第 28 页

them."

"Well, go on, GO on! What did they do? How'd they act?"

"They didn't do nothing. And they didn't act anyway much, as fur as I

see. They tiptoed away; so I seen, easy enough, that they'd shoved in

there to do up your majesty's room, or something, s'posing you was up;

and found you WARN'T up, and so they was hoping to slide out of the way

of trouble without waking you up, if they hadn't already waked you up."

"Great guns, THIS is a go!" says the king; and both of them looked pretty

sick and tolerable silly. They stood there a-thinking and scratching

their heads a minute, and the duke he bust into a kind of a little raspy

chuckle, and says:

"It does beat all how neat the niggers played their hand. They let on to

be SORRY they was going out of this region! And I believed they WAS

sorry, and so did you, and so did everybody. Don't ever tell ME any more

that a nigger ain't got any histrionic talent. Why, the way they played

that thing it would fool ANYBODY. In my opinion, there's a fortune in

'em. If I had capital and a theater, I wouldn't want a better lay-out

than that--and here we've gone and sold 'em for a song. Yes, and ain't

privileged to sing the song yet. Say, where IS that song--that draft?"

"In the bank for to be collected. Where WOULD it be?"

"Well, THAT'S all right then, thank goodness."

Says I, kind of timid-like:

"Is something gone wrong?"

The king whirls on me and rips out:

"None o' your business! You keep your head shet, and mind y'r own

affairs--if you got any. Long as you're in this town don't you forgit

THAT--you hear?" Then he says to the duke, "We got to jest swaller it

and say noth'n': mum's the word for US."

As they was starting down the ladder the duke he chuckles again, and

says:

"Quick sales AND small profits! It's a good business--yes."

The king snarls around on him and says:

"I was trying to do for the best in sellin' 'em out so quick. If the

profits has turned out to be none, lackin' considable, and none to carry,

is it my fault any more'n it's yourn?"

"Well, THEY'D be in this house yet and we WOULDN'T if I could a got my

advice listened to."

The king sassed back as much as was safe for him, and then swapped around

and lit into ME again. He give me down the banks for not coming and

TELLING him I see the niggers come out of his room acting that way--said

any fool would a KNOWED something was up. And then waltzed in and cussed

HIMSELF awhile, and said it all come of him not laying late and taking

his natural rest that morning, and he'd be blamed if he'd ever do it

again. So they went off a-jawing; and I felt dreadful glad I'd worked it

all off on to the niggers, and yet hadn't done the niggers no harm by it.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

BY and by it was getting-up time. So I come down the ladder and started

for down-stairs; but as I come to the girls' room the door was open, and

I see Mary Jane setting by her old hair trunk, which was open and she'd

been packing things in it--getting ready to go to England. But she had

stopped now with a folded gown in her lap, and had her face in her hands,

crying. I felt awful bad to see it; of course anybody would. I went in

there and says:

"Miss Mary Jane, you can't a-bear to see people in trouble, and I can't

--most always. Tell me about it."

So she done it. And it was the niggers--I just expected it. She said

the beautiful trip to England was most about spoiled for her; she didn't

know HOW she was ever going to be happy there, knowing the mother and the

children warn't ever going to see each other no more--and then busted out

bitterer than ever, and flung up her hands, and says:

"Oh, dear, dear, to think they ain't EVER going to see each other any

more!"

"But they WILL--and inside of two weeks--and I KNOW it!" says I.

Laws, it was out before I could think! And before I could budge she

throws her arms around my neck and told me to say it AGAIN, say it AGAIN,

say it AGAIN!

I see I had spoke too sudden and said too much, and was in a close place.

I asked her to let me think a minute; and she set there, very impatient

and excited and handsome, but looking kind of happy and eased-up, like a

person that's had a tooth pulled out. So I went to studying it out. I

says to myself, I reckon a body that ups and tells the truth when he is

in a tight place is taking considerable many resks, though I ain't had no

experience, and can't say for certain; but it looks so to me, anyway; and

yet here's a case where I'm blest if it don't look to me like the truth

is better and actuly SAFER than a lie. I must lay it by in my mind, and

think it over some time or other, it's so kind of strange and unregular.

I never see nothing like it. Well, I says to myself at last, I'm a-going

to chance it; I'll up and tell the truth this time, though it does seem

most like setting down on a kag of powder and touching it off just to see

where you'll go to. Then I says:

"Miss Mary Jane, is there any place out of town a little ways where you

could go and stay three or four days?"

"Yes; Mr. Lothrop's. Why?"

"Never mind why yet. If I'll tell you how I know the niggers will see

each other again inside of two weeks--here in this house--and PROVE how I

know it--will you go to Mr. Lothrop's and stay four days?"

"Four days!" she says; "I'll stay a year!"

"All right," I says, "I don't want nothing more out of YOU than just your

word--I druther have it than another man's kiss-the-Bible." She smiled

and reddened up very sweet, and I says, "If you don't mind it, I'll shut

the door--and bolt it."

Then I come back and set down again, and says:

"Don't you holler. Just set still and take it like a man. I got to tell

the truth, and you want to brace up, Miss Mary, because it's a bad kind,

and going to be hard to take, but there ain't no help for it. These

uncles of yourn ain't no uncles at all; they're a couple of frauds

--regular dead-beats. There, now we're over the worst of it, you can stand

the rest middling easy."

It jolted her up like everything, of course; but I was over the shoal

water now, so I went right along, her eyes a-blazing higher and higher

all the time, and told her every blame thing, from where we first struck

that young fool going up to the steamboat, clear through to where she

flung herself on to the king's breast at the front door and he kissed her

sixteen or seventeen times--and then up she jumps, with her face afire

like sunset, and says:

"The brute! Come, don't waste a minute--not a SECOND--we'll have them

tarred and feathered, and flung in the river!"

