off again, and you don t know where to put your hand
on him."
Now came this dispatch :
BRIDGEPORT, CT. $ 12.15.
Barnum offers rate of $4,000 a year for exclusive privilege of using
elephant as traveling advertising medium from now till detectives find
him. Wants to paste circus-posters on him. Desires immediate answer.
BOGGS, Detective.
1 That is perfectly absurd !" I exclaimed.
11 Of course it is," said the inspector. " Evidently
Mr. Barnum, who thinks he is so sharp, does not know
me but I know him."
Then he dictated this answer to the dispatch :
Mr. Barnum s offer declined. Make it $7,000 or nothing.
Chief BLUNT.
"There. We shall not have to wait long for an
answer. Mr. Barnum is not at home; he is in the
telegraph office it is his way when he has business
on hand. Inside of three "
The Stolen White Elephant 245
DONE. P. T. BARNUM.
So interrupted the clicking telegraphic instrument.
Before I could make a comment upon this extraordi
nary episode, the following dispatch carried my
thoughts into another and very distressing channel :
BOLIVIA, N. Y., 12.50.
Elephant arrived here from the south and passed through toward the
forest at 11.50, dispersing a funeral on the way, and diminishing the mourn
ers by two. Citizens fired some small cannon-balls into him, and then fled.
Detective Burke and I arrived ten minutes later, from the north, but mis
took some excavations for footprints, and so lost a good deal of time; but
at last we struck the right trail and followed it to the woods. We then got
down on our hands and knees and continued to keep a sharp eye on the
track, and so shadowed it into the brush. Burke was in advance. Unfor
tunately the animal had stopped to rest ; therefore, Burke having his head
down, intent upon the track, butted up against the elephant s hind legs
before he was aware of his vicinity. Burke instantly arose to his, feet,
seized the tail, and exclaimed joyfully, " I claim the re " but got no fur
ther, for a single blow of the huge trunk laid the brave fellow s fragments
low in death. I fled rearward, and the elephant turned and shadowed me
to the edge of the wood, making tremendous speed, and I should inevitably
have been lost, but that the remains of the funeral providentially intervened
again and diverted his attention. I have just learned that nothing of that
funeral is now left; but this is no loss, for there is abundance of material
for another. Meantime, the elephant has disappeared again.
MULROONEY, Detective.
We heard no news except from the diligent and con
fident detectives scattered about New Jersey, Pennsyl
vania, Delaware, and Virginia who were all following
fresh and encouraging clews until shortly after 2
P. M., when this telegram came:
BAXTER CENTER, 2.15.
Elephant been here, plastered over with circus-bills, and broke up a
revival, striking down and damaging many who were on the point of enter
ing upon a better life. Citizens penned him up and established a guard.
246 The Stolen White Elephant
When Detective Brown and I arrived, some time after, we entered enclos
ure and proceeded to identify elephant by photograph and description. All
marks tallied exactly except one, which we could not see the boil-scar
under armpit. To make sure, Brown crept under to look, and was imme
diately brained that is, head crushed and destroyed, though nothing
issued from debris. All fled; so did elephant, striking right and left with
much effect. Has escaped, but left bold blood-track from cannon-wounds.
Rediscovery certain. He broke southward, through a dense forest.
BRENT, Detective.
That was the last telegram. At nightfall a fog shut
down which was so dense that objects but three feet
away could not be discerned. This lasted all night.
The ferry-boats and even the omnibuses had to stop
running.
III.
NEXT morning the papers were as full of detective
theories as before; they had all our tragic facts
in detail also, and a great many more which they
had received from their telegraphic correspondents.
Column after column was occupied, a third of its way
down, with glaring head-lines, which it made my heart
sick to read. Their general tone was like this:
"THE WHITE ELEPHANT AT LARGE! HE MOVES UPON HIS FATAL
MARCH! WHOLE VILLAGES DESERTED BY THEIR FRIGHT- STRICKEN
OCCUPANTS! PALE TERROR GOES BEFORE HIM, DEATH AND DEVASTA
TION FOLLOW AFTER! AFTER THESE, THE DETECTIVES! BARNS DE
STROYED, FACTORIES GUTTED, HARVESTS DEVOURED, PUBLIC ASSEMBLAGES
DISPERSED, ACCOMPANIED BY SCENES OF CARNAGE IMPOSSIBLE TO DE
SCRIBE ! THEORIES OF THIRTY-FOUR OF THE MOST DISTINGUISHED DE
TECTIVES ON THE FORCE! THEORY OF CHIEF BLUNT!"
There!" said Inspector Blunt, almost betrayed
into excitement, * * this is magnificent ! This is the
The Stolen White Elephant 247
greatest windfall that any detective organization ever
had. The fame of it will travel to the ends of the
earth, and endure to the end of time, and my name
with it."
But there was no joy for me. I felt as if I had com
mitted all those red crimes, and that the elephant was
only my irresponsible agent. And how the list had
grown! In one place he had "interfered with an
election and killed five repeaters." He had followed
this act with the destruction of two poor fellows,
named O Donohue and McFlannigan, who had " found
a refuge in the home of the oppressed of all lands only
the day before, and were in the act of exercising for
the first time the noble right of American citizens at
the polls, when stricken down by the relentless hand of
the Scourge of Siam." In another, he had " found a
crazy sensation-preacher preparing his next season s
heroic attacks on the dance, the theater, and other
things which can t strike back, and had stepped on
him." And in still another place he had "killed a
lightning-rod agent." And so the list went on, grow
ing redder and redder, and more and more heart
breaking. Sixty persons had been killed, and two
hundred and forty wounded. All the accounts bore
just testimony to the activity and devotion of the de
tectives, and all closed with the remark that "three
hundred thousand citizens and four detectives saw the
dread creature, and two of the latter he destroyed."
I dreaded to hear the telegraphic instrument begin
to click again. By and by the messages began to pour
in, but I was happily disappointed in their nature. It
was soon apparent that all trace of the elephant was
lost. The fog had enabled him to search out a good
hiding-place unobserved. Telegrams from the most
absurdly distant points reported that a dim vast mass
had been glimpsed there through the fog at such and
248 The Stolen White Elephant
such an hour, and was " undoubtedly the elephant."
This dim vast mass had been glimpsed in New Haven,
in New Jersey, in Pennsylvania, in interior New York,
in Brooklyn, and even in the city of New York itself !
But in all cases the dim vast mass had vanished quickly
and left no trace. Every detective of the large force
scattered over this huge extent of country sent his
hourly report, and each and every one of them had a
clew, and was shadowing something, and was hot upon
the heels of it.
But the day passed without other result.
The next day the same.
The next just the same.
The newspaper reports began to grow monotonous
with facts that amounted to nothing, clews which led
to nothing, and theories which had nearly exhausted
the elements which surprise and delight and dazzle.
By advice of the inspector I doubled the reward.
Four more dull days followed. Then came a bitter
blow to the poor, hardworking detectives the jour
nalists declined to print their theories, and coldly said,
44 Give us a rest."
Two weeks after the elephant s disappearance I
raised the reward to $75,000 by the inspector s ad
vice. It was a great sum, but I felt that I would rather
sacrifice my whole private fortune than lose my credit
with my government. Now that the detectives were in
adversity, the newspapers turned upon them, and began
to fling the most stinging sarcasms at them. This gave
the minstrels an idea, and they dressed themselves as
detectives and hunted the elephant on the stage in the
most extravagant way. The caricaturists made pictures
of detectives scanning the country with spy glasses,
while the elephant, at their backs, stole apples out of
their pockets. And they made all sorts of ridiculous
pictures of the detective badge you have seen that
The Stolen White Elephant 249
badge printed in gold on the back of detective novels,
no doubt it is a wide-staring eye, with the legend,
"WE NEVER SLEEP." When detectives called for a
drink, the would-be facetious barkeeper resurrected an
obsolete form of expression and said, " Will you have
an eye-opener?" All the air was thick with sar
casms.
But there was one man who moved calm, untouched,
unaffected, through it all. It was that heart of oak,
the chief inspector. His brave eye never drooped, his
serene confidence never wavered. He always said :
* Let them rail on ; he laughs best who laughs
last."
My admiration for the man grew into a species of
worship. I was at his side always. His office had be
come an unpleasant place to me, and now became daily
more and more so. Yet if he could endure it I meant
to do so also at least, as long as I could. So I
came regularly, and stayed the only outsider who
seemed to be capable of it. Everybody wondered how
I could ; and often it seemed to me that I must desert,
but at such times I looked into that calm and apparently
unconscious face, and held my ground.
About three weeks after the elephant s disappearance
I was about to say, one morning, that I should have to
strike my colors and retire, when the great detective
arrested the thought by proposing one more superb
and masterly move.
This was to compromise with the robbers. The
fertility of this man s invention exceeded anything I
have ever seen, and I have had a wide intercourse with
the world s finest minds. He said he was confident he
could compromise for $100,000 and recover the ele
phant. I said I believed I could scrape the amount
together, but what would become of the poor detec
tives who had worked so faithfully? He said:
250 The Stolen White Elephant
11 In compromises they always get half."
This removed my only objection. So the inspector
wrote two notes, in this form :
DEAR MADAM, Your husband can make a large sum of money (and
be entirely protected from the law) by making an immediate appointment
with me.
Chief BLUNT.
He sent one of these by his confidential messenger
to the " reputed wife" of Brick Duffy, and the other
to the reputed wife of Red McFadden.
Within the hour these offensive answers came :
YE OWLD FOOL : brick McDuffys bin ded 2 yere.
BRIDGET MAHONEY.
CHIEF BAT, Red McFadden is hung and in heving 18 month. Any
Ass but a detective knose that.
MARY O HOOLIGAN.
"I had long suspected these facts," said the in
spector ; this testimony proves the unerring accuracy
of my instinct."
The moment one resource failed him he was ready
with another. He immediately wrote an advertisement
for the morning papers, and I kept a copy of it :
A. xwblv. 242 N. Tjnd fz328wmlg. Ozpo, ; 2m! ogw. Mum.
He said that if the thief was alive this would bring
him to the usual rendezvous. He further explained
that the usual rendezvous was a place where all busi
ness affairs between detectives and criminals were con
ducted. This meeting would take place at twelve the
next night.
We could do nothing till then, and I lost no time in
getting out of the office, and was grateful indeed for
the privilege.
At ii the next night I brought $100,000 in bank
The Stolen White Elephant 251
notes and put them into the chief s hands, and shortly
afterward he took his leave, with the brave old un-
dimmed confidence m his eye. An almost intolerable
hour dragged to a close ; then I heard his welcome
tread, and rose gasping and tottered to meet him.
How his fine eyes flamed with triumph ! He said ;
"We ve compromised! The jokers will sing a dif
ferent tune to-morrow! Follow me!"
He took a lighted candle and strode down into the
vast vaulted basement where sixty detectives always
slept, and where a score were now playing cards to
while the time. I followed close after him. He
walked swiftly down to the dim and remote end of the
place, and just as I succumbed to the pangs of suffoca
tion and was swooning away he stumbled and fell over
the outlying members of a mighty object, and I heard
him exclaim as he went down :
44 Our noble profession is vindicated. Here is your
elephant!"
I was carried to the office above and restored with
carbolic acid. The whole detective force swarmed in,
and such another season of triumphant rejoicing ensued
as I had never witnessed before. The reporters were
called, baskets of champagne were opened, toasts were
drunk, the handshakings and congratulations were con
tinuous and enthusiastic. Naturally the chief was the
hero of the hour, and his happiness was so complete
and had been so patiently and worthily and bravely
won that it made me happy to see it, though I stood
there a homeless beggar, my priceless charge dead,
and my position in my country s service lost to me
through what would always seem my fatally careless
execution of a great trust. Many an eloquent eye
testified its deep admiration for the chief, and many a
detective s voice murmured, Look at him just the
king of the profession; only give him a clew, it s all
252 The Stolen White Elephant"
he wants, and there ain t anything hid that he can t
find." The dividing of the $50,000 made great pleas
ure ; when it was finished the chief made a little speech
while he put his share in his pocket, in which he said,
14 Enjoy it, boys, for you ve earned it; and more than
that you ve earned for the detective profession undying
fame. ?
A telegram arrived, which read:
MONROE, MICH., 10 P.M.
First time I ve struck a telegraph office in over three weeks. Have
followed those footprints, horseback, through the woods, a thousand miles
to here, and they get stronger and bigger and fresher every day. Don t
worry inside of another week I ll have the elephant. This is dead sure.
DARLEY, Detective.
The chief ordered three cheers for * Darley, one of
the finest minds on the force," and then commanded
that he be telegraphed to come home and receive his
share of the reward.
So ended that marvelous episode of the stolen ele
phant. The newspapers were pleasant with praises
once more, the next day, with one contemptible excep
tion. This sheet said, "Great is the detective! He
may be a little slow in finding a little thing like a mis
laid elephant he may hunt him all day and sleep
with his rotting carcass all night for three weeks, but
he will find him at last if he can get the man who
mislaid him to show him the place !"
Poor Hassan was lost to me forever. The cannon-
shots had wounded him fatally, he had crept to that
unfriendly place in the fog, and there, surrounded by
his enemies and in constant danger of detection, he had
wasted away with hunger and suffering till death gave
him peace.
The compromise cost me $100,000; my detective
expenses were $42,000 more; I never applied for a
The Stolen White Elephant 253
place again under my government; I am a ruined man
and a wanderer in the earth but my admiration for
that man, whom I believe to be the greatest detective
the world has ever produced, remains undimmed to this
day, and will so remain unto the end.
SOME RAMBLING NOTES OF AN IDLE
EXCURSION
I.
ALL the journeyings I had ever done had been
purely in the way of business. The pleasant May
weather suggested a novelty namely, a trip for pure
recreation, the bread-and-butter element left out. The
Reverend said he would go, too; a good man, one of
the best of men, although a clergyman. By eleven at
night we were in New Haven and on board the New
York boat. We bought our tickets, and then went
wandering around here and there, in the solid comfort
of being free and idle, and of putting distance between
ourselves and the mails and telegraphs.
After a while I went to my stateroom and undressed,
but the night was too enticing for bed. We were
moving down the bay now, and it was pleasant to stand
at the window and take the cool night breeze and watch
the gliding lights on shore. Presently, two elderly men
sat down under that window and began a conversation.
Their talk was properly no business of mine, yet I was
feeling friendly toward the world and willing to be
entertained. I soon gathered that they were brothers,
that they were from a small Connecticut village, and
that the matter in hand concerned the cemetery. Said
one :
(254)
Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion 255
" Now, John, we talked it all over amongst ourselves,
and this is what we ve done. You see, everybody was
a-movin from the old buryin ground, and our folks
was most about left to theirselves, as you may say.
They was crowded, too, as you know; lot wa n t big
enough in the first place; and last year, when Seth s
wife died, we couldn t hardly tuck her in. She sort o
overlaid Deacon Shorb s lot, and he soured on her, so
to speak, and on the rest of us, too. So we talked it
over, and I was for a lay-out in the new simitery on
the hill. They wa n t unwilling, if it was cheap.
Well, the two best and biggest plots was No. 8 and
No. 9 both of a size; nice comfortable room for
twenty-six twenty-six full-growns, that is; but you
reckon in children and other shorts, and strike an
everage, and I should say you might lay in thirty, or
may be thirty-two or three, pretty genteel no crowd-
in to signify."
"That s a plenty, William. Which one did you
buy?"
"Well, I m a-comin to that, John. You see, No.
8 was thirteen dollars, No. 9 fourteen "
" I see. So s t you took No. 8."
"You wait. I took No, 9. And I ll tell you for
why. In the first place, Deacon Shorb wanted it.
Well, after the way he d gone on about Seth s wife
overlappin his prem ses, I d a beat him out of that
No. 9 if I d a had to stand two dollars extra, let
alone one. That s the way I felt about it. Says I,
what s a dollar, anyway? Life s on y a pilgrimage,
says I; we ain t here for good, and we can t take it
with us, says I. So I just dumped it down, knowin
the Lord don t suffer a good deed to go for nothin ,
and cal latin to take it out o somebody in the course
o trade. Then there was another reason, John. No.
9 s a long way the handiest lot in the simitery, and the
17
256 Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion
likeliest for situation. It lays right on top of a knoll
in the dead center of the buryin ground; and you can
see Millport from there, and Tracy s, and Hopper
Mount, and a raft o farms, and so on. There ain t
no better outlook from a buryin plot in the State. Si
Higgins says so, and I reckon he ought to know.
Well, and that ain t all. Course Shorb had to take
No. 8; wa n t no help for t. Now, No. 8 jines on to
No. 9, but it s on the slope of the hill, and every time
it rains it ll soak right down on to the Shorbs. Si
Higgins says t when the deacon s time comes, he
better take out fire and marine insurance both on his
remains."
Here there was the sound of a low, placid, duplicate
chuckle of appreciation and satisfaction.
" Now, John, here s a little rough draught of the
ground that I ve made on a piece of paper. Up here
in the left-hand corner we ve bunched the departed ;
took them from the old graveyard and stowed them
one along side o t other, on a first-come-first-served
plan, no partialities, with Gran ther Jones for a starter,
on y because it happened so, and windin up indis
criminate with Seth s twins. A little crowded towards
the end of the lay-out, may be, but we reckoned
twa n t best to scatter the twins. Well, next comes
the livin . Here, where it s marked A, we re goin to
put Mariar and her family, when they re called; B,
that s for Brother Hosea and hisn ; C, Calvin and
tribe. What s left is these two lots here just the
gem of the whole patch for general style and outlook ;
they re for me and my folks, and you and yourn.
Which of them would you ruther be buried in?"
" I swan, you ve took me mighty unexpected,
William ! It sort of started the shivers. Fact is, I was
thinkin so busy about makin things comfortable for the
others, I hadn t thought about being buried myself."
Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion 257
" Life s on y a fleetin show, John, as the sayin is.
We ve all got to go, sooner or later. To go with a
clean record s the main thing. Fact is, it s the on y
thing worth strivin for, John."
"Yes, that s so, William, that s so; there ain t no
getting around it. Which of these lots would you
recommend?"
" Well, it depends, John. Are you particular about
outlook?"
"I don t say I am, William, I don t say I ain t.
Reely, I don t know. But mainly, I reckon, I d set
store by a south exposure."
" That s easy fixed, John. They re both south ex
posure. They take the sun, and the Shorbs get the
shade."
" How about sile, William?"
" D s a sandy sile, E s mostly loom."
"You may gimme E, then, William; a sandy sile
caves in, more or less, and costs for repairs."
"All right, set your name down here, John, under
E. Now, if you don t mind payin me your share of
the fourteen dollars, John, while we re on the business,
everything s fixed."
After some higgling and sharp bargaining the money
was paid, and John bade his brother good night and
took his leave. There was silence for some moments ;
then a soft chuckle welled up from the lonely William,
and he muttered: " I declare for t, if I haven t made
a mistake ! It s D that s mostly loom, not E. And
John s booked for a sandy sile, after all."
