第 42 页

"People to HELP him, Brother Marples! Well, I reckon you'd THINK so if

you'd a been in this house for a while back. Why, they've stole

everything they could lay their hands on--and we a-watching all the time,

mind you. They stole that shirt right off o' the line! and as for that

sheet they made the rag ladder out of, ther' ain't no telling how many

times they DIDN'T steal that; and flour, and candles, and candlesticks,

and spoons, and the old warming-pan, and most a thousand things that I

disremember now, and my new calico dress; and me and Silas and my Sid and

Tom on the constant watch day AND night, as I was a-telling you, and not

a one of us could catch hide nor hair nor sight nor sound of them; and

here at the last minute, lo and behold you, they slides right in under

our noses and fools us, and not only fools US but the Injun Territory

robbers too, and actuly gets AWAY with that nigger safe and sound, and

that with sixteen men and twenty-two dogs right on their very heels at

that very time! I tell you, it just bangs anything I ever HEARD of.

Why, SPERITS couldn't a done better and been no smarter. And I reckon

they must a BEEN sperits--because, YOU know our dogs, and ther' ain't no

better; well, them dogs never even got on the TRACK of 'm once! You

explain THAT to me if you can!--ANY of you!"

"Well, it does beat--"

"Laws alive, I never--"

"So help me, I wouldn't a be--"

"HOUSE-thieves as well as--"

"Goodnessgracioussakes, I'd a ben afeard to live in sich a--"

"'Fraid to LIVE!--why, I was that scared I dasn't hardly go to bed, or

get up, or lay down, or SET down, Sister Ridgeway. Why, they'd steal the

very--why, goodness sakes, you can guess what kind of a fluster I was

in by the time midnight come last night. I hope to gracious if I warn't

afraid they'd steal some o' the family! I was just to that pass I didn't

have no reasoning faculties no more. It looks foolish enough NOW, in the

daytime; but I says to myself, there's my two poor boys asleep, 'way up

stairs in that lonesome room, and I declare to goodness I was that uneasy

't I crep' up there and locked 'em in! I DID. And anybody would.

Because, you know, when you get scared that way, and it keeps running on,

and getting worse and worse all the time, and your wits gets to addling,

and you get to doing all sorts o' wild things, and by and by you think to

yourself, spos'n I was a boy, and was away up there, and the door ain't

locked, and you--" She stopped, looking kind of wondering, and then she

turned her head around slow, and when her eye lit on me--I got up and

took a walk.

Says I to myself, I can explain better how we come to not be in that room

this morning if I go out to one side and study over it a little. So I

done it. But I dasn't go fur, or she'd a sent for me. And when it was

late in the day the people all went, and then I come in and told her the

noise and shooting waked up me and "Sid," and the door was locked, and we

wanted to see the fun, so we went down the lightning-rod, and both of us

got hurt a little, and we didn't never want to try THAT no more. And

then I went on and told her all what I told Uncle Silas before; and then

she said she'd forgive us, and maybe it was all right enough anyway, and

about what a body might expect of boys, for all boys was a pretty

harum-scarum lot as fur as she could see; and so, as long as no harm

hadn't come of it, she judged she better put in her time being grateful

we was alive and well and she had us still, stead of fretting over what

was past and done. So then she kissed me, and patted me on the head, and

dropped into a kind of a brown study; and pretty soon jumps up, and says:

"Why, lawsamercy, it's most night, and Sid not come yet! What HAS become

of that boy?"

I see my chance; so I skips up and says:

"I'll run right up to town and get him," I says.

"No you won't," she says. "You'll stay right wher' you are; ONE'S enough

to be lost at a time. If he ain't here to supper, your uncle 'll go."

Well, he warn't there to supper; so right after supper uncle went.

He come back about ten a little bit uneasy; hadn't run across Tom's

track. Aunt Sally was a good DEAL uneasy; but Uncle Silas he said there

warn't no occasion to be--boys will be boys, he said, and you'll see this

one turn up in the morning all sound and right. So she had to be

satisfied. But she said she'd set up for him a while anyway, and keep a

light burning so he could see it.

