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for a minute I didn't say nothing; then I says:

"I'd ruther not TELL you where I put it, Miss Mary Jane, if you don't

mind letting me off; but I'll write it for you on a piece of paper, and

you can read it along the road to Mr. Lothrop's, if you want to. Do you

reckon that 'll do?"

"Oh, yes."

So I wrote: "I put it in the coffin. It was in there when you was

crying there, away in the night. I was behind the door, and I was mighty

sorry for you, Miss Mary Jane."

It made my eyes water a little to remember her crying there all by

herself in the night, and them devils laying there right under her own

roof, shaming her and robbing her; and when I folded it up and give it to

her I see the water come into her eyes, too; and she shook me by the

hand, hard, and says:

"GOOD-bye. I'm going to do everything just as you've told me; and if I

don't ever see you again, I sha'n't ever forget you and I'll think of

you a many and a many a time, and I'll PRAY for you, too!"--and she was

gone.

Pray for me! I reckoned if she knowed me she'd take a job that was more

nearer her size. But I bet she done it, just the same--she was just that

kind. She had the grit to pray for Judus if she took the notion--there

warn't no back-down to her, I judge. You may say what you want to, but

in my opinion she had more sand in her than any girl I ever see; in my

opinion she was just full of sand. It sounds like flattery, but it ain't

no flattery. And when it comes to beauty--and goodness, too--she lays

over them all. I hain't ever seen her since that time that I see her go

out of that door; no, I hain't ever seen her since, but I reckon I've

thought of her a many and a many a million times, and of her saying she

would pray for me; and if ever I'd a thought it would do any good for me

to pray for HER, blamed if I wouldn't a done it or bust.

Well, Mary Jane she lit out the back way, I reckon; because nobody see

her go. When I struck Susan and the hare-lip, I says:

"What's the name of them people over on t'other side of the river that

you all goes to see sometimes?"

They says:

"There's several; but it's the Proctors, mainly."

"That's the name," I says; "I most forgot it. Well, Miss Mary Jane she

told me to tell you she's gone over there in a dreadful hurry--one of

them's sick."

"Which one?"

"I don't know; leastways, I kinder forget; but I thinks it's--"

"Sakes alive, I hope it ain't HANNER?"

"I'm sorry to say it," I says, "but Hanner's the very one."

"My goodness, and she so well only last week! Is she took bad?"

"It ain't no name for it. They set up with her all night, Miss Mary Jane

said, and they don't think she'll last many hours."

"Only think of that, now! What's the matter with her?"

I couldn't think of anything reasonable, right off that way, so I says:

"Mumps."

"Mumps your granny! They don't set up with people that's got the mumps."

"They don't, don't they? You better bet they do with THESE mumps. These

mumps is different. It's a new kind, Miss Mary Jane said."

"How's it a new kind?"

"Because it's mixed up with other things."

"What other things?"

"Well, measles, and whooping-cough, and erysiplas, and consumption, and

yaller janders, and brain-fever, and I don't know what all."

"My land! And they call it the MUMPS?"

"That's what Miss Mary Jane said."

"Well, what in the nation do they call it the MUMPS for?"

"Why, because it IS the mumps. That's what it starts with."

"Well, ther' ain't no sense in it. A body might stump his toe, and take

pison, and fall down the well, and break his neck, and bust his brains

out, and somebody come along and ask what killed him, and some numskull

up and say, 'Why, he stumped his TOE.' Would ther' be any sense in that?

NO. And ther' ain't no sense in THIS, nuther. Is it ketching?"

"Is it KETCHING? Why, how you talk. Is a HARROW catching--in the dark?

If you don't hitch on to one tooth, you're bound to on another, ain't

you? And you can't get away with that tooth without fetching the whole

harrow along, can you? Well, these kind of mumps is a kind of a harrow,

as you may say--and it ain't no slouch of a harrow, nuther, you come to

get it hitched on good."