Says I:

"Cert'nly. But do you mean BEFORE you go to Mr. Lothrop's, or--"

"Oh," she says, "what am I THINKING about!" she says, and set right down

again. "Don't mind what I said--please don't--you WON'T, now, WILL you?"

Laying her silky hand on mine in that kind of a way that I said I would

die first. "I never thought, I was so stirred up," she says; "now go on,

and I won't do so any more. You tell me what to do, and whatever you say

I'll do it."

"Well," I says, "it's a rough gang, them two frauds, and I'm fixed so I

got to travel with them a while longer, whether I want to or not--I

druther not tell you why; and if you was to blow on them this town would

get me out of their claws, and I'd be all right; but there'd be another

person that you don't know about who'd be in big trouble. Well, we got

to save HIM, hain't we? Of course. Well, then, we won't blow on them."

Saying them words put a good idea in my head. I see how maybe I could

get me and Jim rid of the frauds; get them jailed here, and then leave.

But I didn't want to run the raft in the daytime without anybody aboard

to answer questions but me; so I didn't want the plan to begin working

till pretty late to-night. I says:

"Miss Mary Jane, I'll tell you what we'll do, and you won't have to stay

at Mr. Lothrop's so long, nuther. How fur is it?"

"A little short of four miles--right out in the country, back here."

"Well, that 'll answer. Now you go along out there, and lay low till

nine or half-past to-night, and then get them to fetch you home again

--tell them you've thought of something. If you get here before eleven put

a candle in this window, and if I don't turn up wait TILL eleven, and

THEN if I don't turn up it means I'm gone, and out of the way, and safe.

Then you come out and spread the news around, and get these beats

jailed."

"Good," she says, "I'll do it."

"And if it just happens so that I don't get away, but get took up along

with them, you must up and say I told you the whole thing beforehand, and

you must stand by me all you can."

"Stand by you! indeed I will. They sha'n't touch a hair of your head!"

she says, and I see her nostrils spread and her eyes snap when she said

it, too.

"If I get away I sha'n't be here," I says, "to prove these rapscallions

ain't your uncles, and I couldn't do it if I WAS here. I could swear

they was beats and bummers, that's all, though that's worth something.

Well, there's others can do that better than what I can, and they're

people that ain't going to be doubted as quick as I'd be. I'll tell you

how to find them. Gimme a pencil and a piece of paper. There--'Royal

Nonesuch, Bricksville.' Put it away, and don't lose it. When the court

wants to find out something about these two, let them send up to

Bricksville and say they've got the men that played the Royal Nonesuch,

and ask for some witnesses--why, you'll have that entire town down here

before you can hardly wink, Miss Mary. And they'll come a-biling, too."

I judged we had got everything fixed about right now. So I says:

"Just let the auction go right along, and don't worry. Nobody don't have

to pay for the things they buy till a whole day after the auction on

accounts of the short notice, and they ain't going out of this till they

get that money; and the way we've fixed it the sale ain't going to count,

and they ain't going to get no money. It's just like the way it was with

the niggers--it warn't no sale, and the niggers will be back before

long. Why, they can't collect the money for the NIGGERS yet--they're in

the worst kind of a fix, Miss Mary."

"Well," she says, "I'll run down to breakfast now, and then I'll start

straight for Mr. Lothrop's."

"'Deed, THAT ain't the ticket, Miss Mary Jane," I says, "by no manner of

means; go BEFORE breakfast."

"Why?"

"What did you reckon I wanted you to go at all for, Miss Mary?"

"Well, I never thought--and come to think, I don't know. What was it?"

"Why, it's because you ain't one of these leather-face people. I don't

want no better book than what your face is. A body can set down and read

it off like coarse print. Do you reckon you can go and face your uncles

when they come to kiss you good-morning, and never--"

"There, there, don't! Yes, I'll go before breakfast--I'll be glad to.

And leave my sisters with them?"

"Yes; never mind about them. They've got to stand it yet a while. They

might suspicion something if all of you was to go. I don't want you to

see them, nor your sisters, nor nobody in this town; if a neighbor was to

ask how is your uncles this morning your face would tell something. No,

you go right along, Miss Mary Jane, and I'll fix it with all of them.

I'll tell Miss Susan to give your love to your uncles and say you've went

away for a few hours for to get a little rest and change, or to see a

friend, and you'll be back to-night or early in the morning."

"Gone to see a friend is all right, but I won't have my love given to

them."

"Well, then, it sha'n't be." It was well enough to tell HER so--no harm

in it. It was only a little thing to do, and no trouble; and it's the

little things that smooths people's roads the most, down here below; it

would make Mary Jane comfortable, and it wouldn't cost nothing. Then I

says: "There's one more thing--that bag of money."

"Well, they've got that; and it makes me feel pretty silly to think HOW

they got it."

"No, you're out, there. They hain't got it."

"Why, who's got it?"

"I wish I knowed, but I don't. I HAD it, because I stole it from them;

and I stole it to give to you; and I know where I hid it, but I'm afraid

it ain't there no more. I'm awful sorry, Miss Mary Jane, I'm just as

sorry as I can be; but I done the best I could; I did honest. I come

nigh getting caught, and I had to shove it into the first place I come

to, and run--and it warn't a good place."

"Oh, stop blaming yourself--it's too bad to do it, and I won't allow it

--you couldn't help it; it wasn't your fault. Where did you hide it?"

I didn't want to set her to thinking about her troubles again; and I

couldn't seem to get my mouth to tell her what would make her see that

corpse laying in the coffin with that bag of money on his stomach. So