Latest / Children’s Stories Library / Tom Sawyer, Detective - Mark Twain
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Tom Sawyer Detective by Mark Twain, Chapter one, an invitation
- 0:05Speaker 1: for Tom and Huck. Note strange as the incidents of
- 0:09Speaker 1: this story are, they are not inventions but facts, even
- 0:14Speaker 1: to the public confession of the accused. I take them
- 0:17Speaker 1: from an old time Swedish criminal trial, change the characters,
- 0:21Speaker 1: and transfer the scenes to America. I have added some details,
- 0:26Speaker 1: but only a couple of them are important ones. M
- 0:29Speaker 1: T Well. It was the next spring after me and
- 0:33Speaker 1: Tom Sawyer set our old nigger Jim free, the time
- 0:36Speaker 1: he was chained up for a runaway slave down there
- 0:39Speaker 1: on Tom's uncle Silas's farm in Arkansas. The frost was
- 0:43Speaker 1: working out of the ground and out of the air too,
- 0:46Speaker 1: and it was getting closer and closer onto barefoot time
- 0:49Speaker 1: every day, and next it would be marble time, and
- 0:53Speaker 1: next MUMBLETYPEG and next tops and hoops, and next kites,
- 0:58Speaker 1: and then right away it would be summer and going
- 1:00Speaker 1: in a swimming It just makes a boy homesick to
- 1:03Speaker 1: look ahead like that and see how far off summer is, yes,
- 1:08Speaker 1: and it sets him to sighing and saddening around, And
- 1:11Speaker 1: there's something the matter with him, and you don't know what,
- 1:14Speaker 1: but anyway, he gets out by himself and mopes and thinks,
- 1:18Speaker 1: and mostly he hunts for a lonesome place high up
- 1:21Speaker 1: on the hill in the edge of the woods, and
- 1:23Speaker 1: sits there and looks away off on the big Mississippi
- 1:27Speaker 1: down there, or reaching miles and miles around the points
- 1:30Speaker 1: where the timber looks smoky and dim. It's so far
- 1:33Speaker 1: off and still, and everything's so solemn. It seems like
- 1:37Speaker 1: everybody you've loved is dead and gone, and you most
- 1:40Speaker 1: wish you was dead and gone too, and done with
- 1:43Speaker 1: it all. Don't you know what that is? It's spring fever,
- 1:47Speaker 1: that is what the name of it is. And when
- 1:50Speaker 1: you've got it, you want, Oh you don't quite know
- 1:53Speaker 1: what it is you do want, but it just fairly
- 1:55Speaker 1: makes your heart ache. You want it. So it seems
- 1:58Speaker 1: to you that mainly what you want is to get away,
- 2:01Speaker 1: get away from the same old, tedious things you're so
- 2:05Speaker 1: used to seeing and so tired of, and set something new.
- 2:08Speaker 1: That is the idea. You want to go and be
- 2:11Speaker 1: a wanderer. You want to go wandering far away to
- 2:14Speaker 1: strange countries where everything is mysterious and wonderful and romantic.
- 2:20Speaker 1: And if you can't do that, you'll put up with
- 2:23Speaker 1: considerable less. You'll go anywhere you can go, just so
- 2:26Speaker 1: as to get away and be thankful of the chance too. Well,
- 2:31Speaker 1: me and Tom Sawyer had the spring fever and had
- 2:33Speaker 1: it bad too. But it weren't any use to think
- 2:35Speaker 1: about Tom trying to get away, because, as he said,
- 2:38Speaker 1: his aunt Polly wouldn't let him quit school and go
- 2:41Speaker 1: trapsing off Somers wasting time. So we was pretty blue.
- 2:46Speaker 1: We were sitting on the front steps one day about sundown,
- 2:48Speaker 1: talking this way, when out comes his aunt Polly with
- 2:51Speaker 1: a letter in her hand and says, Tom, I reckon,
- 2:54Speaker 1: you've got to pack up and go down to Arkansas.
- 2:57Speaker 1: Your aunt Sally wants you. I most jumped out of
- 3:01Speaker 1: my skin for joy. I reckoned Tom would fly at
- 3:04Speaker 1: his aunt and hug her head off. But if you
- 3:06Speaker 1: believe me, he sat there like a rock and never
- 3:10Speaker 1: said a word. It made me fit to cry to
- 3:12Speaker 1: see him act so foolish with such a noble chance
- 3:15Speaker 1: as this opening up. Why we might lose it if
- 3:18Speaker 1: he didn't speak up and show he was thankful and grateful.
- 3:21Speaker 1: But he sat there and studied and studied till I
- 3:25Speaker 1: was that distressed. I didn't know what to do. And
- 3:27Speaker 1: then he says, very calm, and I could have shot
- 3:30Speaker 1: him for it. Well, he says, I'm right down, sorry,
- 3:34Speaker 1: Aunt Polly, But I reckon, I got to be excused
- 3:37Speaker 1: for the present. His Aunt Polly was knocked so stupid
- 3:41Speaker 1: and so mad at the cold impudence of it, that
- 3:43Speaker 1: she couldn't say a word for as much as half
- 3:45Speaker 1: a minute. And this gave me a chance to nudge
- 3:48Speaker 1: Tom and whisper, ain't you got any sense spiling such
- 3:52Speaker 1: a noble chance as this and throwing it away? But
- 3:55Speaker 1: he warn't disturbed. He mumbled back, huck finn, do you
- 3:59Speaker 1: want want me to let her see how bad I
- 4:02Speaker 1: want to go? Why she'd begin to doubt right away,
- 4:05Speaker 1: and imagine a lot of sickness and dangers and objections,
- 4:09Speaker 1: and first you know she'd take it all back. You
- 4:12Speaker 1: let me alone, I reckon, I know how to work
- 4:14Speaker 1: her now. I never would have thought of that. But
- 4:18Speaker 1: he was right. Tom Sawyer was always right, the levelest
- 4:22Speaker 1: head I ever see, and always at himself and ready
- 4:25Speaker 1: for anything you might spring on him. By this time,
- 4:28Speaker 1: his Aunt Polly was all straight again, and she let fly.
- 4:32Speaker 1: She says, you'll be excused you will well, I never
- 4:36Speaker 1: heard the like of it in all my days, the
- 4:38Speaker 1: idea of you talking like that to me. Now take
- 4:41Speaker 1: yourself off and pack your traps. And if I hear
- 4:44Speaker 1: another word out of you about what you'll be excused
- 4:47Speaker 1: from and what you won't, I lay I'll excuse you
- 4:50Speaker 1: with a hickory. She hit his head a thump with
- 4:53Speaker 1: her thimble as we dodged by, and he led on
- 4:56Speaker 1: to be whimpering. As we struck for the stairs up
- 4:59Speaker 1: in his room. He hugged me. He was so out
- 5:01Speaker 1: of his head for gladness because he was going traveling,
- 5:04Speaker 1: and he says, before we get away, she'll wish she
- 5:06Speaker 1: hadn't let me go, but she won't know any way
- 5:09Speaker 1: to get around it now after what she said, her
- 5:12Speaker 1: pride won't let her take it back. Tom was packed
- 5:15Speaker 1: in ten minutes, all except what his aunt and Mary
- 5:18Speaker 1: would finish up for him. Then we waited ten more
- 5:21Speaker 1: for her to get cooled down and sweet and gentle again.
- 5:24Speaker 1: For Tom said it took her ten minutes to unruffle
- 5:27Speaker 1: in times when half of her feathers was up, but
- 5:31Speaker 1: twenty when they was all up, And this was one
- 5:33Speaker 1: of the times when they was all up. Then we
- 5:36Speaker 1: went down, being in a sweat, to know what the
- 5:39Speaker 1: letter said. She was setting there in a brown study
- 5:42Speaker 1: with it laying in her lap. We sat down and
- 5:44Speaker 1: she says they're in considerable trouble down there, and they
- 5:48Speaker 1: think you and huck'll be a kind of diversion for
- 5:51Speaker 1: them comfort. They say much of that they'll get out
- 5:55Speaker 1: of you and Huck Finn. I reckon. There's a neighbor
- 5:58Speaker 1: named Brace Dunlap that's been one to marry their benny
- 6:01Speaker 1: for three months, and at last they told him point
- 6:04Speaker 1: blank and once for all, he couldn't, so he has
- 6:07Speaker 1: soured on them, and they're worried about it. I reckon
- 6:10Speaker 1: he's somebody they think they better be on the good
- 6:12Speaker 1: side of, for they've tried to please him by hiring
- 6:16Speaker 1: his no account brother to help on the farm when
- 6:18Speaker 1: they can't hardly afford it and don't want him round anyhow.
- 6:23Speaker 1: Who are the Dunlaps. They live about a mile from
- 6:26Speaker 1: Uncle Silas's place. Aunt Polly. All the farmers live about
- 6:30Speaker 1: a mile apart down there, and Brace Dunlap is a
- 6:33Speaker 1: long sight richer than any of the others, and owns
- 6:36Speaker 1: a whole grist of niggers. He's a widower, thirty six
- 6:40Speaker 1: years old, without any children, and is proud of his
- 6:43Speaker 1: money and overbearing, and everybody is a little afraid of him.
- 6:47Speaker 1: I judge he thought he could have any girl he wanted,
- 6:49Speaker 1: just for the asking, and it must have set him
- 6:52Speaker 1: back a good deal when he found he couldn't get Benny.
- 6:55Speaker 1: Why Benny's only half as old as he is, and
- 6:58Speaker 1: just as sweet and lovely he is. Well, you've seen her,
- 7:02Speaker 1: poor old uncle Silas. Why it's pitiful him trying to
- 7:06Speaker 1: curry favor that way, so hard pushed and poor, and
- 7:09Speaker 1: yet hiring that useless Jubiter Dunlap to please his ornery brother.
- 7:14Speaker 1: What a name, Jubiter? Where'd he get it? It's only
- 7:18Speaker 1: just a nickname, I reckon. They'd forgot his real name
- 7:21Speaker 1: long before this. He's twenty seven now and has had
- 7:24Speaker 1: it ever since the first time he ever went in swimming.
- 7:27Speaker 1: The school teacher's seen a round brown mole the size
- 7:30Speaker 1: of a dime on his left leg above his knee,
- 7:32Speaker 1: and four little bits of moles around it when he
- 7:35Speaker 1: was naked, and he said it minded him of Jubiter
- 7:37Speaker 1: and his moons, and the children thought it was funny,
- 7:40Speaker 1: and so they got to calling him Jubiter. And he's
- 7:43Speaker 1: Jubiter yet he's tall and lazy and sly and sneaky,
- 7:48Speaker 1: and rather cowardly too, but kind of good natured and
- 7:51Speaker 1: wears long brown hair and no beard, and hasn't got
- 7:54Speaker 1: a cent and brace boards him for nothing and gives
- 7:58Speaker 1: him his old clothes to wear and despises him. Jubiter
- 8:01Speaker 1: is a twin. What's the other twin like? Just exactly
- 8:06Speaker 1: like Jubiter, so they say, used to was anyway, but
- 8:10Speaker 1: he ain't been seen for seven years. He got to
- 8:13Speaker 1: Robin when he was nineteen or twenty, and they jailed him,
- 8:16Speaker 1: but he broke jail and got away up north here Somers.
- 8:20Speaker 1: They used to hear about him robbing and burglaring now
- 8:22Speaker 1: and then, but that was years ago. He's dead now,
- 8:26Speaker 1: at least that's what they say. They don't hear about
- 8:28Speaker 1: him anymore. What was his name, Jake? There wasn't anything
- 8:33Speaker 1: more said for a considerable while. The old lady was thinking.
- 8:37Speaker 1: At last, she says, the thing that is mostly worrying
- 8:40Speaker 1: your aunt Sally is the tempers that that man Jupiter
- 8:44Speaker 1: gets your uncle into. Tom was astonished and so was I.
- 8:49Speaker 1: Tom says, tempers, Uncle Silas Land, you must be joking.
- 8:54Speaker 1: I didn't know he had any temper works him up
- 8:58Speaker 1: into perfect rages. Your Aunt Sally's says, he acts as
- 9:01Speaker 1: if he would really hit the man sometimes, Aunt Polly,
- 9:05Speaker 1: it beats anything I ever heard of. Why he's just
- 9:09Speaker 1: as gentle as mush? Well, she's worried anyway, says your
- 9:14Speaker 1: uncle Silas is like a changed man on account of
- 9:17Speaker 1: all this quarreling, And the neighbors talk about it and
- 9:20Speaker 1: lay all the blame on your uncle, of course, because
- 9:23Speaker 1: he's a preacher and ain't got any business to quarrel.
- 9:26Speaker 1: Your Aunt Sally says, he hates to go into the pulpit.
- 9:29Speaker 1: He's so ashamed, and the people have begun to cool
- 9:32Speaker 1: toward him. And he ain't as popular now as he
- 9:35Speaker 1: used to was. Well, ain't it strange? Why, Aunt Polly,
- 9:40Speaker 1: he was always so good and kind and moony and
- 9:43Speaker 1: absent minded and chuckle headed and lovable. Why he was
- 9:48Speaker 1: just an angel? What can be the matter of him?
- 9:51Speaker 1: Do you Reckon end of chapter one, Chapter two, Jake
- 9:56Speaker 1: Dunlap we had powerful good luck because we got a
- 10:01Speaker 1: chance in a stern wheeler from away north, which was
- 10:04Speaker 1: bound for one of them by us or one horse
- 10:07Speaker 1: rivers away down Louisiana Way. And so we could go
- 10:10Speaker 1: all the way down the Upper Mississippi and all the
- 10:12Speaker 1: way down the Lower Mississippi to that farm in Arkansas
- 10:16Speaker 1: without having to change steamboats at Saint Louis not so
- 10:19Speaker 1: very much short of a thousand miles at one pull
- 10:23Speaker 1: a pretty lonesome boat. There weren't but few passengers, and
- 10:26Speaker 1: all old folks that set around wide apart, dozing, and
- 10:30Speaker 1: was very quiet. We was four days getting out of
- 10:34Speaker 1: the Upper River because we got aground so much. But
- 10:37Speaker 1: it weren't dull, couldn't be for boys that was traveling.
- 10:40Speaker 1: Of course, from the very start me and Tom allowed
- 10:43Speaker 1: that there was somebody sick in the stateroom next arn,
- 10:46Speaker 1: because the meals was always toted in there by the
- 10:49Speaker 1: waiters bye and bye. We asked about it, Tom did,
- 10:52Speaker 1: and the waiters said he was a man, but he
- 10:54Speaker 1: didn't look sick. Well, but ain't he sick? I don't know.
- 10:59Speaker 1: Maybe he is, but appears to me he's just letting on.
- 11:03Speaker 1: What makes you think that, because if he was sick,
- 11:07Speaker 1: he would pull his clothes off sometime or other. Don't
- 11:09Speaker 1: you reckon? He would? Well, this one don't. At least
- 11:12Speaker 1: he don't ever pull off his boots anyway. The mischief
- 11:15Speaker 1: he don't, not even when he goes to bed. No,
- 11:19Speaker 1: it was always nuts for Tom Sawyer. A mystery was
- 11:23Speaker 1: But you'd lay out a mystery and a pie before
- 11:25Speaker 1: me and him, and you wouldn't have to say, take
- 11:27Speaker 1: your choice. It was a thing that would regulate itself,
- 11:31Speaker 1: because in my nature I always run to pie, whilst
- 11:35Speaker 1: in his nature he has always run to mystery. People
- 11:38Speaker 1: are made different, and it is the best way. Tom
- 11:42Speaker 1: says to the waiter, what's the man's name, Phillips? Where'd
- 11:46Speaker 1: he come aboard? I think he got aboard at Alexandria,
- 11:50Speaker 1: up on the Iowa line. What do you reckon? He's
- 11:52Speaker 1: a playing I ain't any notion. I never thought of it,
- 11:56Speaker 1: I says to myself. Here's another one that runs to pie.
- 12:00Speaker 1: Anything peculiar about him, the way he acts or talks, No,
- 12:04Speaker 1: nothing except he seems so scary and keeps his doors
- 12:08Speaker 1: locked night and day both and when you knock, he
- 12:11Speaker 1: won't let you in till he opens the door crack
- 12:13Speaker 1: and sees who it is. By Jimmy, it's interesting. I'd
- 12:17Speaker 1: like to get a look at him. Say the next
- 12:20Speaker 1: time you're going in there, don't you reckon. You could
- 12:22Speaker 1: spread the door and no, indeed, he he's always behind it.
- 12:26Speaker 1: He would block that game. Tom studied over it, and
- 12:30Speaker 1: then he says, look a here, you lend me your apron.
- 12:33Speaker 1: Let me take him his breakfast in the morning. I'll
- 12:35Speaker 1: give you a quarter. The boy was plenty willing enough
- 12:38Speaker 1: if the head Stewart wouldn't mind. Tom says, that's all right.
- 12:41Speaker 1: He reckoned. He could fix it with the head Stewart,
- 12:43Speaker 1: and he done it. He fixed it so as we
- 12:45Speaker 1: could both go in with aprons on and toting victuals.
- 12:49Speaker 1: He didn't sleep much. He was in such a sweat
- 12:51Speaker 1: to get in there and find out the mystery about Phillips.
- 12:54Speaker 1: And moreover, he'd done a lot of guessing about it
- 12:56Speaker 1: all night, which warn't no use. For if you are
- 12:59Speaker 1: going to find out the facts of a thing, what's
- 13:02Speaker 1: the sense in guessing out what ain't the facts and
- 13:04Speaker 1: wasting ammunition. I didn't lose no sleep. I wouldn't give
- 13:08Speaker 1: a dern to know what's the matter of Phillips, I
- 13:11Speaker 1: says to myself. Well, in the morning, we put on
- 13:13Speaker 1: the aprons and got a couple of trays of truck
- 13:16Speaker 1: and Tom he knocked on the door. The man opened
- 13:18Speaker 1: at a crack, and then he let us in and
- 13:21Speaker 1: shut it quick, pat Jackson. When we got sight of him,
- 13:24Speaker 1: we most dropped the trays, and Tom says, why Jubiter's
- 13:28Speaker 1: done Lap, where'd you come from? Well the man was astonished,
- 13:33Speaker 1: of course, and first off he looked like he didn't
- 13:35Speaker 1: know whether to be scared or glad or both or which.
- 13:39Speaker 1: But finally he settled down to being glad, and then
- 13:42Speaker 1: his color come back, though at first his face had
- 13:45Speaker 1: turned pretty white. So we got to talking together while
- 13:48Speaker 1: he had his breakfast, and he says, but I ain't
- 13:51Speaker 1: Jubeter Dunlap. I'd just as soon tell you who I am, though,
- 13:55Speaker 1: if you'll swear to keep mum, for I ain't no
- 13:58Speaker 1: Phillips either. Tom said, we'll keep Mum, but there ain't
- 14:02Speaker 1: any need to tell who you are if you ain't
- 14:04Speaker 1: Jubiter Dunlap. Why because if you ain't him, you're t'other twin, Jake,
- 14:10Speaker 1: you're the spitting image of Jubiter. Well, I'm Jake, but
- 14:14Speaker 1: look here how do you come to know us? Done
- 14:16Speaker 1: laps Tom told about the adventures we'd had down there
- 14:20Speaker 1: at his uncle Silas's last summer. And when he see
- 14:23Speaker 1: that there warn't anything about his folks or him either,
- 14:26Speaker 1: for that matter, that we didn't know, he opened out
- 14:29Speaker 1: and talked perfectly, free and candid. He never made any
- 14:33Speaker 1: bones about his own case. Said he'd been a hard lot,
- 14:36Speaker 1: was a hard lot yet and reckoned. He'd be a
- 14:39Speaker 1: hard lot plumb to the end. He said, of course,
- 14:41Speaker 1: it was a dangerous life, and he gave a kind
- 14:44Speaker 1: of gasp and set his head like a person that's listening.
- 14:48Speaker 1: We didn't say anything, and so it was very still
- 14:50Speaker 1: for a second or so, and there weren't no sounds
- 14:53Speaker 1: but the screaking of the woodwork and the chug chugging
- 14:55Speaker 1: of the machinery down below. Then we got him comfortable again,
- 14:59Speaker 1: telling him about his people, and how Brace's wife had
- 15:02Speaker 1: been dead three years and Brace wanted to marry Benny
- 15:05Speaker 1: and she shook him, and Jubiter was working for Uncle Silas,
- 15:09Speaker 1: and him and Uncle Silas quarreling all the time. And
- 15:12Speaker 1: then he let go and laughed. Lad. He says, it's
- 15:16Speaker 1: like old times to hear all this tittle title and
- 15:19Speaker 1: does me good. It's been seven years and more since
- 15:23Speaker 1: I heard any How do they talk about me these days? Who?
- 15:27Speaker 1: The farmers and the family. Why they don't talk about
- 15:31Speaker 1: you at all, at least only just to mention once
- 15:34Speaker 1: in a long time the nation, He says, surprised. Why
- 15:38Speaker 1: is that because they think you are dead long ago? No,
- 15:43Speaker 1: you're speaking true, Honor Bright. Now he jumped up, excited,
- 15:48Speaker 1: Honor Bright. There ain't anybody thinks you are alive. Then
- 15:52Speaker 1: I'm saved. I'm saved. Sure, I'll go home. They'll hide
- 15:56Speaker 1: me and save my life. You keep, mum swear you'll
- 16:00Speaker 1: mum swear you'll never never tell on me. Oh boys,
- 16:03Speaker 1: be good to a poor devil it's being hunted day
- 16:06Speaker 1: and night and doesn't show his face. I've never done
- 16:09Speaker 1: you any harm. I'll never do you any as God
- 16:12Speaker 1: is in the heavens. Swear you'll be good to me
- 16:15Speaker 1: and help me save my life. We'd a swore if
- 16:18Speaker 1: it had been a dog, and so we done it well.