There was another soft chuckle, and William de
parted to his rest also.
The next day, in New York, was a hot one. Still we
managed to get more or less entertainment out of it.
Toward the middle of the afternoon we arrived on
board the stanch steamship Bermuda , with bag and bag-
!?*
258 Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion
gage, and hunted for a shady place. It was blazing
summer weather, until we were half way down the
harbor. Then I buttoned my coat closely; half an
hour later I put on a spring overcoat and buttoned
that. As we passed the lightship I added an ulster
and tied a handkerchief around the collar to hold it
snug to my neck. So rapidly had the summer gone
and winter come again !
By nightfall we were far out at sea, with no land in
sight. No telegrams could come here, no letters, no
news. This was an uplifting thought. It was still
more uplifting to reflect that the millions of harassed
people on shore behind us were suffering just as usual.
The next day brought us into the midst of the
Atlantic solitudes out of smoke-colored soundings
into fathomless deep blue ; no ships visible anywhere
over the wide ocean; no company but Mother Gary s
chickens wheeling, darting, skimming the waves in the
sun. There were some seafaring men among the pas
sengers, and conversation drifted into matters concern
ing ships and sailors. One said that "true as the
needle to the pole " was a bad figure, since the needle
seldom pointed to the pole. He said a ship s compass
was not faithful to any particular point, but was the
most fickle and treacherous of the servants of man. It
was forever changing. It changed every day in the
year; consequently the amount of the daily variation
had to be ciphered out and allowance made for it, else
the mariner would go utterly astray. Another said
there was a vast fortune waiting for the genius who
should invent a compass that would not be affected by
the local influences of an iron ship. He said there was
only one creature more fickle than a wooden ship s
compass, and that was the compass of an iron ship.
Then came reference to the well-known fact that an
experienced manner can look at the compass of a new
Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion 259
iron vessel, thousands of miles from her birthplace, and
tell which way her head was pointing when she was in
process of building.
Now an ancient whale-ship master fell to talking
about the sort of crews they used to have in his early
days. Said he:
" Sometimes we d have a batch of college students.
Queer lot. Ignorant? Why, they didn t know the
catheads from the main brace. But if you took them
for fools you d get bit, sure. They d learn more in a
month than another man would in a year. We had
one, once, in the Mary Ann, that came aboard with
gold spectacles on. And besides, he was rigged out
from main truck to keelson in the nobbiest clothes that
ever saw a fo castle. He had a chest full, too; cloaks,
and broadcloth coats, and velvet vests; everything
swell, you know; and didn t the salt water fix them
out for him? I guess not! Well, going to sea, the
mate told him to go aloft and help shake out the fore-
to gallants 1. Up he shins to the foretop, with his
spectacles on, and in a minute down he comes again,
looking insulted. Says the mate, * What did you come
down for? Says the chap, P r aps you didn t notice
that there ain t any ladders above there. You see we
hadn t any shrouds above the foretop. The men
bursted out in a laugh such as I guess you never
heard the like of. Next night, which was dark and
rainy, the mate ordered this chap to go aloft about
something, and I m dummed if he didn t start up with
an umbrella and a lantern ! But no matter ; he made
a mighty good sailor before the voyage was done, and
we had to hunt up something else to laugh at. Years
afterwards, when I had forgot all about him, I comes
into Boston, mate of a ship, and was loafing around
town with the second mate, and it so happened that we
stepped into the Revere House, thinking maybe we
260 Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion
would chance the salt-horse in that big dining-room
for a flyer, as the boys say. Some fellows were talk
ing just at our elbow, and one says, * Vender s the new
governor of Massachusetts at that table over there
with the ladies. We took a good look, my mate and
I, for we hadn t either of us ever seen a governor be
fore. I looked and looked at that face, and then all
of a sudden it popped on me ! But I didn t give any
sign. Says I, Mate, I ve a notion to go over and
shake hands with him. Says he, I think I see you
doing it, Tom. Says I, Mate, I m a-going to do it.
Says he, Oh, yes, I guess so! May be you don t
want to bet you will, Tom? Says I, I don t mind
going a V on it, mate. Says he, * Put it up. Up
she goes, says I, planking the cash. This surprised
him. But he covered it, and says, pretty sarcastic,
Hadn t you better take your grub with the governor
and the ladies, Tom? Says I, Upon second thoughts,
I will. Says he, Well, Tom, you are a dum fool.
Says I, Maybe I am, maybe I ain t; but the main
question is, do you want to risk two and a half that I
won t do it? Make it a V, says he. Done, says
I. I started, him a-giggling and slapping his hand on
his thigh, he felt so good. I went over there and
leaned my knuckles on the table a minute and looked
the governor in the face, and says I, Mr. Gardner,
don t you know me? He stared, and I stared, and
he stared. Then all of a sudden he sings out, Tom
Bowling, by the holy poker! Ladies, it s old Tom
Bowling, that you ve heard me talk about shipmate
of mine in the Mary Ann. He rose up and shook
hands with me ever so hearty I sort of glanced
around and took a realizing sense of my mate s saucer
eyes and then says the governor, Plant yourself,
Tom, plant yourself; you can t cat your anchor again
till you ve had a feed with me and the ladies! I
Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion 261
planted myself alongside the governor, and canted my
eye around toward my mate. Well, sir, his dead
lights were bugged out like tompions ; and his mouth
stood that wide open that you could have laid a ham in
it without him noticing it."
There was great applause at the conclusion of the
old captain s story; then, after a moment s silence, a
grave, pale young man said :
" Had you ever met the governor before?"
The old captain looked steadily at this inquirer
awhile, and then got up and walked aft without making
any reply. One passenger after another stole a furtive
glance at the inquirer, but failed to make him out, and
so gave him up. It took some little work to get the
talk-machinery to running smoothly again after this
derangement; but at length a conversation sprang up
about that important and jealously guarded instrument,
a ship s timekeeper, its exceeding delicate accuracy,
and the wreck and destruction that have sometimes
resulted from its varying a few seemingly trifling mo
ments from the true time; then, in due course, my
comrade, the Reverend, got off on a yarn, with a fair
wind and everything drawing. It was a true story,
too about Captain Rounceville s shipwreck true in
every detail. It was to this effect:
Captain Rounceville s vessel was lost in mid-Atlantic,
and likewise his wife and his two little children. Cap
tain Rounceville and seven seamen escaped with life,
but with little else. A small, rudely constructed raft
was to be their home for eight days. They had neither
provisions nor water. They had scarcely any clothing;
no one had a coat but the captain. This coat was
changing hands all the time, for the weather was very
cold. Whenever a man became exhausted with the
cold, they put the coat on him and laid him down be
tween two shipmates until the garment and their bodies
262 Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion
had warmed life into him again. Among the sailors
was a Portuguese who knew no English. He seemed to
have no thought of his own calamity, but was concerned
only about the captain s bitter loss of wife and children.
By day he would look his dumb compassion in the
captain s face; and by night, in the darkness and the
driving spray and rain, he would seek out the captain
and try to comfort him with caressing pats on the
shoulder. One day, when hunger and thirst were
making their sure inroads upon the men s strength and
spirits, a floating barrel was seen at a distance. It
seemed a great find, for doubtless it contained food of
some sort. A brave fellow swam to it, and after long
and exhausting effort got it to the raft. It was eagerly
opened. It was a barrel of magnesia! On the fifth
day an onion was spied. A sailor -swam off and got it.
Although perishing with hunger, he brought it in its
integrity and put it into the captain s hand. The
history of the sea teaches that among starving, ship
wrecked men selfishness is rare, and a wonder-
compelling magnanimity the rule. The onion was
equally divided into eight parts, and eaten with deep
thanksgivings. On the eighth day a distant ship was
sighted. Attempts were made to hoist an oar, with
Captain Rounceville s coat on it for a signal. There
were many failures, for the men were but skeletons
now, and strengthless. At last success was achieved,
but the signal brought no help. The ship faded out of
sight and left despair behind her. By and by another
ship appeared, and passed so near that the castaways,
every eye eloquent with gratitude, made ready to wel
come the boat that would be sent to save them. But
this ship also drove on, and left these men staring their
unutterable surprise and dismay into each other s ashen
faces. Late in the day, still another ship came up out
of the distance, but the men noted with a pang that
Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion 263
her course was one which would not bring her nearer.
Their remnant of life was nearly spent ; their lips and
tongues were swollen, parched, cracked with eight
days thirst ; their bodies starved ; and here was their
last chance gliding relentlessly from them ; they would
not be alive when the next sun rose. For a day or two
past the men had lost their voices, but now Captain
Rounceville whispered, "Let us pray." The Portu
guese patted him on the shoulder in sign of deep ap
proval. All knelt at the base of the oar that was
waving the signal-coat aloft, and bowed their heads.
The sea was tossing; the sun rested, a red, rayless
disk, on the sea-line in the west. When the men pres
ently raised their heads they would have roared a halle
lujah if they had had a voice; the ship s sails lay
wrinkled and flapping against her masts she was
going about ! Here was rescue at last, and in the very
last instant of time that was left for it. No, not rescue
yet only the imminent prospect of it. The red disk
sank under the sea, and darkness blotted out the ship.
By and by came a pleasant sound oars moving in a
boat s rowlocks. Nearer it came, and nearer within
thirty steps, but nothing visible. Then a deep voice:
Hol-/0/" The castaways could not answer; their
swollen tongues refused voice. The boat skirted round
and round the raft, started away the agony of it!
returned, rested the oars, close at hand, listening, no
doubt. The deep voice again: " Hol-/0 / Where are
ye, shipmates?" Captain Rounceville whispered to
his men, saying: "Whisper your best, boys! now
all at once!" So they sent out an eightfold whisper
in hoarse concert: " Here !" There was life in it if it
succeeded; death if it failed. After that supreme mo
ment Captain Rounceville was conscious of nothing
until he came to himself on board the saving ship.
Said the Reverend, concluding:
264 Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion
There was one little moment of time in which that
raft could be visible from that ship, and only one. If
that one little fleeting moment had passed unfruitful,
those men s doom was sealed. As close as that does
God shave events foreordained from the beginning of
the world. When the sun reached the water s .edge
that day, the captain of that ship was sitting on deck
reading his prayer-book. The book fell ; he stooped
to pick it up, and happened to glance at the sun. In
that instant that far-off raft appeared for a second
against the red disk, its needle-like oar and diminutive
signal cut sharp and black against the bright surface,
and in the next instant was thrust away into the dusk
again. But that ship, that captain, and that pregnant
instant had had their work appointed for them in the
dawn of time and could not fail of the performance.
The chronometer of God never errs !"
There was deep, thoughtful silence for some mo
ments. Then the grave, pale young man said:
" What is the chronometer of God?"
ii.
AT dinner, six o clock, the same people assembled
whom we had talked with on deck and seen at luncheon
and breakfast this second day out, and at dinner the
evening before. That is to say, three journeying ship
masters, a Boston merchant, and a returning Bermudian
who had been absent from his Bermuda thirteen years ;
these sat on the starboard side. On the port side sat
the Reverend in the seat of honor; the pale young
man next to him ; I next ; next to me an aged Ber
mudian, returning to his sunny islands after an absence
of twenty-seven years. Of course, our captain was
Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion 265
at the head of the table, the purser at the foot of
it. A small company, but small companies are
pleasantest.
No racks upon the table ; the sky cloudless, the sun
brilliant, the blue sea scarcely ruffled ; then what had
become of the four married couples, the three bachelors,
and the active and obliging doctor from the rural dis
tricts of Pennsylvania? for all these were on deck
when we sailed down New York harbor. This is the
explanation. I quote from my note-book:
Thursday, 3.30 P.M, Under way, passing the Battery. The large party,
of four married couples, three bachelors, and a cheery, exhilarating doctor
from the wilds of Pennsylvania, are evidently traveling together. All but
the doctor grouped in camp-chairs on deck.
Passing principal fort. The doctor is one of those people who has an
infallible preventive of sea-sickness; is flitting from friend to friend admin
istering it and saying, "Don t you be afraid; I know this medicine; abso
lutely infallible; prepared under my own supervision." Takes a dose
himself, intrepidly.
4.15 P.M. Two of those ladies have struck their colors, notwithstand
ing the "infallible." They have gone below. The other two begin to
show distress.
5 P.M. Exit one husband and one bachelor. These still had their
infallible in cargo when they started, but arrived at the companionway
without it.
5.10. Lady No. 3, two bachelors, and one married man have gone
below with their own opinion of the infallible.
5.20. Passing Quarantine Hulk. The infallible has done the business
for all the party except the Scotchman s wife and the author of that formid
able remedy.
Nearing the Light-Ship. Exit the Scotchman s wife, head drooped on
stewardess s shoulder.
Entering the open sea. Exit doctor !
The rout seems permanent; hence the smallness of
the company at table since the voyage began. Our
captain is a grave, handsome Hercules of thirty-five,
with a brown hand of such majestic size that one can-
266 Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion
not eat for admiring it and wondering if a single kid or
calf could furnish material for gloving it.
Conversation not general; drones along between
couples. One catches a sentence here and there.
Like this, from Bermudian of thirteen years absence :
"It is the nature of women to ask trivial, irrelevant,
and pursuing questions questions that pursue you
from a beginning in nothing to a run-to-cover in no
where." Reply of Bermudian of twenty-seven years
absence: "Yes; and to think they have logical, ana
lytical minds and argumentative ability. You see em
begin to whet up whenever they smell argument in the
air." Plainly these be philosophers.
Twice since we left port our engines have stopped
for a couple of minutes at a time. Now they stop
again. Says the pale young man, meditatively, " There !
that engineer is sitting down to rest again."
Grave stare from the captain, whose mighty jaws
cease to work, and whose harpooned potato stops in
mid-air on its way to his open, paralyzed mouth.
Presently he says ir measured tones, "Is it your idea
that the engineer of this ship propels her by a crank
turned by his own hands?"
The pale young man studies over this a moment,
then lifts up his guileless eyes, and says, " Don t he?"
Thus gently falls the death-blow to further conversa
tion, and the dinner drags to its close in a reflective
silence, disturbed by no sounds but the murmurous
wash of the sea and the subdued clash of teeth.
After a smoke and a promenade on deck, where is
no motion to discompose our steps, we think of a game
of whist. We ask the brisk and capable stewardess
from Ireland if there are any cards in the ship.
" Bless your soul, dear, indeed there is. Not a whole
pack, true for ye, but not enough missing to signify."
However, I happened by accident to bethink me of a
Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion 267
new pack in a morocco case, in my trunk, which I had
placed there by mistake, thinking it to be a flask of
something. So a party of us conquered the tedium of
the evening with a few games and were ready for bed
at six bells, mariner s time, the signal for putting out
the lights.
There was much chat in the smoking-cabin on the
upper deck after luncheon to-day, mostly whaler yarns
from those old sea captains. Captain Tom Bowling
was garrulous. He had that garrulous attention to
minor detail which is born of secluded farm life or life
at sea on long voyages, where there is little to do and
time no object. He would sail along till he was right
in the most exciting part of a yarn, and then say,
"Well, as I was saying, the rudder was fouled, ship
driving before the gale, head-on, straight for the ice
berg, all hands holding their breath, turned to stone,
top-hamper giving way, sails blown to ribbons, first
one stick going, then another, boom ! smash ! crash !
duck your head and stand from under ! when up comes
Johnny Rogers, capstan bar in hand, eyes a-blazing,
hair a-flying no, twa n t Johnny Rogers
lemme see seems to me Johnny Rogers wa n t
along that voyage; he was along one voyage, I know
that mighty well, but somehow it seems to me that he
signed the articles for this voyage, but but whether
he come along or not, or got left, or something hap
pened "
And so on and so on till the excitement all cooled
down and nobody cared whether the ship struck the
iceberg or not.
In the course of his talk he rambled into a criticism
upon New England degrees of merit in shipbuilding.
Said he "You get a vessel built away down Maine-
way; Bath, for instance; what s the result? First
thing you do, you want to heave her down for repairs
268 Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion
that s the result! Well, sir, she hain t been hove
down a week till you can heave a dog through her
seams. You send that vessel to sea, and what s the
result? She wets her oakum the first trip ! Leave it
to any man if tain t so. Well, you let our folks build
you a vessel down New Bedford-way. What s the
result? Well, sir, you might take that ship and heave
her down, and keep her hove down six months, and
she ll never shed a tear !"
Everybody, landsmen and all, recognized the descrip
tive neatness of that figure, and applauded, which
greatly pleased the old man. A moment later, the
meek eyes of the pale young fellow heretofore men
tioned came up slowly, rested upon the old man s face
a moment, and the meek mouth began to open.
" Shet your head !" shouted the old mariner.
It was a rather startling surprise to everybody, but it
was effective in the matter of its purpose. So the con
versation flowed on instead of perishing.
There was some talk about the perils of the sea, and
a landsman delivered himself of the customary non
sense about the poor mariner wandering in far oceans,
tempest-tossed, pursued by dangers, every storm-blast
and thunder-bolt in the home skies moving the friends
by snug firesides to compassion for that poor manner,
and prayers for his succor. Captain Bowling put up
with this for a while, and then burst out with a new
view of the matter.
" Come, belay there! I have read this kind of rot
all my life in poetry and tales and such like rubbage.
Pity for the poor mariner ! sympathy for the poor
manner ! All right enough, but not in the way the
poetry puts it. Pity for the mariner s wife ! all right
again, but not in the way the poetry puts it. Look-a-
here ! whose life s the safest in the whole world? The
poor mariner s. You look at the statistics, you ll see.
Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion 269
So don t you fool away any sympathy on the poor
mariner s dangers and privations and sufferings. Leave
that to the poetry muffs. Now you look at the other
side a minute. Here is Captain Brace, forty years old,
been at sea thirty. On his way now to take command
of his ship and sail south from Bermuda. Next week
he ll be under way; easy times; comfortable quarters;
passengers, sociable company; just enough to do to
keep his mind healthy and not tire him ; king over his
ship, boss of everything and everybody; thirty years
safety to learn him that his profession ain t a dangerous
one. Now you look back at his home. His wife s a
feeble woman; she s a stranger in New York; shut up
in blazing hot or freezing cold lodgings, according to
the season; don t know anybody hardly ; no company
but her lonesomeness and her thoughts ; husband gone
six months at a time. She has borne eight children ;
five of them she has buried without her husband ever
setting eyes on them. She watched them all the long
nights till they died he comfortable on the sea ; she
followed them to the grave, she heard the clods fall
that broke her heart he comfortable on the sea; she
mourned at home, weeks and weeks, missing them
every day and every hour he cheerful at sea, know
ing nothing about it. Now look at it a minute turn
it over in your mind and size it: five children born,
she among strangers, and him not by to hearten her;
buried, and him not by to comfort her; think of that!
