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11 - The Adventures of Tom Sawyer - Mark Twain · Classic Adventure Books - Daily

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  Speaker 1: Chapter twenty four. Splendid days and fearsome nights. Tom was
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  Speaker 1: a glittering hero, once more, the pet of the old,
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  Speaker 1: the envy of the young. His name even went into
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  Speaker 1: immortal print, for the village paper magnified him. There were
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  Speaker 1: some that believed he would be president. Yet if he
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  Speaker 1: escaped hanging, as usual, the fickle, unreasoning world took muff
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  Speaker 1: Potter to its bosom and fondled him as lavishly as
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  Speaker 1: it had abused him before. But that sort of conduct
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  Speaker 1: is to the world's credit. Therefore it is not well
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  Speaker 1: to find fault with it. Tom's days were days of
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  Speaker 1: splendor and exaltation to him, but his nights were seasons
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  Speaker 1: of horror. Injun Joe infested all his dreams, and always
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  Speaker 1: with doom in his eye. Hardly any temptation could persuade
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  Speaker 1: the boy to stir abroad after nightfall. Poor Huck was
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  Speaker 1: in the same state of wretchedness and terror, for Tom
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  Speaker 1: had told the whole story to the lawyer the night
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  Speaker 1: before the great day of the trial, and Huck was
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  Speaker 1: sore afraid that his share in the business might leak out. Yet,
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  Speaker 1: notwithstanding Injun Joe's flight had saved him the suffering of
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  Speaker 1: testifying in court. The poor fellow had got the attorney
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  Speaker 1: to promise secrecy, but what of that, since Tom's harassed
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  Speaker 1: conscience had managed to drive him to the lawyer's house
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  Speaker 1: by night and wring a dread tale from lips that
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  Speaker 1: had been sealed with the dismalist and most formidable of oaths,
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  Speaker 1: Huck's confidence in the human race was well nigh obliterated.
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  Speaker 1: Daily muff Potter's gratitude made Tom glad he had spoken,
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  Speaker 1: but nightly he wished he had sealed up his tongue.
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  Speaker 1: Half the time Tom was afraid Injun Joe would never
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  Speaker 1: be captured. The other half he was afraid he would be.
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  Speaker 1: He felt sure he never could draw a safe breath
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  Speaker 1: again until that man was dead and he had seen
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  Speaker 1: the corpse. Rewards had been offered, the country had been scoured,
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  Speaker 1: but no Injun Joe was found. One of those onient
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  Speaker 1: and awe inspiring marvels, A detective came up from Saint Louis,
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  Speaker 1: moused around, shook his head, looked wise, and made that
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  Speaker 1: sort of astounding success which members of the craft usually achieve.
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  Speaker 1: That is to say, he found a clue, but you
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  Speaker 1: can't hang a clue for murder, And so after that
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  Speaker 1: detective had got through and gone home, Tom felt just
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  Speaker 1: as insecure as he was before. The slow days drifted on,
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  Speaker 1: and each left behind it a slightly lightened weight of apprehension.
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  Speaker 1: End of Chapter twenty four. Chapter twenty five, Seeking the
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  Speaker 1: Buried Treasure. There comes a time in every rightly constructed
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  Speaker 1: boy's life when he has a raging desire to go
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  Speaker 1: somewhere and dig for hidden treasure. This desire suddenly came
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  Speaker 1: upon Tom. One day He sallied out to find Joe Harper,
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  Speaker 1: but failed of success. Next he sought Ben Rogers, he
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  Speaker 1: had gone fishing. Presently he stumbled upon on Huck Finn.
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  Speaker 1: The red handed Huck would answer. Tom took him to
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  Speaker 1: a private place and opened the matter to him confidentially.
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  Speaker 1: Huck was willing. Huck was always willing to take a
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  Speaker 1: hand in any enterprise that offered entertainment and required no capital,
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  Speaker 1: for he had a troublesome superabundance of that sort of time,
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  Speaker 1: which is not money. Where'll we dig, said Huck? Oh,
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  Speaker 1: most anywhere? Why is it hid all round? No? Indeed
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  Speaker 1: it ain't. It's hid in mighty particular places. Huck sometimes
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  Speaker 1: on islands, sometimes in rotten chests, under the end of
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  Speaker 1: a limb of an old dead tree, just where the
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  Speaker 1: shadow falls at midnight, but mostly under the floor in
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  Speaker 1: haunted houses. Who hides it? Why? Robbers? Of course? Who'd
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  Speaker 1: you reckon Sunday school superintendents? I don't know. If twas mine,
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  Speaker 1: I wouldn't hide it. I'd spend it and have a
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  Speaker 1: good time, so would I. But robbers don't do that way.