"Well, it's awful, I think," says the hare-lip. "I'll go to Uncle Harvey

and--"

"Oh, yes," I says, "I WOULD. Of COURSE I would. I wouldn't lose no

time."

"Well, why wouldn't you?"

"Just look at it a minute, and maybe you can see. Hain't your uncles

obleegd to get along home to England as fast as they can? And do you

reckon they'd be mean enough to go off and leave you to go all that

journey by yourselves? YOU know they'll wait for you. So fur, so good.

Your uncle Harvey's a preacher, ain't he? Very well, then; is a PREACHER

going to deceive a steamboat clerk? is he going to deceive a SHIP CLERK?

--so as to get them to let Miss Mary Jane go aboard? Now YOU know he

ain't. What WILL he do, then? Why, he'll say, 'It's a great pity, but

my church matters has got to get along the best way they can; for my

niece has been exposed to the dreadful pluribus-unum mumps, and so it's

my bounden duty to set down here and wait the three months it takes to

show on her if she's got it.' But never mind, if you think it's best to

tell your uncle Harvey--"

"Shucks, and stay fooling around here when we could all be having good

times in England whilst we was waiting to find out whether Mary Jane's

got it or not? Why, you talk like a muggins."

"Well, anyway, maybe you'd better tell some of the neighbors."

"Listen at that, now. You do beat all for natural stupidness. Can't you

SEE that THEY'D go and tell? Ther' ain't no way but just to not tell

anybody at ALL."

"Well, maybe you're right--yes, I judge you ARE right."

"But I reckon we ought to tell Uncle Harvey she's gone out a while,

anyway, so he won't be uneasy about her?"

"Yes, Miss Mary Jane she wanted you to do that. She says, 'Tell them to

give Uncle Harvey and William my love and a kiss, and say I've run over

the river to see Mr.'--Mr.--what IS the name of that rich family your

uncle Peter used to think so much of?--I mean the one that--"

"Why, you must mean the Apthorps, ain't it?"

"Of course; bother them kind of names, a body can't ever seem to remember

them, half the time, somehow. Yes, she said, say she has run over for to

ask the Apthorps to be sure and come to the auction and buy this house,

because she allowed her uncle Peter would ruther they had it than anybody

else; and she's going to stick to them till they say they'll come, and

then, if she ain't too tired, she's coming home; and if she is, she'll be

home in the morning anyway. She said, don't say nothing about the

Proctors, but only about the Apthorps--which 'll be perfectly true,

because she is going there to speak about their buying the house; I know

it, because she told me so herself."

"All right," they said, and cleared out to lay for their uncles, and give

them the love and the kisses, and tell them the message.

Everything was all right now. The girls wouldn't say nothing because

they wanted to go to England; and the king and the duke would ruther Mary

Jane was off working for the auction than around in reach of Doctor

Robinson. I felt very good; I judged I had done it pretty neat--I

reckoned Tom Sawyer couldn't a done it no neater himself. Of course he

would a throwed more style into it, but I can't do that very handy, not

being brung up to it.

Well, they held the auction in the public square, along towards the end

of the afternoon, and it strung along, and strung along, and the old man

he was on hand and looking his level pisonest, up there longside of the

auctioneer, and chipping in a little Scripture now and then, or a little

goody-goody saying of some kind, and the duke he was around goo-gooing

for sympathy all he knowed how, and just spreading himself generly.

But by and by the thing dragged through, and everything was sold

--everything but a little old trifling lot in the graveyard. So they'd got

to work that off--I never see such a girafft as the king was for wanting

to swallow EVERYTHING. Well, whilst they was at it a steamboat landed,

and in about two minutes up comes a crowd a-whooping and yelling and

laughing and carrying on, and singing out:

"HERE'S your opposition line! here's your two sets o' heirs to old Peter

Wilks--and you pays your money and you takes your choice!"

CHAPTER XXIX.