Sympathy for the poor mariner s perils is rot; give it
to his wife s hard lines, where it belongs! Poetry
makes out that all the wife worries about is the dangers
her husband s running. She s got substantialer things
to worry over, I tell you. Poetry s always pitying the
poor mariner on account of his perils at sea; better a
blamed sight pity him for the nights he can t sleep for
thinking of how he had to leave his wife in her very
270 Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion
birth pains, lonesome and friendless, in the thick of
disease and trouble and death. If there s one thing
that can make me madder than another, it s this sappy,
damned maritime poetry!"
Captain Brace was a patient, gentle, seldom-speaking
man, with a pathetic something in his bronzed face
that had been a mystery up to this time, but stood
interpreted now since we had heard his story. He had
voyaged eighteen times to the Mediterranean, seven
times to India, once to the arctic pole in a discovery-
ship, and * between times " had visited all the remote
seas and ocean corners of the globe. But he said that
twelve years go, on account of his family, he " settled
down," and ever since then had ceased to roam. And
what do you suppose was this simple-hearted, lifelong
wanderer s idea of settling down and ceasing to roam?
Why, the making of two five-month voyages a year
between Surinam and Boston for sugar and molasses !
Among other talk to-day, it came out that whale-
ships carry no doctor. The captain adds the doctor-
ship to his own duties. He not only gives medicines,
but sets broken limbs after notions of his own, or saws
them off and sears the stump when amputation seems
best. The captain is provided with a medicine-chest,
with the medicines numbered instead of named. A
book of directions goes with this. It describes diseases
and symptoms, and says, " Give a teaspoonful of No.
9 once an hour," or " Give ten grains of No. 12 every
half hour," etc. One of our sea captains came across
a skipper in the North Pacific who was in a state of
great surprise and perplexity. Said he :
There s something rotten about this medicine-chest
business. One of my men was sick nothing much
the matter. I looked in the book: it said, give him a
teaspoonful of No. 15. I went to the medicine-chest,
and I see I was out of No. 15. I judged I d got to
Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion 271
get up a combination somehow that would fill the bill ;
so I hove into the fellow half a teaspoonful of No. 8
and half a teaspoonful of No. 7, and I ll be hanged if
it didn t kill him in fifteen minutes! There s some
thing about this medicine-chest system that s too many
for me !"
There was a good deal of pleasant gossip about old
Captain "Hurricane" Jones, of the Pacific ocean
peace to his ashes ! Two or three of us present had
known him ; I particularly well, for I had made four sea-
voyages with him. He was a very remarkable man.
He was born in a ship ; he picked up what little educa
tion he had among his shipmates ; he began life in the
forecastle, and climbed grade by grade to the cap
taincy. More than fifty years of his sixty-five were
spent at sea. He had sailed all oceans, seen all lands,
and borrowed a tint from all climates. When a man
has been fifty years at sea he necessarily knows nothing
of men, nothing of the world but its surface, nothing
of the world s thought, nothing of the world s learning
but its A B C, and that blurred and distorted by the
unfocused lenses of an untrained mind. Such a man
is only a gray and bearded child. That is what old
Hurricane Jones was simply an innocent, lovable old
infant. When his spirit was in repose he was as sweet
and gentle as a girl ; when his wrath was up he was a
hurricane that made his nickname seem tamely descrip
tive. He was formidable in a fight, for he was of
powerful build and dauntless courage. He was fres
coed from head to heel with pictures and mottoes
tattooed in red and blue India ink. I was with him
one voyage when he got his last vacant space tattooed ;
this vacant space was around his left ankle. During
three days he stumped about the ship with his ankle
bare and swollen, and this legend gleaming red and
an^ry out trom a clouding of India ink: " Virtue is its
18
272 Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion
own R d." (There was a lack of room.) He was
deeply and sincerely pious, and swore like a fish-
woman. He considered swearing blameless, because
sailors would not understand an order unillumined by
it. He was a profound biblical scholar that is, he
thought he was. He believed everything in the Bible
but he had his own methods of arriving at his beliefs,,
He was of the " advanced " school of thinkers, and
applied natural laws to the interpretation of all miracles,
somewhat on the plan of the people who make the
six days of creation six geological epochs, and so
forth. Without being aware of it, he was a rather
severe satire on modern scientific religionists. Such
a man as I have been describing is rabidly fond of
disquisition and argument; one knows that without
being told it.
One trip the captain had a clergyman on board, but
did not know he was a clergyman, since the passenger
list did not betray the fact. He took a great liking to
this Reverend Mr. Peters, and talked with him a great
deal; told him yarns, gave him toothsome scraps of
personal history, and wove a glittering streak of pro
fanity through his garrulous fabric that was refreshing
to a spirit weary of the dull neutralities of undecorated
speech. One day the captain said, " Peters, do you
ever read the Bible?"
-Well yes."
" I judge it ain t often, by the way you say it.
Now, you tackle it in dead earnest once, and you ll
find it ll pay. Don t you get discouraged, but hang
right on. First, you won t understand it; but by and
by things will begin to clear up, and then you wouldn t
lay it down to eat."
" Yes, I have heard that said."
" And it s so, too. There ain t a book that begins
with it. It lays over m all, Peters. There s some
Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion 273
pretty tough things in it there ain t any getting
around that but you stick to them and think them
out, and when once you get on the inside everything s
plain as day."
"The miracles, too, captain?"
Yes, sir! the miracles, too. Everyone of them.
Now, there s that business with the prophets of Baal;
like enough that stumped you?"
"Well, I don t know but"
"Own up now; it stumped you. Well, I don t
wonder. You hadn t had any experience in raveling
such things out, and naturally it was too many for you.
Would you like to have me explain that thing to you,
and show you how to get at the meat of these matters?"
" Indeed, I would, captain, if you don t mind."
Then the captain proceeded as follows: " I ll do it
with pleasure. First, you see, I read and read, and
thought and thought, till I got to understand what sort
of people they were in the old Bible times, and then
after that it was all clear and easy. Now this was the
way I put it up, concerning Isaac* and the prophets of
Baal. There was some mighty sharp men among the
public characters of that old ancient day, and Isaac
was one of them. Isaac had his failings plenty of
them, too; it ain t for me to apologize for Isaac; he
played it on the prophets of Baal, and like enough he
was justifiable, considering the odds that was against
him. No, all I say is, twa n t any miracle, and that
I ll show you so s t you can see it yourself.
"Well, times had been getting rougher and rougher
for prophets that is, prophets of Isaac s denomina
tion. There was four hundred and fifty prophets of
Baal in the community, and only one Presbyterian;
that is, if Isaac was a Presbyterian, which I reckon he
was, but it don t say. Naturally, the prophets of Baal
* This is the captain s own mistake.
18**
274 Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion
took all the trade. Isaac was pretty low-spirited, I
reckon, but he was a good deal of a man, and no doubt
he went a-prophesying around, letting on to be doing a
land-office business, but twa n t any use; he couldn t
run any opposition to amount to anything. By and by
things got desperate with him; he sets his head to
work and thinks it all out, and then what does he do?
Why, he begins to throw out hints that the other
parties are this and that and t other nothing very
definite, maybe, but just kind of undermining their
reputation in a quiet way. This made talk, of course,
and finally got to the king. The king asked Isaac
what he meant by his talk. Says Isaac, Oh, nothing
particular; only, can they pray down fire from heaven
on an altar? It ain t much, maybe, your majesty,
only can they do it? That s the idea. So the king
was a good deal disturbed, and he went to the prophets
of Baal, and they said, pretty airy, that if he had an
altar ready, they were ready; and they intimated he
better get it insured, too.
" So next morning all the children of Israel and their
parents and the other people gathered themselves to
gether. Well, here was that great crowd of prophets
of Baal packed together on one side, and Isaac walking
up and down all alone on the other, putting up his job.
When time was called, Isaac let on to be comfortable
and indifferent; told the other team to take the first
innings. So they went at it, the whole four hundred
and fifty, praying around the altar, very hopeful, and
doing their level best. They prayed an hour two
hours three hours and so on, plumb till noon. It
wa n t any use; they hadn t took a trick. Of course
they felt kind of ashamed before all those people, and
well they might. Now, what would a magnanimous
man do? Keep still, wouldn t he? Of course. What
did Isaac do ? He graveled the prophets of Baal every
Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion 275
way he could think of. Says he, You don t speak
up loud enough; your god s asleep, like enough, or
maybe he s taking a walk; you want to holler, you
know or words to that effect; I don t recollect the
exact language. Mind, I don t apologize for Isaac;
he had his faults.
4 Well, the prophets of Baal prayed along the best
they knew how all the afternoon, and never raised a
spark. At last, about sundown, they were all tuckered
out, and they owned up and quit.
"What does Isaac do now? He steps up and says
to some friends of his there, Pour four barrels of
water on the altar! Everybody was astonished; for
the other side had prayed at it dry, you know, and got
whitewashed. They poured it on. Says he, Heave
on four more barrels. Then he says, Heave on four
more. Twelve barrels, you see, altogether. The
water ran all over the altar, and all down the sides,
and filled up a trench around it that would hold a
couple of hogsheads measures, it says; I reckon it
means about a hogshead. Some of the people were
going to put on their things and go, for they allowed
he was crazy. They didn t know Isaac. Isaac knelt
down and began to pray; he strung along, and strung
along, about the heathen in distant lands, and about
the sister churches, and about the state and the country
at large, and about those that s in authority in the
government, and all the usual programme, you know,
till everybody had got tired and gone to thinking about
something else, and then, all of a sudden, when nobody
was noticing, he outs with a match and rakes it on the
under side of his leg, and pff ! up the whole thing
blazes like a house afire ! Twelve barrels of water ?
Petroleum, sir, PETROLEUM! that s what it was!"
"Petroleum, captain?"
4 Yes. sir: the country was full of it. Isaac knew
276 Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion
all about that. You read the Bible. Don t you worry
about the tough places. They ain t tough when you
come to think them out and throw light on them.
There ain t a thing in the Bible but what is true; all
you want is to go prayerfully to work and cipher out
how t was done."
At eight o clock on the third morning out from New
York, land was sighted. Away across the sunny waves
one saw a faint dark stripe stretched along under the
horizon or pretended to see it, for the credit of his
eyesight. Even the Reverend said he saw it, a thing
which was manifestly not so. But I never have seen
any one who was morally strong enough to confess
that he could not see land when others claimed that
they could.
By and by the Bermuda islands were easily visible.
The principal one lay upon the water in the distance,
a long, dull-colored body, scalloped with slight hills
and valleys. We could not go straight at it, but had
to travel all the way around it, sixteen miles from
shore, because it is fenced with an invisible coral reef.
At last we sighted buoys, bobbing here and there, and
then we glided into a narrow channel among them,
" raised the reef," and came upon shoaling blue water
that soon further shoaled into pale green, with a sur
face scarcely rippled. Now came the resurrection
hour; the berths gave up their dead. Who are these
pale specters in plug hats and silken flounces that file
up the companion-way in melancholy procession and
step upon the deck? These are they which took the
infallible preventive of seasickness in New York harbor
and then disappeared and were forgotten. Also there
came two or three faces not seen before until this mo
ment. One s impulse is to ask, " Where did you come
aboard?"
We followed the narrow channel a long time, with
Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion 277
land on both sides low hills that might have been
green and grassy, but had a faded look instead. How
ever, the land-locked water was lovely, at any rate,
with its glittering belts of blue and green where moder
ate soundings were, and its broad splotches of rich
brown where the rocks lay near the surface. Every
body was feeling so well that even the grave, pale
young man (who, by a sort of kindly common consent,
had come latterly to be referred to as "The Ass")
received frequent and friendly notice which was right
enough, for there was no harm in him.
At last we steamed between two island points whose
rocky jaws allowed only just enough room for the
vessel s body, and now before us loomed Hamilton on
her clustered hillsides and summits, the whitest mass
of terraced architecture that exists in the world, perhaps.
It was Sunday afternoon, and on the pier were
gathered one or two hundred Bermudians, half of them
black, half of them white, and all of them nobbily
dressed, as the poet says.
Several boats came off to the ship, bringing citizens.
One of these citizens was a faded, diminutive old
gentleman, who approached our most ancient passen
ger with a childlike joy in his twinkling eyes, halted
before him, folded his arms, and said, smiling with all
his might and with all the simple delight that was in
him, " You don t know me, John! Come, out with it
now; you know you don t!"
The ancient passenger scanned him perplexedly,
scanned the napless, threadbare costume of venerable
fashion that had done Sunday service no man knows
how many years, contemplated the marvelous stove
pipe hat of still more ancient and venerable pattern,
with its poor pathetic old stiff brim canted up " gal-
lusly " in the wrong places, and said, with a hesitation
that indicated strong internal effort to "place" the
278 Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion
gentle old apparition, " Why let me see
plague on it there s something about you that
er er but I ve been gone from Ber
muda for twenty-seven years, and hum, hum
I don t seem to get at it, somehow, but there s
something about you that is just as familiar to me
as"
14 Likely it might be his hat," murmured the Ass,
with innocent, sympathetic interest.
III.
So the Reverend and I had at last arrived at Hamil
ton, the principal town in the Bermuda Islands. A
wonderfully white town ; white as snow itself. White
as marble ; white as flour. Yet looking like none of
these, exactly. Never mind, we said; we shall hit
upon a figure by and by that will describe this peculiar
white.
It was a town that was compacted together upon the
sides and tops of a cluster of small hills. Its outlying
borders fringed off and thinned away among the cedar
forests, and there was no woody distance of curving
coast, or leafy islet sleeping upon the dimpled, painted
sea, but was flecked with shining white points half-
concealed houses peeping out of the foliage. The
architecture of the town was mainly Spanish, inherited
from the colonists of two hundred and fifty years ago.
Some ragged-topped cocoa-palms, glimpsed here and
there, gave the land a tropical aspect.
There was an ample pier of heavy masonry; upon
this, under shelter, were some thousands of barrels con
taining that product which has carried the fame of Ber
muda to many lands, the potato. With here and there
WE CATCHED FISH
Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion 279
an onion. That last sentence is facetious; for they
grow at least two onions in Bermuda to one potato.
The onion is the pride and joy of Bermuda. It is her
jewel, her gem of gems. In her conversation, her pul
pit, her literature, it is her most frequent and eloquent
figure. In Bermuda metaphor it stands for perfection
perfection absolute.
The Bermudian weeping over the departed exhausts
praise when he says, "He was an onion!" The
Bermudian extolling the living hero bankrupts applause
when he says, "He is an onion!" The Bermudian
setting his son upon the stage of life to dare and do for
himself climaxes all counsel, supplication, admonition,
comprehends all ambition, when he says, "Be an
onion !
When parallel with the pier, and ten or fifteen steps
outside it, we anchored. It was Sunday, bright and
sunny. The groups upon the pier men, youths, and
boys were whites and blacks in about equal propor
tion. All were well and neatly dressed, many of them
nattily, a few of them very stylishly. One would have
to travel far before he would find another town of
twelve thousand inhabitants that could represent itself
so respectably, in the matter of clothes, on a freight
pier, without premeditation or effort. The women and
young girls, black and white, who occasionally passed
by, were nicely clad, and many were elegantly and
fashionably so. The men did not affect summer cloth
ing much, but the girls and women did, and their white
garments were good to look at, after so many months
of familiarity with somber colors.
Around one isolated potato barrel stood four young
gentlemen, two black, two white, becomingly dressed,
each with the head of a slender cane pressed against his
teeth, and each with a foot propped up on the barrel.
Another young gentleman came up, looked longingly
280 Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion
at the barrel, but saw no rest for his foot there, and
turned pensively away to seek another barrel. He
wandered here and there, but without result. Nobody
sat upon a barrel, as is the custom of the idle in other
lands, yet all the isolated barrels were humanly occu
pied. Whosoever had a foot to spare put it on a bar
rel, if all the places on it were not already taken. The
habits of all peoples are determined by their circum
stances. The Bermudians lean upon barrels because
of the scarcity of lamp-posts.
Many citizens came on board and spoke eagerly to the
officers inquiring about the Turco-Russian war news,
I supposed. However, by listening judiciously I found
that this was not so. They said, "What is the price
of onions?" or, " How s onions?" Naturally enough
this was their first interest ; but they dropped into the
war the moment it was satisfied.
We went ashore and found a novelty of a pleasant
nature: there were no hackmen, hacks, or omnibuses
on the pier or about it anywhere, and nobody offered
his services to us, or molested us in any way. I said
it was like being in heaven. The Reverend rebukingly
and rather pointedly advised me to make the most of
it, then. We knew of a boarding-house, and what we
needed now was somebody to pilot us to it. Presently
a little barefooted colored boy came along, whose rag-
gedness was conspicuously un-Bermudian. His rear
was so marvelously bepatched with colored squares and
triangles that one was half persuaded he had got it out
of an atlas. When the sun struck him right, he was
as good to follow as a lightning-bug. We hired him
and dropped into his wake. He piloted us through one
picturesque street after another, and in due course de
posited us where we belonged. He charged nothing
for his map, and but a trifle for his services: so the
Reverend doubled it. The little chap received the
Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion 281
money with a beaming applause in his eye which
plainly said, " This man s an onion !"
We had brought no letters of introduction ; our
names had been misspelt in the passenger list; nobody
knew whether we were honest folk or otherwise. So
we were expecting to have a good private time in case
there was nothing in our general aspect to close board
ing-house doors against us. We had no trouble.
Bermuda has had but little experience of rascals, and
is not suspicious. We got large, cool, well-lighted
rooms on a second floor, overlooking a bloomy display
of flowers and flowering shrubs, calla and annuncia
tion lilies, lantanas, heliotrope, jessamine, roses, pinks,
double geraniums, oleanders, pomegranates, blue morn
ing-glories of a great size, and many plants that were
unknown to me.
We took a long afternoon walk, and soon found out
that that exceedingly white town was built of blocks of
white coral. Bermuda is a coral island, with a six-inch
crust of soil on top of it, and every man has a quarry
on his own premises. Everywhere you go you see
square recesses cut into the hillsides, with perpendicular
walls unmarred by crack or crevice, and perhaps you
fancy that a house grew out of the ground there, and
has been removed in a single piece from the mould.
If you do, you err. But the material for a house has
been quarried there. They cut right down through the
coral, to any depth that is convenient ten to twenty
feet and take it out in great square blocks. This
cutting is done with a chisel that has a handle twelve or
fifteen feet long, and is used as one uses a crowbar
when he is drilling a hole, or a dasher when he is churn
ing. Thus soft is this stone. Then with a common
handsaw they saw the great blocks into handsome,
huge bricks that are two feet long, a foot wide, and
about six inches thick. These stand loosely piled
282 Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion
during a month to harden ; then the work of building
begins.