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  Speaker 1: They always hide it and leave it there. Don't they
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  Speaker 1: come after it anymore? No, they think they will, but
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  Speaker 1: they generally forget the marks, or else they die. Anyway,
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  Speaker 1: it lays there a long time and gets rusty, and
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  Speaker 1: by and by somebody finds an old yellow paper that
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  Speaker 1: tells how to find the marks, a paper that's got
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  Speaker 1: to be ciphered over about a week because it's mostly
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  Speaker 1: signs and the hiroglyphics hiro witch hiroglyphics, pictures and things
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  Speaker 1: you know that don't seem to mean anything. If you
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  Speaker 1: got one of them papers, Tom, no, well then how
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  Speaker 1: are you going to find the marks? Now? I don't
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  Speaker 1: want to find any marks. They always bury it under
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  Speaker 1: a haunted house, or on an island, or under a
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  Speaker 1: dead tree that's got one limb sticking out. Well, we've
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  Speaker 1: tried Jackson's Island a little, and we can try it
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  Speaker 1: again sometime. And there's the old Haunted house up the
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  Speaker 1: still House branch, and there's lots of dead limb trees,
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  Speaker 1: dead loads of them? Is it? Under all of them?
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  Speaker 1: How you talk? No? And how you going to know
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  Speaker 1: which one to go? For? Go for all of em? Why? Tom,
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  Speaker 1: it'll take all summer? Well what of that? Suppose you
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  Speaker 1: find a brass pot with a hundred dollars in it,
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  Speaker 1: all rusty and gay, or a rotten chest full of diamonds.
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  Speaker 1: How's that Huck's eyes glowed? That's bully plenty, bully enough
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  Speaker 1: for me. Just you give me the hundred dollars. And
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  Speaker 1: I don't want no diamonds, all right, But I bet
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  Speaker 1: you I ain't gonna throw off on di'monds. Some of
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  Speaker 1: 'em's worth twenty dollars apiece. There ain't any hardly, but
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  Speaker 1: it's worth six bits or a dollar? No? Is that so? Certainly?
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  Speaker 1: Anybody tell you so? Hain't you ever seen one? Huck?
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  Speaker 1: Not as I remember? Oh, kings have slathers of them. Well,
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  Speaker 1: I don't know no kings Tom, and I reckon, you don't.
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  Speaker 1: But if you was to go to Europe, you'd see
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  Speaker 1: a raft of em hopping around. Do they hop hop
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  Speaker 1: you're granny? No? Well, what'd you say they did for?
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  Speaker 1: I only meant you'd see him not hopping, of course,
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  Speaker 1: what do they want to hop for? But I mean
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  Speaker 1: you just see him scattered around, you know, in a
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  Speaker 1: kind of a general way, like that old humpbacked Richard. Richard.
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  Speaker 1: What's his other name? He didn't have any other name.
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  Speaker 1: Kings don't have any but a given name. No, but
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  Speaker 1: they don't. Well if they like it, Tom, all right,
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  Speaker 1: but I don't want to be a king and have
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  Speaker 1: only just a given name, like a nigger. But say,
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  Speaker 1: where are you going to dig? First? Well, I don't know.
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  Speaker 1: Suppose we tackle that old dead limb tree on the
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  Speaker 1: hill on the other side of stillhouse branch. I'm agreed.
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  Speaker 1: So they got a crippled pick and a shovel and
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  Speaker 1: set out on their three mile tramp. They arrived hot
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  Speaker 1: and panting, and threw themselves down in the shade of
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  Speaker 1: a neighboring elm to rest and have a smoke. I
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  Speaker 1: like this, said Tom. So do I say, huck? If
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  Speaker 1: we find a treasure here, what are you going to
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  Speaker 1: do with your share? Well, I'll have pie and a
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  Speaker 1: glass is so every day, and I'll go to every
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  Speaker 1: circus that comes along. I bet i'll have a gay time. Well,
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  Speaker 1: ain't you going to save any of it? Save it?