- 16:21Speaker 1: He couldn't love us enough for it or be grateful enough.
- 16:24Speaker 1: Poor cuss. It was all he could do to keep
- 16:26Speaker 1: from hugging us. We talked along, and he got out
- 16:29Speaker 1: a little handbag and begun to open it and told
- 16:32Speaker 1: us to turn our backs. We done it, and when
- 16:35Speaker 1: he told us to turn again, he was perfectly different
- 16:37Speaker 1: to what he was before. He had on blue goggles
- 16:40Speaker 1: and the naturalist look in, long brown whiskers and mustache
- 16:44Speaker 1: as you ever see. His own mother wouldn't have known him.
- 16:47Speaker 1: He asked us if he looked like his brother Jubiter.
- 16:50Speaker 1: Now no, Tom said, there ain't anything left that's like
- 16:54Speaker 1: him except the long hair. All right, I'll get that
- 16:57Speaker 1: crop close to my head before I get there, and
- 17:00Speaker 1: him and Brace will keep my secret, and I'll live
- 17:03Speaker 1: with them as being a stranger, and the neighbors won't
- 17:05Speaker 1: ever guess me out. What do you think, Tom? He
- 17:08Speaker 1: studied a while. Then he says, well, of course me
- 17:11Speaker 1: and Hack are going to keep Mum there. But if
- 17:14Speaker 1: you don't keep Mum yourself, there's going to be a
- 17:16Speaker 1: little bit of a risk. It ain't much, maybe, but
- 17:18Speaker 1: it's a little. I mean, if you talk, won't people
- 17:22Speaker 1: notice that your voice is just like Jubiter's? And mightn't
- 17:25Speaker 1: it make them think of the twin they reckoned was dead?
- 17:28Speaker 1: But maybe after all was hid all this time under
- 17:31Speaker 1: another name by George. He says, you're a sharp one.
- 17:35Speaker 1: You're perfectly right. I've got to play deef and dumb
- 17:38Speaker 1: when there's a neighbor around. If I had just struck
- 17:41Speaker 1: for home and forgot that little detail. However, I wasn't
- 17:44Speaker 1: striking for home. I was breaking for any place where
- 17:47Speaker 1: I could get away from these fellows that are after me.
- 17:50Speaker 1: Then I was going to put on this disguise and
- 17:52Speaker 1: get some different clothes. And he jumped for the outside
- 17:55Speaker 1: door and laid his ear against it and listened. Pale
- 17:58Speaker 1: and kind of panting. He whispers, sounded like cocking a gun. Lord,
- 18:04Speaker 1: what a life to lead. Then he sunk down in
- 18:08Speaker 1: a chair, all limp and sick like, and wipe the
- 18:11Speaker 1: sweat off his face. End of chapter two, Chapter three
- 18:16Speaker 1: A Diamond Robbery. From that time out, we was with
- 18:20Speaker 1: him most all the time, and one or t'other of
- 18:23Speaker 1: us slept in his upper berth. He said he had
- 18:25Speaker 1: been so lonesome, and it was such a comfort to
- 18:28Speaker 1: him to have company and somebody to talk to in
- 18:30Speaker 1: his troubles. We was in a sweat to find out
- 18:33Speaker 1: what his secret was. But Tom said the best way
- 18:36Speaker 1: was not to seem anxious, then likely he would drop
- 18:39Speaker 1: into it himself in one of his talks. But if
- 18:42Speaker 1: we go to asking questions, he would get suspicious and
- 18:45Speaker 1: shet up his shell. It turned out just so. It
- 18:49Speaker 1: warn't no trouble to see that he wanted to talk
- 18:51Speaker 1: about it, but always along at first, he would scare
- 18:55Speaker 1: away from it when he got on the very edge
- 18:57Speaker 1: of it and go to talk about something else. The
- 19:00Speaker 1: way it come about was this. He got to asking
- 19:03Speaker 1: us kind of indifferent like about the passengers down on deck.
- 19:06Speaker 1: We told him about them, but he weren't satisfied we
- 19:10Speaker 1: weren't particular enough. He told us to describe them better.
- 19:14Speaker 1: Tom done it at last. When Tom was describing one
- 19:17Speaker 1: of the roughest and raggedest ones, he gave a shiver
- 19:20Speaker 1: and a gasp and says, oh, lordy, that's one of them.
- 19:24Speaker 1: They're aboard. Sure, I just knowed it. I sort of
- 19:28Speaker 1: hoped i'd got away, but I never believed it. Go
- 19:31Speaker 1: on presently, when Tom was describing another mangy rough deck passenger,
- 19:37Speaker 1: he gave that shiver again and says, that's him. That's
- 19:40Speaker 1: the other one. If it'll only come a good black
- 19:44Speaker 1: stormy night, and I could get ashore. You see, they've
- 19:47Speaker 1: got spies on me. They've got a right to come
- 19:50Speaker 1: up and buy drinks at the bar yonder forward, and
- 19:53Speaker 1: they take that chance to bribe somebody to keep watch
- 19:55Speaker 1: on me. Porter or Boots or somebody. If I was
- 19:59Speaker 1: to slip a shor or without anybody seeing me, they would
- 20:02Speaker 1: know it inside of an hour. So then he got
- 20:05Speaker 1: to wandering along, and pretty soon sure enough he was
- 20:08Speaker 1: telling he was poking along through his ups and downs,
- 20:11Speaker 1: and when he come to that place, he went right along.
- 20:14Speaker 1: He says it was a confidence game. We played it
- 20:19Speaker 1: on a julery shop in Saint Louis. What we was
- 20:22Speaker 1: after was a couple of noble big diamonds, as big
- 20:25Speaker 1: as hazel nuts, which everybody was running to see. We
- 20:28Speaker 1: was dressed up fine, and we played it on them
- 20:31Speaker 1: in broad daylight. We ordered the diamonds sent to the
- 20:34Speaker 1: hotel for us to see if we wanted to buy,
- 20:37Speaker 1: and when we was examining them, we had paste counterfeits
- 20:40Speaker 1: all ready. And then was the things that went back
- 20:42Speaker 1: to the shop when we said the water wasn't quite
- 20:45Speaker 1: fine enough for twelve thousand dollars twelve thousand dollars, Tom says,
- 20:50Speaker 1: was they really worth all that money? Do you reckon
- 20:53Speaker 1: every cent of it? And you fellows got away with
- 20:57Speaker 1: them as easy as nothing. I don't reckon the juelery
- 21:00Speaker 1: people know they've been robbed yet. But it wouldn't be
- 21:03Speaker 1: good sense to stay round Saint Louis course, So we
- 21:05Speaker 1: considered where we'd go. One was for going one way,
- 21:10Speaker 1: one another. So we throwed up heads or tails, and
- 21:14Speaker 1: the Upper Mississippi won. We'd done up the diamonds in
- 21:17Speaker 1: the paper and put our names on it, and put
- 21:19Speaker 1: it in the keep of the hotel clerk and told
- 21:22Speaker 1: him not to ever let either of us have it
- 21:24Speaker 1: again without the others was on hand to see it done.
- 21:27Speaker 1: Then we went downtown, each by his own self, because
- 21:31Speaker 1: I reckon maybe we all had the same notion. I
- 21:34Speaker 1: don't know for certain, but I reckon maybe we had
- 21:37Speaker 1: what notion Tom says, to rob the others? What one
- 21:41Speaker 1: take everything after all of you had helped to get it.
- 21:45Speaker 1: Certainly it disgusted Tom Sawyer, and he said it was
- 21:48Speaker 1: the orneriest, low downest thing he ever heard of. But
- 21:52Speaker 1: Jake Dunlap said it warn't unusual in the profession said,
- 21:55Speaker 1: when a person was in that line of business, he'd
- 21:58Speaker 1: got to look out for his own interest. There warn't
- 22:00Speaker 1: nobody else going to do it for him. And then
- 22:03Speaker 1: he went on, he says, you see, the trouble was
- 22:06Speaker 1: you couldn't divide up two diamonds amongst three if there'd
- 22:09Speaker 1: been three. But never mind about that there warn't three.
- 22:13Speaker 1: I loafed along the back street, studying and studying, and
- 22:16Speaker 1: I says to myself, I'll hog them di'monds the first
- 22:19Speaker 1: chance I get, and I'll have a disguise all ready,
- 22:21Speaker 1: and i'll give the boys the slip, and when I'm
- 22:24Speaker 1: safe away, i'll put it on and then let them
- 22:27Speaker 1: find me if they can. So I got the false
- 22:29Speaker 1: whiskers and the goggles and this countryfied suit of clothes
- 22:33Speaker 1: and fetched them along back in a handbag. And when
- 22:36Speaker 1: I was passing a shop where they sell all sorts
- 22:38Speaker 1: of things, I got a glimpse of one of my
- 22:40Speaker 1: pals through the window. It was Bud Dixon. I was glad,
- 22:44Speaker 1: you bet, I says to myself, I'll see what he buys.
- 22:48Speaker 1: So I kept shady and watched. Now what do you reckon?
- 22:51Speaker 1: It was? He bought Whiskers said, I no goggles. No, oh,
- 22:58Speaker 1: keep still, huck, Finn, can't you You're only just hendering
- 23:00Speaker 1: all you can. What was it he bought, Jake, You'd
- 23:04Speaker 1: never guess it in the world. It was only just
- 23:07Speaker 1: a screwdriver, just a wee little bit of a screwdriver. Well,
- 23:10Speaker 1: I declare, but what do he want with that? That's
- 23:13Speaker 1: what I thought. It was curious? It clean stumped me.
- 23:18Speaker 1: I says to myself, what can he want with that thing? Well,
- 23:22Speaker 1: when he come out, I stood back out of sight,
- 23:24Speaker 1: and then tracked him to a second hand slop shop
- 23:27Speaker 1: and see him buy a red flannel shirt and some
- 23:30Speaker 1: old ragged clothes, just the ones he's got on now,
- 23:33Speaker 1: as you've described. Then I went down to the wharf
- 23:36Speaker 1: and hid my things aboard the up river boat that
- 23:38Speaker 1: we had picked out, and then started back and had
- 23:41Speaker 1: another streak of luck. I seen our other pal lay
- 23:44Speaker 1: in his stock of old, rusty second handers. We got
- 23:47Speaker 1: the diamonds and went aboard the boat. But now we
- 23:50Speaker 1: was up a stump, for we couldn't go to bed.
- 23:53Speaker 1: We had to set up and watch one another. Pity.
- 23:56Speaker 1: That was pity to put that kind of a strain
- 23:58Speaker 1: on us, because there was bad blood between us from
- 24:01Speaker 1: a couple of weeks back, and we was only friends
- 24:03Speaker 1: in the way of business, bad anyway, seeing there was
- 24:06Speaker 1: only two diamonds TwixT three men. First we had supper,
- 24:10Speaker 1: and then tramped up and down the deck together, smoking
- 24:13Speaker 1: till most midnight. Then we went and sat down in
- 24:17Speaker 1: my stateroom and locked the doors, and looked in the
- 24:19Speaker 1: piece of paper to see if the diamonds was all right.
- 24:22Speaker 1: Then laid it on the lower berth, right in full sight.
- 24:25Speaker 1: And there we set and set, and by and by
- 24:28Speaker 1: it got to be dreadful, hard to keep awake. At last,
- 24:31Speaker 1: Bud Dixon he dropped off as soon as he was snoring,
- 24:35Speaker 1: a good regular gait that was likely to last, and
- 24:37Speaker 1: had his chin on his breast and looked permanent. Hal
- 24:40Speaker 1: Clayton nodded towards the diamonds and then towards the outside door,
- 24:45Speaker 1: and I understood. I reached and got the paper, and
- 24:48Speaker 1: then we stood up and waited perfectly still, but never stirred.
- 24:52Speaker 1: I turned the key of the outside door very soft
- 24:55Speaker 1: and slow, then turned the knob the same way, and
- 24:59Speaker 1: we went tiptoe out on to the guard and shut
- 25:02Speaker 1: the door, very soft and gentle. There warn't nobody stirring anywhere,
- 25:06Speaker 1: and the boat was slipping along, swift and steady through
- 25:09Speaker 1: the big water and the smoky moonlight. We never said
- 25:13Speaker 1: a word, but went straight up onto the hurricane deck
- 25:15Speaker 1: and plumb back aft and set down on the end
- 25:18Speaker 1: of the skylight. Both of us knowed what that meant,
- 25:21Speaker 1: without having to explain to one another. Bud Dixon would
- 25:24Speaker 1: wake up and miss the swag and would come straight
- 25:27Speaker 1: for us, for he ain't afeard of anything or anybody.
- 25:29Speaker 1: That man ain't. He would come and we would heave
- 25:32Speaker 1: him overboard or get killed trying. It made me shiver,
- 25:36Speaker 1: because I ain't as brave as some people. But if
- 25:39Speaker 1: I showed the white feather, well, I knowed better than
- 25:42Speaker 1: do that. I kind of hoped the boat would land
- 25:44Speaker 1: somers and we could skip ashore and not have to
- 25:47Speaker 1: run the risk of this row. I was so scared
- 25:49Speaker 1: of Bud Dixon, but she was an upper river tub
- 25:52Speaker 1: and there warn't no real chance of that. Well, the
- 25:55Speaker 1: time strung along and along, and that fellow never come.
- 25:58Speaker 1: Why it strung along till dawn begun to break, and
- 26:02Speaker 1: still he never come. Thunder I says, what do you
- 26:05Speaker 1: make out of this? Ain't it suspicious? Land Hell says,
- 26:10Speaker 1: do you reckon? He's playing us? Open the paper? I
- 26:13Speaker 1: done it, and by gracious, there warn't anything in it
- 26:16Speaker 1: but a couple of little pieces of loaf sugar. That's
- 26:18Speaker 1: the reason he could set there and snooze all night,
- 26:21Speaker 1: so comfortable. Smart well, I reckon he had had them
- 26:25Speaker 1: two papers, all fixed and ready, and he had put
- 26:28Speaker 1: one of them in place of t'other, right under our noses.
- 26:31Speaker 1: We felt pretty cheap. But the thing to do straight
- 26:34Speaker 1: off was to make a plan, and we done it.
- 26:36Speaker 1: We would do up the paper again, just as it was,
- 26:39Speaker 1: and slip in very elaborate and soft, and lay it
- 26:42Speaker 1: on the bunk again, and let on we didn't know
- 26:45Speaker 1: about any trick, and hadn't any idea. He was laughing
- 26:48Speaker 1: at us behind them bogus snores of his'n and we
- 26:51Speaker 1: would stick by him, and the first night we was ashore,
- 26:55Speaker 1: we would get him drunk and search him and get
- 26:57Speaker 1: the diamonds and do for him too, if it weren't
- 27:00Speaker 1: too risky, if we got the swag, we'd got to
- 27:03Speaker 1: do for him, or he would hunt us down and
- 27:05Speaker 1: do for us, sure, but I didn't have no real hope.
- 27:08Speaker 1: I knowed we could get him drunk. He was always
- 27:11Speaker 1: ready for that. But what's the good of it? You
- 27:14Speaker 1: might search him a year and never fight. Well, right there,
- 27:17Speaker 1: I catched my breath and broke off my thought for
- 27:20Speaker 1: an idea went ripping through my head that tore my
- 27:23Speaker 1: brains to rags and land. But I felt gay and good.
- 27:27Speaker 1: You see, I had had my boots off to unswell
- 27:30Speaker 1: my feet, and just then I took up one of
- 27:33Speaker 1: them to put it on, and I catched a glimpse
- 27:35Speaker 1: of the heel bottom, and it just took my breath away.
- 27:38Speaker 1: You remember about that puzzlesome little screwdriver, You bet I do,
- 27:43Speaker 1: says Tom, all excited. Well, when I catched that glimpse
- 27:47Speaker 1: of that boot heel, the idea that went smashing through
- 27:50Speaker 1: my head was I know where he'd hid the di'monds.
- 27:54Speaker 1: You look at this boot heel. Now, see it's bottom
- 27:57Speaker 1: with a steel plate, and the plate is fastened on
- 28:00Speaker 1: with little screws. Now, there wasn't a screw about that
- 28:03Speaker 1: feller anywhere but in his boot heels. So if he
- 28:06Speaker 1: needed a screwdriver, I reckoned. I knowed why huck ain't
- 28:10Speaker 1: it bully, says Tom. Well, I got my boots on
- 28:15Speaker 1: and we went down and slipped in and laid the
- 28:17Speaker 1: paper of sugar on the berth, and sat down soft
- 28:20Speaker 1: and sheepish, and went to listening to Bud Dixon's snore.
- 28:24Speaker 1: Hal Clayton dropped off pretty soon, but I didn't. I
- 28:27Speaker 1: wasn't ever so wide awake in my life. I was
- 28:30Speaker 1: spying out from under the shade of my hat brim,
- 28:33Speaker 1: searching the floor for leather. It took me a long time,
- 28:36Speaker 1: and I begun to think maybe my guess was wrong,
- 28:38Speaker 1: But at last I struck it. It laid over by
- 28:42Speaker 1: the bulkhead and was nearly the color of the carpet.
- 28:45Speaker 1: It was a little round plug, about as thick as
- 28:47Speaker 1: the end of your little finger. And I says to myself,
- 28:50Speaker 1: there's a diamond in the nest you've come from. Before
- 28:53Speaker 1: long I spied out the Plug's mate. Think of the
- 28:56Speaker 1: smartness and coolness of that blatherskite. He put up that
- 29:00Speaker 1: scheme on us and reasoned out what we would do,
- 29:02Speaker 1: And we went ahead and done it perfectly exact, like
- 29:05Speaker 1: a couple of pudd'n heads. He sat there and took
- 29:08Speaker 1: his own time to unscrew his heel plates and cut
- 29:11Speaker 1: out his plugs and stick in the diamonds and screw
- 29:15Speaker 1: on his plates again. He lowed, we would steal the
- 29:18Speaker 1: bogus swag and wait all night for him to come
- 29:20Speaker 1: up and get drowned and buy George. It's just what
- 29:23Speaker 1: we'd done. I think it was powerful, smart. You bet
- 29:26Speaker 1: your life it was, says Tom, just full of admiration.
- 29:30Speaker 1: End of Chapter three. Chapter four The three sleepers, well,
- 29:37Speaker 1: all day we went through the humbug of watching one another,
- 29:40Speaker 1: and it was pretty sickly business for two of us,
- 29:42Speaker 1: and hard to act out. I can tell you about night.
- 29:46Speaker 1: We landed at one of them little Missouri towns, high
- 29:49Speaker 1: up toward Iowa, and had supper at the tavern, and
- 29:53Speaker 1: got a room upstairs with a cot and a double
- 29:55Speaker 1: bed in it. But I dumped my bag under a
- 29:58Speaker 1: deal table in the dark hall while we was moving
- 30:00Speaker 1: along it to bed, single file, me last, and the
- 30:04Speaker 1: landlord in lead. With a tallow candle. We had up
- 30:07Speaker 1: a lot of whiskey and went to playing high low
- 30:10Speaker 1: jack for dimes, and as soon as the whisky begun
- 30:12Speaker 1: to take hold of bud, we stopped drinking, but we
- 30:15Speaker 1: didn't let him stop. We loaded him till he fell
- 30:18Speaker 1: out of his chair and laid there snoring. We was
- 30:21Speaker 1: ready for business now. I said, we'd better pull our
- 30:25Speaker 1: boots off and his'n too, and not make any noise.
- 30:28Speaker 1: Then we could pull him and haul him round and
- 30:30Speaker 1: ransack him without any trouble. So we done it. I
- 30:33Speaker 1: set my boots and buds side by side where they'd
- 30:37Speaker 1: be handy. Then we stripped him and searched his seams
- 30:40Speaker 1: and his pockets and his socks and inside of his
- 30:42Speaker 1: boots and everything, and searched his bundle. Never found any diamonds.
- 30:47Speaker 1: We found a screwdriver, and Hal says, oh, what do
- 30:49Speaker 1: you reckon? He wanted with that? I said I didn't know,
- 30:53Speaker 1: but when he wasn't looking, I hooked it. At last.
- 30:56Speaker 1: Hal he looked beat and discouraged and said we'd got
- 30:59Speaker 1: to give it up. That was what I was waiting for.
- 31:02Speaker 1: I says, there's one place we hain't searched. What place
- 31:06Speaker 1: is that? He says, his stomach? By gracious, I never
- 31:10Speaker 1: thought of that. Now we're on the home stretch to
- 31:13Speaker 1: a dead moral certainty. How'll we manage well? I says,
- 31:18Speaker 1: just stay by him till I turn out and hunt
- 31:21Speaker 1: up a drug store, and I reckon, I'll fetch something
- 31:23Speaker 1: that'll make them di'monds tired of the company their keeping.
- 31:26Speaker 1: He said that's the ticket, and with him looking straight
- 31:29Speaker 1: at me, I slid myself into buds boots instead of
- 31:32Speaker 1: my own, and he never noticed. They was just a
- 31:35Speaker 1: shade large for me, but that was considerable better than
- 31:38Speaker 1: being too small. I got my bag as I went
- 31:40Speaker 1: a groping through the hall, and in about a minute
- 31:43Speaker 1: I was out the back way and stretching up the
- 31:46Speaker 1: river road at a five mile gait, and not feeling
- 31:49Speaker 1: so very bad. Neither walking on di'monds don't have no
- 31:53Speaker 1: such effect. When I had gone fifteen minutes, I says
- 31:56Speaker 1: to myself, there's more'n a mile behind me, and everything quiet.
- 32:00Speaker 1: Another five minutes and I says there's considerable more land
- 32:03Speaker 1: behind me now, and there's a man back there that's
- 32:06Speaker 1: begun to wonder what's the trouble. Another five and I
- 32:09Speaker 1: says to myself, he's getting real uneasy. He's walking the floor.