And then when I went up to bed she come up with me and fetched her

candle, and tucked me in, and mothered me so good I felt mean, and like I

couldn't look her in the face; and she set down on the bed and talked

with me a long time, and said what a splendid boy Sid was, and didn't

seem to want to ever stop talking about him; and kept asking me every now

and then if I reckoned he could a got lost, or hurt, or maybe drownded,

and might be laying at this minute somewheres suffering or dead, and she

not by him to help him, and so the tears would drip down silent, and I

would tell her that Sid was all right, and would be home in the morning,

sure; and she would squeeze my hand, or maybe kiss me, and tell me to say

it again, and keep on saying it, because it done her good, and she was in

so much trouble. And when she was going away she looked down in my eyes

so steady and gentle, and says:

"The door ain't going to be locked, Tom, and there's the window and the

rod; but you'll be good, WON'T you? And you won't go? For MY sake."

Laws knows I WANTED to go bad enough to see about Tom, and was all

intending to go; but after that I wouldn't a went, not for kingdoms.

But she was on my mind and Tom was on my mind, so I slept very restless.

And twice I went down the rod away in the night, and slipped around

front, and see her setting there by her candle in the window with her

eyes towards the road and the tears in them; and I wished I could do

something for her, but I couldn't, only to swear that I wouldn't never do

nothing to grieve her any more. And the third time I waked up at dawn,

and slid down, and she was there yet, and her candle was most out, and

her old gray head was resting on her hand, and she was asleep.

CHAPTER XLII.

THE old man was uptown again before breakfast, but couldn't get no track

of Tom; and both of them set at the table thinking, and not saying

nothing, and looking mournful, and their coffee getting cold, and not

eating anything. And by and by the old man says:

"Did I give you the letter?"

"What letter?"

"The one I got yesterday out of the post-office."

"No, you didn't give me no letter."

"Well, I must a forgot it."

So he rummaged his pockets, and then went off somewheres where he had

laid it down, and fetched it, and give it to her. She says:

"Why, it's from St. Petersburg--it's from Sis."

I allowed another walk would do me good; but I couldn't stir. But before

she could break it open she dropped it and run--for she see something.

And so did I. It was Tom Sawyer on a mattress; and that old doctor; and

Jim, in HER calico dress, with his hands tied behind him; and a lot of

people. I hid the letter behind the first thing that come handy, and

rushed. She flung herself at Tom, crying, and says:

"Oh, he's dead, he's dead, I know he's dead!"

And Tom he turned his head a little, and muttered something or other,

which showed he warn't in his right mind; then she flung up her hands,

and says:

"He's alive, thank God! And that's enough!" and she snatched a kiss of

him, and flew for the house to get the bed ready, and scattering orders

right and left at the niggers and everybody else, as fast as her tongue

could go, every jump of the way.

I followed the men to see what they was going to do with Jim; and the old

doctor and Uncle Silas followed after Tom into the house. The men was

very huffy, and some of them wanted to hang Jim for an example to all the

other niggers around there, so they wouldn't be trying to run away like

Jim done, and making such a raft of trouble, and keeping a whole family

scared most to death for days and nights. But the others said, don't do

it, it wouldn't answer at all; he ain't our nigger, and his owner would

turn up and make us pay for him, sure. So that cooled them down a

little, because the people that's always the most anxious for to hang a

nigger that hain't done just right is always the very ones that ain't the

most anxious to pay for him when they've got their satisfaction out of

him.