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  Speaker 1: What for? Why? So as to have something to live
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  Speaker 1: on by and by? Oh, that ain't any use. Pap
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  Speaker 1: would come back to this year town someday and get
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  Speaker 1: his claws on it if I didn't hurry up, And
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  Speaker 1: I tell you he'd clean it out pretty quick. What
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  Speaker 1: are you going to do with your and Tom? I'm
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  Speaker 1: going to buy a new drum and a sure enough
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  Speaker 1: sword and a rednecktie and a bull pop and get married. Married.
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  Speaker 1: That's it, Tom? You why you ain't in your right mind?
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  Speaker 1: Wait you'll see. Well that's the foolishest thing you could do.
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  Speaker 1: Look at Pap and my mother fight. Why they used
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  Speaker 1: to fight all the time. I remember, mighty well, that
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  Speaker 1: ain't anything. The girl I'm going to marry won't fight, Tom.
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  Speaker 1: I reckon, they're all alike. They'll all comb a body.
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  Speaker 1: Now you better think about this a while. I tell
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  Speaker 1: you you better. What's the next the gal? It ain't
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  Speaker 1: a gal at all, it's a girl. It's all the same,
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  Speaker 1: I reckon. Some says gal, some says girl. Both's right.
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  Speaker 1: Like enough anyway, what's her name? Tom? I'll tell you sometime,
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  Speaker 1: not now, all right, that'll do. Only if you get married,
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  Speaker 1: I'll be more lonesomer than ever. No, you won't. You'll
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  Speaker 1: come and live with me. Now, stir out of this
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  Speaker 1: and we'll go to digging. They worked and sweated for
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  Speaker 1: half an hour, no result. They toiled another half hour,
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  Speaker 1: still no result. Huck said, do they always buried as
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  Speaker 1: deep as this? Sometimes? Not always, not generally? I reckon,
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  Speaker 1: we haven't got the right place. So they chose a
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  Speaker 1: new spot and began again. The labor dragged a little,
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  Speaker 1: but still they made progress. They pegged away in silence
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  Speaker 1: for some time. Finally Huck leaned on his shovel, swabbed
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  Speaker 1: the beaded drops from his brow with his sleeve, and said,
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  Speaker 1: where are you going to dig next? After we get
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  Speaker 1: this one? I reckon, maybe we'll tackle the old tree
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  Speaker 1: that's over yonder on Cardiff Hill, back of the widows.
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  Speaker 1: I reckon, that'll be a good one. But won't the
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  Speaker 1: widow take it away from us? Tom? It's on her land,
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  Speaker 1: she take it away. Maybe she'd like to try it once.
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  Speaker 1: Whoever finds one of these hid treasures, it belongs to him.
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  Speaker 1: It don't make any difference whose land it's on. That
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  Speaker 1: was satisfactory. The work went on by and by, Hucks said,
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  Speaker 1: blame it. We must be in the wrong place again.
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  Speaker 1: What do you think it is? Mighty curious, Huck, I
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  Speaker 1: don't understand it. Sometimes witches interfere, I reckon. Maybe that's
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  Speaker 1: what's the trouble, now, Shucks. Witches ain't got no power
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  Speaker 1: in the daytime. Well that's so I didn't think of that. Oh,
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  Speaker 1: I know what the matter is. What a blamed lot
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  Speaker 1: of fools we are. You gotta find out where the
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  Speaker 1: shadow of the limb falls at midnight, and that's where
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  Speaker 1: you dig. Then con sound it. We fooled away all
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  Speaker 1: this work for nothing. Now hang it all. We've got
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  Speaker 1: to come back in the night. It's an awful long way.
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  Speaker 1: Can you get out? I bet I will. We've got
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  Speaker 1: to do it tonight too, because if somebody sees these holes,
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  Speaker 1: they'll know in a minute what's here and they'll go
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  Speaker 1: for it. Well, I'll come round and now to night,
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  Speaker 1: all right? Let's hide the tools in the bushes. The
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  Speaker 1: boys were there that night about the appointed time. They
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  Speaker 1: sat in the shadow waiting. It was a lonely place,
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  Speaker 1: and an hour made solemn by old traditions. Spirits whispered
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  Speaker 1: in the rustling leaves, Ghosts lurked in the murky nooks.
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  Speaker 1: The deep baying of a hound floated up out of
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  Speaker 1: the distance. An owl answered with his sepulchral note. The
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  Speaker 1: boys were subdued by these solemnities, and talked little by
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  Speaker 1: and by. They judged that twelve had come. They marked
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  Speaker 1: where the shadow fell and began to dig. Their hopes
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  Speaker 1: commenced to rise. Their interests grew stronger, and their industry
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  Speaker 1: kept pace with it. The hole deepened and still deepened.