The house is built of these blocks ; it is roofed with
broad coral slabs an inch thick, whose edges lap upon
each other, so that the roof looks like a succession of
shallow steps or terraces ; the chimneys are built of the
coral blocks, and sawed into graceful and picturesque
patterns; the ground-flour veranda is paved with coral
blocks : also the walk to the gate ; the fence is built of
coral blocks built in massive panels, with broad cap
stones and heavy gateposts, and the whole trimmed
into easy lines and comely shape with the saw. Then
they put a hard coat of whitewash, as thick as your
thumb nail, on the fence and all over the house, roof,
chimneys, and all ; the sun comes out and shines on
this spectacle, and it is time for you to shut your unac
customed eyes, lest they be put out. It is the whitest
white you can conceive of, and the blindingest. A
Bermuda house does not look like marble ; it is a much
intenser white than that; and, besides, there is a dainty,
indefinable something else about its look that is not
marble-like. We put in a great deal of solid talk and
reflection over this matter of trying to find a figure that
would describe the unique white of a Bermuda house,
and we contrived to hit upon it at last. It is exactly the
white of the icing of a cake, and has the same un-
emphasized and scarcely perceptible polish. The white
of marble is modest and retiring compared with it.
After the house is cased in its hard scale of white
wash, not a crack, or sign of a seam, or joining of the
blocks is detectable, from base-stone to chimney-top ;
the building looks as if it had been carved from a single
block of stone, and the doors and windows sawed out
afterwards. A white marble house has a cold, tomb-
like, unsociable look, and takes the conversation out of
a body and depresses him. Not so with a Bermuda
Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion 283
house. There is something exhilarating, even hilarious,
about its vivid whiteness when the sun plays upon it.
If it be of picturesque shape and graceful contour
and many of the Bermudian dwellings are it will so
fascinate you that you will keep your eyes on it until
they ache. One of those clean-cut, fanciful chimneys
too pure and white for this world with one side
glowing in the sun and the other touched with a soft
shadow, is an object that will charm one s gaze by the
hour. I know of no other country that has chimneys
worthy to be gazed at and gloated over. One of those
snowy houses, half concealed and half glimpsed through
green foliage, is a pretty thing to see; and if it takes
one by surprise and suddenly, as he turns a sharp
corner of a country road, it will wring an exclamation
from him, sure.
Wherever you go, in town or country, you find those
snowy houses, and always with masses of bright-colored
flowers about them, but with no vines climbing their
walls; vines cannot take hold of the smooth, hard
whitewash. Wherever you go, in the town or along
the country roads, among little potato farms and
patches or expensive country seats, these stainless white
dwellings, gleaming out from flowers and foliage, meet
you at every turn. The least little bit of a cottage is
as white and blemishless as the stateliest mansion.
Nowhere is there dirt or stench, puddle or hog-wallow,
neglect, disorder, or lack of trimness and neatness.
The roads, the streets, the dwellings, the people, the
clothes, this neatness extends to everything that falls
under the eye. It is the tidiest country in the world.
And very much the tidiest, too.
Considering these things, the question came up,
Where do the poor live? No answer was arrived at.
Therefore, we agreed to leave this conundrum for
future statesmen to wrangle over.
284 Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion
What a bright and startling spectacle one of those
blazing white country palaces, with its brown-tinted
window caps and ledges, and green shutters, and its
wealth of caressing flowers and foliage, would be in
black London ! And what a gleaming surprise it would
be in nearly any American city one could mention, too !
Bermuda roads are made by cutting down a few
inches into the solid white coral or a good many
feet, where a hill intrudes itself and smoothing off
the surface of the roadbed. It is a simple and easy
process. The grain of the coral is coarse and porous;
the roadbed has the look of being made of coarse white
sugar. Its excessive cleanness and whiteness are a
trouble in one way : the sun is reflected into your eyes
with such energy as you walk along that you want to
sneeze all the time. Old Captain Tom Bowling found
another difficulty. He joined us in our walk, but kept
wandering unrestfully to the roadside. Finally he ex
plained. Said he, "Well, I chew, you know, and the
road s so plaguy clean."
We walked several miles that afternoon in the be
wildering glare of the sun, the white roads, and the
white buildings. Our eyes got to paining us a good
deal. By and by a soothing, blessed twilight spread its
cool balm around. We looked up in pleased surprise
and saw that it proceeded from an intensely black negro
who was going by. We answered his military salute
in the grateful gloom of his near presence, and then
passed on into the pitiless white glare again.
The colored women whom we met usually bowed and
spoke ; so did the children. The colored men com
monly gave the military salute. They borrow this fash
ion from the soldiers, no doubt; England has kept a
garrison here for generations. The younger men s
custom of carrying small canes is also borrowed from
the soldiers, I suppose, who always carry a cane, in
Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion 285
Bermuda as everywhere else in Britain s broad domin
ions.
The country roads curve and wind hither and thither
in the delightfulest way, unfolding pretty surprises at
every turn : billowy masses of oleander that seem to
float out from behind distant projections like the pink
cloud-banks of sunset; sudden plunges among cottages
and gardens, life and activity, followed by as sudden
plunges into the somber twilight and stillness of the
woods; flitting visions of white fortresses and beacon
towers pictured against the sky on remote hilltops ;
glimpses of shining green sea caught for a moment
through opening headlands, then lost again; more
woods and solitude; and by and by another turn lays
bare, without warning, the full sweep of the inland
ocean, enriched with its bars of soft color and graced
with its wandering sails.
Take any road you please, you may depend upon it
you will not stay in it half a mile. Your road is every
thing that a road ought to be : it is bordered with
trees, and with strange plants and flowers ; it is shady
and pleasant, or sunny and still pleasant ; it carries you
by the prettiest and peacefulest and most homelike of
homes, and through stretches of forest that lie in a deep
hush sometimes, and sometimes are alive with the music
of birds ; it curves always, which is a continual promise,
whereas straight roads reveal everything at a glance and
kill interest. Your road is all this, and yet you will
not stay in it half a mile, for the reason that little se
ductive, mysterious roads are always branching out from
it on either hand, and as these curve sharply also and
hide what is beyond, you cannot resist the temptation
to desert your own chosen road and explore them.
You are usually paid for your trouble ; consequently,
your walk inland always turns out to be one of the
most crooked, involved, purposeless, and interesting
286 Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion
experiences a body can imagine. There is enough of
variety. Sometimes you are in the level open, with
marshes thick grown with flag-lances that are ten feet
high on the one hand, and potato and onion orchards
on the other; next, you are on a hilltop, with the
ocean and the islands spread around you ; presently the
road winds through a deep cut, shut in by perpendicu
lar walls thirty or forty feet high, marked with the odd
est and abruptest stratum lines, suggestive of sudden
and eccentric old upheavals, and garnished with here
and there a clinging adventurous flower, and here and
there a dangling vine ; and by and by your way is along
the sea edge, and you may look down a fathom or two
through the transparent water and watch the diamond-
like flash and play of the light upon the rocks and sands
on the bottom until you are tired of it if you are so
constituted as to be able to get tired of it.
You may march the country roads in maiden medita
tion, fancy free, by field and farm, for no dog will
plunge out at you from unsuspected gate, with breath
taking surprise of ferocious bark, notwithstanding it is
a Christian land and a civilized. We saw upwards of a
million cats in Bermuda, but the people are very ab
stemious in the matter of dogs. Two or three nights
we prowled the country far and wide, and never once
were accosted by a dog. It is a great privilege to visit
such a land. The cats were no offense when properly
distributed, but when piled they obstructed travel.
As we entered the edge of the town that Sunday
afternoon, we stopped at a cottage to get a drink of
water. The proprietor, a middle-aged man with a
good face, asked us to sit down and rest. His dame
brought chairs, and we grouped ourselves in the shade
of the trees by the door. Mr. Smith that was not
his name, but it will answer questioned us about our
selves and our country, and we answered him truthfully,
Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion 287
as a general thing, and questioned him in return. It
was all very simple and pleasant and sociable. Rural,
too ; for there was a pig and a small donkey and a hen
anchored out, close at hand, by cords to their legs, on
a spot that purported to be grassy. Presently, a
woman passed along, and although she coldly said noth
ing she changed the drift of our talk. Said Smith :
" She didn t look this way, you noticed? Well, she
is our next neighbor on one side, and there s another
family that s our next neighbors on the other side; but
there s a general coolness all around now, and we don t
speak. Yet these three families, one generation and
another, have lived here side by side and been as
friendly as weavers for a hundred and fifty years, till
about a year ago."
"Why, what calamity could have been powerful
enough to break up so old a friendship?"
" Well, it was too bad, but it couldn t be helped. It
happened like this : About a year or more ago, the
rats got to pestering my place a good deal, and I set up
a steel trap in my back-yard. Both of these neighbors
run considerable to cats, and so I warned them about
the trap, because their cats were pretty sociable around
here nights, ami they might get into trouble without my
intending it. Well, they shut up their cats for a while,
but you know how it is with people ; they got careless,
and sure enough one night the trap took Mrs. Jones s
principal tomcat into camp and finished him up. In
the morning Mrs. Jones comes here with the corpse in
her arms, and cries and takes on the same as if it was a
child. It was a cat by the name of Yelverton Hector
G. Yelverton a troublesome old rip, with no more
principle than an Injun, though you couldn t make her
believe it. I said all a man could to comfort her, but
no, nothing would do but I must pay for him. Finally,
1 said I warn t investing in cats now as much as I was,
19
288 Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion
and with that she walked off in a huff, carrying the re
mains with her. That closed our intercourse with the
Joneses. Mrs. Jones joined another church and took
her tribe with her. She said she would not hold fellow
ship with assassins. Well, by and by comes Mrs.
Brown s turn she that went by here a minute ago.
She had a disgraceful old yellow cat that she thought as
much of as if he was twins, and one night he tried that
trap on his neck, and it fitted him so, and was so sort
of satisfactory, that he laid down and curled up and
stayed with it. Such was the end of Sir John
Baldwin."
"Was that the name of the cat?"
11 The same. There s cats around herewith names
that would surprise you. Maria" (to his wife),
" what was that cat s name that eat a keg of ratsbane
by mistake over at Hooper s, and started home and got
struck by lightning and took the blind staggers and fell
in the well and was most drowned before they could
fish him out?"
That was that colored Deacon Jackson s cat. I
only remember the last end of its name, which was
Hold-The-Fort-For-I-Am-Coming Jackson.
" Sho ! that ain t the one. That s the one that eat
up an entire box of Seidlitz powders, and then hadn t
any more judgment than to go and take a drink. He
was considered to be a great loss, but I never could see
it. Well, no matter about the names. Mrs. Brown
wanted to be reasonable, but Mrs. Jones wouldn t let
her. She put her up to going to law for damages. So
to law she went, and had the face to claim seven shil
lings and sixpence. It made a great stir. All the
neighbors went to court. Everybody took sides. It
got hotter and hotter, and broke up all the friendships
for three hundred yards around friendships that had
lasted for generations and generations.
Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion 289
" Well, I proved by eleven witnesses that the cat was
of a low character and very ornery, and warn t worth
a canceled postage-stamp, anyway, taking the average
of cats here; but I lost the case. What could I ex
pect? The system is all wrong here, and is bound to
make revolution and bloodshed some day. You see,
they give the magistrate a poor little starvation salary,
and then turn him loose on the public to gouge for fees
and costs to live on. What is the natural result?
Why, he never looks into the justice of a case never
once. All he looks at is which client has got the
money. So this one piled the fees and costs and every
thing on to me. I could pay specie, don t you see?
and he knew mighty well that if he put the verdict
on to Mrs. Brown, where it belonged, he d have to take
his swag in currency."
" Currency? Why, has Bermuda a currency?"
Yes onions. And they were forty per cent,
discount, too, then, because the season had been over
as much as three months. So I lost my case. I had
to pay for that cat. But the general trouble the case
made was the worst thing about it. Broke up so much
good feeling. The neighbors don t speak to each other
now. Mrs. Brown had named a child after me. But
she changed its name right away. She is a Baptist.
Well, in the course of baptizing it over again, it got
drowned. I was hoping we might get to be friendly
again some time or other, but of course this drowning
the child knocked that all out of the question. It
would have saved a world of heart-break and ill blood
if she had named it dry."
I knew by the sigh that this was honest. All this
trouble and all this destruction of confidence in the
purity of the bench on account of a seven-shilling law
suit about a cat! Somehow, it seemed to " size " the
country.
19**
290 Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion
At this point we observed that an English flag had
just been placed at half-mast on a building a hundred
yards away. I and my friends were busy in an instant
trying to imagine whose death, among the island dig
nitaries, could command such a mark of respect as this.
Then a shudder shook them and me at the- same
moment, and I knew that we had jumped to one and
the same conclusion : The governor has gone to
England ; it is for the British admiral !"
At this moment Mr. Smith noticed the flag. He
said with emotion :
"That s on a boarding-house. I judge there s a
boarder dead."
A dozen other flags within view went to half-mast.
" It s a boarder, sure," said Smith.
"But would they half-mast the flags here for a
boarder, Mr. Smith?"
" Why, certainly they would, if he was dead."
That seemed to size the country again.
IV.
THE early twilight of a Sunday evening in Hamilton,
Bermuda, is an alluring time. There is just enough of
whispering breeze, fragrance of flowers, and sense of
repose to raise one s thoughts heavenward; and just
enough amateur piano music to keep him reminded of
the other place. There are many venerable pianos in
Hamilton, and they all play at twilight. Age enlarges
and enriches the powers of some musical instruments
notably those of the violin but it seems to set a
piano s teeth on edge. Most of the music in vogue
there is the same that those pianos prattled in their in
nocent infancy; and there is something very pathetic
Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion 291
about it when they go over it now, in their asthmatic
second childhood, dropping a note here and there,
where a tooth is gone.
We attended evening service at the stately Episcopal
church on the hill, where were five or six hundred
people, half of them white and the other half black,
according to the usual Bermudian proportions ; and all
well dressed a thing which is also usual in Bermuda
and to be confidently expected. There was good
music, which we heard, and doubtless a good sermon,
but there was a wonderful deal of coughing, and so
only the high parts of the argument carried over it.
&s we came out, after service, I overheard one young
girl says to another :
"Why, you don t mean to say you pay duty on
gloves and laces ! I only pay postage ; have them
done up and sent in the Boston Advertiser."
There are those that believe that the most difficult
thing to create is a woman who can comprehend that it
is wrong to smuggle ; and that an impossible thing to
create is a woman who will not smuggle, whether or
no, when she gets a chance. But these may be errors.
We went wandering off toward the country, and were
soon far down in the lonely black depths of a road that
was roofed over with the dense foliage of a double rank
of great cedars. There was no sound of any kind
there, it was perfectly still. And it was so dark that
one could detect nothing but somber outlines. We
strode farther and farther down this tunnel, cheering
the way with chat.
Presently the chat took this shape : * How insensibly
the character of the people and of a government makes
its impress upon a stranger, and gives him a sense of
security or of insecurity without his taking deliberate
thought upon the matter or asking anybody a question J
We have been in this land half a day ; we have seen
292 Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion
none but honest faces ; we have noted the British flag
flying, which means efficient government and good
order ; so without inquiry we plunge unarmed and with
perfect confidence into this dismal place, which in
almost any other country would swarm with thugs and
garroters
"Sh! What was that? Stealthy footsteps ! Low
voices ! We gasp, we close up together, and wait.
A vague shape glides out of the dusk and confronts us.
A voice speaks demands money !
"A shilling, gentlemen, if you please, to help build
the new Methodist church."
Blessed sound ! Holy sound ! We contribute with
thankful avidity to the new Methodist church, and are
happy to think how lucky it was that those little colored
Sunday-school scholars did not seize upon everything
we had with violence, before we recovered from our
momentary helpless condition. By the light of cigars
we write down the names of weightier philanthropists
than ourselves on the contribution cards, and then pass
on into the farther darkness, saying, What sort of a
government do they call this, where they allow little
black pious children, with contribution cards, to plunge
out upon peaceable strangers in the dark and scare
them to death?
We prowled on several hours, sometimes by the sea
side, sometimes inland, and finally managed to get lost,
which is a feat that requires talent in Bermuda. I had
on new shoes. They were No. 7 s when I started, but
were not more than 5 s now, and still diminishing. I
walked two hours in those shoes after that, before we
reached home. Doubtless I could have the reader s
sympathy for the asking. Many people have never had
the headache or the toothache, and I am one of those
myself; but everybody has worn tight shoes for two or
three hours, and known the luxury of taking them off
Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion 293
in a retired place and seeing his feet swell up and ob-
secure the firmament. Once when I was a callow, bash
ful cub, I took a plain, unsentimental country girl to a
comedy one night. I had known her a day; she
seemed divine; I wore my new boots. At the end of
the first half-hour she said, "Why do you fidget so
with your feet?" I said, " Did I?" Then I put my
attention there and kept still. At the end of another
half-hour she said, " Why do you say, * Yes, oh yes !
and Ha, ha, oh, certainly! very true! to everything
I say, when half the time those are entirely irrelevant
answers?" I blushed, and explained that I had been a
little absent-minded. At the end of another half-hour
she said, " Please, why do you grin so steadfastly at
vacancy, and yet look so sad?" I explained that I
always did that when I was reflecting. An hour passed,
and then she turned and contemplated me with her
earnest eyes and said, " Why do you cry all the time?"
I explained that very funny comedies always made me
cry. At last human nature surrendered, and I secretly
slipped my boots off. This was a mistake. I was not
able to get them on any more. It was a rainy night;
there were no omnibuses going our way; and as I
walked home, burning up with shame, with the girl on
one arm and my boots under the other, I was an object
worthy of some compassion especially in those
moments of martyrdom when I had to pass through
the glare that fell upon the pavement from street
lamps. Finally, this child of the forest said, " Where
are your boots?" and being taken unprepared, I put a
fitting finish to the follies of the evening with the stupid
remark, The higher classes do not wear them to the
theater."
The Reverend had been an army chaplain during the
war, and while we were hunting for a road that would
294 Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion
lead to Hamilton he told a story about two dying soldiers
which interested me in spite of my feet. He said that
in the Potomac hospitals rough pine coffins were fur
nished by government, but that it was not always pos
sible to keep up with the demand; so, when a man
died, if there was no coffin at hand he was buried with
out one. One night, late, two soldiers lay dying in a
ward. A man came in with a coffin on his shoulder,
and stood trying to make up his mind which of these
two poor fellows would be likely to need it first. Both
of them begged for it with their fading eyes they
were past talking. Then one of them protruded a
wasted hand from his blankets and made a feeble beck
oning sign with the fingers, to signify, " Be a good fel
low; put it under my bed, please." The man did it,
and left. The lucky soldier painfully turned himself in
his bed until he faced the other warrior, raised himself
partly on his elbow, and began to work up a mysterious
expression of some kind in his face. Gradually, irk
somely, but surely and steadily, it developed, and at
last it took definite form as a pretty successful wink.