- 32:13Speaker 1: Now Another five and I says to myself there's two
- 32:17Speaker 1: miles and a half behind me, and he's awful uneasy,
- 32:20Speaker 1: beginning to cuss. I reckon pretty soon, I says to myself.
- 32:24Speaker 1: Forty minutes gone, he knows there's somethin up. Fifty minutes
- 32:28Speaker 1: the truth's busting on him. Now he is reckoning. I
- 32:31Speaker 1: found the diamonds whilst we was searching, and shoved them
- 32:33Speaker 1: in my pocket and never let on. Yes, and he's
- 32:36Speaker 1: starting out to hunt for me. He'll hunt for new
- 32:39Speaker 1: tracks in the dust, and they'll as likely send him down.
- 32:41Speaker 1: The river is up. Just then I see a man
- 32:44Speaker 1: coming down on a mule, and before I thought, I
- 32:47Speaker 1: jumped into the bush. It was stupid. When he got abreast,
- 32:50Speaker 1: he stopped and waited a little for me to come out,
- 32:52Speaker 1: and then he rode on again. But I didn't feel
- 32:55Speaker 1: gay any more, I says to myself. I've watched my
- 32:58Speaker 1: chances by that I shall surely have if he meets
- 33:01Speaker 1: up with hal Clayton. Well, about three in the morning,
- 33:04Speaker 1: I fetched Alexandria and see this stern wheeler laying there,
- 33:09Speaker 1: and was very glad because I felt perfectly safe. Now
- 33:12Speaker 1: you know, it was just daybreak. I went aboard and
- 33:16Speaker 1: got this stateroom and put on these clothes and went
- 33:19Speaker 1: up in the pilot house to watch, though I didn't
- 33:21Speaker 1: reckon there was any need of it. I sat there
- 33:24Speaker 1: and played with my diamonds and waited and waited for
- 33:26Speaker 1: the boat to start. But she didn't. You see, they
- 33:30Speaker 1: was mending her machinery, but I didn't know anything about it,
- 33:33Speaker 1: not being very much used to steamboats. Well, to cut
- 33:37Speaker 1: the tail short. We never left there till plumb noon,
- 33:40Speaker 1: and long before that, I was hid in this stateroom
- 33:43Speaker 1: for before breakfast. I see a man coming away off
- 33:47Speaker 1: that had a gate like hal Clayton's, and it made
- 33:49Speaker 1: me just sick, I says to myself. If he finds
- 33:52Speaker 1: out I'm aboard this boat, he's got me like a
- 33:55Speaker 1: rat in a trap. All he's got to do is
- 33:57Speaker 1: to have me watched and wait till I slip ashore,
- 34:01Speaker 1: thinking he is a thousand miles away. Then slip after
- 34:05Speaker 1: me and dog me to a good place and make
- 34:07Speaker 1: me give up the di'monds, and then he'll, oh, I
- 34:10Speaker 1: know what he'll do. Ain't it awful? Awful? And now
- 34:15Speaker 1: to think the other ones aboard too, Oh, ain't it hard? Luck? Boys?
- 34:19Speaker 1: Ain't it hard? But you'll help save me, won't you? Oh? Boys?
- 34:24Speaker 1: Be good to a poor devil that's being hunted to death,
- 34:26Speaker 1: and save me. I'll worship the very ground you walk on.
- 34:30Speaker 1: We turned in and soothed him down and told him
- 34:33Speaker 1: we would plan for him and help him, and he
- 34:35Speaker 1: needn't be so feared, And so by and by he
- 34:38Speaker 1: got to feeling kind of comfortable again, and unscrewed his
- 34:41Speaker 1: heel plates and held up his diamonds this way and that,
- 34:44Speaker 1: admiring them and loving them. And when the light struck
- 34:48Speaker 1: into them, they was beautiful. Sure why they seemed to
- 34:51Speaker 1: kind of bust and snap fire out all around, but
- 34:55Speaker 1: all the same, I judged he was a fool. If
- 34:57Speaker 1: I had been him, I would have handed the diamonds
- 34:59Speaker 1: to the pals and got them to go ashore and
- 35:01Speaker 1: leave me alone. But he was made different. He said
- 35:05Speaker 1: it was a whole fortune, and he couldn't bear the
- 35:07Speaker 1: IDEA Twice we stopped to fix the machinery and lay
- 35:11Speaker 1: it a good while once in the night, but it
- 35:14Speaker 1: wasn't dark enough, and he was a feared to skip.
- 35:17Speaker 1: But the third time we had to fix it there
- 35:19Speaker 1: was a better chance. We laid up at a country
- 35:21Speaker 1: woodyard about forty mile above Uncle Silas's place a little
- 35:25Speaker 1: after one at night, and it was thickening up and
- 35:28Speaker 1: going to storm, so Jake he laid for a chance
- 35:30Speaker 1: to slide. We began to take in wood. Pretty soon
- 35:34Speaker 1: the rain come a drenching down and the wind blowed hard.
- 35:37Speaker 1: Of course, every boat hand fixed a gunnysack and put
- 35:41Speaker 1: it on like a bonnet, the way they do when
- 35:43Speaker 1: they are toting wood, and we got one for Jake,
- 35:45Speaker 1: and he slipped down aft with his hand bag and
- 35:48Speaker 1: come tramping forward just like the rest, and walked ashore
- 35:51Speaker 1: with them. And when we see him pass out of
- 35:54Speaker 1: the light of the torch basket and get swallowed up
- 35:56Speaker 1: in the dark, we got our breath again and just
- 35:59Speaker 1: felt great, full and splendid. But it wasn't for long.
- 36:02Speaker 1: Somebody told I reckon, for in about eight or ten
- 36:06Speaker 1: minutes them two pals come tearing forward as tight as
- 36:08Speaker 1: they could jump, and darted ashore and was gone. We
- 36:11Speaker 1: waited plumb till dawn for them to come back, and
- 36:14Speaker 1: kept hoping they would, but they never did. We was awful,
- 36:17Speaker 1: sorry and low spirited. All the hope we had was
- 36:21Speaker 1: that Jake had got such a start that they couldn't
- 36:23Speaker 1: get on his track and he would get to his
- 36:25Speaker 1: brothers and hide there and be safe. He was going
- 36:28Speaker 1: to take the river road and told us to find
- 36:30Speaker 1: out if Brace and Jubiter was to home and no
- 36:33Speaker 1: strangers there, and then slip out about sundown and tell him.
- 36:37Speaker 1: Said he would wait for us in a little bunch
- 36:39Speaker 1: of sycamores right back of Tom's uncle Silas's tobackerfield on
- 36:43Speaker 1: the river road, a lonesome place. We sat and talked
- 36:46Speaker 1: a long time about his chances, and Tom said he
- 36:49Speaker 1: was all right if the pals struck up the river
- 36:52Speaker 1: instead of down, but it wasn't likely because maybe they
- 36:55Speaker 1: knowed where he was from. More likely they would go
- 36:58Speaker 1: right and dog him all day, him not suspecting, and
- 37:02Speaker 1: kill him when it come duck and take the boots.
- 37:05Speaker 1: So we was pretty sorrowful. End of Chapter four, Chapter five,
- 37:11Speaker 1: A Tragedy in the Woods. We didn't get done tinkering
- 37:15Speaker 1: the machinery till away late in the afternoon, and so
- 37:18Speaker 1: it was so close to sundown when we got home
- 37:20Speaker 1: that we never stopped on our road, but made a
- 37:23Speaker 1: break for the sycamores as tight as we could go
- 37:25Speaker 1: to tell Jake what the delay was and have him
- 37:28Speaker 1: wait till we could go to Braces and find out
- 37:30Speaker 1: how things was there. It was getting pretty dim by
- 37:33Speaker 1: the time we turned the corner of the woods, sweating
- 37:36Speaker 1: and panting with that long run, and see the sycamores
- 37:39Speaker 1: thirty yards ahead of us. And just then we see
- 37:42Speaker 1: a couple of men run into the bunch and heard
- 37:44Speaker 1: two or three terrible screams for help. Poor Jake is killed, sure,
- 37:48Speaker 1: we says. We was scared through and through and broke
- 37:52Speaker 1: for the tobacco field and hid there, trembling so our
- 37:55Speaker 1: clothes would hardly stay on. And just as we skipped
- 37:58Speaker 1: in there, a couple of men went tearing by, and
- 38:01Speaker 1: into the bunch they went, and in a second out
- 38:03Speaker 1: jumps four men and took out up the road as
- 38:06Speaker 1: tight as they could go, too, chasing two. We laid down,
- 38:10Speaker 1: kind of weak and sick and listened for more sounds,
- 38:13Speaker 1: but didn't hear none for a good while. But just
- 38:16Speaker 1: our hearts, we was thinking about that awful thing laying
- 38:19Speaker 1: yonder in the sycamores, and it seemed like being that
- 38:22Speaker 1: close to a ghost, and it give me the cold shudders.
- 38:25Speaker 1: The moon comes swellin up out of the ground, now powerful,
- 38:29Speaker 1: big an round and bright behind a comb of trees,
- 38:33Speaker 1: like a face looking through prison bars, and the black
- 38:36Speaker 1: shatters an white places begun to creep around, and it
- 38:39Speaker 1: was miserable, quiet and still, a night breezy and a
- 38:43Speaker 1: graveyardy and scary. All of a sudden, Tom whispers, Look
- 38:49Speaker 1: what's that? Don't, I says, don't take a person by
- 38:52Speaker 1: surprise that way. I'm most ready to die anyway without
- 38:55Speaker 1: you doing that. Look. I tell you it's something coming
- 38:58Speaker 1: out of the sycamores. Don't, Tom, it's terrible tall. Oh lordy, lordy,
- 39:04Speaker 1: let's keep still. It's comin this way. He was so
- 39:07Speaker 1: excited he could hardly get breath enough to whisper. I
- 39:11Speaker 1: had to look. I couldn't help it. So now we
- 39:14Speaker 1: was both on our knees with our chins on a
- 39:16Speaker 1: fence rail and gazing yes, and gasping too. It was
- 39:20Speaker 1: comin down the road, coming in the shatter of the trees,
- 39:23Speaker 1: and you couldn't see it good, not till it was
- 39:26Speaker 1: pretty close to us. Then it stepped into a bright
- 39:28Speaker 1: splotch of moonlight, and we sunk right down in our tracks.
- 39:32Speaker 1: It was Jake Dunlap's ghost. That was what we said
- 39:36Speaker 1: to ourselves. We couldn't stir for a minute or two.
- 39:39Speaker 1: Then it was gone. We talked about it in low voices.
- 39:42Speaker 1: Tom says, they're mostly dim and smoky, or like they've
- 39:47Speaker 1: made out of fog. But this one wasn't. No, I says.
- 39:53Speaker 1: I seen the goggles and the whiskers, perfectly plain, Yes,
- 39:57Speaker 1: and the very colors in them. Loud Country had Sunday clothes,
- 40:01Speaker 1: plaid breeches, green and black cotton, velvet waistcoat, fire red
- 40:07Speaker 1: and yaller squares, leather straps to the bottoms of the
- 40:11Speaker 1: breech's legs, and one of them hanging unbuttoned. Yes. And
- 40:15Speaker 1: that hat. What a hat for a ghost to wear?
- 40:18Speaker 1: You see, it was the first season anybody wore that
- 40:21Speaker 1: kind a black, stiff brimmed stovepipe, very high and not smooth,
- 40:25Speaker 1: with a round top, just like a sugar loaf. Did
- 40:28Speaker 1: you notice if its hair was the same, Huck, No,
- 40:32Speaker 1: seems to me I did. Then again, it seems to
- 40:34Speaker 1: me I didn't. I didn't either, But it had its
- 40:37Speaker 1: bag along. I noticed that, so did I. How can
- 40:40Speaker 1: there be a ghost bag, Tom show, I wouldn't be
- 40:44Speaker 1: as ignorant as that if I was. You huck Finn.
- 40:46Speaker 1: Whatever a ghost has turns to ghost stuff. They've got
- 40:49Speaker 1: to have their things like anybody else. You see it
- 40:52Speaker 1: yourself that its clothes was turned to ghost stuff. Well,
- 40:55Speaker 1: then wants to hander its bag from turning too. Of
- 40:58Speaker 1: course had done it. That was reasonable. I couldn't find
- 41:01Speaker 1: no fault with it. Bill Withers and his brother Jack
- 41:04Speaker 1: come along by talkin and Jack says what he reckon?
- 41:07Speaker 1: He was totin. I don't know, but it was pretty heavy. Yes,
- 41:13Speaker 1: all he could lug niggers stealing corn from old pysin Silas.
- 41:17Speaker 1: I judged, so did I, and so I allowed. I
- 41:20Speaker 1: wouldn't let on to see him. That's me too. Then
- 41:23Speaker 1: they both laughed and went on out o hearing. It
- 41:26Speaker 1: showed how unpopular old Uncle Silas had got to be. Now.
- 41:30Speaker 1: They wouldn't a let a nigger steal anybody else's corn.
- 41:33Speaker 1: An never done anything to him. We heard some more
- 41:36Speaker 1: voices mumbling along towards us and getting louder, and sometimes
- 41:40Speaker 1: the cackle of a laugh. It was Lem Beebe and
- 41:43Speaker 1: Jim Lane. Jim Lane says, hoo, Joe better dunlap. Yes, Oh,
- 41:49Speaker 1: I don't know, I reckon, So I seen him spadin'
- 41:52Speaker 1: up some ground along about an hour ago, just before
- 41:55Speaker 1: sundown him An the parson said he guessed he wouldn't
- 41:58Speaker 1: go to night, but we have his dog if we
- 42:01Speaker 1: wanted him too. Tired, I reckon, yes, works so hard,
- 42:06Speaker 1: Oh you bet. They cackled at that and went on by.
- 42:11Speaker 1: Tom said we'd better jump out and tag along with them,
- 42:14Speaker 1: because they was going our way and it wouldn't be
- 42:17Speaker 1: comfortable to run across the ghost all by ourselves. So
- 42:20Speaker 1: we'd done it and got home all right. That night
- 42:23Speaker 1: was the second of September, a Saturday. I shan't ever
- 42:26Speaker 1: forget it. You'll see why pretty soon. End of chapter five.
- 42:31Speaker 1: Chapter six plans to secure the diamonds. We tramped along
- 42:36Speaker 1: behind Jim and Lim till we come to the back
- 42:39Speaker 1: style where old Jim's cabin was that he was captivated
- 42:43Speaker 1: in the time we set him free, And here come
- 42:45Speaker 1: the dogs piling around us to say howdie. And there
- 42:49Speaker 1: was the lights of the house too, so we weren't
- 42:51Speaker 1: afeared anymore, and was going to climb over, but Tom says,
- 42:54Speaker 1: hold on, sit down here a minute. By George, what's
- 42:57Speaker 1: the matter? Says? I matter enough? He says, wasn't you
- 43:02Speaker 1: expecting we would be the first to tell the family
- 43:04Speaker 1: who it is that's been killed Yonder and the sycamores,
- 43:07Speaker 1: and all about them rapscallions that done it, and about
- 43:10Speaker 1: the diamonds they've smooched off of the corpse, and paint
- 43:13Speaker 1: it up fine, and have the glory of being the
- 43:15Speaker 1: ones that knows a lot more about it than anyone else. Why,
- 43:20Speaker 1: of course it wouldn't be you, Tom Sawyer, if you
- 43:23Speaker 1: was to let such a chance go by, I reckon
- 43:25Speaker 1: it ain't goin to suffer none for lack of paint,
- 43:28Speaker 1: I says, when you started to scollop the facts. Well, now,
- 43:32Speaker 1: he says, perfectly calm. What would you say if I
- 43:35Speaker 1: was to tell you I ain't goin to start it
- 43:37Speaker 1: at all? I was astonished to hear him talk, so
- 43:41Speaker 1: I says, I'd say it's a lie. You ain't in earnest,
- 43:44Speaker 1: Tom Sawyer. You'll soon see was the ghost barefooted? No
- 43:49Speaker 1: he wasn't. What of it? You wait, I'll show you what.
- 43:53Speaker 1: Did it have its boots on? Yes? I seen them?
- 43:56Speaker 1: Plain swear it. Yes, I swear it? So do I?
- 44:01Speaker 1: Now do you know what that means? No? What does
- 44:04Speaker 1: it mean means? That them thieves didn't get the diamonds. Jimminy,
- 44:10Speaker 1: what makes you think that? I don't only think it,
- 44:13Speaker 1: I know it didn't. The breeches and goggles and whiskers
- 44:16Speaker 1: and handbag and every blessed thing turned to ghost stuff.
- 44:20Speaker 1: Everything it had on turn, didn't it. It shows that
- 44:23Speaker 1: the reason its boots turned too was because it still
- 44:26Speaker 1: had them on after it started to go hatting around.
- 44:30Speaker 1: And if that ain't proof that them blathers skites didn't
- 44:33Speaker 1: get the boots, I'd like to know what you'd call
- 44:35Speaker 1: proof think of that now. I never see such a
- 44:39Speaker 1: head as that boy had. Why I had eyes and
- 44:42Speaker 1: I could see things, but they never meant nothing to me.
- 44:45Speaker 1: But Tom Sawyer was different. When Tom Sawyer seen a thing,
- 44:49Speaker 1: it just got up on its hind legs and talked
- 44:52Speaker 1: to him, told him everything it knowed. I'd never see
- 44:55Speaker 1: such a head Tom Sawyer, I says. I'll say it again,
- 44:59Speaker 1: as I've said it many a time before. I ain't
- 45:02Speaker 1: fittin to black your boots. But that's all right, that's
- 45:05Speaker 1: neither here nor there. God Almighty made us all, and
- 45:09Speaker 1: some he give eyes that's blind, and some he gives
- 45:12Speaker 1: eyes that can see, and I reckon, it ain't none
- 45:15Speaker 1: of our look out what he'd done it for? It's
- 45:17Speaker 1: all right, or he'd have fixed it some other way.
- 45:20Speaker 1: And go on, I see plenty plain enough now that
- 45:24Speaker 1: them thieves didn't get away with the diamonds. Why didn't
- 45:27Speaker 1: they do? You reckon? Because they got chased away by
- 45:31Speaker 1: them other two men before they could pull the boots
- 45:33Speaker 1: off the corpse. That's so, I see it now. But
- 45:37Speaker 1: look a here, Tom, Why ain't we to go and
- 45:40Speaker 1: tell about it? Oh? Shucks, huck finn, can't you see
- 45:44Speaker 1: look at it? What's it going to happen? There's going
- 45:47Speaker 1: to be an inquest in the mornin' Them two men
- 45:49Speaker 1: will tell how they heard the yells and rushed there
- 45:52Speaker 1: just in time to not save the stranger. Then the
- 45:55Speaker 1: jury'll twaddle and twaddle and twaddle, and finally they'll fetch
- 45:59Speaker 1: in a verdict that he got shot or stock or
- 46:01Speaker 1: busted over the head with something and come to his
- 46:04Speaker 1: death by the inspiration of God. And after they've buried him,
- 46:08Speaker 1: they'll auction off his things for to pay the expenses.
- 46:11Speaker 1: And then's our chance, how Tom buy the boots for
- 46:15Speaker 1: two dollars? Well, it most took my breath, my land. Why, tom,
- 46:21Speaker 1: we'll get the di'monds. You bet some day there'll be
- 46:25Speaker 1: a big reward offered for them. A thousand dollars. Sure,
- 46:28Speaker 1: that's our money. Now we'll trot in and see the folks.
- 46:32Speaker 1: And mind you, we don't know anything about any murder,
- 46:35Speaker 1: or any di'monds or any thieves. And don't you forget that.
- 46:38Speaker 1: I had to sigh a little over the way he
- 46:40Speaker 1: had got it fixed. I'd have sold them di'monds, yes, sir,
- 46:44Speaker 1: for twelve thousand dollars, but I didn't say anything. It
- 46:47Speaker 1: wouldn't have done any good. I says, But what are
- 46:50Speaker 1: we going to tell your aunt? Sally has made us
- 46:53Speaker 1: so long getting down here from the village. Tom Oh,
- 46:57Speaker 1: I'll leave that to you, he says, I reckon, you
- 46:59Speaker 1: can explain it somehow. He was always just that strict
- 47:02Speaker 1: and delicate. He never would tell a lie himself. We
- 47:06Speaker 1: struck across the big yard, noticing this, that and the
- 47:09Speaker 1: other thing that was so familiar, and we so glad
- 47:12Speaker 1: to see it again. And when we got to the
- 47:15Speaker 1: roofed big passageway betwixt the double log house and the
- 47:18Speaker 1: kitchen part, there was everything hanging on the wall, just
- 47:21Speaker 1: as it used to was even to Uncle Silas's old
- 47:24Speaker 1: faded green baize working gown with the hood to it
- 47:27Speaker 1: and raggedy white patch between the shoulders that always looked
- 47:31Speaker 1: like somebody had hit him with a snowball. And then
- 47:33Speaker 1: we lifted the latch and walked in. Aunt Sally. She
- 47:36Speaker 1: was just a rippin and a tearin' around, and the
- 47:39Speaker 1: children was huddled in one corner, and the old man,
- 47:42Speaker 1: he was huddled in the other and praying for help
- 47:44Speaker 1: in time of need. She jumped for us with joy
- 47:47Speaker 1: and tears running down her face, and give us a
- 47:49Speaker 1: whacking box on the ear, and then hugged us and
- 47:52Speaker 1: kissed us and boxed us again, and just couldn't seem
- 47:55Speaker 1: to get enough of it. She was so glad to
- 47:57Speaker 1: see us, and she says, where have you been? A
- 48:01Speaker 1: loafin two? You good for nothin' trash. I've been that
- 48:04Speaker 1: worried about you. I didn't know what to do your
- 48:07Speaker 1: traps has been here ever so long, and I've had
- 48:10Speaker 1: supper cooked fresh about four times so as to have
- 48:13Speaker 1: it hot and good when you come. Till at last
- 48:16Speaker 1: my patience has just plumb war out an I declare,
- 48:18Speaker 1: I I why I could skin you alive. You must
- 48:22Speaker 1: be starving, poor things. Sit down, Sit down, everybody, don't
- 48:26Speaker 1: lose no more time. It was good to be there again,
- 48:29Speaker 1: behind all that noble corn pone and spare ribs and
- 48:33Speaker 1: everything that you could ever want in this world. Old
- 48:35Speaker 1: uncle silas he peeled off one of his bulliest old
- 48:39Speaker 1: time blessings with as many layers to it as an onion.
