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secret, and then showed them a hole in the hill, right in the thickest

part of the bushes. Then we lit the candles, and crawled in on our hands

and knees. We went about two hundred yards, and then the cave opened up.

Tom poked about amongst the passages, and pretty soon ducked under a wall

where you wouldn't a noticed that there was a hole. We went along a

narrow place and got into a kind of room, all damp and sweaty and cold,

and there we stopped. Tom says:

"Now, we'll start this band of robbers and call it Tom Sawyer's Gang.

Everybody that wants to join has got to take an oath, and write his name

in blood."

Everybody was willing. So Tom got out a sheet of paper that he had wrote

the oath on, and read it. It swore every boy to stick to the band, and

never tell any of the secrets; and if anybody done anything to any boy in

the band, whichever boy was ordered to kill that person and his family

must do it, and he mustn't eat and he mustn't sleep till he had killed

them and hacked a cross in their breasts, which was the sign of the band.

And nobody that didn't belong to the band could use that mark, and if he

did he must be sued; and if he done it again he must be killed. And if

anybody that belonged to the band told the secrets, he must have his

throat cut, and then have his carcass burnt up and the ashes scattered

all around, and his name blotted off of the list with blood and never

mentioned again by the gang, but have a curse put on it and be forgot

forever.

Everybody said it was a real beautiful oath, and asked Tom if he got it

out of his own head. He said, some of it, but the rest was out of

pirate-books and robber-books, and every gang that was high-toned had it.

Some thought it would be good to kill the FAMILIES of boys that told the

secrets. Tom said it was a good idea, so he took a pencil and wrote it

in. Then Ben Rogers says:

"Here's Huck Finn, he hain't got no family; what you going to do 'bout

him?"

"Well, hain't he got a father?" says Tom Sawyer.

"Yes, he's got a father, but you can't never find him these days. He

used to lay drunk with the hogs in the tanyard, but he hain't been seen

in these parts for a year or more."

They talked it over, and they was going to rule me out, because they said

every boy must have a family or somebody to kill, or else it wouldn't be

fair and square for the others. Well, nobody could think of anything to

do--everybody was stumped, and set still. I was most ready to cry; but

all at once I thought of a way, and so I offered them Miss Watson--they

could kill her. Everybody said:

"Oh, she'll do. That's all right. Huck can come in."

Then they all stuck a pin in their fingers to get blood to sign with, and

I made my mark on the paper.

"Now," says Ben Rogers, "what's the line of business of this Gang?"

"Nothing only robbery and murder," Tom said.

"But who are we going to rob?--houses, or cattle, or--"

"Stuff! stealing cattle and such things ain't robbery; it's burglary,"

says Tom Sawyer. "We ain't burglars. That ain't no sort of style. We

are highwaymen. We stop stages and carriages on the road, with masks on,

and kill the people and take their watches and money."

"Must we always kill the people?"

"Oh, certainly. It's best. Some authorities think different, but mostly

it's considered best to kill them--except some that you bring to the cave

here, and keep them till they're ransomed."

"Ransomed? What's that?"

"I don't know. But that's what they do. I've seen it in books; and so

of course that's what we've got to do."

"But how can we do it if we don't know what it is?"

"Why, blame it all, we've GOT to do it. Don't I tell you it's in the

books? Do you want to go to doing different from what's in the books,

and get things all muddled up?"

"Oh, that's all very fine to SAY, Tom Sawyer, but how in the nation are

these fellows going to be ransomed if we don't know how to do it to them?

--that's the thing I want to get at. Now, what do you reckon it is?"

"Well, I don't know. But per'aps if we keep them till they're ransomed,

it means that we keep them till they're dead."

"Now, that's something LIKE. That'll answer. Why couldn't you said that

before? We'll keep them till they're ransomed to death; and a bothersome

lot they'll be, too--eating up everything, and always trying to get

loose."

"How you talk, Ben Rogers. How can they get loose when there's a guard

over them, ready to shoot them down if they move a peg?"

"A guard! Well, that IS good. So somebody's got to set up all night and

never get any sleep, just so as to watch them. I think that's

foolishness. Why can't a body take a club and ransom them as soon as they

get here?"

"Because it ain't in the books so--that's why. Now, Ben Rogers, do you

want to do things regular, or don't you?--that's the idea. Don't you

reckon that the people that made the books knows what's the correct thing

to do? Do you reckon YOU can learn 'em anything? Not by a good deal.

No, sir, we'll just go on and ransom them in the regular way."

"All right. I don't mind; but I say it's a fool way, anyhow. Say, do we

kill the women, too?"

"Well, Ben Rogers, if I was as ignorant as you I wouldn't let on. Kill

the women? No; nobody ever saw anything in the books like that. You

fetch them to the cave, and you're always as polite as pie to them; and

by and by they fall in love with you, and never want to go home any

more."

"Well, if that's the way I'm agreed, but I don't take no stock in it.

Mighty soon we'll have the cave so cluttered up with women, and fellows

waiting to be ransomed, that there won't be no place for the robbers.

But go ahead, I ain't got nothing to say."

Little Tommy Barnes was asleep now, and when they waked him up he was

scared, and cried, and said he wanted to go home to his ma, and didn't

want to be a robber any more.

So they all made fun of him, and called him cry-baby, and that made him

mad, and he said he would go straight and tell all the secrets. But Tom

give him five cents to keep quiet, and said we would all go home and meet

next week, and rob somebody and kill some people.

Ben Rogers said he couldn't get out much, only Sundays, and so he wanted

to begin next Sunday; but all the boys said it would be wicked to do it

on Sunday, and that settled the thing. They agreed to get together and

fix a day as soon as they could, and then we elected Tom Sawyer first

captain and Jo Harper second captain of the Gang, and so started home.