The sufferer fell back exhausted with his labor, but
bathed in glory. Now entered a personal friend of
No. 2, the despoiled soldier. No. 2 pleaded with him
with eloquent eyes, till presently he understood, and re
moved the coffin from under No. I s bed and put it
under No. 2 s. No. 2 indicated his joy, and made
some more signs; the friend understood again, and put
his arm under No. 2 s shoulders and lifted him partly
up. Then the dying hero turned the dim exultation of
his eye upon No. I, and began a slow and labored
work with his hands ; gradually he lifted one hand up
toward his face ; it grew weak and dropped back again ;
once more he made the effort, but failed again. He
took a rest; he gathered all the remnant of his strength,
and this time he slowly but surely carried his thumb to
Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion 295
the side of his nose, spread the gaunt fingers wide in
triumph, and dropped back dead. That picture sticks
by me yet. The " situation " is unique.
The next morning, at what seemed a very early hour,
the little white table-waiter appeared suddenly in my
room and shot a single word out of himself : Break
fast!"
This was a remarkable boy in many ways. He was
about eleven years old ; he had alert, intent black eyes ;
he was quick of movement; there was no hesitation,
no uncertainty about him anywhere ; there was a mili
tary decision in his lip, his manner, his speech, that
was an astonishing thing to see in a little chap like him ;
he wasted no words ; his answers always came so quick
and brief that they seemed to be part of the question
that had been asked instead of a reply to it. When he
stood at table with his fly-brush, rigid, erect, his face
set in a cast-iron gravity, he was a statue till he detected
a dawning want in somebody s eye; then he pounced
down, supplied it, and was instantly a statue again.
When he was sent to the kitchen for anything, he
marched upright till he got to the door; he turned
hand-springs the rest of the way.
"Breakfast!"
I thought I would make one more effort to get some
conversation out of this being.
" Have you called the Reverend, or are "
"Yes s r!"
"Is it early, or is "
" Eight-five."
"Do you have to do all the chores, or is there
somebody to give you a "
"Colored girl."
16 Is there only one parish in this island, or are
there"
"Eight!"
296 Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion
" Is the big church on the hill a parish church, or is
it"
"Chapel-of-ease!"
"Is taxation here classified into poll, parish, town,
and"
"Don t know!"
Before I could cudgel another question out of my
head, he was below, hand-springing across the back
yard. He had slid down the balusters, head-first. I
gave up trying to provoke a discussion with him. The
essential element of discussion had been left out of
him ; his answers were so final and exact that they did
not leave a doubt to hang conversation on. I suspect
that there is the making of a mighty man or a mighty
rascal in this boy according to circumstances but
they are going to apprentice him to a carpenter. It is
the way the world uses its opportunities.
During this day and the next we took carriage drives
about the island and over to the town of St. George s,
fifteen or twenty miles away. Such hard, excellent
roads to drive over are not to be found elsewhere out
of Europe. An intelligent young colored man drove
us, and acted as guide-book. In the edge of the town
we saw five or six mountain-cabbage palms (atrocious
name!) standing in a straight row, and equidistant
from each other. These were not the largest or the
tallest trees I have ever seen, but they were the state
liest, the most majestic. That row of them must be
the nearest that nature has ever come to counterfeiting
a colonnade. These trees are all the same height, say
sixty feet ; the trunks as gray as granite, with a very
gradual and perfect taper; without sign of branch or
knot or flaw ; the surface not looking like bark, but like
granite that has been dressed and not polished. Thus all
the way up the diminishing shaft for fifty feet ; then it
begins to take the appearance of being closely wrapped,
Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion 297
spool-fashion, with gray cord, or of having been turned
in a lathe. Above this point there is an outward swell,
and thence upwards, for six feet or more, the cylinder
is a bright, fresh green, and is formed of wrappings
like those of an ear of green Indian corn. Then comes
the great, spraying palm plume, also green. Other
palm trees always lean out of the perpendicular, or
have a curve in them. But the plumb-line could not
detect a deflection in any individual of this stately
row ; they stand as straight as the colonnade of Baal
bee; they have its great height, they have its grace
fulness, they have its dignity; in moonlight or twilight,
and shorn of their plumes, they would duplicate it.
The birds we came across in the country were singu
larly tame; even that wild creature, the quail, would
pick around in the grass at ease while we inspected it
and talked about it at leisure. A small bird of the
canary species had to be stirred up with the butt-end
of the whip before it would move, and then it moved
only a couple of feet. It is said that even the sus
picious flea is tame and sociable in Bermuda, and will
allow himself to be caught and caressed without misgiv
ings. This should be taken with allowance, for doubt
less there is more or less brag about it. In San Fran
cisco they used to claim that their native flea could kick
a child over, as if it were a merit in a flea to be able to
do that; as if the knowledge of it trumpeted abroad
ought to entice immigration. Such a thing in nine
cases out of ten would be almost sure to deter a think
ing man from coming.
We saw no bugs or reptiles to speak of, and so I was
thinking of saying in print, in a general way, that there
were none at all; but one night after I had gone to bed,
the Reverend came into my room carrying something,
and asked, " Is this your boot?" I said it was, and
he said he had met a spider going off with it. Next
298 Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion
morning he stated that just at dawn the same spider
raised his window and was coming in to get a shirt, but
saw him and fled.
I inquired, " Did he get the shirt?"
"No."
" How did you know it was a shirt he was after?"
" I could see it in his eye."
We inquired around, but could hear of no Bermu-
dian spider capable of doing these things. Citizens
said that their largest spiders could not more than
spread their legs over an ordinary saucer, and that they
had always been considered honest. Here was testi
mony of a clergyman against the testimony of mere
worldings interested ones, too. On the whole, I
judged it best to lock up my things.
Here and there on the country roads we found lemon,
papaw, orange, lime, and fig trees; also several sorts
of palms, among them the cocoa, the date, and the
palmetto. We saw some bamboos forty feet high, with
stems as thick as a man s arm. Jungles of the man
grove-tree stood up out of swamps, propped on their
interlacing roots as upon a tangle of stilts. In drier
places the noble tamarind sent down its grateful cloud
of shade. Here and there the blossomy tamarisk
adorned the roadside. There was a curious gnarled
and twisted black tree, without a single leaf on it. It
might have passed itself off for a dead apple tree but
for the fact that it had a star-like, red-hot flower
sprinkled sparsely over its person. It had the scattery
red glow that a constellation might have when glimpsed
through smoked glass. It is possible that our constel
lations have been so constructed as to be invisible
through smoked glass; if this is so it is a great mistake.
We saw a tree that bears grapes, and just as calmly
and unostentatiously as a vine would do it. We saw
an India-rubber-tree, but out of season, possibly, so
Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion 299
there were no shoes on it, nor suspenders, nor any
thing that a person would properly expect to find there.
This gave it an impressively fraudulent look. There
was exactly one mahogany tree on the jsland. I know
this to be reliable, because I saw a man who said he
had counted it many a time and could not be mistaken.
He was a man with a harelip and a pure heart, and
everybody said he was as true as steel. Such men are
all too few.
One s eye caught near and far the pink cloud of the
oleander and the red blaze of the pomegranate blossom.
In one piece of wild wood the morning-glory vines
had wrapped the trees to their very tops, and decorated
them all over with couples and clusters of great blue
bells a fine and striking spectacle, at a little distance.
But the dull cedar is everywhere, and is the prevail
ing foliage. One does not appreciate how dull it is
until the varnished, bright green attire of the infrequent
lemon tree pleasantly intrudes its contrast. In one
thing Bermuda is eminently tropical was in May, at
least the unbrilliant, slightly faded, unrejoicing look
of the landscape. For forests arrayed in a blemishless
magnificence of glowing green foliage that seems to
exult in its own existence and can move the beholder
to an enthusiasm that will make him either shout or
cry, one must go to countries that have malignant
winters.
We saw scores of colored farmers digging their crops
of potatoes and onions, their wives and children help
ing entirely contented and comfortable, if looks go
for anything. We never met a man, or woman, or
child anywhere in this sunny island who seemed to be
unprosperous, or discontented, or sorry about anything.
This sort of monotony became very tiresome presently,
and even something worse. The spectacle of an entire
nation groveling in contentment is an infuriating thing.
300 Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion
We felt the lack of something in this community a
vague, an undefinable, an elusive something, and yet
a lack. But after considerable thought we made out
what it was tramps. Let them go there, right now,
in a body. It is utterly virgin soil. Passage is cheap.
Every true patriot in America will help buy tickets.
Whole armies of these excellent beings can be spared
from our midst and our polls ; they will find a delicious
climate and a green, kind-hearted people. There are
potatoes and onions for all, and a generous welcome
for the first batch that arrives, and elegant graves for
the second.
It was the Early Rose potato the people were dig
ging. Later in the year they have another crop, which
they call the Garnet. We buy their potatoes (retail)
at fifteen dollars a barrel ; and those colored farmers
buy ours for a song, and live on them. Havana might
exchange cigars with Connecticut in the same ad
vantageous way, if she thought of it.
We passed a roadside grocery with a sign up, " Pota
toes Wanted." An ignorant stranger, doubtless. He
could not have gone thirty steps from his place without
finding plenty of them.
In several fields the arrowroot crop was already
sprouting. Bermuda used to make a vast annual
profit out of this staple before firearms came into such
general use.
The island is not large. Somewhere in the interior a
man ahead of us had a very slow horse. I suggested
that we had better go by him ; but the driver said the
man had but a little way to go. I waited to see,
wondering how he could know. Presently the man did
turn down another road. I asked, "How did you
know he would?"
" Because I knew the man, and where he lived."
I asked him, satirically, if he knew everybody in the
Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion 301
island; he answered, very simply, that he did. This
gives a body s mind a good substantial grip on the
dimensions of the place.
At the principal hotel at St. George s, a young girl,
with a sweet, serious face, said we could not be fur
nished with dinner, because we had not been expected,
and no preparation had been made. Yet it was still an
hour before dinner time. We argued, she yielded not;
we supplicated, she was serene. The hotel had not
been expecting an inundation of two people, and so it
seemed that we should have to go home dinnerless. I
said we were not very hungry; a fish would do. My
little maid answered, it was not the market day for fish.
Things began to look serious ; but presently the boarder
who sustained the hotel came in, and when the case
was laid before him he was cheerfully willing to divide.
So we had much pleasant chat at table about St,
George s chief industry, the repairing of damaged
ships ; and in between we had a soup that had some
thing in it that seemed to taste like the hereafter, but it
proved to be only pepper of a particularly vivacious
kind. And we had an iron-clad chicken that was de-
liciously cooked, but not in the right way. Baking was
not the thing to convince his sort. He ought to have
been put through a quartz mill until the "tuck" was
taken out of him, and then boiled till we came again.
We got a good deal of sport out of him, but not enough
sustenance to leave the victory on our side. No mat
ter; we had potatoes and a pie and a sociable good
time. Then a ramble through the town, which is a
quaint one, with interesting, crooked streets, and nar
row, crooked lanes, with here and there a grain of dust.
Here, as in Hamilton, the dwellings had Venetian
blinds of a very sensible pattern. They were not
double shutters, hinged at the sides, but a single broad
shutter, hinged at the top; you push it outward, from
302 Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion
the bottom, and fasten it at any angle required by the
sun or desired by yourself.
All about the island one sees great white scars on the
hill-slopes. These are dished spaces where the soil has
been scraped off and the coral exposed and glazed with
hard whitewash. Some of these are a quarter-acre in
size. They catch and carry the rainfall to reservoirs ;
for the wells are few and poor, and there are no natural
springs and no brooks.
They say that the Bermuda climate is mild and
equable, with never any snow or ice, and that one
may be very comfortable in spring clothing the year
round, there. We had delightful and decided summer
weather in May, with a flaming sun that permitted the
thinnest of raiment, and yet there was a constant
breeze ; consequently we were never discomforted by
heat. At four or five in the afternoon the mercury
began to go down, and then it became necessary to
change to thick garments. I went to St. George s in the
morning clothed in the thinnest of linen, and reached
home at five in the afternoon with two overcoats on.
The nights are said to be always cool and bracing.
We had mosquito nets, and the Reverend said the
mosquitoes persecuted him a good deal. I often heard
him slapping and banging at these imaginary creatures
with as much zeal as if they had been real. There are
no mosquitoes in the Bermudas in May.
The poet Thomas Moore spent several months in
Bermuda more than seventy years ago. He was sent
out to be registrar of the admiralty. I am not quite
clear as to the function of a registrar of the admiralty
of Bermuda, but I think it is his duty to keep a record
of all the admirals born there. I will inquire into this.
There was not much doing in admirals, and Moore got
tired and went away. A reverently preserved souvenir
of him is still one of the treasures of the islands. I
Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion 303
gathered the idea, vaguely, that it was a jug, but was
persistently thwarted in the twenty-two efforts I made
to visit it. However, it was no matter, for I found out
afterwards that it was only a chair.
There are several "sights" in the Bermudas, of
course, but they are easily avoided. This is a great
advantage one cannot have it in Europe. Bermuda
is the right country for a jaded man to "loaf" in.
There are no harassments ; the deep peace and quiet of
the country sink into one s body and bones and give
his conscience a rest, and chloroform the legion of in
visible small devils that are always trying to whitewash
his hair. A good many Americans go there about the
first of March and remain until the early spring weeks
have finished their villainies at home.
The Bermudians are hoping soon to have telegraphic
communication with the world. But even after they
shall have acquired this curse it will still be a good
country to go to for a vacation, for there are charming
little islets scattered about the enclosed sea where one
could live secure from interruption. The telegraph
boy would have to come in a boat, and one could easily
kill him while he was making his landing.
We had spent four days in Bermuda three bright
ones out of doors and one rainy one in the house, we
being disappointed about getting a yacht for a sail ;
and now our furlough was ended, and we entered into
the ship again and sailed homeward.
We made the run home to New York quarantine in
three days and five hours, and could have gone right
along up to the city if we had had a health permit.
But health permits are not granted after seven in the
evening, partly because a ship cannot be inspected
and overhauled with exhaustive thoroughness except in
daylight, and partly because health officers are liable
to catch cold if they expose themselves to the night
3O4 Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion
air. Still, you can buy a permit after hours for five
dollars extra, and the officer will do the inspecting
next week. Our ship and passengers lay under ex
pense and in humiliating captivity all night, under the
very nose of the little official reptile who is supposed
to protect New York from pestilence by his vigilant
"inspections." This imposing rigor gave everybody
a solemn and awful idea of the beneficent watchfulness
of our government, and there were some who wondered
if anything finer could be found in other countries.
In the morning we were all a-tiptoe to witness the
intricate ceremony of inspecting the ship. But it was
a disappointing thing. The health officer s tug ranged
alongside for a moment, our purser handed the lawful
three-dollar permit fee to the health officer s bootblack,
who passed us a folded paper in a forked stick, and
away we went. The entire " inspection " did not oc
cupy thirteen seconds.
The health officer s place is worth a hundred thou
sand dollars a year to him. His system of inspection
is perfect, and therefore cannot be improved on ; but
it seems to me that his system of collecting his fees
might be amended. For a great ship to lie idle all
night is a most costly loss of time ; for her passengers
to have to do the same thing works to them the same
damage, with the addition of an amount of exaspera
tion and bitterness of soul that the spectacle of that
health officer s ashes on a shovel could hardly sweeten.
Now why would it not be better and simpler to let the
ships pass in unmolested, and the fees and permits be
exchanged once a year by post?
THE FACTS CONCERNING THE RECENT
CARNIVAL OF CRIME IN
CONNECTICUT
I WAS feeling blithe, almost jocund. I put a match
to my cigar, and just then the morning s mail was
handed in. The first superscription I glanced at was
in a handwriting that sent a thrill of pleasure through
and through me. It was Aunt Mary s; and she was
the person I loved and honored most in all the world,
outside of my own household. She had been my boy
hood s idol; maturity, which is fatal to so many en
chantments, had not been able to dislodge her from
her pedestal; no, it had only justified her right to be
there, and placed her dethronement permanently among
the impossibilities. To show how strong her influence
over me was, I will observe that long after everybody
else s "^-stop-smoking" had ceased to affect me in
the slightest degree, Aunt Mary could still stir my
torpid conscience into faint signs of life when she
touched upon the matter. But all things have their
limit in this world. A happy day came at last, when
even Aunt Mary s words could no longer move me. I
was not merely glad to see that day arrive ; I was more
than glad I was grateful ; for when its sun had set,
the one alloy that was able to mar my enjoyment of
my aunt s society was gone. The remainder of her
20** (305)
306 Concerning the Carnival of Crime in Connecticut
stay with us that winter was in every way a delight.
Of course she pleaded with me just as earnestly as
ever, after that blessed day, to quit my pernicious
habit, but to no purpose whatever; the moment she
opened the subject I at once became calmly, peace
fully, contentedly indifferent absolutely, adamantinely
indifferent. Consequently the closing weeks of that
memorable visit melted away as pleasantly as a dream,
they were so freighted for me with tranquil satisfaction.
I could not have enjoyed my pet vice more if my gentle
tormentor had been a smoker herself, and an advocate
of the practice. Well, the sight of her handwriting
reminded me that I was getting very hungry to see her
again. I easily guessed what I should find in her
letter. I opened it. Good! just as I expected; she
was coming! Coming this very day, too, and by the
morning train ; I might expect her any moment.
I said to myself, " I am thoroughly happy and con
tent now. If my most pitiless enemy could appear
before me at this moment, I would freely right any
wrong I may have done him."
Straightway the door opened, and a shriveled,
shabby dwarf entered. He was not more than two
feet high. He seemed to be about forty years old.
Every feature and every inch of him was a trifle out of
shape; and so, while one could not put his finger
upon any particular part and say, " This is a conspicu
ous deformity," the spectator perceived that this little
person was a deformity as a whole a vague, general,
evenly blended, nicely adjusted deformity. There was
a fox-like cunning in the face and the sharp little eyes,
and also alertness and malice. And yet, this vile bit of
human rubbish seemed to bear a sort of remote and ill-
defined resemblance to me ! It was dully perceptible
in the mean form, the countenance, and even the
clothes, gestures, manner, and attitudes of the creature.
Concerning the Carnival of Crime in Connecticut 307
He was a far-fetched, dim suggestion of a burlesque
upon me, a caricature of me in little. One thing about
him struck me forcibly, and most unpleasantly : he was
covered all over with a fuzzy, greenish mould, such as
one sometimes sees upon mildewed bread. The sight
of it was nauseating.
He stepped along with a chipper air, and flung him
self into a doll s chair in a very free-and-easy way,
without waiting to be asked. He tossed his hat into
the waste-basket. He picked up my old chalk pipe
from the floor, gave the stem a wipe or two on his
knee, filled the bowl from the tobacco-box at his side,
and said to me in a tone of pert command :
" Gimme a match !"
I blushed to the roots of my hair; partly with indig
nation, but mainly because it somehow seemed to me
that this whole performance was very like an exaggera
tion of conduct which I myself had sometimes been
guilty of in my intercourse with familiar friends but
never, never with strangers, I observed to myself. I
wanted to kick the pigmy into the fire, but some in
comprehensible sense of being legally and legitimately
under his authority forced me to obey his order. He
applied the match to the pipe, took a contemplative
whiff or two, and remarked, in an irritatingly familiar
way:
" Seems to me it s devilish odd weather for this time
of year."