- 48:42Speaker 1: And whilst the angels was hauling in the slack of it,
- 48:45Speaker 1: I was trying to study up what to say about
- 48:47Speaker 1: what kept us so long? When our plates was all
- 48:50Speaker 1: loadened and we'd a got a going, she asked me,
- 48:53Speaker 1: and I says, well, you see, missus, huck Finn, Since
- 48:58Speaker 1: when am I missus to you? Have I ever been
- 49:01Speaker 1: stingy of cuffs or kisses for you? Since the day
- 49:03Speaker 1: you stood in this room and I took you for
- 49:05Speaker 1: Tom Sawyer and blessed God for sending you to me.
- 49:08Speaker 1: Though you told me four thousand lies, and I believed
- 49:10Speaker 1: every one of them like a simpleton call me Aunt
- 49:13Speaker 1: Sally like you always done. So I'd done it, and
- 49:16Speaker 1: I says, well, me and Tom allowed we would come
- 49:20Speaker 1: along a foot and take a smell of the woods,
- 49:22Speaker 1: and we run across lem Beebee and Jim Lane, and
- 49:25Speaker 1: they asked us to go with them black bearing tonight
- 49:28Speaker 1: and said they could borrow Jubiter Dunlap's dog because he
- 49:31Speaker 1: had told them just that minute. Where did they see him?
- 49:34Speaker 1: Says the old man. And when I looked up to
- 49:37Speaker 1: see how he come to take an interest in a
- 49:39Speaker 1: little thing like that, his eyes was just burning into me.
- 49:42Speaker 1: He was that eager. It surprised me, so it kind
- 49:45Speaker 1: of throwed me off. But I pulled myself together again
- 49:48Speaker 1: and says it was when we was spading up some
- 49:51Speaker 1: ground along with you, towards sundown or along there. He
- 49:55Speaker 1: only said hmm in a kind of a disappointed way,
- 49:59Speaker 1: and didn't take no more interest. So I went on,
- 50:02Speaker 1: I says, well, then, as I was a saying that'll
- 50:05Speaker 1: do you needn't go no further, it was Aunt Sally.
- 50:09Speaker 1: She was boring right into me with her eyes and
- 50:11Speaker 1: very indignant. Hut finn. She says, how'd them men come
- 50:15Speaker 1: to talk about going a black berrying in September in
- 50:19Speaker 1: this region? I see I had slipped up, and I
- 50:22Speaker 1: couldn't say a word. She waited, still a gazing at me.
- 50:26Speaker 1: Then she says, and how'd they come to strike that
- 50:29Speaker 1: idiot idea of going a blackberrying in the night? Well
- 50:34Speaker 1: they are They told us they had a lantern, and
- 50:38Speaker 1: oh shut up, do look here? What was they going
- 50:42Speaker 1: to do with the dog? Hunt blackberries with it? I think, man?
- 50:46Speaker 1: They naw, Tom Sawyer, what kind of a lie are
- 50:49Speaker 1: you fixing your mouth to contribute to this mess of rubbage?
- 50:52Speaker 1: Speak out? And I warn you before you begin that
- 50:55Speaker 1: I don't believe a word of it. You and Huck's
- 50:57Speaker 1: been up to something, you know, business to I know
- 50:59Speaker 1: it perfect well, I know you, both of you. Now
- 51:03Speaker 1: you explained that dog and then blackberries and the lantern
- 51:06Speaker 1: and the rest of that rot And mind you talk
- 51:08Speaker 1: as straight as a string, d'ye hear? Tom? He looked
- 51:11Speaker 1: considerable hurt and says, very dignified. It is a pity
- 51:16Speaker 1: if Huck is to be talked to that way, just
- 51:19Speaker 1: from making a little bit of a mistake that anybody
- 51:21Speaker 1: could make. What mistake has he made? Why only the
- 51:26Speaker 1: mistake of saying blackberries, when, of course he meant strawberries,
- 51:30Speaker 1: Tom Sawyer, I lay, if you aggravate me a little more,
- 51:32Speaker 1: I'll Aunt Sally, without knowing it, and of course without
- 51:36Speaker 1: intending it, you are in the wrong. If you'd have
- 51:39Speaker 1: studied natural history the way you walked to you would
- 51:42Speaker 1: know that all over the world except just here in Arkansas,
- 51:45Speaker 1: they always hunt strawberries with a dog and a lantern.
- 51:49Speaker 1: But she busted in on him there and just piled
- 51:52Speaker 1: into him and snowed him under. She was so mad
- 51:54Speaker 1: she couldn't get the words out fast enough, and she
- 51:57Speaker 1: gushed them out in one everlasting fresh That was what
- 52:01Speaker 1: Tom Sawyer was after. He allowed to work her up
- 52:04Speaker 1: and get her started, and then leave her alone and
- 52:07Speaker 1: let her burn herself out. Then she would be so
- 52:09Speaker 1: aggravated with that subject that she wouldn't say another word
- 52:12Speaker 1: about it, nor let anybody else. Well, it happened just
- 52:16Speaker 1: so when she was tuckered out and had to hold up,
- 52:20Speaker 1: he says, quite calm, and yet all the same, Aunt
- 52:23Speaker 1: Sally shut up. She says, I don't want to hear
- 52:26Speaker 1: another word out of you. So we was perfectly safe
- 52:30Speaker 1: then and didn't have no more trouble about that delay.
- 52:33Speaker 1: Tom done it elegant. End of chapter six, Chapter seven,
- 52:39Speaker 1: A Night's Vigil Banny. She was looking pretty sober, and
- 52:45Speaker 1: she sighed some now and then, but pretty soon she
- 52:48Speaker 1: got to asking about Mary and Sid and Tom's Aunt Polly,
- 52:52Speaker 1: and then Aunt Sally's clouds cleared off, and she got
- 52:55Speaker 1: in a good humor and joined in on the questions
- 52:58Speaker 1: and was her lovingest, best self. And so the rest
- 53:01Speaker 1: of the supper went along, gay and pleasant. But the
- 53:04Speaker 1: old man he didn't take any hand hardly, and was
- 53:07Speaker 1: absent minded and restless, and done a considerable amount of sighing,
- 53:11Speaker 1: And it was kind of heartbreaking to see him so
- 53:13Speaker 1: sad and troubled and worried by and by a spell
- 53:17Speaker 1: after supper come a nigger and knocked on the door
- 53:19Speaker 1: and put his head in with his old straw hat
- 53:21Speaker 1: in his hand, bowing and scraping, and said his Mar's
- 53:25Speaker 1: brace was out at the style, and wanted his brother,
- 53:28Speaker 1: and was getting tired waiting supper for him, and would
- 53:31Speaker 1: Mars Silas please tell him where he was? I never
- 53:35Speaker 1: see Uncle Silas speak up so sharp and fractious before
- 53:38Speaker 1: he says, am I his brother's keeper? And then he
- 53:42Speaker 1: kind of wilted together and looked like he wished he
- 53:45Speaker 1: hadn't spoken so, and then he says, very gentle, but
- 53:48Speaker 1: you needn't say that. Billy. I was took sudden and irritable,
- 53:53Speaker 1: and I ain't very well these days, and not hardly responsible.
- 53:56Speaker 1: Tell him he ain't he And when the nigger was gone,
- 53:59Speaker 1: he got up and walked the floor backwards and forwards,
- 54:03Speaker 1: mumbling and muttering to himself and plowing his hands through
- 54:07Speaker 1: his hair. It was real pitiful to see him, aunt Sally,
- 54:11Speaker 1: she whispered to us, and told us not to take
- 54:13Speaker 1: notice of him. It embarrassed him. She said he was
- 54:16Speaker 1: always thinking and thinking since these troubles come on, And
- 54:20Speaker 1: she allowed he didn't more'n bout half know what he
- 54:23Speaker 1: was about when the thinking spells was on him. And
- 54:26Speaker 1: she said he walked in his sleep considerable more now
- 54:29Speaker 1: than he used to, and sometimes wandered around over the
- 54:32Speaker 1: house and even outdoors in his sleep. And if we
- 54:35Speaker 1: catched him at it, we must let him alone and
- 54:37Speaker 1: not disturb him, she said, she reckoned it didn't do
- 54:40Speaker 1: no harm, and maybe it done him good. She said
- 54:44Speaker 1: Benny was the only one that was much help to
- 54:46Speaker 1: him these days. Said Benny appeared to know just when
- 54:50Speaker 1: to try to soothe him and when to leave him alone.
- 54:52Speaker 1: So he kept on tramping up and down the floor
- 54:55Speaker 1: and muttering till by and by he begun to look
- 54:58Speaker 1: pretty tired. Then, Benny, she went and snuggled up to
- 55:01Speaker 1: his side, and put one hand in his and one
- 55:05Speaker 1: arm around his waist, and walked with him, and he
- 55:08Speaker 1: smiled down on her and reached down and kissed her,
- 55:11Speaker 1: and so little by little the trouble went out of
- 55:14Speaker 1: his face, and she persuaded him off to his room.
- 55:17Speaker 1: They had very petting ways together, and it was uncommon
- 55:20Speaker 1: pretty to see Aunt Sally. She was busy getting the
- 55:23Speaker 1: children ready for bed, So by and by it got
- 55:26Speaker 1: dull and tedious, and me and Tom took a turn
- 55:29Speaker 1: in the moonlight and fetched up in the watermelon patch
- 55:32Speaker 1: and et one and had a good deal of talk.
- 55:34Speaker 1: And Tom said he'd bet the quarreling was all Jubiter's fault,
- 55:38Speaker 1: and he was going to be on hand the first
- 55:40Speaker 1: time he got a chance and see, and if it
- 55:42Speaker 1: was so, he was going to do his level best
- 55:45Speaker 1: to get Uncle Silas to turn him off. And so
- 55:48Speaker 1: we talked and smoked and stuffed watermelons much as two hours,
- 55:52Speaker 1: and then it was pretty late, and when we got
- 55:54Speaker 1: back the house was quiet and dark, and everybody gone
- 55:57Speaker 1: to bed. Tom he always seen everything, and now he
- 56:01Speaker 1: see that the old green baize work gown was gone,
- 56:05Speaker 1: and said it wasn't gone when he went out, so
- 56:07Speaker 1: he allowed it was curious, and then we went up
- 56:09Speaker 1: to bed. We could hear Benny stirring round in her room,
- 56:12Speaker 1: which was next time, and judged she was worried a
- 56:16Speaker 1: good deal about her father and couldn't sleep. We found
- 56:19Speaker 1: we couldn't either, so we set up a long time
- 56:22Speaker 1: and smoked and talked in a low voice and felt
- 56:25Speaker 1: pretty dull and downhearted. We talked the murderer and the
- 56:28Speaker 1: ghost over and over again and got so creepy and
- 56:31Speaker 1: crawley we couldn't get sleepy. Nohow and no way bye bye.
- 56:36Speaker 1: When it was away late in the night and all
- 56:38Speaker 1: the sounds was late sounds and solemn. Tom nudged me
- 56:41Speaker 1: and whispers to me, look and I'd done it. And
- 56:44Speaker 1: there we see a man poking around in the yard
- 56:47Speaker 1: like he didn't know just what he wanted to do,
- 56:49Speaker 1: but it was pretty dim and we couldn't see him good.
- 56:52Speaker 1: Then he started for the style, and as he went
- 56:55Speaker 1: over it, the moon came out strong and he had
- 56:58Speaker 1: a long handled shovel over his shoulder, and we see
- 57:01Speaker 1: the white patch on the old workgown. So Tom says,
- 57:04Speaker 1: he's walking in his sleep. I wish we was allowed
- 57:07Speaker 1: to follow him and see where he's going to. There
- 57:10Speaker 1: he's turned down by the tobacco field, out of sight.
- 57:13Speaker 1: Now it's a dreadful pity. He can't rest no better.
- 57:17Speaker 1: We waited a long time, but he didn't come back anymore,
- 57:21Speaker 1: or if he did, he'd come around the other way.
- 57:23Speaker 1: So at last we was tuckered out and went to
- 57:25Speaker 1: sleep and had nightmares, a million of them. But before
- 57:29Speaker 1: dawn we was awake again because meantime a storm had
- 57:33Speaker 1: come up and been raging, and the thunder and lightning
- 57:35Speaker 1: was awful, and the wind was a thrashing the trees around,
- 57:39Speaker 1: and the rain was driving down and slanting sheets, and
- 57:42Speaker 1: the gullies was running rivers. Tom says, lookye here, huck,
- 57:46Speaker 1: I'll tell you one thing that's mighty curious. Up to
- 57:49Speaker 1: the time we went out last night, the family hadn't
- 57:51Speaker 1: heard about Jake Dunlap being murdered. Now, the men that
- 57:55Speaker 1: chased Hal Clayton and Bud Dixon away would spread the
- 57:58Speaker 1: thing around in half an hour, and neighbor that heard
- 58:01Speaker 1: it would shin out and fly around from one farm
- 58:03Speaker 1: to' other and try to be the first to tell
- 58:05Speaker 1: the news. Land. They don't have such a big thing
- 58:09Speaker 1: as that to tell twice in thirty year, Huck, it's
- 58:12Speaker 1: mighty strange. I don't understand it. So then he was
- 58:15Speaker 1: in a fidget for the rain to let up so
- 58:17Speaker 1: we could turn out and run across some of the
- 58:20Speaker 1: people and see if they would say anything about it
- 58:22Speaker 1: to us. And he said, if they did, we must
- 58:25Speaker 1: be horribly surprised and shocked. We was out and gone
- 58:28Speaker 1: a minute the rain stopped. It was just broad day.
- 58:31Speaker 1: Then we loafed along up the road and now and
- 58:34Speaker 1: then met a person and stopped and said howdy, and
- 58:36Speaker 1: told them when we come, and how we left the
- 58:38Speaker 1: folks at home, and how long we was going to
- 58:41Speaker 1: stay and all that. But none of them said a
- 58:44Speaker 1: word about that thing, which was just astonishing, and no mistake.
- 58:48Speaker 1: Tom said he believed if we went to the sycamores,
- 58:51Speaker 1: we would find that body laying there, solitary and alone,
- 58:54Speaker 1: and not a soul around. Said he believed the men
- 58:57Speaker 1: chased the thieves so far into the woods that the thieves.
- 58:59Speaker 1: Probably I've seen a good chance and turned on them
- 59:01Speaker 1: at last, and maybe they all killed each other, and
- 59:04Speaker 1: so there wasn't anybody left to tell. First renowed gabbling
- 59:08Speaker 1: along that way. We was right at the sycamores. The
- 59:11Speaker 1: cold chills trickled down my back, and I wouldn't budge
- 59:15Speaker 1: another step for all Tom's persuading, But he couldn't hold in.
- 59:19Speaker 1: He'd got to see if the boots were safe on
- 59:21Speaker 1: that body yet, so he crope in and the next
- 59:24Speaker 1: minute out he comes again, with his eyes bulging. He
- 59:26Speaker 1: was so excited and says, Huck, it's gone. I was astonished.
- 59:32Speaker 1: I says, Tom, you don't meet it. It's gone. Sure,
- 59:35Speaker 1: there ain't a sign of it. The ground has trampled some,
- 59:38Speaker 1: but if there was any blood, it's all washed away
- 59:42Speaker 1: by the storm, for it's all puddles and slush in there.
- 59:45Speaker 1: At last, I gave in and went and took a
- 59:47Speaker 1: look myself, and it was just as Tom said. There
- 59:50Speaker 1: wasn't a sign of a corpse. Turn it, I says,
- 59:54Speaker 1: the di'monds is gone. Don't you reckon? The thieves slunk
- 59:57Speaker 1: back and lugged him off. Tom looks like it. It
- 1:00:00Speaker 1: just does now where'd they hide him? Do you reckon?
- 1:00:03Speaker 1: I don't know, I says, disgusted. And what's more, I
- 1:00:06Speaker 1: don't care. They've got the boots, and that's all I
- 1:00:09Speaker 1: cared about. He'll lay around these woods a long time
- 1:00:12Speaker 1: before I hunt him up. Tom didn't feel no more
- 1:00:15Speaker 1: interest in him, neither, only curiosity to know what come
- 1:00:19Speaker 1: of him. But he said we'd lay low and keep dark,
- 1:00:21Speaker 1: and it wouldn't belonged till the dogs or somebody roused
- 1:00:24Speaker 1: him out. We went back home to breakfast. Ever so
- 1:00:27Speaker 1: bothered and put out and disappointed and swindled. I warn't
- 1:00:32Speaker 1: ever so down on a corpse before end of chapter seven,
- 1:00:37Speaker 1: Chapter eight, talking with the ghost, it warn't very cheerful
- 1:00:42Speaker 1: at breakfast. Aunt Sally she looked old and tired and
- 1:00:46Speaker 1: let the children snarl and s fuss at one another,
- 1:00:48Speaker 1: and didn't seem to notice it was going on, which
- 1:00:51Speaker 1: wasn't her usual style. Me and Tom had plenty to
- 1:00:54Speaker 1: think about without talking. Benny, she looked like she hadn't
- 1:00:58Speaker 1: had much sleep, and whenever she'd lift her head a
- 1:01:00Speaker 1: little and steal a look towards her father, you could
- 1:01:03Speaker 1: see there was tears in her eyes. And as for
- 1:01:06Speaker 1: the old man. His thing stayed on his plate and
- 1:01:08Speaker 1: got cold without him knowing they was there. I reckon,
- 1:01:11Speaker 1: for he was thinking and thinking all the time, and
- 1:01:14Speaker 1: never said a word, and never read a bite. By
- 1:01:17Speaker 1: and by when it was stillest, that nigger's head was
- 1:01:20Speaker 1: poked in at the door again, and he said his
- 1:01:22Speaker 1: Mar's brace was getting powerful, uneasy about Mars Jubiter, which
- 1:01:26Speaker 1: hadn't come home yet, and would Mars Silas please. He
- 1:01:30Speaker 1: was looking at Uncle Silas, and he stopped there like
- 1:01:32Speaker 1: the rest of his words was froze. For Uncle Silas.
- 1:01:35Speaker 1: He rose up shaky and steadied himself, leaning his fingers
- 1:01:38Speaker 1: on the table, and he was panting, and his eyes
- 1:01:41Speaker 1: was set on the nigga, and he kept swallowing and
- 1:01:44Speaker 1: put his other hand up to his throat a couple
- 1:01:46Speaker 1: of times, and at last he got his words started
- 1:01:48Speaker 1: and says, does he does he think? What does he think?
- 1:01:55Speaker 1: Tell him? Tell him? Then he sunk down in his
- 1:01:59Speaker 1: chair and weak and says, so as you could hardly
- 1:02:02Speaker 1: hear him, go away, go away. Nigga looked scared and
- 1:02:07Speaker 1: cleared out, and we all felt well, I don't know
- 1:02:10Speaker 1: how we felt it, but it was awful with the
- 1:02:13Speaker 1: old man panting there, and his eyes set and looking
- 1:02:16Speaker 1: like a person that was dying. None of us could budge.
- 1:02:19Speaker 1: But Benny she slid around, soft, with her tears running down,
- 1:02:23Speaker 1: and stood by his side, and nestled his old gray
- 1:02:26Speaker 1: head up against her, and begun to stroke it and
- 1:02:29Speaker 1: pet it with her hands, and nodded to us to
- 1:02:31Speaker 1: go away. And we done it, going out, very quiet,
- 1:02:34Speaker 1: like the dead was there. Me and Tom struck out
- 1:02:37Speaker 1: for the woods, mighty solemn, and saying, how different it
- 1:02:40Speaker 1: was now to what it was last summer when we
- 1:02:42Speaker 1: was here, and everything was so peaceful and happy, and
- 1:02:45Speaker 1: everybody thought so much of Uncle Silas, and he was
- 1:02:48Speaker 1: so cheerful and simple hearted and putting headed and good.
- 1:02:52Speaker 1: And now look at him. If he hadn't lost his mind,
- 1:02:54Speaker 1: he wasn't much short of it. That was what we allowed.
- 1:02:58Speaker 1: It was a most lovely day, now, bright and sunshiny.
- 1:03:01Speaker 1: And the further and further we went over the hills
- 1:03:04Speaker 1: towards the prairie, the lovelier and lovelier the trees an
- 1:03:07Speaker 1: flowers got to be, and the more it seemed strange
- 1:03:10Speaker 1: and somehow wrong that there had to be trouble in
- 1:03:13Speaker 1: such a world as this, And then all of a
- 1:03:15Speaker 1: sudden I catched my breath and grabbed Tom's arm, and
- 1:03:18Speaker 1: all my livers and lungs an things fell down in
- 1:03:21Speaker 1: my legs. There it is, I says. We jumped back
- 1:03:24Speaker 1: behind a bus, shivering, and Tom says, sh don't make
- 1:03:27Speaker 1: a noise. It was settin on a log right in
- 1:03:31Speaker 1: the edge of a little prairie thinkin. I tried to
- 1:03:33Speaker 1: get Tom to come away, but he wouldn't. I doesn't
- 1:03:36Speaker 1: budge him by myself. He said we mightn't ever get
- 1:03:39Speaker 1: another chance to see one. An he was goin to
- 1:03:41Speaker 1: look his fill at this one if he died for it.