THEY was fetching a very nice-looking old gentleman along, and a

nice-looking younger one, with his right arm in a sling. And, my souls,

how the people yelled and laughed, and kept it up. But I didn't see no

joke about it, and I judged it would strain the duke and the king some to

see any. I reckoned they'd turn pale. But no, nary a pale did THEY

turn. The duke he never let on he suspicioned what was up, but just went

a goo-gooing around, happy and satisfied, like a jug that's googling out

buttermilk; and as for the king, he just gazed and gazed down sorrowful

on them new-comers like it give him the stomach-ache in his very heart to

think there could be such frauds and rascals in the world. Oh, he done

it admirable. Lots of the principal people gethered around the king, to

let him see they was on his side. That old gentleman that had just come

looked all puzzled to death. Pretty soon he begun to speak, and I see

straight off he pronounced LIKE an Englishman--not the king's way, though

the king's WAS pretty good for an imitation. I can't give the old gent's

words, nor I can't imitate him; but he turned around to the crowd, and

says, about like this:

"This is a surprise to me which I wasn't looking for; and I'll

acknowledge, candid and frank, I ain't very well fixed to meet it and

answer it; for my brother and me has had misfortunes; he's broke his arm,

and our baggage got put off at a town above here last night in the night

by a mistake. I am Peter Wilks' brother Harvey, and this is his brother

William, which can't hear nor speak--and can't even make signs to amount

to much, now't he's only got one hand to work them with. We are who we

say we are; and in a day or two, when I get the baggage, I can prove it.

But up till then I won't say nothing more, but go to the hotel and wait."

So him and the new dummy started off; and the king he laughs, and

blethers out:

"Broke his arm--VERY likely, AIN'T it?--and very convenient, too, for a

fraud that's got to make signs, and ain't learnt how. Lost their

baggage! That's MIGHTY good!--and mighty ingenious--under the

CIRCUMSTANCES!"

So he laughed again; and so did everybody else, except three or four, or

maybe half a dozen. One of these was that doctor; another one was a

sharp-looking gentleman, with a carpet-bag of the old-fashioned kind made

out of carpet-stuff, that had just come off of the steamboat and was

talking to him in a low voice, and glancing towards the king now and then

and nodding their heads--it was Levi Bell, the lawyer that was gone up to

Louisville; and another one was a big rough husky that come along and

listened to all the old gentleman said, and was listening to the king

now. And when the king got done this husky up and says:

"Say, looky here; if you are Harvey Wilks, when'd you come to this town?"

"The day before the funeral, friend," says the king.

"But what time o' day?"

"In the evenin'--'bout an hour er two before sundown."

"HOW'D you come?"

"I come down on the Susan Powell from Cincinnati."

"Well, then, how'd you come to be up at the Pint in the MORNIN'--in a

canoe?"

"I warn't up at the Pint in the mornin'."

"It's a lie."

Several of them jumped for him and begged him not to talk that way to an

old man and a preacher.

"Preacher be hanged, he's a fraud and a liar. He was up at the Pint that

mornin'. I live up there, don't I? Well, I was up there, and he was up

there. I see him there. He come in a canoe, along with Tim Collins and

a boy."

The doctor he up and says:

"Would you know the boy again if you was to see him, Hines?"

"I reckon I would, but I don't know. Why, yonder he is, now. I know him

perfectly easy."

It was me he pointed at. The doctor says:

"Neighbors, I don't know whether the new couple is frauds or not; but if

THESE two ain't frauds, I am an idiot, that's all. I think it's our duty

to see that they don't get away from here till we've looked into this

thing. Come along, Hines; come along, the rest of you. We'll take these

fellows to the tavern and affront them with t'other couple, and I reckon

we'll find out SOMETHING before we get through."

It was nuts for the crowd, though maybe not for the king's friends; so we

all started. It was about sundown. The doctor he led me along by the

hand, and was plenty kind enough, but he never let go my hand.

We all got in a big room in the hotel, and lit up some candles, and