I flushed again, and in anger and humiliation as be
fore ; for the language was hardly an exaggeration of
some that I have uttered in my day, and moreover was
delivered in a tone of voice and with an exasperating
drawl that had the seeming of a deliberate travesty of
my style. Now there is nothing I am quite so sensitive
about as a mocking imitation of my drawling infirmity
of speech. I spoke up sharply and said :
303 Concerning the Carnival of Crime in Connecticut
"Look here, you miserable ash-cat! you will have
to give a little more attention to your manners, or I will
throw you out of the window !"
The manikin smiled a smile of malicious content and
security, puffed a whiff of smoke contemptuously
toward me, and said, with a still more elaborate drawl:
"Come go gently now; don t put on too many
airs with your betters."
This cool snub rasped me all over, but it seemed to
subjugate me, too, for a moment. The pigmy con
templated me awhile with his weasel eyes, and then
said, in a peculiarly sneering way:
"You turned a tramp away from your door this
morning."
I said crustily:
Perhaps I did, perhaps I didn t. How do you
know?"
"Well, I know. It isn t any matter how I know."
" Very well. Suppose I did turn a tramp away from
the door what of it?"
" Oh, nothing; nothing in particular. Only you lied
to him."
I didn t! That is, I"
"Yes, but you did; you lied to him."
I felt a guilty pang in truth, I had felt it forty
times before that tramp had traveled a block from my
door but still I resolved to make a show of feeling
slandered ; so I said :
This is a baseless impertinence. I said to the
tramp "
There wait. You were about to lie again. /
know what you said to him. You said the cook was
gone down town and there was nothing left from break
fast. Two lies. You knew the cook was behind the
door, and plenty of provisions behind her"
This astonishing accuracy silenced me ; and it filled
Concerning the Carnival of Crime in Connecticut 309
me with wondering speculations, too, as to how this
cub could have got his information. Of course he
could have culled the conversation from the tramp, but
by what sort of magic had he contrived to find out
about the concealed cook? Now the dwarf spoke
again :
" It was rather pitiful, rather small, in you to refuse
to read that poor young woman s manuscript the other
day, and give her an opinion as to its literary value ;
and she had come so far, too, and so hopefully. Now
wasn t it?"
I felt like a cur ! And I had felt so every time the
thing had recurred to my mind, I may as well confess.
I flushed hotly and said :
"Look here, have you nothing better to do than
prowl around prying into other people s business?
Did that girl tell you that?"
"Never mind whether she did or not. The main
thing is, you did that contemptible thing. And you
felt ashamed of it afterward. Aha ! you feel ashamed
of it now /"
This was a sort of devilish glee. With fiery earnest
ness I responded :
" I told that girl, in the kindest, gentlest way, that I
could not consent to deliver judgment upon any one s
manuscript, because an individual s verdict was worth
less. It might underrate a work of high merit and lose
it to the world, or it might overrate a trashy production
and so open the way for its infliction upon the world.
I said that the great public was the only tribunal com
petent to sit in judgment upon a literary effort, and
therefore it must be best to lay it before that tribunal
in the outset, since in the end it must stand or fall by
that mighty court s decision anyway."
* Yes, you said all that. So you did, you juggling,
small-souled shuffler ! And yet when the happy hope-
310 Concerning the Carnival of Crime in Connecticut
fulness faded out of that poor girl s face, when you
saw her furtively slip beneath her shawl the scroll she
had so patiently and honestly scribbled at so ashamed
of her darling now, so proud of it before when you
saw the gladness go out of her eyes and the tears corne
there, when she crept away so humbly who had come
so"
" Oh, peace ! peace ! peace ! Blister your merciless
tongue, haven t all these thoughts tortured me enough
without your coming here to fetch them back again!"
Remorse ! remorse ! It seemed to me that it would
eat the very heart out of me ! And yet that small
fiend only sat there leering at me with joy and con
tempt, and placidly chuckling. Presently he began to
speak again. Every sentence was an accusation, and
every accusation a truth. Every clause was freighted
with sarcasm and derision, every slow-dropping word
burned like vitriol. The dwarf reminded me of times
when I had flown at my children in anger and punished
them for faults which a little inquiry would have taught
me that others, and not they, had committed. He re
minded me of how I had disloyally allowed old friends
to be traduced in my hearing, and been too craven to
utter a word in their defense. He reminded me of
many dishonest things which I had done ; of many
which I had procured to be done by children and other
irresponsible persons ; of some which I had planned,
thought upon, and longed to do, and been kept from
the performance by fear of consequences only. With
exquisite cruelty he recalled to my mind, item by item,
wrongs and unkindnesses I had inflicted and humilia
tions I had put upon friends since dead, " who died
thinking of those injuries, maybe, and grieving over
them," he added, by way of poison to the stab.
"For instance," said he, "take the case of your
younger brother, when you two were boys together,
Concerning the Carnival of Crime in Connecticut 311
many a long year ago. He always lovingly trusted in
you with a fidelity that your manifold treacheries were
not able to shake. He followed you about like a dog,
content to suffer wrong and abuse if he might only be
with you ; patient under these injuries so long as it was
your hand that inflicted them. The latest picture you
have of him in health and strength must be such a
comfort to you ! You pledged your honor that if he
would let you blindfold him no harm should come to
him; and then, giggling and choking over the rare fun
of the joke, you led him to a brook thinly glazed with
ice, and pushed him in ; and how you did laugh !
Man, you will never forget the gentle, reproachful
look he gave you as he struggled shivering out, if you
live a thousand years ! Oho ! you see it now, you see
it now /"
" Beast, I have seen it a million times, and shall see
it a million more ! and may you rot away piecemeal,
and suffer till doomsday what I suffer now, for bring
ing it back to me again !"
The dwarf chuckled contentedly, and went on with
his accusing history of my career. I dropped into a
moody, vengeful state, and suffered in silence under
the merciless lash. At last this remark of his gave me
a sudden rouse :
4 Two months ago, on a Tuesday, you woke up,
away in the night, and fell to thinking, with shame,
about a peculiarly mean and pitiful act of yours toward
a poor ignorant Indian in the wilds of the Rocky
Mountains in the winter of eighteen hundred and "
" Stop a moment, devil! Stop! Do you mean to
tell me that even my very thoughts are not hidden from
you?"
" It seems to look like that. Didn t you think the
thoughts I have just mentioned?"
" If I didn t, I wish I may never breathe again!
312 Concerning the Carnival of Crime in Connecticut
Look here, friend look me in the eye. Who are
you?"
" Well, who do you think?"
"I think you are Satan himself. I think you are
the devil."
"No."
11 No? Then who can you be?"
" Would you really like to know?"
" Indeed I would."
" Well, I am your Conscience /"
In an instant I was in a blaze of joy and exultation.
I sprang at the creature, roaring:
" Curse you, I have wished a hundred million times
that you were tangible, and that I could get my hands
on your throat once ! Oh, but I will wreak a deadly
vengeance on "
Folly ! Lightning does not move more quickly than
my Conscience did ! He darted aloft so suddenly that
in the moment my fingers clutched the empty air he
was already perched on the top of the high bookcase,
with his thumb at his nose in token of derision. I
flung the poker at him, and missed. I fired the boot
jack. In a blind rage I flew from place to place, and
snatched and hurled any missile that came handy ; the
storm of books, inkstands, and chunks of coal gloomed
the air and beat about the manikin s perch relentlessly,
but all to no purpose ; the nimble figure dodged every
shot; and not only that, but burst into a cackle of
sarcastic and triumphant laughter as I sat down ex
hausted. While I puffed and gasped with fatigue and
excitement, my Conscience talked to this effect :
"My good slave, you are curiously witless no, I
mean characteristically so. In truth, you are always
consistent, always yourself, always an ass. Otherwise
it must have occurred to you that if you attempted this
murder with a sad heart and a heavy conscience, I
Concerning the Carnival of Crime in Connecticut 313
would droop under the burdening influence instantly.
Fool, I should have weighed a ton, and could not have
budged from the floor; but instead, you are so cheer
fully anxious to kill me that your conscience is as light
as a feather ; hence I am away up here out of your
reach. I can almost respect a mere ordinary sort of
fool ; but you pah !
I would have given anything, then, to be heavy-
hearted, so that I could get this person down from
there and take his life, but I could no more be heavy-
hearted over such a desire than I could have sorrowed
over its accomplishment. So I could only look long
ingly up at my master, and rave at the ill-luck that
denied me a heavy conscience the one only time that I
had ever wanted such a thing in my life. By and by I
got to musing over the hour s strange adventure, and
of course my human curiosity began to work. I set
myself to framing in my mind some questions for this
fiend to answer. Just then one of my boys entered,
leaving the door open behind him, and exclaimed:
" My ! what has been going on here? The bookcase
is all one riddle of "
I sprang up in consternation, and shouted:
"Out of this! Hurry! Jump! Fly! Shut the
door! Quick, or my Conscience will get away!"
The door slammed to, and I locked it. I glanced
up and was grateful, to the bottom of my heart, to see
that my owner was still my prisoner. I said :
II Hang you, I might have lost you ! Children are
the heedlessest creatures. But look here, friend, the
boy did not seem to notice you at all; how is that?"
" For a very good reason. I am invisible to all but
you."
I made a mental note of that piece of information
with a good deal of satisfaction. I could kill this mis
creant now, if I got a chance, and no one would know
314 Concerning the Carnival of Crime in Connecticut
it. But this very reflection made me so light-hearted
that my Conscience could hardly keep his seat, but was
like to float aloft toward the ceiling like a toy balloon.
I said, presently:
" Come, my Conscience, let us be friendly. Let us
fly a flag of truce for a while. I am suffering to ask
you some questions."
"Very well. Begin."
" Well, then, in the first place, why were you never
visible to me before? "
Because you never asked to see me before ; that
is, you never asked in the right spirit and the proper
form before. You were just in the right spirit this
time, and when you called for your most pitiless enemy
I was that person by a very large majority, though you
did not suspect it."
14 Well, did that remark of mine turn you into flesh
and blood?"
" No. It only made me visible to you. I am un
substantial, just as other spirits are."
This remark prodded me with a sharp misgiving. If
he was unsubstantial, how was I going to kill him?
But I dissembled, and said persuasively:
" Conscience, it isn t sociable of you to keep at such
a distance. Come down and take another smoke."
This was answered with a look that was full of
derision, and with this observation added:
" Come where you can get at me and kill me? The
invitation is declined with thanks."
56 All right," said I to myself; "so it seems a spirit
can be killed, after all; there will be one spirit lacking
in this world, presently, or I lose my guess." Then I
said aloud :
-Friend"
There; wait a bit. I am not your friend, I am
your enemy; I am not your equal, I am your master.
Concerning the Carnival of Crime in Connecticut 315
Call me my lord, if you please. You are too
familiar."
" I don t like such titles. I am willing to call you
sir. That is as far as "
" We will have no argument about this. Just obey;
that is all. Go on with your chatter."
"Very well, my lord since nothing but my lord
will suit you I was going to ask you how long
you will be visible to me?"
"Always!"
I broke out with strong indignation : This is simply
an outrage. That is what I think of it. You have
dogged, and dogged, and dogged me, all the days of
my life, invisible. That was misery enough; now to
have such a looking thing as you tagging after me like
another shadow all the rest of my days is an intolerable
prospect. You have my opinion, my lord ; make the
most of it."
"My lad, there was never so pleased a conscience
in this world as I was when you made me visible. It
gives me an inconceivable advantage. Now I can look
you straight in the eye, and call you names, and leer
at you, jeer at you, sneer at you; and you know what
eloquence there is in visible gesture and expression,
more especially when the effect is heightened by audible
speech. I shall always address you henceforth in your
o-w-n s-n-i-v-e-1-i-n-g d-r-a-w-1 baby !"
I let fly with the coal-hod. No result. My lord
said :
" Come, come ! Remember the flag of truce !"
" Ah, I forgot that. I will try to be civil; and you
try it, too, for a novelty. The idea of a civil con
science ! It is a good joke; an excellent joke. All
the consciences / have ever heard of were nagging,
badgering, fault-finding, execrable savages ! Yes ; and
always in a sweat about some poor little insignificant
316 Concerning the Carnival of Crime in Connecticut
trifle or other destruction catch the lot of them, /
say ! I would trade mine for the small-pox and seven
kinds of consumption, and be glad of the chance.
Now tell me, why is it that a conscience can t haul a
man over the coals once, for an offense, and then let
him alone? Why is it that it wants to keep on pegging
at him, day and night and night and day, week in and
week out, forever and ever, about the same old thing?
There is no sense in that, and no reason in it. I think
a conscience that will act like that is meaner than the
very dirt itself."
" Well, we like it; that suffices."
Do you do it with the honest intent to improve a
man?"
That question produced a sarcastic smile, and this
reply :
" No, sir. Excuse me. We do it simply because
it is business. It is our trade. The purpose of it is
to improve the man, but we are merely disinterested
agents. We are appointed by authority, and haven t
anything to say in the matter. We obey orders and
leave the consequences where they belong. But I am
willing to admit this much : we do crowd the orders a
trifle when we get a chance, which is most of the time.
We enjoy it. We are instructed to remind a man a
few times of an error; and I don t mind acknowledging
that we try to give pretty good measure. And when
we get hold of a man of a peculiarly sensitive nature,
oh, but we do haze him ! I have consciences to come
all the way from China and Russia to see a person of
that kind put through his paces, on a special occasion.
Why, I knew a man of that sort who had accidentally
crippled a mulatto baby; the news went abroad, and I
wish you may never commit another sin if the con
sciences didn t flock from all over the earth to enjoy
the fun and help his master exercise him. That man
Concerning the Carnival of Crime in Connecticut 317
walked the floor in torture for forty-eight hours, with
out eating or sleeping, and then blew his brains out.
The child was perfectly well again in three weeks."
Well, you are a precious crew, not to put it too
strong. I think I begin to see now why you have
always been a trifle inconsistent with me. In your
anxiety to get all the juice you can out of a sin, you
make a man repent of it in three or four different ways.
For instance, you found fault with me for lying to that
tramp, and I suffered over that. But it was only
yesterday that I told a tramp the square truth, to wit,
that, it being regarded as bad citizenship to encourage
vagrancy, I would give him nothing. What did you
do then ? Why, you made me say to myself, * Ah, it
would have been so much kinder and more blameless
to ease him off with a little white lie, and send him
away feeling that if he could not have bread, the gentle
treatment was at least something to be grateful for!
Well, I suffered all day about that. Three days before
I had fed a tramp, and fed him freely, supposing it a
virtuous act. Straight off you said, * Oh, false citizen,
to have fed a tramp ! and I suffered as usual. I gave
a tramp work; you objected to it after the contract
was made, of course; you never speak up beforehand.
Next, I refused a tramp work; you objected to that.
Next, I proposed to kill a tramp ; you kept me awake
all night, oozing remorse at every pore. Sure I was
going to be right this time, I sent the next tramp away
with my benediction; and I wish you may live as long
as I do, if you didn t make me smart all night again
because I didn t kill him. Is there any way of satisfy
ing that malignant invention which is called a con
science?"
14 Ha, ha ! this is luxury ! Go on !"
" But come, now, answer me that question. Is there
any way?"
318 Concerning the Carnival of Crime in Connecticut
"Well, none that I propose to tell you, my son.
Ass ! I don t care what act you may turn your hand
to, I can straightway whisper a word in your ear and
make you think you have committed a dreadful mean
ness. It is my business and my joy to make you
repent of everything you do. If I have fooled away
any opportunities it was not intentional; I beg to
assure you it was not intentional !
" Don t worry ; you haven t missed a trick that 1
know of. I never did a thing in all my life, virtuous
or otherwise, that I didn t repent of in twenty-four
hours. In church last Sunday I listened to a charity
sermon. My first impulse was to give three hundred
and fifty dollars ; I repented of that and reduced it a
hundred ; repented of that and reduced it another hun
dred ; repented of that and reduced it another hundred ;
repented of that and reduced the remaining fifty to
twenty-five ; repented of that and came down to fifteen ;
repented of that and dropped to two dollars and a half ;
when the plate came around at last, I repented once
more and contributed ten cents. Well, when I got
home, I did wish to goodness I had that ten cents back
again ! You never did let me get through a charity
sermon without having something to sweat about."
" Oh, and I never shall, I never shall. You can
always depend on me."
"I think so. Many and many s the restless night
I ve wanted to take you by the neck. If I could only
get hold of you now !
1 Yes, no doubt. But I am not an ass; I am only
the saddle of an ass. But go on, go on. You enter
tain me more than I like to confess."
I am glad of that. (You will not mind my lying
a little, to keep in practice.) Look here; not to be
too personal, I think you are about the shabbiest and
most contemptible little shriveled-up reptile that can be
Concerning the Carnival of Crime in Connecticut 319
imagined. I am grateful enough that you are invisible
to other people, for I should die with shame to be seen
with such a mildewed monkey of a conscience as you
are. Now if you were five or six feet high, and "
" Oh, come ! who is to blame?"
" /don t know."
"Why, you are; nobody else."
" Confound you, I w r asn t consulted about your per
sonal appearance."
" I don t care, you had a good deal to do with it,
nevertheless. When you were eight or nine years old,
I was seven feet high, and as pretty as a picture."
" I wish you had died young! So you have grown
the wrong way, have you?"
" Some of us grow one way and some the other.
You had a large conscience once; if you ve a small
conscience now I reckon there are reasons for it.
However, both of us are to blame, you and I. You
see, you used to be conscientious about a great many
things; morbidly so, I may say. It was a great many
years ago. You probably do not remember it now.
Well, I took a great interest in my work, and I so
enjoyed the anguish which certain pet sins of yours
afflicted you with, that I kept pelting at you until I
rather overdid the matter. You began to rebel. Of
course I began to lose ground, then, and shrivel a little
diminish in stature, get mouldy, and grow deformed.
The more I weakened, the more stubbornly you fastened
on to those particular sins ; till at last the places on my
person that represent those vices became as callous as
shark skin. Take smoking, for instance. I played
that card a little too long, and I lost. When people
plead with you at this late day to quit that vice, that
old callous place seems to enlarge and cover me all
over like a shirt of mail. It exerts a mysterious,
smothering effect; and presently I, your faithful hater,
320 Concerning the Carnivu.1 of Crime in Connecticut
your devoted Conscience, go sound asleep! Sound?
It is no name for it. I couldn t hear it thunder at
such a time. You have some few other vices per
haps eighty, or maybe ninety that affect me in much
the same way."
This is flattering ; you must be asleep a good part
of your time."
Yes, of late years. I should be asleep all the
time, but for the help I get."
"Who helps you?"
14 Other consciences. Whenever a person whose
conscience I am acquainted with tries to plead with
you about the vices you are callous to, I get my friend
to give his client a pang concerning some villainy of his
own, and that shuts off his meddling and starts him off
to hunt personal consolation. My field of usefulness
is about trimmed down to tramps, budding authoresses,
and that line of goods now; but don t you worry
I ll harry you on them while they last! Just you put
your trust in me."