- 1:03:44Speaker 1: So I looked too, though it give me the fan
- 1:03:47Speaker 1: TODs to do it. Tom he had to talk, and
- 1:03:50Speaker 1: he talked low. He says, poor Jakie, it's got all
- 1:03:53Speaker 1: its things on, just as he said he would. Now
- 1:03:57Speaker 1: you see what we wasn't certain about. It's it's not
- 1:04:01Speaker 1: long now the way it was. It's got it cropped
- 1:04:04Speaker 1: close to its head the way he said he would.
- 1:04:07Speaker 1: HU can never see anything look any more naturaler than
- 1:04:09Speaker 1: what it does, nor I neither. I says I'd recognize
- 1:04:13Speaker 1: it anywheres, so would I. It looks perfectly solid and genuine,
- 1:04:18Speaker 1: just the way it done before it died. So we
- 1:04:21Speaker 1: kept gazing. Pretty soon, Tom says, Huck, there's something mighty
- 1:04:26Speaker 1: curious about this one, don't you know? It oughtn't to
- 1:04:28Speaker 1: be going around in the daytime. That's so, Tom, I
- 1:04:32Speaker 1: never heard the like of it before, No, sir, they
- 1:04:35Speaker 1: don't ever come out. Only at night, and then not
- 1:04:38Speaker 1: till after twelve. There's something wrong about this one, now,
- 1:04:42Speaker 1: you mark my words. I don't believe it's got any
- 1:04:44Speaker 1: right to be around in the daytime, But don't it
- 1:04:47Speaker 1: look natural? Jake was going to play deef and dumb here,
- 1:04:51Speaker 1: so the neighbors wouldn't know his voice. Do you reckon?
- 1:04:54Speaker 1: It would do that if we was to holler at it. Lordy,
- 1:04:57Speaker 1: Tom don't talk, So if you was to holler at
- 1:05:00Speaker 1: I'd die in my tracks, don't you worry. I ain't
- 1:05:03Speaker 1: going to holler at it. Look, Huck, it's a scratch
- 1:05:06Speaker 1: in its head, don't you see? Well? What of it?
- 1:05:09Speaker 1: Why this? What's the sense of it scratching its head?
- 1:05:12Speaker 1: There ain't anything there to itch. Its head is made
- 1:05:15Speaker 1: out of fog or something like that, and can't itch
- 1:05:18Speaker 1: a fog can't itch. Any fool knows that. Well, then
- 1:05:21Speaker 1: if it don't itch and can't itch, what the nation
- 1:05:24Speaker 1: is it scratching it for? Ain't it just habit? Don't
- 1:05:27Speaker 1: you reckon? No, sir, I don't. I ain't a bit
- 1:05:30Speaker 1: satisfied about the way this one acts. I've a blame
- 1:05:33Speaker 1: good notion. It's a bogus one. I have as sure
- 1:05:36Speaker 1: as I'm a sitting here, because if it, Huck, well,
- 1:05:41Speaker 1: what's the matter now? You can't see the bushes through it? Well? Tom,
- 1:05:47Speaker 1: it's so sure, it's as solid as a cow. Ah
- 1:05:51Speaker 1: sort of begin to think, Huck, it's biting off a
- 1:05:54Speaker 1: chaw off tobaccer by George. They don't chaw, they ain't
- 1:05:58Speaker 1: got anything to chaw with. Uck, I'm listenin. He ain't
- 1:06:02Speaker 1: a ghost at all. It's Jake Dunlap his own self.
- 1:06:07Speaker 1: Oh you're granny, I says Cuck. Finn. Did we find
- 1:06:10Speaker 1: any corpse in the sycamores? No, or any sign of one? No?
- 1:06:15Speaker 1: Mighty good reason hadn't ever been any corpse there? Why? Tom?
- 1:06:19Speaker 1: You know we heard, Yes, we did, heard a howl
- 1:06:22Speaker 1: or two. Does that prove anybody was killed? Course it don't.
- 1:06:26Speaker 1: And we see four men run, Then this one come
- 1:06:29Speaker 1: walkin' out an we took it for a ghost, no
- 1:06:31Speaker 1: more ghost than you are. It was Jake Dunlap his
- 1:06:34Speaker 1: own self, and it's Jake Dunlap. Now he's been and
- 1:06:38Speaker 1: got his hair cropped the way he said he would,
- 1:06:40Speaker 1: and he's playing himself for a stranger, just the same
- 1:06:43Speaker 1: as he said he would. Ghost. M he's as sound
- 1:06:47Speaker 1: as a nut. Then I see it all, and how
- 1:06:50Speaker 1: we had took too much for granted, I was powerful
- 1:06:53Speaker 1: glad he didn't get killed, and so is Tom. And
- 1:06:56Speaker 1: we wondered which he would like the best for us
- 1:06:59Speaker 1: to never let on to know him, or how Tom
- 1:07:03Speaker 1: reckoned the best way would be to go and ask him,
- 1:07:06Speaker 1: so he started, but I kept a little behind because
- 1:07:10Speaker 1: I didn't know if it might be a ghost after all.
- 1:07:12Speaker 1: When Tom got to where he was, he says me,
- 1:07:15Speaker 1: and Huck's mighty glad to see you again, and you
- 1:07:18Speaker 1: needn't be afeared. We'll tell And if you think it'll
- 1:07:21Speaker 1: be safer for you if we don't let on to
- 1:07:23Speaker 1: know you, when we run across you, say the word
- 1:07:26Speaker 1: and you'll see you can depend on us. And would
- 1:07:28Speaker 1: rather cut our hands off than get you into the
- 1:07:30Speaker 1: least little bit of danger. First off, he looked surprised
- 1:07:34Speaker 1: to see us, not very glad either, But as Tom
- 1:07:37Speaker 1: went on he looked pleasanter and when he was done,
- 1:07:40Speaker 1: he smiled and nodded his head several times and made
- 1:07:43Speaker 1: signs with his hands and says, gool gool ghoul the
- 1:07:48Speaker 1: way beef and dummies does. Just then we see some
- 1:07:52Speaker 1: of Steve Nickerson's people coming that lived to other side
- 1:07:55Speaker 1: of the prairie. So Tom says, you'd do it elegant.
- 1:07:58Speaker 1: I never see anybody do it. You're right. Play it
- 1:08:02Speaker 1: on us too, Play it on us same as the others.
- 1:08:04Speaker 1: It'll keep you in practice and prevent you making blunders.
- 1:08:08Speaker 1: We'll keep away from you and let on. We don't
- 1:08:10Speaker 1: know you, but anytime we can be any help you,
- 1:08:14Speaker 1: just let us know. Then we loafed along past the Nickersons,
- 1:08:18Speaker 1: and of course they asked if that was the new
- 1:08:20Speaker 1: stranger yonder, and where'd he come from, and what was
- 1:08:23Speaker 1: his name? And which communion was he Baptists or Methodist?
- 1:08:28Speaker 1: And which politics Whig or Democrat? And how long is
- 1:08:31Speaker 1: he staying and all them other questions that humans always
- 1:08:35Speaker 1: ask when a stranger comes and animals does too, but
- 1:08:38Speaker 1: Tom said he weren't able to make anything out of
- 1:08:41Speaker 1: deef and dumb signs, and the same with googooing. Then
- 1:08:44Speaker 1: we watched them go and bullyrag Jake because we was
- 1:08:48Speaker 1: pretty uneasy for him. Tom said it would take him
- 1:08:51Speaker 1: days to get so he wouldn't forget he was a
- 1:08:53Speaker 1: deef and dummy sometimes and speak out before he thought.
- 1:08:57Speaker 1: When we had watched long enough to see that Jake
- 1:08:59Speaker 1: was getting along all right and working his signs very good,
- 1:09:02Speaker 1: we loafed along again, allowing to strike the schoolhouse about
- 1:09:06Speaker 1: recess time, which was a three mile tramp. I was
- 1:09:10Speaker 1: so disappointed not to hear Jake tell about the row
- 1:09:12Speaker 1: and the sycamores and how near he come to getting killed,
- 1:09:16Speaker 1: that I couldn't seem to get over it. And Tom
- 1:09:18Speaker 1: he felt the same, but said if we was in
- 1:09:20Speaker 1: Jake's fix, we would want to go careful and keep
- 1:09:23Speaker 1: still and not take any chances. The boys and girls
- 1:09:26Speaker 1: was all glad to see us again, and we had
- 1:09:28Speaker 1: a real good time all through recess. Coming to school,
- 1:09:31Speaker 1: the Henderson boys had come across the new deef and
- 1:09:34Speaker 1: dummy and told the rest, so all the scholars was
- 1:09:37Speaker 1: chuck full of him and couldn't talk about anything else,
- 1:09:40Speaker 1: and was in a sweat to get a sight of him,
- 1:09:42Speaker 1: because they hadn't ever seen a deef and dummy in
- 1:09:44Speaker 1: their lives, and it made a powerful excitement. Tom said
- 1:09:48Speaker 1: it was tough to have to keep mum now, said
- 1:09:51Speaker 1: we would be heroes if we could come out and
- 1:09:53Speaker 1: tell all we knowed. But after all it was still
- 1:09:55Speaker 1: more heroic to keep mum. And weren't two boys and
- 1:09:58Speaker 1: a million could do it. That was Tom Sawyer's idea
- 1:10:01Speaker 1: about it, and I reckoned there warn't anybody could better it.
- 1:10:05Speaker 1: End of chapter eight. Chapter nine finding of Jubiter Dunlop.
- 1:10:11Speaker 1: In the next two or three days, dummy, he got
- 1:10:14Speaker 1: to be powerful popular. He went associating around with the neighbors,
- 1:10:19Speaker 1: and they made much of him, and was proud to
- 1:10:21Speaker 1: have such a rattling curiosity among them. They had him
- 1:10:25Speaker 1: to breakfast, they had him to dinner, they had him
- 1:10:28Speaker 1: to supper. They kept him loaded up with hog and hominy,
- 1:10:31Speaker 1: and warn't ever tired staring at him and wondering over
- 1:10:34Speaker 1: him and wishing they knowed more about him. He was
- 1:10:37Speaker 1: so uncommon and romantic. His signs warn't no good. People
- 1:10:42Speaker 1: couldn't understand them, and he probably couldn't himself, But he
- 1:10:45Speaker 1: did his sight of good gooing, and so everybody was
- 1:10:47Speaker 1: satisfied and admired to hear him go it. He toted
- 1:10:51Speaker 1: a piece of slate around and a pencil, and people
- 1:10:54Speaker 1: wrote questions on it, and he wrote answers. But there
- 1:10:57Speaker 1: warn't anybody could read his writing, but Brace Dunlap. Brace
- 1:11:01Speaker 1: said he couldn't read it very good, but he could
- 1:11:04Speaker 1: manage to dig out the meaning most of the time,
- 1:11:06Speaker 1: he said. Dummy said he belonged a way off somers
- 1:11:09Speaker 1: and used to be well off, but got busted by
- 1:11:12Speaker 1: swindlers which he had trusted, and was poor now and
- 1:11:16Speaker 1: hadn't any way to make a living. Everybody praised Brace
- 1:11:19Speaker 1: Dunlap for being so good to that stranger. He let
- 1:11:22Speaker 1: him have a little log cabin all to himself and
- 1:11:25Speaker 1: had his knittas take care of it and fetch him
- 1:11:27Speaker 1: all of it'lls he wanted. Dummy was at our house
- 1:11:30Speaker 1: some because old Silas was so afflicted himself these days
- 1:11:33Speaker 1: that anybody else that was afflicted was a comfort to him.
- 1:11:37Speaker 1: Me and Tom didn't let on that we had knowed
- 1:11:39Speaker 1: him before, and he didn't let on that he had
- 1:11:42Speaker 1: known us before. The family talked their troubles out before him,
- 1:11:45Speaker 1: the same as if he wasn't there, but we reckoned.
- 1:11:48Speaker 1: It wasn't any harm for him to hear what they said.
- 1:11:51Speaker 1: Generally he didn't seem to notice, but sometimes he did well.
- 1:11:55Speaker 1: Two or three days when long and everybody got to
- 1:11:58Speaker 1: getting uneasy about Jubiter Dunlap. Everybody was asking everybody if
- 1:12:03Speaker 1: they had any idea what had become of him. No,
- 1:12:06Speaker 1: they hadn't, they said, And they shook their heads and
- 1:12:09Speaker 1: said there was something powerful strange about it. Another and
- 1:12:13Speaker 1: another day went by. Then there was a report got
- 1:12:16Speaker 1: around that perhaps he was murdered. He'd bet it made
- 1:12:19Speaker 1: a big stir. Everybody's tongue was clacking away. After that Saturday,
- 1:12:24Speaker 1: two or three gangs turned out and hunted the woods
- 1:12:27Speaker 1: to see if they could run across his remainders. Me
- 1:12:30Speaker 1: and Tom helped, and it was noble, good times and exciting.
- 1:12:34Speaker 1: Tom he was so brim full of it he couldn't
- 1:12:37Speaker 1: eat nor rest. He said, if we could find that corpse,
- 1:12:40Speaker 1: we would be celebrated and more talked about than if
- 1:12:43Speaker 1: we got drowned. The others got tired and give it up,
- 1:12:46Speaker 1: but not Tom Sawyer. That warn't his style. Saturday night
- 1:12:50Speaker 1: he didn't sleep any hardly trying to think up a plan,
- 1:12:53Speaker 1: and towards daylight in the morning he struck it. He
- 1:12:56Speaker 1: snaked me out of bed and was all excited and says, quick,
- 1:13:00Speaker 1: snatch on your clothes. I've got it, bloodhound. In two
- 1:13:04Speaker 1: minutes we was tearin up the river road in the dark,
- 1:13:07Speaker 1: towards the village. Old Jeff Hooker had a bloodhound and
- 1:13:10Speaker 1: Tom was goin to borrow him. I says, the trail's
- 1:13:13Speaker 1: too old, Tom, An, besides, it's rained, you know it
- 1:13:17Speaker 1: don't make any difference, Huck. If the body's hid in
- 1:13:19Speaker 1: the woods anywhere around, the hound will find it. If
- 1:13:22Speaker 1: he's been murdered an buried, they wouldn't bury him deep.
- 1:13:25Speaker 1: It ain't likely. An. If the dog goes over the spot,
- 1:13:28Speaker 1: he'll send him. Sure, Huck, we're going to be celebrated.
- 1:13:32Speaker 1: Sure as you're born. He was just a blazing and
- 1:13:35Speaker 1: whenever he got a fire, he was most likely to
- 1:13:38Speaker 1: get a fire all over. That was the way this time.
- 1:13:42Speaker 1: In two minutes he got it all ciphered out an
- 1:13:44Speaker 1: wasn't only just going to find the corpse. No, he
- 1:13:47Speaker 1: was going to get on the track of that murderer
- 1:13:49Speaker 1: and hunt him down too. And not only that, but
- 1:13:52Speaker 1: he was goin to stick to him till well. I says,
- 1:13:55Speaker 1: you better find the corpse first. I reckon, that's a
- 1:13:58Speaker 1: plenty for today. For all we know, there ain't any corpse,
- 1:14:01Speaker 1: and nobody hain't been murdered. That Cuss could have gone
- 1:14:04Speaker 1: all summer's and not been killed at all. That graveled him.
- 1:14:08Speaker 1: And he says, huck Finn, I never see such a
- 1:14:11Speaker 1: person as you to want to spoil everything. As long
- 1:14:14Speaker 1: as you can't see anything hopeful in the thing, you
- 1:14:17Speaker 1: won't let anybody else. What good can it do you
- 1:14:20Speaker 1: to throw cold water on that corpse and get up
- 1:14:22Speaker 1: that selfish theory that there ain't been any murder none
- 1:14:26Speaker 1: in the world. I don't see how you can act.
- 1:14:28Speaker 1: So I wouldn't treat you like that. And you know it.
- 1:14:31Speaker 1: Here we've got a noble, good opportunity to make a reputation,
- 1:14:35Speaker 1: and I'll go ahead. I says, I'm sorry, and I
- 1:14:38Speaker 1: take it all back. I didn't mean nothing, fix it
- 1:14:42Speaker 1: any way you wanted. He ain't any consequence to me.
- 1:14:47Speaker 1: If he's killed, I'm as glad of it as you are.
- 1:14:50Speaker 1: And if I never said anything about being glad, I
- 1:14:53Speaker 1: only well, then I'm as sorry as you are. Anyway
- 1:14:57Speaker 1: you'd rather have it, that is the way I'd rather
- 1:15:00Speaker 1: have it. He there ain't any druthers about it, Huck Finn.
- 1:15:04Speaker 1: Nobody said anything about druthers. And as for he forgot
- 1:15:08Speaker 1: he was talking and went tramping along studying. He began
- 1:15:12Speaker 1: to get excited again, and pretty soon he says, Huck,
- 1:15:15Speaker 1: it'll be the bulliest thing that ever happened. If we
- 1:15:18Speaker 1: find the body after everybody else has quit looking, and
- 1:15:21Speaker 1: then go ahead and hunt up the murderer. It won't
- 1:15:24Speaker 1: only be an honor to us, but it'll be an
- 1:15:26Speaker 1: honor to Uncle Silas because it was us that done it.
- 1:15:30Speaker 1: It'll set him up again, you see, if it don't.
- 1:15:33Speaker 1: But oh, Jeff Hooker, he throwed cold water on the
- 1:15:36Speaker 1: whole business when we got to his blacksmith's shop and
- 1:15:39Speaker 1: told him what we come for. You can take the dog,
- 1:15:42Speaker 1: he says, But you ain't a going to find any
- 1:15:45Speaker 1: corpse because there ain't any corpse to find. Everybody's quit
- 1:15:49Speaker 1: looking and they're right soon as they come to think,
- 1:15:52Speaker 1: they know there warn't no corpse. And I'll tell you
- 1:15:55Speaker 1: for why what does a person kill another person for?
- 1:15:58Speaker 1: Tom Sawyer answer me that? Why? He? Uh? Answer up?
- 1:16:03Speaker 1: He ain't no fool. What did he kill him for? Well?
- 1:16:07Speaker 1: Sometimes it's for revenge. And wait, one thing at a time. Revenge,
- 1:16:12Speaker 1: says you, And right you are. Now whoever had anything again,
- 1:16:16Speaker 1: that poor trifling no accountant, who do you reckon would
- 1:16:20Speaker 1: want to kill him? That rabbit? Tom was stuck, I reckon.
- 1:16:25Speaker 1: He hadn't thought of a person having to have a
- 1:16:27Speaker 1: reason for killing a person before, and now he sees
- 1:16:31Speaker 1: it warn't likely anybody would have that much of a
- 1:16:33Speaker 1: grudge against a lamb like Jupiter Dunlap. The blacksmith says,
- 1:16:37Speaker 1: by and bye, the revenge idea won't work. You see,
- 1:16:41Speaker 1: Well then what's next? Robbery? But gosh, that must have
- 1:16:45Speaker 1: been it Tom, Yes, sir, I reckon, we've struck. At
- 1:16:49Speaker 1: this time some feller wanted his Gallas buckles, and so
- 1:16:52Speaker 1: he bet it was so funny. He busted out laughing
- 1:16:55Speaker 1: and just went on laughing and laughing and laughing till
- 1:16:58Speaker 1: he was most dead. And Tom looked so put out
- 1:17:01Speaker 1: and cheap that I knowed. He was ashamed he had come,
- 1:17:04Speaker 1: and he wished he hadn't, But old Hooker never let
- 1:17:07Speaker 1: up on him. He raked up everything a person ever
- 1:17:10Speaker 1: could want to kill another person about, and any fool
- 1:17:13Speaker 1: could see they didn't any of them fit this case.
- 1:17:16Speaker 1: And he just made no end of fun of the
- 1:17:18Speaker 1: whole business and of the people that had been hunting
- 1:17:21Speaker 1: the body. And he said, if they had had any sense,
- 1:17:24Speaker 1: they'd have knowed. The lazy cuss slid out because he
- 1:17:27Speaker 1: wanted a loaf and spell after all this work. He'll
- 1:17:30Speaker 1: come pottering back in a couple of weeks and then
- 1:17:33Speaker 1: how you fellers feel, But laws bless you take the
- 1:17:37Speaker 1: dog and go and hunt his remainders, do Tom? Then
- 1:17:41Speaker 1: he busted out and had another of them forty row
- 1:17:44Speaker 1: laughs of his. Tom couldn't back down after all this,
- 1:17:47Speaker 1: so he said, all right, unchain him and the blacksmith
- 1:17:51Speaker 1: done it, and we started home and left that old
- 1:17:54Speaker 1: man laughing. Yet it was a lovely dog. There ain't
- 1:17:58Speaker 1: any dog that's got a lovelier position and a bloodhound,
- 1:18:01Speaker 1: and this one knowed us and liked us. He capered
- 1:18:04Speaker 1: and raced around, ever so friendly and powerful, glad to
- 1:18:07Speaker 1: be free and have a holiday. But Tom was so
- 1:18:10Speaker 1: cut up he couldn't take any interest in him, and
- 1:18:13Speaker 1: said he wished he'd stopped and thought a minute before
- 1:18:15Speaker 1: he ever started on such a fool Errand he said,
- 1:18:18Speaker 1: old Jeff Hooker would tell everybody, and we'd never hear
- 1:18:22Speaker 1: the last of it. So we loafed along home down
- 1:18:26Speaker 1: the back lanes, feeling pretty glum and not talking. When
- 1:18:29Speaker 1: we was passing the far corner of our tobacco field,
- 1:18:32Speaker 1: we heard the dog set up a long howl in there,
- 1:18:36Speaker 1: and we went to the place and he was scratching
- 1:18:38Speaker 1: the ground with all his might and ever now and
- 1:18:40Speaker 1: then canting up his head sideways and fetching another howl.