I clumb up the shed and crept into my window just before day was

breaking. My new clothes was all greased up and clayey, and I was

dog-tired.

CHAPTER III.

WELL, I got a good going-over in the morning from old Miss Watson on

account of my clothes; but the widow she didn't scold, but only cleaned

off the grease and clay, and looked so sorry that I thought I would

behave awhile if I could. Then Miss Watson she took me in the closet and

prayed, but nothing come of it. She told me to pray every day, and

whatever I asked for I would get it. But it warn't so. I tried it.

Once I got a fish-line, but no hooks. It warn't any good to me without

hooks. I tried for the hooks three or four times, but somehow I couldn't

make it work. By and by, one day, I asked Miss Watson to try for me, but

she said I was a fool. She never told me why, and I couldn't make it out

no way.

I set down one time back in the woods, and had a long think about it. I

says to myself, if a body can get anything they pray for, why don't

Deacon Winn get back the money he lost on pork? Why can't the widow get

back her silver snuffbox that was stole? Why can't Miss Watson fat up?

No, says I to my self, there ain't nothing in it. I went and told the

widow about it, and she said the thing a body could get by praying for it

was "spiritual gifts." This was too many for me, but she told me what

she meant--I must help other people, and do everything I could for other

people, and look out for them all the time, and never think about myself.

This was including Miss Watson, as I took it. I went out in the woods

and turned it over in my mind a long time, but I couldn't see no

advantage about it--except for the other people; so at last I reckoned I

wouldn't worry about it any more, but just let it go. Sometimes the

widow would take me one side and talk about Providence in a way to make a

body's mouth water; but maybe next day Miss Watson would take hold and

knock it all down again. I judged I could see that there was two

Providences, and a poor chap would stand considerable show with the

widow's Providence, but if Miss Watson's got him there warn't no help for

him any more. I thought it all out, and reckoned I would belong to the

widow's if he wanted me, though I couldn't make out how he was a-going to

be any better off then than what he was before, seeing I was so ignorant,

and so kind of low-down and ornery.

Pap he hadn't been seen for more than a year, and that was comfortable

for me; I didn't want to see him no more. He used to always whale me

when he was sober and could get his hands on me; though I used to take to

the woods most of the time when he was around. Well, about this time he

was found in the river drownded, about twelve mile above town, so people

said. They judged it was him, anyway; said this drownded man was just

his size, and was ragged, and had uncommon long hair, which was all like

pap; but they couldn't make nothing out of the face, because it had been

in the water so long it warn't much like a face at all. They said he was

floating on his back in the water. They took him and buried him on the

bank. But I warn't comfortable long, because I happened to think of

something. I knowed mighty well that a drownded man don't float on his

back, but on his face. So I knowed, then, that this warn't pap, but a

woman dressed up in a man's clothes. So I was uncomfortable again. I

judged the old man would turn up again by and by, though I wished he

wouldn't.

We played robber now and then about a month, and then I resigned. All

the boys did. We hadn't robbed nobody, hadn't killed any people, but

only just pretended. We used to hop out of the woods and go charging

down on hog-drivers and women in carts taking garden stuff to market, but

we never hived any of them. Tom Sawyer called the hogs "ingots," and he

called the turnips and stuff "julery," and we would go to the cave and

powwow over what we had done, and how many people we had killed and

marked. But I couldn't see no profit in it. One time Tom sent a boy to

run about town with a blazing stick, which he called a slogan (which was

the sign for the Gang to get together), and then he said he had got

secret news by his spies that next day a whole parcel of Spanish

merchants and rich A-rabs was going to camp in Cave Hollow with two

hundred elephants, and six hundred camels, and over a thousand "sumter"

mules, all loaded down with di'monds, and they didn't have only a guard

of four hundred soldiers, and so we would lay in ambuscade, as he called

it, and kill the lot and scoop the things. He said we must slick up our

swords and guns, and get ready. He never could go after even a

turnip-cart but he must have the swords and guns all scoured up for it,

though they was only lath and broomsticks, and you might scour at them

till you rotted, and then they warn't worth a mouthful of ashes more than

what they was before. I didn't believe we could lick such a crowd of

Spaniards and A-rabs, but I wanted to see the camels and elephants, so I

was on hand next day, Saturday, in the ambuscade; and when we got the

word we rushed out of the woods and down the hill. But there warn't no

Spaniards and A-rabs, and there warn't no camels nor no elephants. It

warn't anything but a Sunday-school picnic, and only a primer-class at

that. We busted it up, and chased the children up the hollow; but we

never got anything but some doughnuts and jam, though Ben Rogers got a

rag doll, and Jo Harper got a hymn-book and a tract; and then the teacher

charged in, and made us drop everything and cut. I didn't see no

di'monds, and I told Tom Sawyer so. He said there was loads of them

there, anyway; and he said there was A-rabs there, too, and elephants and

things. I said, why couldn't we see them, then? He said if I warn't so

ignorant, but had read a book called Don Quixote, I would know without

asking. He said it was all done by enchantment. He said there was

hundreds of soldiers there, and elephants and treasure, and so on, but we

had enemies which he called magicians; and they had turned the whole

thing into an infant Sunday-school, just out of spite. I said, all

right; then the thing for us to do was to go for the magicians. Tom

Sawyer said I was a numskull.

"Why," said he, "a magician could call up a lot of genies, and they would

hash you up like nothing before you could say Jack Robinson. They are as

tall as a tree and as big around as a church."

"Well," I says, "s'pose we got some genies to help US--can't we lick the

other crowd then?"

"How you going to get them?"

"I don't know. How do THEY get them?"

"Why, they rub an old tin lamp or an iron ring, and then the genies come

tearing in, with the thunder and lightning a-ripping around and the smoke