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  Speaker 1: But every time their hearts jumped to hear the pick
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  Speaker 1: strike upon something, they only suffered a new disappointment. It
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  Speaker 1: was only a stone or a chunk. At last, Tom said,
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  Speaker 1: it ain't no use, Huck, We're wrong again. Well, but
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  Speaker 1: we can't be wrong. We spotted the shatter to a dot,
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  Speaker 1: I know it. But then there's another thing. What's that?
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  Speaker 1: Why we only guessed at the time, like enough, it
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  Speaker 1: was too late or too early Huck dropped his shovel.
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  Speaker 1: That's it, he said. That's the very trouble. We got
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  Speaker 1: to give this one up. We can't ever tell the
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  Speaker 1: right time. And besides, this kind of thing's too awful
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  Speaker 1: here this time of night, with witches and ghosts of
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  Speaker 1: fluttering around. So I feel as if something's behind me
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  Speaker 1: all the time, and I'm afeared to turn around because
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  Speaker 1: maybe there's others in front of waiting for a chance.
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  Speaker 1: I've been creeping all over ever since I got here. Well,
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  Speaker 1: I've been pretty much so too, Huck. They most always
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  Speaker 1: put in a dead man when they bury a treasure
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  Speaker 1: under a tree, to look out for it. Lordie, Yes
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  Speaker 1: they do. I've always heard that, Tom. I don't like
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  Speaker 1: to fool around much. Where there's dead people, a body's
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  Speaker 1: bound to get into trouble with. I'm sure I don't
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  Speaker 1: like to stir them up either. Suppose this one here
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  Speaker 1: was to stick his skull out and say something, don't, Tom,
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  Speaker 1: it's awful. Well, it just is talk. I don't feel
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  Speaker 1: comfortable a bit. Say Tom, let's give this place up
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  Speaker 1: and try somewhere else, all right, I reckon we better?
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  Speaker 1: What'll it be? Tom considered a while and then said
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  Speaker 1: the hanted house. That's it, blame it. I don't like
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  Speaker 1: hanted houses, Tom, Why they're a durned sight worse than
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  Speaker 1: dead people. Dead people might talk, maybe, but they don't
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  Speaker 1: come sliding around in a shroud when you ain't noticing,
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  Speaker 1: and peep over your shoulder all of a sudden and
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  Speaker 1: grit their teeth the way a ghost does. I couldn't
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  Speaker 1: stand such a thing as that, Tom, nobody could. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: but hock ghosts don't travel around only at night. They
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  Speaker 1: won't handle us from digging there in the daytime. Well
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  Speaker 1: that's so, but you know, mighty well, people don't go
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  Speaker 1: about that handed house in the day nor the night.
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  Speaker 1: Well that's mostly because they don't like to go where
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  Speaker 1: a man's been murdered. Anyway, But nothing's ever been seen
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  Speaker 1: around that house except in the night. Just some blue
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  Speaker 1: lights slipping by the windows. No regular ghosts. Well, where
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  Speaker 1: you see one of them blue lights flickering around, Tom,
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  Speaker 1: you can bet there's a ghost mighty close behind it.
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  Speaker 1: It stands to reason, because you know that they don't
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  Speaker 1: anybody but ghosts use them. Yes, that's so. But anyway,
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  Speaker 1: they don't come round in the daytime. So what's the
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  Speaker 1: use of our being afeared. Well, all right, we'll tackle
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  Speaker 1: the handed house if you say so, but I reckon
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  Speaker 1: it's taken chances. They had started down the hill by
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  Speaker 1: this time. There in the middle of the moonlit valley
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  Speaker 1: below them stood the hanted House, utterly isolated, its fences
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  Speaker 1: gone long ago, rank weeds smothering the very doorsteps, the
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  Speaker 1: chimney crumpled to ruin, the window sashes vacant, a corner
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  Speaker 1: of the roof caved in. The boys gazed awhile, half
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  Speaker 1: expecting to see a blue light flit past a window. Then,
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  Speaker 1: talking in a low tone as befitted the time and
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  Speaker 1: the circumstances, they struck far off to the right to
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  Speaker 1: give the haunted house a wide berth, and took their
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  Speaker 1: way homeward through the woods that adorned the rearward side
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  Speaker 1: of Cardiff Hill. End of Chapter twenty five