- 1:18:44Speaker 1: It was a long square, the shape of a grave.
- 1:18:48Speaker 1: The rain had made it sink down and show the
- 1:18:50Speaker 1: shape the minute we come and stood there, we looked
- 1:18:53Speaker 1: at one another and never said a word. When the
- 1:18:56Speaker 1: dog had dug down only a few inches, he grabbed
- 1:18:59Speaker 1: somethinulled it up, and it was an arm and a sleeve.
- 1:19:04Speaker 1: Tom kind of gasped out and says, come away, huck,
- 1:19:07Speaker 1: it's found. I just felt awful. We struck for the
- 1:19:11Speaker 1: road and fetched. The first men that come along. They
- 1:19:13Speaker 1: got a spade at the crib and dug out the body.
- 1:19:16Speaker 1: And you never see such an excitement. You couldn't make
- 1:19:19Speaker 1: anything out of the face, but you didn't need to.
- 1:19:22Speaker 1: Everybody said, poor Jubiter, it's his clothes to the last rag.
- 1:19:28Speaker 1: Some rushed off to spread the news and tell the
- 1:19:30Speaker 1: justice of the peace and have an inquest, and me
- 1:19:33Speaker 1: and Tom lit out for the house. Tom was all
- 1:19:35Speaker 1: afire and most out of breath when we come tearing
- 1:19:38Speaker 1: in where Uncle Silas and that Sally and Benny was.
- 1:19:42Speaker 1: Tom sung out. Me and Hucks found Jubiter Dunlap's corpse
- 1:19:45Speaker 1: all by ourselves with a bloodhound, after everybody else had
- 1:19:49Speaker 1: quit hunting and give it up. And if it hadn't
- 1:19:52Speaker 1: been for us, it never would have been found. And
- 1:19:55Speaker 1: he was murdered too. They'd done it with a club
- 1:19:58Speaker 1: or something like that. I'm going to start in and
- 1:20:01Speaker 1: find the murderer next, and I bet i'll do it.
- 1:20:04Speaker 1: Aunt Sally and Benny sprung up, pale and astonished. But
- 1:20:08Speaker 1: Uncle Silas fell right forward out of his chair onto
- 1:20:11Speaker 1: the floor and groans out, oh my god, you've found
- 1:20:15Speaker 1: him now. End of chapter nine chapter ten, The arrest
- 1:20:22Speaker 1: of Uncle Silas. Them awful words froze us solid. We
- 1:20:28Speaker 1: couldn't move hand or foot for as much as half
- 1:20:31Speaker 1: a minute. Then we kind of come to and lifted
- 1:20:35Speaker 1: the old man up and got him into his chair,
- 1:20:38Speaker 1: and Benny petted him and kissed him and tried to
- 1:20:41Speaker 1: comfort him. And poor old Aunt Sally she done the same.
- 1:20:45Speaker 1: But poor things, they was so broke up and scared
- 1:20:49Speaker 1: and knocked out of their right minds that they didn't
- 1:20:52Speaker 1: hardly know what they was about. With Tom, it was awful.
- 1:20:56Speaker 1: It most petrified him to think maybe he got his
- 1:21:00Speaker 1: uncle into a thousand times more trouble than ever, and
- 1:21:03Speaker 1: maybe it wouldn't ever happened if he hadn't been so
- 1:21:06Speaker 1: ambitious to get celebrated and let the corpse alone the
- 1:21:10Speaker 1: way the others done. But pretty soon he sort of
- 1:21:13Speaker 1: come to himself again and says, Uncle Silas, don't you
- 1:21:17Speaker 1: say another word like that. It's dangerous and there ain't
- 1:21:20Speaker 1: a shatter of truth in it. Aunt Sally and Benny
- 1:21:23Speaker 1: was thankful to hear him say that, and they said
- 1:21:25Speaker 1: the same. But the old man he wagged his head,
- 1:21:28Speaker 1: sorrowful and hopeless, and the tears run down his face,
- 1:21:32Speaker 1: and he says, no, I'd done it, poor Jubiter, I'd
- 1:21:38Speaker 1: done it. It was dreadful to hear him say it.
- 1:21:42Speaker 1: Then he went on and told about it, and said
- 1:21:45Speaker 1: it happened to day me and Tom come along about sundown.
- 1:21:49Speaker 1: He said, Jubiter pestered him and aggravated him till he
- 1:21:52Speaker 1: was so mad he just sort of lost his mind
- 1:21:55Speaker 1: and grabbed up a stick and hit him over the
- 1:21:57Speaker 1: head with all his might, and Jubiter dropped in his tracks.
- 1:22:01Speaker 1: Then he was scared and sorry, and got down on
- 1:22:04Speaker 1: his knees and lifted his head up and begged him
- 1:22:07Speaker 1: to speak and say he wasn't dead. And before long
- 1:22:10Speaker 1: he come too, And when he see who it was
- 1:22:12Speaker 1: holding his head, he jumped like he was most scared
- 1:22:15Speaker 1: to death, and cleared the fence and tore into the
- 1:22:18Speaker 1: woods and was gone. So he hoped he wasn't hurt
- 1:22:21Speaker 1: by but laws, he says, it was only just fear
- 1:22:25Speaker 1: that gave him that last little spurt of strength, And
- 1:22:28Speaker 1: of course it soon played out, and he laid down
- 1:22:30Speaker 1: in the bush and there wasn't anybody to help him,
- 1:22:33Speaker 1: and he died. Then the old man cried and grieved
- 1:22:37Speaker 1: and said he was a murderer and the mark of
- 1:22:39Speaker 1: Cain was on him, and he had disgraced his family
- 1:22:42Speaker 1: and was going to be found out an hung. But
- 1:22:45Speaker 1: Tom said, no, you ain't goin to be found out.
- 1:22:49Speaker 1: You didn't kill him. One lick wouldn't kill him. Somebody
- 1:22:54Speaker 1: else done it? Oh, yes, he says, I'd done it.
- 1:22:58Speaker 1: Nobody else who wells had anything against him? Who else
- 1:23:02Speaker 1: could have anything against him? He looked up kind of
- 1:23:06Speaker 1: like he hoped some of us could mention somebody that
- 1:23:09Speaker 1: could have a grudge against that harmless no count. But
- 1:23:12Speaker 1: of course it warn't no use he had us. We
- 1:23:15Speaker 1: couldn't say a word. He noticed that, and he saddened
- 1:23:18Speaker 1: down again. And I never see a face so miserable
- 1:23:21Speaker 1: and so pitiful to see. Tom had a sudden idea
- 1:23:25Speaker 1: and says, but hold on, somebody buried him? Now? Who
- 1:23:30Speaker 1: he shut off? Sudden? I knowed the reason. It gave
- 1:23:34Speaker 1: me the cold shudders when he said them words, because
- 1:23:36Speaker 1: right away I remembered about us seeing Uncle Silas prowling
- 1:23:40Speaker 1: around with a long handled shovel away in the night
- 1:23:43Speaker 1: that night. And I knowed Benny's seeing him too, because
- 1:23:47Speaker 1: she was talking about it one day. The minute Tom
- 1:23:50Speaker 1: shut off, he changed the subject and went to begging
- 1:23:53Speaker 1: Uncle Silas to keep mum, And the rest of us
- 1:23:55Speaker 1: done the same, and said he must, and said it
- 1:23:59Speaker 1: wasn't his business to tell on himself, and if he
- 1:24:02Speaker 1: kept mum, no one would ever know. But if it
- 1:24:05Speaker 1: was found out and any harm come to him, it
- 1:24:08Speaker 1: would break the family's hearts and kill them, and yet
- 1:24:11Speaker 1: never do anybody any good. So at last he promised,
- 1:24:16Speaker 1: We was all of us more comfortable then, and went
- 1:24:19Speaker 1: to work. To cheer up the old man. We told
- 1:24:21Speaker 1: him all he'd got to do was to keep still,
- 1:24:23Speaker 1: and it wouldn't be long till the whole thing would
- 1:24:26Speaker 1: blow over and be for God. We all said, there
- 1:24:29Speaker 1: wouldn't anybody ever suspect Uncle Silas, nor ever dream of
- 1:24:33Speaker 1: such a thing, he being so good and kind and
- 1:24:36Speaker 1: having such a good character. And Tom says, cordial and hearty,
- 1:24:40Speaker 1: he says, why just look at it a minute. Just
- 1:24:43Speaker 1: consider here is Uncle Silas, all these years, a preacher
- 1:24:48Speaker 1: at his own expense, all these years, doing good with
- 1:24:52Speaker 1: all his might, and every way he can think of,
- 1:24:55Speaker 1: at his own expense, all the time, always been loved
- 1:24:59Speaker 1: by every Anne respected, always been peaceable and minding his
- 1:25:04Speaker 1: own business. The very last man in this whole district
- 1:25:08Speaker 1: to touch a person, and everybody knows it. Suspect him.
- 1:25:12Speaker 1: Why it ain't any more possible than by thirty of
- 1:25:16Speaker 1: the State of Arkansas. I arrest you for the murder
- 1:25:20Speaker 1: of Jupiter Dunlap, shouts the sheriff at the door. It
- 1:25:23Speaker 1: was awful. Aunt Sally and Benny flung themselves at Uncle Silas,
- 1:25:27Speaker 1: screaming and crying and hugged him and hung to him,
- 1:25:31Speaker 1: and Aunt Sally said go away. She wouldn't ever give
- 1:25:34Speaker 1: him up. They shouldn't have him. And the niggers they come,
- 1:25:37Speaker 1: crowding and crying to the door, and well, I couldn't
- 1:25:41Speaker 1: stand it. It was enough to break a person's heart,
- 1:25:43Speaker 1: so I got out. They took him up to the
- 1:25:46Speaker 1: little one horse jail in the village, and we all
- 1:25:49Speaker 1: went along to tell him goodbye. And Tom was feeling
- 1:25:52Speaker 1: elegant and says to me, we'll have a most noble
- 1:25:55Speaker 1: good time and heaps of danger some dark night getting
- 1:25:58Speaker 1: him out of there, huck, and it'll be talked about
- 1:26:01Speaker 1: everywheres an we will be celebrated. But the old man
- 1:26:04Speaker 1: busted that scheme up. The minute he whispered to him
- 1:26:07Speaker 1: about it, he said, no, it was his duty to
- 1:26:10Speaker 1: stand whatever the law done to him, and he would
- 1:26:13Speaker 1: stick to the jail plumb through to the end, even
- 1:26:15Speaker 1: if there warn't no door to it. It disappointed Tom
- 1:26:19Speaker 1: and graveled him a good deal, but he had to
- 1:26:21Speaker 1: put up with it. But he felt responsible and bound
- 1:26:24Speaker 1: to get his uncle Silas free. And he told Aunt
- 1:26:27Speaker 1: Sally the last thing not to worry, because he was
- 1:26:30Speaker 1: going to turn in and work night and day and
- 1:26:33Speaker 1: beat this game and fetch Uncle Silas out innocent. And
- 1:26:36Speaker 1: she was very loving to him and thanked him and
- 1:26:39Speaker 1: said she knowed he would do his very best. And
- 1:26:41Speaker 1: she told us to help Benny take care of the
- 1:26:43Speaker 1: house and the children. And then we had a good
- 1:26:46Speaker 1: bye cry all around, and went back to the farm
- 1:26:49Speaker 1: and left her there to live with the jailer's wife
- 1:26:52Speaker 1: a month till the trial. In October. End of chapter ten,
- 1:26:57Speaker 1: chapter eleven, Tom sawyer discovers the murderers. Well, that was
- 1:27:02Speaker 1: a hard month on us all. Poor Benny. She kept
- 1:27:07Speaker 1: up the best she could, and me and Tom tried
- 1:27:09Speaker 1: to keep things cheerful there at the house, but it
- 1:27:12Speaker 1: kind of went for nothing. As you may say. It
- 1:27:15Speaker 1: was the same up at the jail. We went up
- 1:27:17Speaker 1: every day to see the old people. But it was awful,
- 1:27:21Speaker 1: dreary because the old man warn't sleeping much and was
- 1:27:24Speaker 1: walking in his sleep considerable, and so he got to
- 1:27:28Speaker 1: look in fact and miserable, and his mind got shaky,
- 1:27:32Speaker 1: and we all got afraid his troubles would break him
- 1:27:35Speaker 1: down and kill him. And whenever we tried to persuade
- 1:27:38Speaker 1: him to feel cheerfuler, he only shook his head and said,
- 1:27:41Speaker 1: if we only knowed what it was to carry around
- 1:27:44Speaker 1: a murderer's load in your heart, we wouldn't talk that way.
- 1:27:48Speaker 1: Tom and all of us kept telling him it wasn't murder,
- 1:27:51Speaker 1: but just accidental killing, but it never made any difference.
- 1:27:55Speaker 1: It was murder, and he wouldn't have it any other way.
- 1:27:58Speaker 1: He actively begun to out playing and squared towards trial
- 1:28:02Speaker 1: time and acknowledged that he tried to kill the man.
- 1:28:05Speaker 1: Why that was awful, you know, it made things seem
- 1:28:09Speaker 1: fifty times as dreadful, and there weren't no more comfort
- 1:28:12Speaker 1: for Aunt Sally and Benny. But he promised he wouldn't
- 1:28:15Speaker 1: say a word about his murder when others was around,
- 1:28:18Speaker 1: and we was glad of that. Tom Sawyer racked the
- 1:28:21Speaker 1: head off of himself all that month trying to plan
- 1:28:24Speaker 1: some way out for Uncle Silas, and many as the night.
- 1:28:27Speaker 1: He kept me up most all night with this kind
- 1:28:29Speaker 1: of tiresome work. But he couldn't seem to get on
- 1:28:33Speaker 1: the right track. No way. As for me, I reckoned
- 1:28:36Speaker 1: a body might as well give it up. It all
- 1:28:38Speaker 1: looked so blue, and I was so downhearted. But he wouldn't.
- 1:28:42Speaker 1: He stuck to the business right along and went on
- 1:28:45Speaker 1: planning and thinking and ransacking his head. So at last
- 1:28:49Speaker 1: the trial come on towards the middle of October, and
- 1:28:53Speaker 1: we was all in the court. The place was jammed.
- 1:28:56Speaker 1: Of course, poor old Uncle Silas he looked more like
- 1:28:59Speaker 1: a dead person than a live one. His eyes were
- 1:29:02Speaker 1: so hollow, and he looked so thin and so mournful. Benny,
- 1:29:06Speaker 1: she sat on one side of him, and Aunt Sally
- 1:29:08Speaker 1: on the other, and they had veils on, and was
- 1:29:10Speaker 1: full of trouble. But Tom he set by our lawyer
- 1:29:14Speaker 1: and had his finger in everywheres. Of course, the lawyer
- 1:29:17Speaker 1: let him, and the judge led him. He most took
- 1:29:20Speaker 1: the business out of the lawyer's hands sometimes, which was
- 1:29:23Speaker 1: well enough, because that was only a mud turtle of
- 1:29:26Speaker 1: a back settlement lawyer, and didn't know enough to come
- 1:29:29Speaker 1: in when it rains. As the saying is, they swore
- 1:29:32Speaker 1: in the jury. And then the lawyer for the prostitution
- 1:29:36Speaker 1: got up and begun. He made a terrible speech against
- 1:29:39Speaker 1: the old man that made him moan and groan, and
- 1:29:43Speaker 1: made Benny and Aunt Sally cry. The way he told
- 1:29:46Speaker 1: about the murder kind of knocked us all stupid. It
- 1:29:49Speaker 1: was so different from the old man's tail. He said
- 1:29:52Speaker 1: he was going to prove that Uncle Silas was seen
- 1:29:55Speaker 1: to kill Jubiter Dunlap by two good witnesses, and done
- 1:29:58Speaker 1: it deliberate, and said he was going to kill him
- 1:30:01Speaker 1: the very minute he hit him with the club, and
- 1:30:04Speaker 1: they seen him hide Jubiter in the bushes, and they
- 1:30:07Speaker 1: seen that Jubiter was stone dead, and said Uncle Silas
- 1:30:11Speaker 1: come later and lugged Jubiter down into the tobacco field.
- 1:30:14Speaker 1: And two men seen him do it, and said Uncle
- 1:30:17Speaker 1: Silas turned out away in the night and buried Jubiter,
- 1:30:21Speaker 1: and a man seen him at it. I says to myself,
- 1:30:24Speaker 1: poor old uncle Silas has been lying about it, because
- 1:30:27Speaker 1: he reckoned nobody's seen him, and he couldn't bear to
- 1:30:30Speaker 1: break Aunt Sally's heart and Benny's, and right he was.
- 1:30:34Speaker 1: As for me, I would allied the same way, and
- 1:30:37Speaker 1: so would anybody that had any feeling to save them
- 1:30:40Speaker 1: such misery and sorrow which they warn't no ways responsible for. Well,
- 1:30:45Speaker 1: it made our lawyer look pretty sick, and it knocked
- 1:30:48Speaker 1: Tom silly too for a little spell. But then he
- 1:30:51Speaker 1: braced up and let on that he warn't worried, but
- 1:30:54Speaker 1: I knowed he was all the same, and the people
- 1:30:58Speaker 1: my But it made us stir amongst them. And when
- 1:31:01Speaker 1: that lawyer was done telling the jury what he was
- 1:31:04Speaker 1: going to prove, he sat down and begun to work
- 1:31:07Speaker 1: his witnesses. First, he called a lot of them to
- 1:31:10Speaker 1: show that there was bad blood betwixt Uncle Silas and
- 1:31:13Speaker 1: the diseased. And they told how they had heard Uncle
- 1:31:16Speaker 1: Silas threaten the diseased at one time and another, and
- 1:31:19Speaker 1: how it got worse and worse, and everybody was talking
- 1:31:21Speaker 1: about it, and how diseased got afraid of his life,
- 1:31:24Speaker 1: and told two or three of them he was certain
- 1:31:27Speaker 1: Uncle Silas would up and kill him some time or
- 1:31:29Speaker 1: another Tom and our lawyer asked them some questions, but
- 1:31:33Speaker 1: it warn't no use. They stuck to what they said.
- 1:31:37Speaker 1: Next they called up lem Beebe and he took the stand.
- 1:31:40Speaker 1: It come into my mind then, how Limb and Jim
- 1:31:43Speaker 1: Lane had come along talking that time about borrowing a
- 1:31:46Speaker 1: dog or something from Jubiter Dunlap, and that brought up
- 1:31:50Speaker 1: the blackberries and the lantern, and that brought up Bill
- 1:31:53Speaker 1: and Jack Withers, and how they passed by talking about
- 1:31:57Speaker 1: a nigger stealing Uncle Silas's corn, and that fetched up
- 1:32:00Speaker 1: our old ghosts had come along about the same time
- 1:32:03Speaker 1: and scared us so. And here he was, too, and
- 1:32:06Speaker 1: a privileged character on accounts of his being deef and
- 1:32:09Speaker 1: dumb and a stranger. And they had fixed him a
- 1:32:12Speaker 1: chair inside the railing where he could cross his legs
- 1:32:15Speaker 1: and be comfortable, whilst the other people was all in
- 1:32:18Speaker 1: a jam so they couldn't hardly breathe. So it all
- 1:32:21Speaker 1: come back to me just the way it was that day,
- 1:32:24Speaker 1: and it made me mournful to think how pleasant it
- 1:32:26Speaker 1: was up to then, and how miserable ever since lem
- 1:32:31Speaker 1: Beebe sworn said I was coming along that day tewod
- 1:32:36Speaker 1: September and Jim Lane was with me, and it was
- 1:32:40Speaker 1: towards sundown, and we heard loud talk like quarreling, and
- 1:32:45Speaker 1: we was very close only the hazel bushes between that's
- 1:32:49Speaker 1: a long the fence, and we heard a voice say,
- 1:32:52Speaker 1: I told you more than once, I'd kill you, and
- 1:32:55Speaker 1: knowed it was this prisoner's voice. And then we see
- 1:32:58Speaker 1: a club come up the bushes and down out of
- 1:33:01Speaker 1: sight again, and heard a smashing thump and then a
- 1:33:05Speaker 1: groan or two, and then we croped soft to where
- 1:33:08Speaker 1: we could see, and there laid Jubiter Dunlap dead, and
- 1:33:12Speaker 1: this prisoner standing over him with the club. And the next
- 1:33:16Speaker 1: he hauled the dead man into a clump of bushes
- 1:33:18Speaker 1: and hid him, and then we stooped low to be
- 1:33:21Speaker 1: cut of sight. Man got away. Well, it was awful.
- 1:33:27Speaker 1: It kind of froze everybody's blood to hear it. And
- 1:33:29Speaker 1: the house was most as still whilst he was telling it,
- 1:33:32Speaker 1: as if there weren't nobody in it. And when he
- 1:33:35Speaker 1: was done, you could hear them gasp and sigh all
- 1:33:38Speaker 1: over the house and look at one another the same
- 1:33:41Speaker 1: as to say, he eat it perfectly terrible. He did
- 1:33:45Speaker 1: it awful. Now happened a thing that astonished me. All
- 1:33:49Speaker 1: the time the first witnesses was proving the bad blood
- 1:33:53Speaker 1: and the threats and all that Tom Sawyer was alive
- 1:33:56Speaker 1: and laying for them, And the minute they was through,
- 1:33:59Speaker 1: he went for them and done his level best to
- 1:34:01Speaker 1: catch them and lies an spy their testimony. But now,
- 1:34:06Speaker 1: how different when lemb first begun to talk and never
- 1:34:09Speaker 1: said anything about speaking to Jubiter or trying to borrow
- 1:34:13Speaker 1: a dog off of him, he was all alive and
- 1:34:15Speaker 1: laying for Lemb and you could see he was getting
- 1:34:18Speaker 1: ready to cross question him to death pretty soon. And
- 1:34:21Speaker 1: then I judged him and me he would go on
- 1:34:23Speaker 1: to stand by and by and tell what we heard
- 1:34:26Speaker 1: him and Jim Lane say. But the next time I
- 1:34:29Speaker 1: looked at Tom, I got the cold shivers. Why he
- 1:34:32Speaker 1: was in the brownest study you ever see, miles an
- 1:34:36Speaker 1: miles away. He warn't hearing a word lem Beebe was saying.