They cussed Jim considerble, though, and give him a cuff or two side the

head once in a while, but Jim never said nothing, and he never let on to

know me, and they took him to the same cabin, and put his own clothes on

him, and chained him again, and not to no bed-leg this time, but to a big

staple drove into the bottom log, and chained his hands, too, and both

legs, and said he warn't to have nothing but bread and water to eat after

this till his owner come, or he was sold at auction because he didn't

come in a certain length of time, and filled up our hole, and said a

couple of farmers with guns must stand watch around about the cabin every

night, and a bulldog tied to the door in the daytime; and about this time

they was through with the job and was tapering off with a kind of generl

good-bye cussing, and then the old doctor comes and takes a look, and

says:

"Don't be no rougher on him than you're obleeged to, because he ain't a

bad nigger. When I got to where I found the boy I see I couldn't cut the

bullet out without some help, and he warn't in no condition for me to

leave to go and get help; and he got a little worse and a little worse,

and after a long time he went out of his head, and wouldn't let me come

a-nigh him any more, and said if I chalked his raft he'd kill me, and no

end of wild foolishness like that, and I see I couldn't do anything at

all with him; so I says, I got to have HELP somehow; and the minute I

says it out crawls this nigger from somewheres and says he'll help, and

he done it, too, and done it very well. Of course I judged he must be a

runaway nigger, and there I WAS! and there I had to stick right straight

along all the rest of the day and all night. It was a fix, I tell you!

I had a couple of patients with the chills, and of course I'd of liked to

run up to town and see them, but I dasn't, because the nigger might get

away, and then I'd be to blame; and yet never a skiff come close enough

for me to hail. So there I had to stick plumb until daylight this

morning; and I never see a nigger that was a better nuss or faithfuller,

and yet he was risking his freedom to do it, and was all tired out, too,

and I see plain enough he'd been worked main hard lately. I liked the

nigger for that; I tell you, gentlemen, a nigger like that is worth a

thousand dollars--and kind treatment, too. I had everything I needed,

and the boy was doing as well there as he would a done at home--better,

maybe, because it was so quiet; but there I WAS, with both of 'm on my

hands, and there I had to stick till about dawn this morning; then some

men in a skiff come by, and as good luck would have it the nigger was

setting by the pallet with his head propped on his knees sound asleep; so

I motioned them in quiet, and they slipped up on him and grabbed him and

tied him before he knowed what he was about, and we never had no trouble.

And the boy being in a kind of a flighty sleep, too, we muffled the oars

and hitched the raft on, and towed her over very nice and quiet, and the

nigger never made the least row nor said a word from the start. He ain't

no bad nigger, gentlemen; that's what I think about him."

Somebody says:

"Well, it sounds very good, doctor, I'm obleeged to say."

Then the others softened up a little, too, and I was mighty thankful to

that old doctor for doing Jim that good turn; and I was glad it was

according to my judgment of him, too; because I thought he had a good

heart in him and was a good man the first time I see him. Then they all

agreed that Jim had acted very well, and was deserving to have some

notice took of it, and reward. So every one of them promised, right out

and hearty, that they wouldn't cuss him no more.

Then they come out and locked him up. I hoped they was going to say he

could have one or two of the chains took off, because they was rotten

heavy, or could have meat and greens with his bread and water; but they

didn't think of it, and I reckoned it warn't best for me to mix in, but I

judged I'd get the doctor's yarn to Aunt Sally somehow or other as soon

as I'd got through the breakers that was laying just ahead of me

--explanations, I mean, of how I forgot to mention about Sid being shot

when I was telling how him and me put in that dratted night paddling

around hunting the runaway nigger.

But I had plenty time. Aunt Sally she stuck to the sick-room all day and

all night, and every time I see Uncle Silas mooning around I dodged him.

Next morning I heard Tom was a good deal better, and they said Aunt Sally

was gone to get a nap. So I slips to the sick-room, and if I found him

awake I reckoned we could put up a yarn for the family that would wash.

But he was sleeping, and sleeping very peaceful, too; and pale, not

fire-faced the way he was when he come. So I set down and laid for him

to wake. In about half an hour Aunt Sally comes gliding in, and there I

was, up a stump again! She motioned me to be still, and set down by me,