"I think I can. But if you had only been good
enough to mention these facts some thirty years ago, I
should have turned my particular attention to sin, and
I think that by this time I should not only have had
you pretty permanently asleep on the entire list of
human vices, but reduced to the size of a homoeopathic
pill, at that. That is about the style of conscience /
am pining for. If I only had you shrunk down to a
homoeopathic pill, and could get my hands on you,
would I put you in a glass case for a keepsake? No,
sir. I would give you to a yellow dog ! That is where
you ought to be you and all your tribe. You are
not fit to be in society, in my opinion. Now another
question. Do you know a good many consciences in
this section?"
"Plenty of them."
Concerning the Carnival of Crime in Connecticut 321
"I would give anything to see some of them!
Could you bring them here? And would they be
visible to me?"
" Certainly not."
" I suppose I ought to have known that without ask
ing. But no matter, you can describe them. Tell me
about my neighbor Thompson s conscience, please."
"Very well. I know him intimately; have known
him many years. I knew him when he was eleven feet
high and of a faultless figure. But he is very rusty
and tough and misshapen now, and hardly ever interests
himself about anything. As to his present size -well,
he sleeps in a cigar box."
"Likely enough. There are few smaller, meaner
men in this region than Hugh Thompson. Do you
know Robinson s conscience?"
"Yes. He is a shade under four and a half feet
high ; used to be a blonde ; is a brunette now, but still
shapely and comely."
"Well, Robinson is a good fellow. Do you know
Tom Smith s conscience?"
" I have known him from childhood. He was
thirteen inches high, and rather sluggish, when he was
two years old as nearly all of us are at that age. He
is thirty-seven feet high now, and the stateliest figure
in America. His legs are still racked with growing-
pains, but he has a good time, nevertheless. Never
sleeps. He is the most active and energetic member
of the New England Conscience Club ; is president of
it. Night and day you can find him pegging away at
Smith, panting with his labor, sleeves rolled up,
countenance all alive with enjoyment. He has got his
victim splendidly dragooned now. He can make poor
Smith imagine that the most innocent little thing he
does is an odious sin ; and then he sets to work and
almost tortures the soul out of him about it."
21**
322 Concerning the Carnival of Crime in Connecticut
" Smith is the noblest man in all this section, and
the purest; and yet is always breaking his heart be
cause he cannot be good ! Only a conscience could
find pleasure in heaping agony upon a spirit like that.
Do you know my aunt Mary s conscience?"
"I have seen her at a distance, but am not ac
quainted with her. She lives in the open air altogether,
because no door is large enough to admit her."
;< I can believe that. Let me see. Do you know
the conscience of that publisher who once stole some
sketches of mine for a series of his, and then left me
to pay the law expenses I had to incur in order to
choke him off?"
" Yes. He has a wide fame. He was exhibited, a
month ago, with some other antiquities, for the benefit
of a recent Member of the Cabinet s conscience that
was starving in exile. Tickets and fares were high,
but I traveled for nothing by pretending to be the con
science of an editor, and got in for half-price by repre
senting myself to be the conscience of a clergyman.
However, the publisher s conscience, which was to
have been the main feature of the entertainment, was a
failure as an exhibition. He was there, but what of
that? The management had provided a microscope
with a magnifying power of only thirty thousand
diameters, and so nobody got to see him, after all.
There was great and general dissatisfaction, of course,
but"
Just here there was an eager footstep on the stair ; I
opened the door, and my aunt Mary burst into the
room. It was a joyful meeting and a cheery bombard
ment of questions and answers concerning family mat
ters ensued. By and by my aunt said :
" But I am going to abuse you a little now. You
promised me, the day I saw you last, that you would
look after the needs of the poor family around the
Concerning the Carnival of Crime in Connecticut 323
corner as faithfully as I had done it myself. Well, I
found out by accident that you failed of your promise.
Was that right?"
In simple truth, I never had thought of that family a
second time ! And now such a splintering pang of
guilt shot through me ! I glanced up at my Conscience.
Plainly, my heavy heart was affecting him. His body
was drooping forward ; he seemed about to fall from
the bookcase. My aunt continued :
" And think how you have neglected my poor protigt
at the almshouse, you dear, hard-hearted promise-
breaker!" I blushed scarlet, and my tongue was tied.
As the sense of my guilty negligence waxed sharper
and stronger, my Conscience began to sway heavily
back and forth ; and when my aunt, after a little pause,
said in a grieved tone, * Since you never once went to
see her, maybe it will not distress you now to know
that that poor child died, months ago, utterly friendless
and forsaken !" my Conscience could no longer bear
up under the weight of my sufferings, but tumbled
headlong from his high perch and struck the floor with
a dull, leaden thump. He lay there writhing with pain
and quaking with apprehension, but straining every
muscle in frantic efforts to get. up. In a fever of ex
pectancy I sprang to the door, locked it, placed my
back against it, and bent a watchful gaze upon my
struggling master. Already my fingers were itching to
begin their murderous work.
" Oh, what can be the matter!" exclaimed by aunt,
shrinking from me, and following with her frightened
eyes the direction of mine. My breath was coming in
short, quick gasps now, and my excitement was almost
uncontrollable. My aunt cried out:
" Oh, do not look so ! You appall me ! Oh, what
can the matter be ? What is it you see ? Why do you
stare so? Why do you work your fingers like that? 7
324 Concerning the Carnival of Crime in Connecticut
"Peace, woman!" I said, in a hoarse whisper.
"Look elsewhere; pay no attention to me; it is
nothing nothing. I am often this way. It will
pass in a moment. It comes from smoking too
much."
My injured lord was up, wild-eyed with terror, and
trying to hobble toward the door. I could hardly
breathe, I was so wrought up. My aunt wrung her
hands, and said :
" Oh, I knew how it would be ; I knew it would come
to this at last ! Oh, I implore you to crush out that fatal
habit while it may yet be time ! You must not, you
shall not be deaf to my supplications longer!" My
struggling Conscience showed sudden signs of weari
ness ! " Oh, promise me you will throw off this hate
ful slavery of tobacco!" My Conscience began to
reel drowsily, and grope with his hands enchanting
spectacle ! "I beg you, I beseech you, I implore you !
Your reason is deserting you ! There is madness in
your eye ! It flames with frenzy ! Oh, hear me, hear
me, and be saved ! See, I plead with you on my very
knees!" As she sank before me my Conscience reeled
again, and then drooped languidly to the floor, blink
ing toward me a last supplication for mercy, with heavy
eyes. "Oh, promise, or you are lost! Promise, and
be redeemed! Promise! Promise and live!" With
a long-drawn sigh my conquered Conscience closed his
eyes and fell fast asleep !
With an exultant shout I sprang past my aunt, and
in an instant I had my lifelong foe by the throat.
After so many years of waiting and longing, he was mine
at last. I tore him to shreds and fragments. I rent
the fragments to bits. I cast the bleeding rubbish into
the fire, and drew into my nostrils the grateful incense
of my burnt-offering. At last, and forever, my Con
science was dead !
Concerning the Carnival of Crime in Connecticut 325
I was a free man ! I turned upon my poor aunt,
who was almost petrified with terror, and shouted :
* Out of this with your paupers, your charities, your
reforms, your pestilent morals ! You behold before
you a man whose life-conflict is done, whose soul is at
peace ; a man whose heart is dead to sorrow, dead to
suffering, dead to remorse; a man WITHOUT A CON
SCIENCE! In my joy I spare you, though I could
throttle you and never feel a pang ! Fly !
She fled. Since that day my life is all bliss. Bliss,
unalloyed bliss. Nothing in all the world could per
suade me to have a conscience again. I settled all my
old outstanding scores, and began the world anew. I
killed thirty-eight persons during the first two weeks
all of them on account of ancient grudges. I burned a
dwelling that interrupted my view. I swindled a widow
and some orphans out of their last cow, which is a very
good one, though not thoroughbred, I believe. I have
also committed scores of crimes, of various kinds, and
have enjoyed my work exceedingly, whereas it would
formerly have broken my heart and turned my hair
gray, I have no doubt.
In conclusion, I wish to state, by way of advertise
ment, that medical colleges desiring assorted tramps
for scientific purposes, either by the gross, by cord
measurement, or per ton, will do well to examine the
lot in my cellar before purchasing elsewhere, as these
were all selected and prepared by myself, and can be
had at a low rate, because I wish to clear out my stock
and get ready for the spring trade.
ABOUT MAGNANIMOUS-INCIDENT
LITERATURE
ALL my life, from boyhood up, I have had the habit
of reading a certain set of anecdotes, written in
the quaint vein of The World s ingenious Fabulist, for
the lesson they taught me and the pleasure they gave
me. They lay always convenient to my hand, and
whenever I thought meanly of my kind I turned to
them, and they banished that sentiment; whenever I
felt myself to be selfish, sordid, and ignoble I turned
to them, and they told me what to do to win back my
self-respect. Many times I wished that the charming
anecdotes had not stopped with their happy climaxes,
but had continued the pleasing history of the several
benefactors and beneficiaries. This wish rose in my
breast so persistently that at last I determined to satisfy
it by seeking out the sequels of those anecdotes myself.
So I set about it, and after great labor and tedious re
search accomplished my task. I will lay the result be
fore you, giving you each anecdote in its turn, and fol
lowing it with its sequel as I gathered it through my
investigations.
THE GRATEFUL POODLE
One day a benevolent physician (who had read the
books) having found a stray poodle suffering from a
broken leg, conveyed the poor creature to his home,
(326)
About Magnanimous-Incident Literature 327
and after setting and bandaging the injured limb gave
the little outcast its liberty again, and thought no more
about the matter. But how great was his surprise,
upon opening his door one morning, some days later,
to find the grateful poodle patiently waiting there, and
in its company another stray dog, one of whose legs,
by some accident, had been broken. The kind physi
cian at once relieved the distressed animal, nor did he
forget to admire the inscrutable goodness and mercy of
God, who had been willing to use so humble an instru
ment as the poor outcast poodle for the inculcating of,
etc., etc., etc.
SEQUEL
The next morning the benevolent physician found
the two dogs, beaming with gratitude, waiting at his
door, and with them two other dogs cripples. The
cripples were speedily healed, and the four went their
way, leaving the benevolent physician more overcome
by pious wonder than ever. The day passed, the
morning came. There at the door sat now the four
reconstructed dogs, and with them four others requir
ing reconstruction. This day also passed, and another
morning came; and now sixteen dogs, eight of them
newly crippled, occupied the sidewalk, and the people
were going around. By noon the broken legs were all
set, but the pious wonder in the good physician s
breast was beginning to get mixed with involuntary
profanity. The sun rose once more, and exhibited
thirty- two dogs, sixteen of them with broken legs, oc
cupying the sidewalk and half of the street ; the human
spectators took up the rest of the room. The cries of
the wounded, the songs of the healed brutes, and the
comments of the on-looking citizens made great and in
spiring cheer, but traffic was interrupted in that street.
The good physician hired a couple of assistant surgeons
328 About Magnanimous-Incident Literature
and got through his benevolent work before dark, first
taking the precaution to cancel his church membership,
so that he might express himself with the latitude which
the case required.
But some things have their limits. When once more
the morning dawned, and the good physician looked
out upon a massed and far-reaching multitude of
clamorous and beseeching dogs, he said, "I might as
well acknowledge it, I have been fooled by the books ;
they only tell the pretty part of the story, and then
stop. Fetch me the shotgun ; this thing has gone along
far enough."
He issued forth with his weapon, and chanced to step
upon the tail of the original poodle, who promptly bit
him in the leg. Now the great and good work which
this poodle had been engaged in had engendered in him
such a mighty and augmenting enthusiasm as to turn
his weak head at last and drive him mad. A month
later, when the benevolent physician lay in the death
throes of hydrophobia, he called his weeping friends
about him, and said :
"Beware of the books. They tell but half of the
story. Whenever a poor wretch asks you for help,
and you feel a doubt as to what result may flow from
your benevolence, give yourself the benefit of the
doubt and kill the applicant."
And so saying he turned his face to the wall and gave
up the ghost.
THE BENEVOLENT AUTHOR
A poor and young literary beginner had tried in vain
to get his manuscripts accepted. At last, when the
horrors of starvation were staring him in the face, he
laid his sad case before a celebrated author, beseeching
his counsel and assistance. This generous man im
mediately put aside his own matters and proceeded to
About Magnanimous- Incident Literature 329
peruse one of the despised manuscripts. Having com
pleted his kindly task, he shook the poor young man
cordially by the hand, saying, ** I perceive merit in
this; come again to me on Monday." At the time
specified, the celebrated author, with a sweet smile, but
saying nothing, spread open a magazine which was
damp from the press. What was the poor young man s
astonishment to discover upon the printed page his
own article. " How can I ever," said he, falling upon
his knees and bursting into tears, " testify my gratitude
for this noble conduct!"
The celebrated author was the renowned Snodgrass ;
the poor young beginner thus rescued from obscurity
and starvation was the afterwards equally renowned
Snagsby. Let this pleasing incident admonish us to
turn a charitable ear to all beginners that need help.
SEQUEL
The next week Snagsby was back with five rejected
manuscripts. The celebrated author was a little sur
prised, because in the books the young struggler had
needed but one lift, apparently. However, he
plowed through these papers, removing unnecessary
flowers and digging up some acres of adjective stumps,
and then succeeded in getting two of the articles
accepted.
A week or so drifted by, and the grateful Snagsby
arrived with another cargo. The celebrated author
had felt a mighty glow of satisfaction within himself the
first time he had successfully befriended the poor young
struggler, and had compared himself with the generous
people in the books with high gratification ; but he was
beginning to suspect now that he had struck upon some
thing fresh in the noble-episode line. His enthusiasm
took a chill. Still, he could not bear to repulse this
330 About Magnanimous-Incident Literature
struggling young author, who clung to him with such
pretty simplicity and trustfulness.
Well, the upshot of it all was that the celebrated
author presently found himself permanently freighted
with the poor young beginner. All his mild efforts to
unload this cargo went for nothing. He had to give
daily counsel, daily encouragement; he had to keep on
procuring magazine acceptances, and then revamping
the manuscripts to make them presentable. When the
young aspirant got a start at last, he rode into sudden
fame by describing the celebrated author s private life
with such a caustic humor and such minuteness of blis
tering detail that the book sold a prodigious edition, and
broke the celebrated author s heart with mortification.
With his latest gasp he said, "Alas, the books deceived
me ; they do not tell the whole story. Beware of the
struggling young author, my friends. Whom God sees
fit to starve, let not man presumptuously rescue to his
own undoing."
THE GRATEFUL HUSBAND
One day a lady was driving through the principal
street of a great city with her little boy, when the horses
took fright and dashed madly away, hurling the coach
man from his box and leaving the occupants of the car
riage paralyzed with terror. But a brave youth who
was driving a grocery wagon threw himself before the
plunging animals, and succeeded in arresting their
flight at the peril of his own.* The grateful lady took
his number, and upon arriving at her home she related
the heroic act to her husband (who had read the books) ,
who listened with streaming eyes to the moving recital,
and who, after returning thanks, in conjunction with his
restored loved ones, to Him who suffereth not even a
sparrow to fall to the ground unnoticed, sent for the
* This is probably a misprint. M. T.
About Magnanimous-Incident Literature 331
brave young person, and, placing a check for five
hundred dollars in his hand, said, " Take this as a re
ward for your noble act, William Ferguson, and if ever
you shall need a friend, remember that Thompson Mc-
Spadden has a grateful heart. Let us learn from this
that a good deed cannot fail to benefit the doer, how
ever humble he may be.
SEQUEL
William Ferguson called the next week and asked
Mr. McSpadden to use his influence to get him a
higher employment, he feeling capable of better things
than driving a grocer s wagon. Mr. McSpadden got
him an underclerkship at a good salary.
Presently William Ferguson s mother fell sick, and
William Well, to cut the story short, Mr. Mc
Spadden consented to take her into his house. Before
long she yearned for the society of her younger
children; so Mary and Julia were admitted also, and
little Jimmy, their brother. Jimmy had a pocket-knife,
and he wandered into the drawing-room with it one
day, alone, and reduced ten thousand dollars worth of
furniture to an indeterminable value in rather less than
three-quarters of an hour. A day or two later he fell
downstairs and broke his neck, and seventeen of his
family s relatives came to the house to attend the
funeral. This made them acquainted, and they kept
the kitchen occupied after that, and likewise kept the
McSpaddens busy hunting up situations of various sorts
for them, and hunting up more when they wore these
out. The old woman drank a good deal and swore a good
deal ; but the grateful McSpaddens knew it was their
duty to reform her, considering what her son had done
for them, so they clave nobly to their generous task.
William came often and got decreasing sums of money,
and asked for higher and more lucrative employments
33 2 About Magnanimous-Incident Literature
which the grateful McSpadden more or less promptly
procured for him. McSpadden consented also, after
some demur, to fit William for college ; but when the
first vacation came and the hero requested to be sent to
Europe for his health, the persecuted McSpadden rose
against the tyrant and revolted. He plainly and
squarely refused. William Ferguson s mother was so
astounded that she let her gin-bottle drop, and her pro
fane lips refused to do their office. When she re
covered she said in a half -gasp, " Is this your gratitude?
Where would your wife and boy be now, but for my
son?"
William said, " Is this your gratitude? Did I save
your wife s life or not? Tell me that!"
Seven relations swarmed in from the kitchen and each
said, "And this is his gratitude!"
William s sisters stared, bewildered, and said, "And
this is his grat " but were interrupted by their
mother, who burst into tears and exclaimed, To
think that my sainted little Jimmy threw away his life
in the service of such a reptile !"
Then the pluck of the revolutionary McSpadden rose
to the occasion, and he replied with fervor, " Out of
my house, the whole beggarly tribe of you ! I was
beguiled by the books, but shall never be beguiled
again once is sufficient for me." And turning to
William he shouted, " Yes, you did save my wife s life,
and the next man that does it shall die in his tracks !"
Not being a clergyman, I place my text at the end
of my sermon instead of at the beginning. Here it is,
from Mr. Noah Brooks s Recollections of President
Lincoln in Scribner s Monthly :
J. H. Hackett, in his part of Falstaff, was an actor who gave Mr.
Lincoln great delight. With his usual desire to signify to others his sense
About Magnanimous-Incident Literature 333
of obligation, Mr. Lincoln wrote a genial little note to the actor expressing
his pleasure at witnessing his performance. Mr. Hackett, in reply, sent a
book of some sort; perhaps it was one of his own authorship. He also
wrote several notes to the President. One night, quite late, when the epi
sode had passed out of my mind, I went to the White House in answer to a
message. Passing into the President s office, I noticed, to my surprise,
Hackett sitting in the anteroom as if waiting for an audience. The Presi
dent asked me if any one was outside. On being told, he said, half
sadly, " Oh, I can t see him, I can t see him; I was in hopes he had gone
away." Then he added, "Now this just illustrates the difficulty of having
pleasant friends and acquaintances in this place. You know how 1 liked
Hackett as an actor, and how I wrote to tell him so. He sent me that
book, and there I thought the matter would end. He is a master of his
place in the profession, I suppose, and well fixed in it; but just because we
had a little friendly correspondence, such as any two men might have, he
wants something. What do you suppose he wants ? " I could not guess,
and Mr. Lincoln added, "Well, he wants to be consul to London. Oh,
dear!"