- 1:34:41Speaker 1: And when he got through, he was still in that
- 1:34:43Speaker 1: brown study just the same. Our lawyer joggled him, and
- 1:34:46Speaker 1: then he looked up, startled and says, take the witness
- 1:34:49Speaker 1: if you want him, let me alone. I want to think. Well,
- 1:34:53Speaker 1: that beat me. I couldn't understand it, and Benny and
- 1:34:57Speaker 1: her mother, Oh, they looked sick. They was so true troubled.
- 1:35:00Speaker 1: They shoved their veils to one side and tried to
- 1:35:03Speaker 1: get his eye, but it warn't any use. And I
- 1:35:05Speaker 1: couldn't get his eye either. So the mud turtle he
- 1:35:08Speaker 1: tackled the witness, but it didn't amount to nothing, and
- 1:35:11Speaker 1: he made a mess of it. Then they called up
- 1:35:14Speaker 1: Jim Lane and he told the very same story over
- 1:35:17Speaker 1: again exact. Tom never listened to this one at all,
- 1:35:20Speaker 1: but set there thinking and thinking miles and miles away.
- 1:35:25Speaker 1: So the mud turtle went in alone again and come
- 1:35:28Speaker 1: out just as flat as he done before. The lawyer
- 1:35:31Speaker 1: for the prostitution looked very comfortable, but the judge looked disgusted.
- 1:35:35Speaker 1: You see, Tom was just the same as a regular lawyer, nearly,
- 1:35:39Speaker 1: because it was Arkansas law for a prisoner to choose anybody.
- 1:35:43Speaker 1: He wanted to help his lawyer, and Tom had had
- 1:35:46Speaker 1: Uncle Silas shove him into the case, and now he
- 1:35:49Speaker 1: was botching it. And you could see the judge didn't
- 1:35:52Speaker 1: like it much. All that the mud turtle got out
- 1:35:55Speaker 1: of lem and Jim was this. He asked them, why
- 1:35:59Speaker 1: didn't you go and tell what you saw. We was
- 1:36:02Speaker 1: afraid we would get mixed up in it ourselves, and
- 1:36:06Speaker 1: we was just starting down the river hunting for all
- 1:36:09Speaker 1: the week besides. But as soon as we come back,
- 1:36:11Speaker 1: we found out they'd been searching for the body. So
- 1:36:15Speaker 1: then we went and told Brace Dunlap all about it.
- 1:36:18Speaker 1: When was that Saturday night, September ninth. The judge he
- 1:36:22Speaker 1: spoke up and says, mister Sheriff, arrest these two witnesses
- 1:36:26Speaker 1: on suspicions of being accessionary after the fact to the murder.
- 1:36:31Speaker 1: The lawyer for the prostitution jumps up all excited and says,
- 1:36:34Speaker 1: your honor, I protest against this extraordinary sit down, says
- 1:36:38Speaker 1: the judge, pulling his bowie and laying it on his pulpit.
- 1:36:42Speaker 1: I beg you to respect the court. So he done it,
- 1:36:46Speaker 1: and he called Bill Withers. Bill Withers sworn said, I
- 1:36:51Speaker 1: was coming along about sundown Saturday, September seventh by the
- 1:36:55Speaker 1: prisoner's field, and my brother Jack was with me, and
- 1:36:59Speaker 1: we seen a man toting off something heavy on his back,
- 1:37:02Speaker 1: and allowed it was a nigga stealing corn. Couldn't see distinct.
- 1:37:07Speaker 1: Next we made out that it was one man carrying another,
- 1:37:10Speaker 1: and the way it hung so kind of limp, we
- 1:37:13Speaker 1: judged it was somebody that was drunk. And by the
- 1:37:15Speaker 1: man's walk, we said it was Parson Silas, and we
- 1:37:19Speaker 1: judged he had found Sam Cooper drunk in the road,
- 1:37:22Speaker 1: which he was always trying to reform him, and was
- 1:37:25Speaker 1: toting him out of danger. He made the people shiver
- 1:37:29Speaker 1: to think of poor old Uncle Silas toting off the
- 1:37:31Speaker 1: diseased down to the place in his tobacco field where
- 1:37:35Speaker 1: the dog dug up the body. But there warn't much
- 1:37:38Speaker 1: sympathy around amongst the faces. And I heard one cuss says,
- 1:37:42Speaker 1: the coldest blooded work I ever struck, lugging and murdered
- 1:37:46Speaker 1: man around like that, and going to bury him like
- 1:37:49Speaker 1: an animal, and him a preacher at that tom he
- 1:37:52Speaker 1: went on thinking and never took no notice. So our
- 1:37:56Speaker 1: lawyer took the witness and done the best he could,
- 1:37:59Speaker 1: and it was plenty poor enough. Then Jack Withers he
- 1:38:02Speaker 1: come on the stand and told the same tale, just
- 1:38:05Speaker 1: like Bill done. And after him comes Brace Dunlap, and
- 1:38:09Speaker 1: he was looking very mournful and most crying, And there
- 1:38:13Speaker 1: was a rustle and a stir all around, and everybody
- 1:38:16Speaker 1: got ready to listen, and lots of the women folks said,
- 1:38:19Speaker 1: poor critter, poor critter, and you could see many of
- 1:38:23Speaker 1: them wiping their eyes. Brace Dunlap swore and said, I
- 1:38:28Speaker 1: was in considerable trouble a long time about my poor brother,
- 1:38:32Speaker 1: But I reckon things weren't near so bad as he
- 1:38:35Speaker 1: made out, And I couldn't make myself believe anybody would
- 1:38:38Speaker 1: have the heart to hurt a poor, harmless critter like that.
- 1:38:42Speaker 1: By Jings, I was sure I seen Tom give that
- 1:38:44Speaker 1: kind of a faint little start, and then looked disappointed again.
- 1:38:48Speaker 1: And you know, I couldn't think a preacher would hurt him.
- 1:38:53Speaker 1: It warn't natural to think such an unlikely thing. So
- 1:38:56Speaker 1: I never paid much attention. And now I shout, ever
- 1:39:00Speaker 1: ever forgive myself, for if I had a done different,
- 1:39:04Speaker 1: my poor brother would be with me this day, and
- 1:39:06Speaker 1: not lying yonder murdered, and him so harmless he can't
- 1:39:10Speaker 1: have broke down there and choked up and waited to
- 1:39:13Speaker 1: get his voice, and people all around said the most
- 1:39:16Speaker 1: pitiful things, and women cried, and it was very still
- 1:39:20Speaker 1: in there, and solemn, and old uncle silas. Poor thing.
- 1:39:24Speaker 1: He gave a groan right out, so everybody heard him
- 1:39:27Speaker 1: then brace he went. On Saturday, September second, he didn't
- 1:39:32Speaker 1: come home to supper by and by I got a
- 1:39:35Speaker 1: little uneasy, and one of my niggers went over to
- 1:39:38Speaker 1: this prisoner's place, but come back and said he warn't there.
- 1:39:41Speaker 1: So I got uneasier and uneasier and couldn't rest. I
- 1:39:45Speaker 1: went to bed, but I couldn't sleep, and turned out
- 1:39:48Speaker 1: away late in the night and went wandering over to
- 1:39:51Speaker 1: this prisoner's place and all around about there a good while,
- 1:39:54Speaker 1: hoping I wouldn't run across my poor brother, and never
- 1:39:57Speaker 1: knowing he was out of his troubles gone to a
- 1:40:01Speaker 1: better shore. So he broke down and choked up again,
- 1:40:05Speaker 1: and most all the women was crying. Now pretty soon
- 1:40:08Speaker 1: he got another start and says, but there weren't no use.
- 1:40:14Speaker 1: So at last I went home and tried to get
- 1:40:16Speaker 1: some sleep, but couldn't well. In a day or two,
- 1:40:20Speaker 1: everybody was uneasy, and they got to talking about this
- 1:40:23Speaker 1: prisoner's threats and took to the idea which I didn't
- 1:40:26Speaker 1: take no stock in, that my brother was murdered. So
- 1:40:30Speaker 1: they hunted around and tried to find his body, but
- 1:40:32Speaker 1: couldn't and give it up, And so I reckoned. He
- 1:40:36Speaker 1: was gone off summers to have a little peace and
- 1:40:38Speaker 1: would come back to us when his troubles was kind
- 1:40:41Speaker 1: of healed. But late Saturday night, the ninth, lem Beebe
- 1:40:45Speaker 1: and Jim Lane come to my house and told me
- 1:40:47Speaker 1: all told me the whole awful sassination, and my heart
- 1:40:52Speaker 1: was broke. And then I remembered something that hadn't took
- 1:40:56Speaker 1: no hold of me at the time, because reports said
- 1:40:59Speaker 1: this prisoner had took to walking in his sleep and
- 1:41:02Speaker 1: doing all kinds of things of no consequence, not knowing
- 1:41:05Speaker 1: what he was about. I will tell you what that
- 1:41:08Speaker 1: thing was that come back into my memory away late
- 1:41:12Speaker 1: that awful Saturday night, when I was wandering around about
- 1:41:15Speaker 1: this prisoner's place, grieving and troubled. I was down by
- 1:41:19Speaker 1: the corner of the tobaccer field, and I heard a
- 1:41:21Speaker 1: sound like digging in a gritty soil, and I crope
- 1:41:25Speaker 1: nearer and peeped through the vines that hung on the
- 1:41:27Speaker 1: rail fence and seen this prisoner shoveling, shoveling with a
- 1:41:32Speaker 1: long handled shovel, heaving earth into a big hole that
- 1:41:37Speaker 1: was most filled up. His back was to me, but
- 1:41:40Speaker 1: it was bright moonlight, and I knowed him by his
- 1:41:43Speaker 1: old green baize worked down with a splattery white patch
- 1:41:47Speaker 1: in the middle of the back, like somebody had hit
- 1:41:49Speaker 1: him with a snowball. He was burying the man he murder.
- 1:41:56Speaker 1: He slumped down in his chair, crying and sobbing, and
- 1:41:59Speaker 1: most everybody in the house busted out wailing and crying
- 1:42:02Speaker 1: and saying, oh, it's awful, awful, horrible, And there was
- 1:42:06Speaker 1: a most tremendous excitement, and you couldn't hear yourself think.
- 1:42:10Speaker 1: And right in the midst of it, up jumps old
- 1:42:13Speaker 1: uncle Silas white as a sheet, and sings out it's true,
- 1:42:17Speaker 1: every word. I murdered him in cold blood by Jackson.
- 1:42:24Speaker 1: It petrified them. People rose up wild all over the house,
- 1:42:29Speaker 1: straining and staring for a better look at him. And
- 1:42:32Speaker 1: the judge was hammering with his mallet, and the sheriff
- 1:42:35Speaker 1: yelling order order in the court order, and all the
- 1:42:39Speaker 1: while the old man stood there a quaking in his
- 1:42:43Speaker 1: eyes are burning, and not looking at his wife and daughter,
- 1:42:46Speaker 1: which was clinging to him and begging him to keep still,
- 1:42:50Speaker 1: but pawing them off with his hands and saying he
- 1:42:53Speaker 1: would clear his black soul from crime. He would heave
- 1:42:57Speaker 1: off this load that was more than he could bear,
- 1:42:59Speaker 1: and he wouldn't bear it another hour. And then he
- 1:43:03Speaker 1: raged right along with his awful tale, everybody staring and gasping, Judge, jury,
- 1:43:09Speaker 1: lawyers and everybody, and Benny and Aunt Sally crying their
- 1:43:14Speaker 1: hearts out by George Tom Sawyer never looked at him once,
- 1:43:20Speaker 1: never once, just set there gazing with all his eyes
- 1:43:23Speaker 1: at something else. I couldn't tell what. And so the
- 1:43:26Speaker 1: old man raged right along, pouring his words out like
- 1:43:29Speaker 1: a stream of fire. I killed him, I am duty,
- 1:43:36Speaker 1: but I never had the notion in my life to
- 1:43:40Speaker 1: hurt him or harm him, spite of all them lies
- 1:43:44Speaker 1: about my threatening him, till the very minute I raised
- 1:43:49Speaker 1: the club. Then my heart went cold. Then the pity
- 1:43:54Speaker 1: all went out of it, and I struck to kill
- 1:43:58Speaker 1: in that one moment, and all my wrongs come into
- 1:44:02Speaker 1: my mind, all the insults that that man and the
- 1:44:06Speaker 1: scoundrel his brother there had put upon me, and how
- 1:44:09Speaker 1: they laid in together to ruin me with the people
- 1:44:13Speaker 1: and take away my good name and drive me to
- 1:44:17Speaker 1: some deed that would destroy me and my family that
- 1:44:20Speaker 1: hadn't ever done them no harm, so help me God,
- 1:44:24Speaker 1: And they'd done it in a mean revenge. For why
- 1:44:29Speaker 1: because my innocent, pure girl here at my side wouldn't
- 1:44:33Speaker 1: marry that rich, insolent, ignorant cowered brace Dunlap, who's been
- 1:44:37Speaker 1: sniveling here over a brother he never cared to brace
- 1:44:41Speaker 1: farthing for I see Tom give a jump and look
- 1:44:44Speaker 1: glad this time to a dead certainty. And in that
- 1:44:48Speaker 1: moment I've told you about, I forgot my God and
- 1:44:52Speaker 1: remembered only my heart's bitterness. God forgive me, and I
- 1:44:56Speaker 1: struck to kill. In one second I was I'm miserably sorry, oh,
- 1:45:02Speaker 1: filled with remorse. But I thought of my poor family,
- 1:45:06Speaker 1: and I must hide what I had done for their sakes.
- 1:45:09Speaker 1: And I did hide that corpse in the bushes, and
- 1:45:12Speaker 1: presently I carried it to the tobacco field, and in
- 1:45:15Speaker 1: the deep night I went with my shovel and buried it,
- 1:45:18Speaker 1: where up jumps Tom and shouts, now I've got it,
- 1:45:24Speaker 1: and waves his hand. Oh, ever, so fine and starchy
- 1:45:27Speaker 1: towards the old man that says, sit down, A murder
- 1:45:31Speaker 1: was done, but you never had no hand in it. Well, sir,
- 1:45:36Speaker 1: you could hurt a pin drop. And the old man
- 1:45:38Speaker 1: he sunk down kind of bewildered in his seat, and
- 1:45:40Speaker 1: Aunt Sally and Benny didn't know it because they were
- 1:45:44Speaker 1: so astonished and staring at Tom with their mouths open
- 1:45:47Speaker 1: and not knowing what they was about, and the whole
- 1:45:50Speaker 1: house the same. I never seen people look so helpless
- 1:45:53Speaker 1: and tangled up, and I hate ever seen eyes bug
- 1:45:56Speaker 1: out and gaze without a blink the way there and
- 1:45:59Speaker 1: did Tom says perfectly, Tom, you're writer, May I speak
- 1:46:05Speaker 1: for goodness sakes? Yes? Go on, says the judge, so
- 1:46:08Speaker 1: astonished and mixed up, he didn't know what he was about.
- 1:46:11Speaker 1: Hardly then Tom, he stood there and waited a second
- 1:46:14Speaker 1: or two. That was to work up and effect, as
- 1:46:17Speaker 1: he calls it. Then he started in just as calm
- 1:46:20Speaker 1: as ever, and says, for about two weeks now, there's
- 1:46:24Speaker 1: been a little bill sticking on the front of this
- 1:46:27Speaker 1: courthouse offering two thousand dollars reward for a couple of
- 1:46:31Speaker 1: big diamonds stole at Saint Louis. Then diamonds is worth
- 1:46:36Speaker 1: twelve thousand dollars. But never mind about that till I
- 1:46:40Speaker 1: get to it. Now, about this murder, I will tell
- 1:46:44Speaker 1: you all about it, how it happened, who done it,
- 1:46:47Speaker 1: every detail you could see everybody nestle down and begin
- 1:46:51Speaker 1: to listen for all they was worth. This man here,
- 1:46:54Speaker 1: brace Dunlap, that's been sniveling so about his dead brother,
- 1:46:58Speaker 1: that you know he never cared a straw for wanted
- 1:47:01Speaker 1: to marry that young girl there, and she wouldn't have him.
- 1:47:05Speaker 1: So he told Uncle Silas he would make him. Sorry.
- 1:47:08Speaker 1: Uncle Silas knowed how powerful he was and how little
- 1:47:12Speaker 1: chance he had against such a man, and he was
- 1:47:14Speaker 1: scared and worried and done everything he could think of
- 1:47:18Speaker 1: to smooth him over and get him to be good
- 1:47:20Speaker 1: to him. And he even took his no account brother Jubiter,
- 1:47:23Speaker 1: on the farm and give him wages, and stinted his
- 1:47:27Speaker 1: own family to pay them. And Jubiter done everything his
- 1:47:30Speaker 1: brother could contrive to insult Uncle Silas and fret and
- 1:47:34Speaker 1: worry him and try to drive Uncle Silas into doing
- 1:47:37Speaker 1: him a hurt so as to injure Uncle Silas with
- 1:47:40Speaker 1: the people. And it done it. Everybody turned against him
- 1:47:43Speaker 1: and said the meanest kind of things about him, and
- 1:47:46Speaker 1: it gradly broke his heart. Yes, and he was so
- 1:47:49Speaker 1: worried and distressed that often he warn't hardly in his
- 1:47:52Speaker 1: right mind. Well on that Saturday, that we've had so
- 1:47:56Speaker 1: much trouble about two of these witnesses here, lam him
- 1:48:00Speaker 1: Beebe and Jim Lane come along by where Uncle Silas
- 1:48:03Speaker 1: and Jubiter Dunlap was at work, and that much of
- 1:48:06Speaker 1: what they said is true, the rest is lies. They
- 1:48:10Speaker 1: didn't hear Uncle Silas say he would kill Jubiter. They
- 1:48:13Speaker 1: didn't hear no blows struck, they didn't see no dead man,
- 1:48:17Speaker 1: and they didn't see Uncle Silas hide anything in the bushes.
- 1:48:20Speaker 1: Look at them now, how they set there wishing they
- 1:48:23Speaker 1: hadn't been so handy with their tongues. Anyway, they'll wish
- 1:48:26Speaker 1: it before I get done. That Saturday evening, Bill and
- 1:48:30Speaker 1: Jack Withers did see one man lugging off another one.
- 1:48:33Speaker 1: That much of what they said is true, and the
- 1:48:35Speaker 1: rest is lies. First off, they thought it was a
- 1:48:38Speaker 1: nigger stealing Uncle Silas's corn. You notice it makes them
- 1:48:42Speaker 1: look silly now to find out somebody overheard them say that.
- 1:48:46Speaker 1: That's because they found out by and by who it
- 1:48:48Speaker 1: was that was doing the lugging. And they know best why.
- 1:48:51Speaker 1: They swore here that they took it for Uncle Silas
- 1:48:54Speaker 1: by the gate, which it wasn't. And they knowed it
- 1:48:58Speaker 1: when they swore to that lie. A man out in
- 1:49:00Speaker 1: the moonlight did see a murdered person put underground in
- 1:49:04Speaker 1: the tobacco field. But it wasn't Uncle Silas that had
- 1:49:06Speaker 1: done the baring. He was in his bed at that
- 1:49:09Speaker 1: very time. Now, then, before I go on, I want
- 1:49:12Speaker 1: to ask you if you've ever noticed this, that people,
- 1:49:16Speaker 1: when they're thinking deep or when they're worried, are most
- 1:49:19Speaker 1: always doing something with their hands, and they don't know
- 1:49:22Speaker 1: it and don't notice what it is their hands are doing.
- 1:49:25Speaker 1: Some stroke their chins, some stroke their noses, some stroke
- 1:49:29Speaker 1: up under their chin with their hand, Some twirl a chain,
- 1:49:33Speaker 1: some fumble a button. Then there's some that draws a
- 1:49:36Speaker 1: figure or a letter with their finger on their cheek
- 1:49:39Speaker 1: or under their chin, or on their under lip. That's
- 1:49:42Speaker 1: my way when I'm restless or worried or thinking hard,
- 1:49:47Speaker 1: I draw capital v's on my cheek or on my
- 1:49:50Speaker 1: underlip or under my chin, and never anything but capital v's.
- 1:49:55Speaker 1: And half the time I don't notice it and don't
- 1:49:57Speaker 1: know I'm doing it. That was aw That is just
- 1:50:01Speaker 1: what I do. Only I make an oh. And I
- 1:50:04Speaker 1: could see people nodding to one another, same as they
- 1:50:06Speaker 1: do when they mean that's so now, then I'll go on.
- 1:50:11Speaker 1: That's same Saturday. No, it was the night before. There
- 1:50:15Speaker 1: was a steamboat laying at Flagler's landing forty miles above here,
- 1:50:19Speaker 1: and it was raining and storming like the nation, and
- 1:50:22Speaker 1: there was a thief aboard, and he had them two
- 1:50:24Speaker 1: big di'monds that's advertised out here on this court house door.
- 1:50:28Speaker 1: And he slipped ashore with his hand bag and struck
- 1:50:31Speaker 1: out into the dark in the storm. And he was
- 1:50:33Speaker 1: a hoping he could get to this town all right
- 1:50:36Speaker 1: an be safe. But he had two pals aboard the
- 1:50:39Speaker 1: boat hiding, and he knowed they was going to kill
- 1:50:42Speaker 1: him the first chance they got and take the di'monds,
- 1:50:44Speaker 1: because all three stole them, and then this fellow he
- 1:50:47Speaker 1: got a hold of them and skipped. Well, he hadn't
- 1:50:50Speaker 1: been gone more'n ten minutes before his pals found it out,
- 1:50:53Speaker 1: and they jumped ashore and lit out after him. Probably
- 1:50:56Speaker 1: they'd burnt matches and found his tracks. Anyway, they dogged
- 1:51:00Speaker 1: along after him all day Saturday and kept out of
- 1:51:03Speaker 1: his sight, and towards sundown he come to the bunch
- 1:51:06Speaker 1: of sycamores down by Uncle Silas's field, and he went
- 1:51:09Speaker 1: in there to get a disguise out of his handbag
- 1:51:12Speaker 1: and put it on before he showed himself here in
- 1:51:15Speaker 1: the town. And mind you, he'd done that just a
- 1:51:18Speaker 1: little after the time that Uncle Silas was hitting Jubiter
- 1:51:21Speaker 1: Dunlap over the head with the club, for he did
- 1:51:24Speaker 1: hit him. But the minute the pal see that thief
- 1:51:27Speaker 1: slide into the bunch of sycamores, they jumped out of
- 1:51:30Speaker 1: the bushes and slid in after him. They fell on
- 1:51:33Speaker 1: him and clubbed him to death. Yes, for all he
- 1:51:36Speaker 1: screamed and howled, so they never had no mercy on him,
- 1:51:40Speaker 1: but clubbed him to death. And two men that was
- 1:51:43Speaker 1: running along the road heard him yelling that way, and
- 1:51:46Speaker 1: they made a rush into the sycamore bunch, which was
- 1:51:49Speaker 1: where they was bound for anyway. And when the pals
- 1:51:52Speaker 1: saw them, they lit out, and the two men after
- 1:51:55Speaker 1: them at chasing them as tight as they could go.
- 1:51:58Speaker 1: But only a minute or two. Then these two new
- 1:52:00Speaker 1: men slipped back, very quiet into the sycamores. Then what
- 1:52:04Speaker 1: did they do? I will tell you what they'd done.
- 1:52:07Speaker 1: They found where the thief had got his disguise out
- 1:52:10Speaker 1: of his carpet sack to put on so one of
- 1:52:13Speaker 1: them strips and puts on that disguise. Tom waited a
- 1:52:17Speaker 1: little here for some more effect. Then he says, very deliberate,
- 1:52:21Speaker 1: the man that put on that dead man's disguise was
- 1:52:25Speaker 1: Jubiter Dunlap, Great Scott. Everybody shouted all over the house,
- 1:52:30Speaker 1: and old Uncle Silas he looked perfectly astonished. Yes it
- 1:52:34Speaker 1: was Jubiter Dunlap, not Dad, you see. Then they pulled
- 1:52:37Speaker 1: off the dead man's boots and put Jubiter Dunlap's old
- 1:52:40Speaker 1: ragged shoes on the corpse, and put the corpse's boots
- 1:52:43Speaker 1: on Jubiter Dunlap. Then Jubiter Dunlap stayed where he was,
- 1:52:48Speaker 1: and the other man lugged the dead body off in
- 1:52:50Speaker 1: the twilight. And after midnight he went to Uncle Silas's
- 1:52:54Speaker 1: house and took his old green work robe off the
- 1:52:57Speaker 1: peg where it all was hangs in the passage betwixt
- 1:52:59Speaker 1: the house and the kitchen, and put it on, and
- 1:53:02Speaker 1: stole the long handled shovel and went off down into
- 1:53:05Speaker 1: the tobacco field and buried the murdered man. He stopped
- 1:53:09Speaker 1: and stood half a minute. Then, and who do you
- 1:53:13Speaker 1: reckon the murdered man? Was? It was Jake Dunlap, the
- 1:53:18Speaker 1: long lost burglar, Great Scott, and the man that buried
- 1:53:22Speaker 1: him was Brace Dunlap, his brother, Great Scott. And who
- 1:53:28Speaker 1: do you reckon? Is this mowing idiot here that's letting
- 1:53:31Speaker 1: on all these weeks to be a deef and dumb stranger.
- 1:53:35Speaker 1: It's Jubiter Dunlap, my land. They all busted out in
- 1:53:40Speaker 1: a howl, and you never see the like of that
- 1:53:42Speaker 1: excitement since the day you was born. And Tom he
- 1:53:45Speaker 1: made a jump for Jubiter and snaked off his goggles
- 1:53:48Speaker 1: and his false whiskers. And there was the murdered man,
- 1:53:50Speaker 1: sure enough, just as alive as anybody. And Aunt Sally
- 1:53:54Speaker 1: and Benny they went to hugging and crying and kissing
- 1:53:58Speaker 1: and smothering old Uncle Silas. To that degree he was
- 1:54:01Speaker 1: more muddled and confused and mushed up in his mind
- 1:54:04Speaker 1: than he ever was before, And that is saying considerable.
- 1:54:07Speaker 1: And next people began to yell Tom Sawyer. Tom Sawyer
- 1:54:12Speaker 1: shut up everybody and let him go on, go on,
- 1:54:15Speaker 1: Tom Sawyer, which made him feel uncommon bully, for it
- 1:54:19Speaker 1: was nuts for Tom Sawyer to be a public character
- 1:54:22Speaker 1: that way, and a hero, as he calls it, so
- 1:54:25Speaker 1: when it was all quiet, he says, there ain't much left,
- 1:54:28Speaker 1: only this, when that man there, Brace Dunlap, had most
- 1:54:32Speaker 1: worried the life and sense out of Uncle Silas, till
- 1:54:35Speaker 1: at last he plumb lost his mind and hit this
- 1:54:37Speaker 1: other Blatherskype his brother with a club. I reckon, he's
- 1:54:41Speaker 1: seen his chance. Jupiter broke for the woods to hide,
- 1:54:44Speaker 1: and I reckon the game was for him to slide
- 1:54:47Speaker 1: out in the night and leave the country. Then Brace
- 1:54:50Speaker 1: would make everybody believe Uncle Silas killed him and hid
- 1:54:53Speaker 1: his body summers, and that would ruin Uncle Silas and
- 1:54:56Speaker 1: drive him out of the country hang him maybe, I
- 1:54:59Speaker 1: don't know. But when they found their dead brother and
- 1:55:02Speaker 1: the sycamores without knowing him, because he was so battered up,
- 1:55:05Speaker 1: they see they had a better thing. Disguise both and
- 1:55:09Speaker 1: barry Jake and dig him up presently, all dressed up
- 1:55:12Speaker 1: in Jubiter's clothes, and hire Jim Lane and Bill Withers
- 1:55:15Speaker 1: and the others to swear to some handy lies, which
- 1:55:19Speaker 1: they done. And there they sat now, And I told
- 1:55:22Speaker 1: them they would be looking sick before I got done,
- 1:55:25Speaker 1: And that is the way they're looking now. Well, Me
- 1:55:29Speaker 1: and Huck Finn here. We come down on the boat
- 1:55:31Speaker 1: with the thieves, and the dead one told us all
- 1:55:34Speaker 1: about the diamonds and said the others would murder him
- 1:55:37Speaker 1: if they got the chance, and we was going to
- 1:55:39Speaker 1: help him all we could. We was bound for the
- 1:55:42Speaker 1: sycamores when we heard them killing him in there. But
- 1:55:45Speaker 1: we was in there in the early morning after the
- 1:55:47Speaker 1: storm and loud nobody hadn't been killed after all. And
- 1:55:51Speaker 1: when we see Jubiter Dunlap here spreading around in the
- 1:55:55Speaker 1: very same disguise Jake told us he was going to wear,
- 1:55:59Speaker 1: we thought it was his own self, and he was
- 1:56:02Speaker 1: googooing deef and dumb, and that was according to agreement. Well,
- 1:56:06Speaker 1: me and Huck went on hunting for the corpse after
- 1:56:09Speaker 1: the others quit, and we found it and was proud too,
- 1:56:13Speaker 1: But Uncle Silas he knocked us crazy by telling us
- 1:56:16Speaker 1: he killed the man. So we was mighty sorry. We
- 1:56:19Speaker 1: found the body and was bound to save Uncle Silas's
- 1:56:23Speaker 1: neck if we could. And it was going to be
- 1:56:24Speaker 1: tough work too, because he wouldn't let us break him
- 1:56:27Speaker 1: out of prison the way we done with our old
- 1:56:29Speaker 1: nigger Jim. I done everything I could the whole month
- 1:56:32Speaker 1: to think up some way to save Uncle Silas. But
- 1:56:35Speaker 1: I couldn't strike a thing. So when we come into
- 1:56:38Speaker 1: court to day, I come empty and couldn't see no
- 1:56:40Speaker 1: chance anywheres. But bye and bye. I had a glimpse
- 1:56:44Speaker 1: of something that set me thinking, just a little wee glimpse,
- 1:56:47Speaker 1: only that, and not enough to make sure. But it
- 1:56:50Speaker 1: set me thinking hard and watching when I was only
- 1:56:54Speaker 1: letting on to think, and by and bye. Sure enough,
- 1:56:56Speaker 1: when Uncle Silas was piling out that stuff about him
- 1:57:00Speaker 1: killing Jubiter Dunlap, I catched that glimpse again, and this
- 1:57:03Speaker 1: time I jumped up and shut down the proceedings because
- 1:57:06Speaker 1: I knowed Jubiter Dunlap was a settin here before me.
- 1:57:10Speaker 1: I knowed him by a thing which I seen him do,
- 1:57:13Speaker 1: and I remembered it. I'd seen him do it when
- 1:57:16Speaker 1: I was here a year ago. He stopped then and
- 1:57:20Speaker 1: studied a minute, laying for an effect. I knowed it perfectly. Well.
- 1:57:24Speaker 1: Then he turned off like he was going to leave
- 1:57:26Speaker 1: the platform and says, kind of lazy and indifferent. Well,
- 1:57:30Speaker 1: I believe that is all. Wow, you never heard such
- 1:57:34Speaker 1: a howl, and it come from the whole house. What
- 1:57:38Speaker 1: was it you seen him do? Stay where you were,
- 1:57:40Speaker 1: you little devil. You think you were going to work
- 1:57:42Speaker 1: a body up till his mouth a watering and stop there?
- 1:57:46Speaker 1: What was it he done? That was it? You see?
- 1:57:50Speaker 1: He just done it to get an effect. You couldn't
- 1:57:53Speaker 1: have pulled him off that platform with a yoke of oxen.
- 1:57:56Speaker 1: Oh it wasn't anything much, he says. I've seen him
- 1:58:00Speaker 1: looking a little excited when he found Uncle Silas was
- 1:58:03Speaker 1: actually fixing to hang himself for a murder that warn't
- 1:58:05Speaker 1: ever done. And he got more and more nervous and worried.
- 1:58:09Speaker 1: I watching him sharp, but not seeming to look at him,
- 1:58:13Speaker 1: And all of a sudden his hands begun to work
- 1:58:15Speaker 1: and fidget, and pretty soon his left crept up and
- 1:58:19Speaker 1: his finger drawed across on his cheek, And then I
- 1:58:22Speaker 1: had him. Well. Then they ripped and howled and stomped
- 1:58:27Speaker 1: and clapped their hands till Tom Sawyer was that proud
- 1:58:30Speaker 1: and happy he didn't know what to do with himself.
- 1:58:32Speaker 1: And then the judge, he looked down over his pulpit
- 1:58:35Speaker 1: and says, my boy, did you see all the various
- 1:58:39Speaker 1: details of this strange conspiracy and tragedy that you've been describing? No,
- 1:58:45Speaker 1: your honor I didn't see any of them, didn't see
- 1:58:48Speaker 1: any of them. Why you've told the whole history straight through,
- 1:58:53Speaker 1: just the same as if you'd seen it with your eyes,
- 1:58:55Speaker 1: had jamage that, Tom says, kind of easy and comfortable. Oh,
- 1:59:01Speaker 1: just noticing the evidence and piecing this and that together,
- 1:59:04Speaker 1: Your honor, just an ordinary little bit of detective work.
- 1:59:08Speaker 1: Anybody could have done it, nothing of the kind, not
- 1:59:11Speaker 1: two in a million could have done it. You are
- 1:59:14Speaker 1: a very remarkable boy. Then they let go and give
- 1:59:17Speaker 1: Tom another smashing round, and he well, he wouldn't sold
- 1:59:22Speaker 1: out for a silver mine. Then the judge says, but
- 1:59:25Speaker 1: are you certain you've got this curious history straight perfectly?
- 1:59:29Speaker 1: Your Honor, here is brace dunlap. Let him deny his
- 1:59:33Speaker 1: share of it. If he wants to take the chance,
- 1:59:35Speaker 1: I'll engage to make him wish he hadn't said anything. Well,
- 1:59:39Speaker 1: you see, he's pretty quiet, and his brother's pretty quiet.
- 1:59:43Speaker 1: And then four witnesses that lied so and got paid
- 1:59:46Speaker 1: for it, they're pretty quiet. And as for Uncle Silas,
- 1:59:49Speaker 1: it ain't any use for him to put in his oar,
- 1:59:52Speaker 1: I wouldn't believe him under oath. Well, sir, that fairly
- 1:59:55Speaker 1: made them shout and even the judge. He let go
- 1:59:58Speaker 1: and laughed. Tom, he was just feeling like a rainbow.
- 2:00:02Speaker 1: When they was done laughing, he looks up at the
- 2:00:04Speaker 1: judge and says, your honor, there's a thief in this house,
- 2:00:08Speaker 1: a thief, yes, sir, and he's got them twelve thousand
- 2:00:11Speaker 1: dollars diamonds on him, by gracious. But it made a stir.
- 2:00:16Speaker 1: Everybody went shouting, witch is him? Witch is him? Pint
- 2:00:19Speaker 1: him out? And the judge says, point him out, my
- 2:00:22Speaker 1: lad Sheriff, you will arrest him. Which one is it?
- 2:00:26Speaker 1: Tom says, this late dead man here Jubiter Dunlap. Then
- 2:00:32Speaker 1: there was another thundering let go of astonishment and excitement.
- 2:00:36Speaker 1: But Jubiter, which was astonished enough before, was just fairly
- 2:00:39Speaker 1: putrified with astonishment this time. And he spoke up about
- 2:00:43Speaker 1: half crying and says, no, that's a lie, your honor,
- 2:00:48Speaker 1: it ain't fire. I have plenty bad enough without that.
- 2:00:51Speaker 1: I'd done the other things. Brace he put me up
- 2:00:54Speaker 1: to it and persuaded me and promised he'd make me
- 2:00:56Speaker 1: rich someday, and I'd done it, and I'm sorry i'd
- 2:00:59Speaker 1: done it, and I wished I hadn't, but I ain't
- 2:01:02Speaker 1: stole no diamonds, and I ain't got no di'monds. I
- 2:01:06Speaker 1: wished I may never stir if it ain't, so the
- 2:01:08Speaker 1: sheriff can search me and see. Tom says, your honor,
- 2:01:12Speaker 1: it wasn't right to call him a thief, and I'll
- 2:01:15Speaker 1: let up on that a little. He did steal the diamonds,
- 2:01:17Speaker 1: but he didn't know it. He stole them from his
- 2:01:20Speaker 1: brother Jake when he was laying dead, after Jake had
- 2:01:23Speaker 1: stole them from the other thieves, but Jubiter didn't know
- 2:01:27Speaker 1: he was stealing them. And he's been swelling around here
- 2:01:30Speaker 1: with them a month, Yes, sir, twelve thousand dollars worth
- 2:01:33Speaker 1: of diamonds on him, all that riches, and going around
- 2:01:37Speaker 1: here every day, just like a poor man. Yes, Your Honor,
- 2:01:40Speaker 1: he's got them on him now. The judge spoke up
- 2:01:44Speaker 1: and says, search him, sheriff, Well, Sir, the sheriff he
- 2:01:48Speaker 1: ransacked him high and low and everywhere, searched his hat, socks, seams, boots, everything,
- 2:01:54Speaker 1: and Tom he stood there quiet, laying for another of
- 2:01:57Speaker 1: them effects of his Finally the if he give it up,
- 2:02:01Speaker 1: and everybody looked disappointed, and Jubiter says, they are now
- 2:02:04Speaker 1: what I tell you, And the judge says, it appears
- 2:02:08Speaker 1: you were mistaken this time, my bar Then Tom took
- 2:02:12Speaker 1: an attitude and led on to be studying with all
- 2:02:14Speaker 1: his might and scratching his head. Then all of a
- 2:02:16Speaker 1: sudden he glanced up Chipper and says, oh, now I've
- 2:02:20Speaker 1: got it. I'd forgot, which was a lie, and I
- 2:02:23Speaker 1: noted it. Then he says, will somebody be good enough
- 2:02:27Speaker 1: to lend me a little small screwdriver? There was one
- 2:02:30Speaker 1: in your brother's handbag that you smooched, Jubiter, But I
- 2:02:34Speaker 1: reckon you didn't fetch it with you. No, I didn't.
- 2:02:37Speaker 1: I didn't want it, and I give it away. That's
- 2:02:40Speaker 1: because you didn't know what it was for. Jubiter had
- 2:02:44Speaker 1: his boots on again by now. And when the thing
- 2:02:46Speaker 1: Tom wanted was passed over the people's heads till it
- 2:02:49Speaker 1: got to him, he says to Jubiter, put up your
- 2:02:52Speaker 1: boot on this chair, and he kneeled down and begun
- 2:02:56Speaker 1: to unscrew the heel plate, everybody watching. And when he
- 2:02:59Speaker 1: got that big diamond out of that boot, heel and
- 2:03:02Speaker 1: held it up and let it flash and blaze and
- 2:03:05Speaker 1: squirt sunlight every which way. It just took everybody's breath
- 2:03:09Speaker 1: and jubiter. He looked so sick and sorry, you never
- 2:03:11Speaker 1: see the like of it. And when Tom held up
- 2:03:14Speaker 1: the other diamond, he looked sorrier than ever land. He
- 2:03:18Speaker 1: was thinking how he would have skipped out and been
- 2:03:21Speaker 1: rich and independent in a foreign country if he'd only
- 2:03:24Speaker 1: had the luck to guess what the screwdriver was in
- 2:03:26Speaker 1: the carpet bag. For well, it was the most exciting
- 2:03:31Speaker 1: time to take it all round, and Tom got cords
- 2:03:34Speaker 1: of glory. The judge took the diamonds and stood up
- 2:03:37Speaker 1: in his pulpit and cleared his throat and shoved his
- 2:03:40Speaker 1: spectacles back on his head and says, I'll keep them
- 2:03:44Speaker 1: and notify the owners, and when they send for them,
- 2:03:48Speaker 1: it will be a real pleasure to me to hand
- 2:03:51Speaker 1: you the two thousand dollars, for you've earned the money, yes,
- 2:03:56Speaker 1: and you've earned the deepest and most sincereous thanks of
- 2:03:59Speaker 1: this community. He besides for lifting a wronged and innocent
- 2:04:02Speaker 1: family out of ruin and shame, and saving a good
- 2:04:06Speaker 1: and honorable man from a felon's death, and for exposing
- 2:04:10Speaker 1: to infamy and the punishment of the law a cruel
- 2:04:14Speaker 1: and odious scoundrel and his miserable creatures. Well, sir, if
- 2:04:19Speaker 1: there's been a brass band to bust out some music,
- 2:04:22Speaker 1: then it would have been just the perfectest thing I
- 2:04:25Speaker 1: ever see. And Tom Sawry he said the same. Then
- 2:04:29Speaker 1: the sheriff he now braced Dunlap in his crowd, and
- 2:04:32Speaker 1: by and by next month the judge had them up
- 2:04:35Speaker 1: for trial and jailed a whole lot, and everybody crowded
- 2:04:38Speaker 1: back to Uncle Silas's little old church and was ever
- 2:04:41Speaker 1: so loving and kind to him and the family, and
- 2:04:44Speaker 1: couldn't do enough for them. And Uncle Silas he preached
- 2:04:48Speaker 1: them the blamedest, jumbledest idiotic sermons you ever struck, and
- 2:04:52Speaker 1: would tangle you up so you couldn't find your way
- 2:04:54Speaker 1: home in daylight. But the people never let on. But
- 2:04:58Speaker 1: they thought it was the clearest and brightest and elegantest
- 2:05:02Speaker 1: sermons that ever was. And they would set there and
- 2:05:04Speaker 1: cry for love and pity. But by George, they'd give
- 2:05:08Speaker 1: me the jim jambs and the fan TODs and caked
- 2:05:11Speaker 1: up my brains I had and turned them solid. But
- 2:05:15Speaker 1: by and by they loved the old man's intellects back
- 2:05:17Speaker 1: into him again, and he was as sound and his
- 2:05:20Speaker 1: skull as he ever was, which ain't no flattery, I reckon.
- 2:05:23Speaker 1: And so the whole family was as happy as birds,
- 2:05:26Speaker 1: and nobody could be gratefuller and lovinger than what they
- 2:05:30Speaker 1: was to Tom Sawyer, and the same to me, though
- 2:05:33Speaker 1: I hadn't done nothing. And when the two thousand dollars come,
- 2:05:36Speaker 1: Tom give half of it to me, and never told
- 2:05:39Speaker 1: anybody so, which didn't surprise me because I knowed him.
- 2:05:45Speaker 1: End of Chapter eleven and end of Tom Sawyer Detective