I will observe, in conclusion, that the William Fer
guson incident occurred, and within my personal knowl
edge though I have changed the nature of the de
tails, to keep William from recognizing himself in it.
All the readers of this article have in some sweet and
gushing hour of their lives played the role of Magnan
imous-Incident hero. I wish I knew how many there
are among them who are willing to talk about that
episode and like to be reminded of the consequences
that flowed from it.
PUNCH, BROTHERS, PUNCH
WILL the reader please to cast his eye over the fol
lowing lines, and see if he can discover anything
harmful in them?
Conductor, when you receive a fare,
Punch in the presence of the passenjare !
A blue trip slip for an eight-cent fare,
A buff trip slip for a six-cent fare,
A pink trip slip for a three-cent fare,
Punch in the presence of the passenjare !
CHORUS
Punch, brothers! punch with care !
Punch in the presence of the passenjare !
I came across these jingling rhymes in a newspaper,
a little while ago, and read them a couple of times.
They took instant and entire possession of me. All
through breakfast they went waltzing through my brain ;
and when, at last, I rolled up my napkin, I could not
tell whether I had eaten anything or not. I had care
fully laid out my day s work the day before a thrill
ing tragedy in the novel which I am writing. I went
to my den to begin my deed of blood. I took up my
pen, but all I could get it to say was, " Punch in the
presence of the passenjare." I fought hard for an
hour, but it was useless. My head kept humming,
(334)
Punch, Brothers, Punch 335
"A blue trip slip for an eight-cent fare, a buff trip slip
for a six-cent fare," and so on and so on, without
peace or respite. The day s work was ruined I
could see that plainly enough. I gave up and drifted
down-town, and presently discovered that my feet were
keeping time to that relentless jingle. When I could
stand it no longer I altered my step. But it did no
good ; those rhymes accommodated themselves to the
new step and went on harassing me just as before. I
returned home, and suffered all the afternoon; suffered
all through an unconscious and unrefreshing dinner;
suffered, and cried, and jingled all through the evening;
went to bed and rolled, tossed, and jingled right along,
the same as ever; got up at midnight frantic, and
tried to read ; but there was nothing visible upon the
whirling page except " Punch! punch in the presence
of the passenjare." By sunrise I was out of my mind,
and everybody marveled and was distressed at the
idiotic burden of my ravings "Punch! oh, punch!
punch in the presence of the passenjare !"
Two days later, on Saturday morning, I arose, a tot
tering wreck, and went forth to fulfill an engagement
with a valued friend, the Rev. Mr. , to walk to the
Talcott Tower, ten miles distant. He stared at me,
but asked no questions. We started. Mr. talked,
talked, talked as is his wont. I said nothing;
I heard nothing. At the end of a mile, Mr.
said :
11 Mark, are you sick? I never saw a man look so
haggard and worn and absent-minded. Say some
thing, do! "
Drearily, without enthusiasm, I said: "Punch,
brothers, punch with care ! Punch in the presence of
the passenjare !"
My friend eyed me blankly, looked perplexed, then
said:
336 Punch, Brothers, Punch
" I do not think I get your drift, Mark. There does
not seem to be any relevancy in what you have said,
certainly nothing sad; and yet maybe it was the way
you said the words I never heard anything that
sounded so pathetic. What is "
But I heard no more. I was already far away with
my pitiless, heart-breaking " blue trip slip for an eight-
cent fare, buff trip slip for a six-cent fare, pink trip
slip for a three-cent fare ; punch in the presence of the
passenjare." I do not know what occurred during the
other nine miles. However, all of a sudden Mr.
laid his hand on my shoulder and shouted :
"Oh, wake up! wake up! wake up! Don t sleep
all day ! Here we are at the Tower, man ! I have
talked myself deaf and dumb and blind, and never got
a response. Just look at this magnificent autumn land
scape ! Look at it ! look at it ! Feast your eyes on it !
You have traveled ; you have seen boasted landscapes
elsewhere. Come, now, deliver an honest opinion.
What do you say to this?"
I sighed wearily, and murmured :
"A buff trip slip for a six-cent fare, a pink trip slip
for a three-cent fare, punch in the presence of the
passenjare."
Rev. Mr. stood there, very grave, full of con
cern, apparently, and looked long at me; then he
said :
* Mark, there is something about this that I cannot
understand. Those are about the same words you said
before; there does not seem to be anything in them,
and yet they nearly break my heart when you say them.
Punch in the how is it they go?"
I began at the beginning and repeated all the lines.
My friend s face lighted with interest. He said:
l< Why, what a captivating jingle it is ! It is almost
music. It flows along so nicely. I have nearly caught
Punch, Brothers, Punch 337
the rhymes myself. Say them over just once more,
and then I ll have them, sure."
I said them over. Then Mr. said them. He
made one little mistake, which I corrected. The next
time and the next he got them right. Now a great
burden seemed to tumble from my shoulders. That
torturing jingle departed out of my brain, and a grate
ful sense of rest and peace descended upon me. I was
light-hearted enough to sing; and I did sing for half
an hour, straight along, as we went jogging homeward.
Then my freed tongue found blessed speech again, and
the pent talk of many a weary hour began to gush and
flow. It flowed on and on, joyously, jubilantly, until
the fountain was empty and dry. As I wrung my
friend s hand at parting, I said:
" Haven t we had a royal good time! But now I
remember, you haven t said a word for two hours.
Come, come, out with something!"
The Rev. Mr. turned a lack-lustre eye upon
me, drew a deep sigh, and said, without animation,
without apparent consciousness :
" Punch, brothers, punch with care! Punch in the
presence of the passenjare !"
A pang shot through me as I said to myself, " Poor
fellow, poor fellow! he has got it, now."
I did not see Mr. for two or three days after
that. Then, on Tuesday evening, he staggered into
my presence and sank dejectedly into a seat. He was
pale, worn; he was a wreck. He lifted his faded eyes
to my face and said :
"Ah, Mark, it was a ruinous investment that I made
in those heartless rhymes. They have ridden me like
a nightmare, day and night, hour after hour, to this
very moment. Since I saw you I have suffered the
torments of the lost. Saturday evening I had a sudden
call, by telegraph, and took the night train for Boston.
22**
338 Punch, Brothers, Punch
The occasion was the death of a valued old friend who
had requested that I should preach his funeral sermon.
I took my seat in the cars and set myself to framing
the discourse. But I never got beyond the opening
paragraph ; for then the train started and the car-wheels
began their clack, clack clack-clack-clack! clack-
clack clack-clack-clack ! and right away those odious
rhymes fitted themselves to that accompaniment. For
an hour I sat there and set a syllable of those rhymes
to every separate and distinct clack the car-wheels
made. Why, I was as fagged out, then, as if I had
been chopping wood all day. My skull was splitting
with headache. It seemed to me that I must go mad
if I sat there any longer ; so I undressed and went to
bed. I stretched myself out in my berth, and well,
you know what the result was. The thing went right
along, just the same. Clack-clack-clack, a blue trip
slip, clack-clack-clack, for an eight-cent fare; clack-
clack-clack, a buff trip slip, clack-clack-clack, for a six-
cent fare, and so on, and so on, and so on punch in
the presence of the passenjare ! Sleep? Not a single
wink! I was almost a lunatic when I got to Boston.
Don t ask me about the funeral. I did the best I could,
but every solemn individual sentence was meshed and
tangled and woven in and out with Punch, brothers,
punch with care, punch in the presence of the passen
jare. And the most distressing thing was that my
delivery dropped into the undulating rhythm of those
pulsing rhymes, and I could actually catch absent-
minded people nodding time to the swing of it
with their stupid heads. And, Mark, you may be
lieve it or not, but before I got through, the entire
assemblage were placidly bobbing their heads in solemn
unison, mourners, undertaker, and all. The moment I
had finished, I fled to the anteroom in a state bordering
on frenzy. Of course it would be my luck to find a
Punch, Brothers, Punch 339
sorrowing and aged maiden aunt of the deceased there,
who had arrived from Springfield too late to get into
the church. She began to sob, and said:
* Oh, oh, he is gone, he is gone, and I didn t see
him before he died !
Yes ! I said, he is gone, he is gone, he is gone
oh, will this suffering never cease !
You loved him, then ! Oh, you too loved him !
1 Loved him ! Loved who?
4 Why, my poor George ! my poor nephew !
" Oh him! Yes oh, yes, yes. Certainly
certainly. Punch punch oh, this misery will kill
me!
4 Bless you ! bless you, sir, for these sweet words !
/, too, suffer in this dear loss. Were you present
during his last moments?
Yes. I whose last moments?
" 4 His. The dear departed s.
" Yes! Oh, yes yes yes! I suppose so, I
think so, / don t know! Oh, certainly I was there
/ was there !
Oh, what a privilege! what a precious privilege!
And his last words oh, tell me, tell me his last words !
What did he say?
: He said he said oh, my head, my head, my
head! He said- he said he never said anything
but Punch, punch, punch in the presence of the
passenjare ! Oh, leave me, madam ! In the name of
all that is generous, leave me to my madness, my
misery, my despair ! a buff trip slip for a six-cent
fare, a pink trip slip for a three-cent fare endu-rance
can no fur-ther go ! PUNCH in the presence of the
passenjare !
My friend s hopeless eyes rested upon mine a preg
nant minute, and then he said impressively:
" Mark, you do not say anything. You do not offer
340 Punch, Brothers, Punch
me any hope. But, ah me, it is just as well it is just
as well. You could not do me any good. The time
has long gone by when words could comfort me.
Something tells me that my tongue is doomed to wag
forever to the jigger of that remorseless jingle. There
there it is coming on me again : a blue trip slip for
an eight-cent fare, a buff trip slip for a "
Thus murmuring faint and fainter, my friend sank
into a peaceful trance and forgot his sufferings in a
blessed respite.
How did I finally save him from an asylum? I took
him to a neighboring university and made him discharge
the burden of his persecuting rhymes into the eager
ears of the poor, unthinking students. How is it with
them, now? The result is too sad to tell. Why did I
write this article? It was for a worthy, even a noble,
purpose. It was to warn you, reader, if you should
come across those merciless rhymes, to avoid them
avoid them as you would a pestilence !
THE GREAT REVOLUTION IN PITCAIRN
LET me refresh the reader s memory a little. Nearly
a hundred years ago the crew of the British ship
Bounty mutinied, set the captain and his officers adrift
upon the open sea, took possession of the ship, and
sailed southward. They procured wives for themselves
among the natives of Tahiti, then proceeded to a lonely
little rock in mid-Pacific, called Pitcairn s Island,
wrecked the vessel, stripped her of everything that
might be useful to a new colony, and established them
selves on shore.
Pitcairn s is so far removed from the track of com
merce that it was many years before another vessel
touched there. It had always been considered an un
inhabited island ; so when a ship did at last drop its
anchor there, in 1808, the captain was greatly surprised
to find the place peopled. Although the mutineers
had fought among themselves, and gradually killed
each other off until only two or three of the original
stock remained, these tragedies had not occurred be
fore a number of children had been born; so in 1808
the island had a population of twenty-seven persons.
John Adams, the chief mutineer, still survived, and
was to live many years yet, as governor and patriarch
of the flock. From being mutineer and homicide, he
had turned Christian and teacher, and his nation of
(34i)
342 The Great Revolution in Pitcairn
twenty-seven persons was now the purest and devoutest
in Christendom. Adams had long ago hoisted the
British flag and constituted his island an appanage of
the British crown.
To-day the population numbers ninety persons
sixteen men, nineteen women, twenty-five boys, and
thirty girls all descendants of the mutineers, all
bearing the family names of those mutineers, and all
speaking English, and English only. The island stands
high up out of the sea, and has precipitous walls. It
is about three-quarters of a mile long, and in places is
as much as half a mile wide. Such arable land as it
affords is held by the several families, according to a
division made many years ago. There is some live
stock goats, pigs, chickens, and cats; but no dogs,
and no large animals. There is one church building-
used also as a capitol, a schoolhouse, and a public
library. The title of the governor has been, for a
generation or two, " Magistrate and Chief Ruler, in
subordination to her Majesty the Queen of Great
Britain." It was his province to make the laws, as
well as execute them. His office was elective; every
body over seventeen years old had a vote no matter
about the sex.
The sole occupations of the people were farming and
fishing; their sole recreation, religious services. There
has never been a shop in the island, nor any money.
The habits and dress of the people have always been
primitive, and their laws simple to puerility. They
have lived in a deep Sabbath tranquillity, far from the
world and its ambitions and vexations, and neither
knowing nor caring what was going on in the mighty
empires that lie beyond their limitless ocean solitudes.
Once in three or four years a ship touched there,
moved them with aged news of bloody battles, devas
tating epidemics, fallen thrones, and ruined dynasties,
The Great Revolution in Pitcairn 343
then traded them some soap and flannel for some yams
and breadfruit, and sailed away, leaving them to retire
into their peaceful dreams and pious dissipations once
more.
On the 8th of last September, Admiral de Horsey,
commander-in-chief of the British fleet in the Pacific,
visited Pitcairn s Island, and speaks as follows in his
official report to the admiralty :
They have beans, carrots, turnips, cabbages, and a little maize; pine
apples, fig-trees, custard-apples, and oranges; lemons, and cocoa-nuts.
Clothing is obtained alone from passing ships, in barter for refreshments.
There are no springs on the island, but as it rains generally once a month
they have plenty of water, although at times, in former years, they have
suffered from drought. No alcoholic liquors, except for medicinal pur
poses, are used, and a drunkard is unknown. . . .
The necessary articles required by the islanders are best shown by those
we furnished in barter for refreshments : namely, flannel, serge, drill, half-
boots, combs, tobacco, and soap. They also stand much in need of maps
and slates for their school, and tools of any kind are most acceptable. I
caused them to be supplied from the public stores with a union-jack for
display on the arrival of ships, and a pit-saw, of which they were greatly in
need. This, I trust, will meet the approval of their lordships. If the
munificent people of England were only aware of the wants of this most
deserving little colony, they would not long go unsupplied. . . .
Divine service is held every Sunday at 10.30 A.M. and at 3 P.M., in the
house built and used by John Adams for that purpose until he died in 1829.
It is conducted strictly in accordance with the liturgy of the Church of
England, by Mr. Simon Young, their selected pastor, who is much re
spected. A Bible class is held every Wednesday, when all who conven
iently can attend. There is also a general meeting for prayer on the first
Friday in every month. Family prayers are said in every house the first
thing in the morning and the last thing in the evening, and no food is par
taken of without asking God s blessing before and afterwards. Of these
islanders religious attributes no one can speak without deep respect. A
people whose greatest pleasure and privilege is to commune in prayer with
their God, and to join in hymns of praise, and who are, moreover, cheerful,
diligent, and probably freer from vice than any other community, need no
priest among them.
344 The Great Revolution in Pitcairn
Now I come to a sentence in the admiral s report
which he dropped carelessly from his pen, no doubt,
and never gave the matter a second thought. He little
imagined what a freight of tragic prophecy it bore !
This is the sentence :
One stranger, an American, has settled on the island a doubtful
acquisition.
A doubtful acquisition, indeed ! Captain Ormsby,
in the American ship Hornet, touched at Pitcairn s
nearly four months after the admiral s visit, and from
the facts which he gathered there we now know all
about that American. Let us put these facts together
in historical form. The American s name was Butter-
worth Stavely. As soon as he had become well ac
quainted with all the people and this took but a few
days, of course he began to ingratiate himself with
them by all the arts he could command. He became
exceedingly popular, and much looked up to ; for one
of the first things he did was to forsake his worldly way
of life, and throw all his energies into religion. He was
always reading his Bible, or praying, or singing hymns,
or asking blessings. In prayer, no one had such
" liberty " as he, no one could pray so long or so well.
At last, when he considered the time to be ripe, he
began secretly to sow the seeds of discontent among
the people. It was his deliberate purpose, from the
beginning, to subvert the government, but of course he
kept that to himself for a time. He used different arts
with different individuals. He awakened dissatisfaction
in one quarter by calling attention to the shortness of
the Sunday services ; he argued that there should be
three three-hour services on Sunday instead of only
two. Many had secretly held this opinion before;
they now privately banded themselves into a party to
work for it. He showed certain of the women that
The Great Revolution in Pitcairn 345
they were not allowed sufficient voice in the prayer-
meetings; thus another party was formed. No weapon
was beneath his notice ; he even descended to the chil
dren, and awoke discontent in their breasts because
as he discovered for them they had not enough
Sunday-school. This created a third party.
Now, as the chief of these parties, he found himself
the strongest power in the community. So he pro
ceeded to his next move a no less important one
than the impeachment of the chief magistrate, James
Russell Nickoy; a man of character and ability, and
possessed of great wealth, he being the owner of a
house with a parlor to it, three acres and a half of yam
land, and the only boat in Pitcairn s, a whale-boat;
and, most unfortunately, a pretext for this impeach
ment offered itself at just the right time. One of the
earliest and most precious laws of the island was the
law against trespass. It was held in great reverence,
and was regarded as the palladium of the people s
liberties. About thirty years ago an important case
came before the courts under this law, in this wise : a
chicken belonging to Elizabeth Young (aged, at that
time, fifty-eight, a daughter of John Mills, one of the
mutineers of the Bounty) trespassed upon the grounds
of Thursday October Christian (aged twenty-nine, a
grandson of Fletcher Christian, one of the mutineers).
Christian killed the chicken. According to the law,
Christian could keep the chicken; or, if he preferred,
he could restore its remains to the owner, and receive
damages in "produce" to an amount equivalent to
the waste and injury wrought by the trespasser. The
court records set forth that " the said Christian afore
said did deliver the aforesaid remains to the said Eliza
beth Young, and did demand one bushel of yams in
satisfaction of the damage done." But Elizabeth
Young considered the demand exorbitant ; the parties
346 The Great Revolution in Pitcairn
could not agree; therefore Christian brought suit in
the courts. He lost his case in the justice s court; at
least, he was awarded only a half peck of yams, which
he considered insufficient, and in the nature of a
defeat. He appealed. The case lingered several years
in an ascending grade of courts, and always resulted in
decrees sustaining the original verdict; and finally the
thing got into the supreme court, and there it stuck for
twenty years. But last summer, even the supreme
court managed to arrive at a decision at last. Once
more the original verdict was sustained. Christian then
said he was satisfied; but Stavely 
