THE old man was uptown again
before breakfast, but couldn't
get no track of Tom; and both
of them set at the table thinking,
and not saying nothing, and looking
mournful, and their coffee getting
cold, and not eating anything.
And by and by the old man
says:
"Did I give
you the letter?"
"What letter?"
"The one I
got yesterday out of the post-office."
"No, you didn't
give me no letter."
"Well, I must
a forgot it."
So he rummaged his pockets,
and then went off somewheres
where he had laid it down, and
fetched it, and give it to her.
She says:
"Why, it's
from St. Petersburg -- it's
from Sis."
I allowed another walk would
do me good; but I couldn't stir.
But before she could break it
open she dropped it and run --
for she see something. And so
did I. It was Tom Sawyer on a
mattress; and that old doctor;
and Jim, in HER calico dress,
with his hands tied behind him;
and a lot of people. I hid the
letter behind the first thing
that come handy, and rushed.
She flung herself at Tom, crying,
and says:
"Oh, he's dead,
he's dead, I know he's dead!"
And Tom he turned his head
a little, and muttered something
or other, which showed he warn't
in his right mind; then she flung
up her hands, and says:
"He's alive, thank God! And
that's enough!" and she snatched
a kiss of him, and flew for the
house to get the bed ready, and
scattering orders right and left
at the niggers and everybody
else, as fast as her tongue could
go, every jump of the way.
I followed the men to see what
they was going to do with Jim;
and the old doctor and Uncle
Silas followed after Tom into
the house. The men was very huffy,
and some of them wanted to hang
Jim for an example to all the
other niggers around there, so
they wouldn't be trying to run
away like Jim done, and making
such a raft of trouble, and keeping
a whole family scared most to
death for days and nights. But
the others said, don't do it,
it wouldn't answer at all; he
ain't our nigger, and his owner
would turn up and make us pay
for him, sure. So that cooled
them down a little, because the
people that's always the most
anxious for to hang a nigger
that hain't done just right is
always the very ones that ain't
the most anxious to pay for him
when they've got their satisfaction
out of him.
They cussed Jim considerble,
though, and give him a cuff or
two side the head once in a while,
but Jim never said nothing, and
he never let on to know me, and
they took him to the same cabin,
and put his own clothes on him,
and chained him again, and not
to no bed-leg this time, but
to a big staple drove into the
bottom log, and chained his hands,
too, and both legs, and said
he warn't to have nothing but
bread and water to eat after
this till his owner come, or
he was sold at auction because
he didn't come in a certain length
of time, and filled up our hole,
and said a couple of farmers
with guns must stand watch around
about the cabin every night,
and a bulldog tied to the door
in the daytime; and about this
time they was through with the
job and was tapering off with
a kind of generl good-bye cussing,
and then the old doctor comes
and takes a look, and says:
"Don't be no
rougher on him than you're
obleeged to, because
he ain't a bad nigger. When I
got to where I found the boy
I see I couldn't cut the bullet
out without some help, and he
warn't in no condition for me
to leave to go and get help;
and he got a little worse and
a little worse, and after a long
time he went out of his head,
and wouldn't let me come a-nigh
him any more, and said if I chalked
his raft he'd kill me, and no
end of wild foolishness like
that, and I see I couldn't do
anything at all with him; so
I says, I got to have HELP somehow;
and the minute I says it out
crawls this nigger from somewheres
and says he'll help, and he done
it, too, and done it very well.
Of course I judged he must be
a runaway nigger, and there I
WAS! and there I had to stick
right straight along all the
rest of the day and all night.
It was a fix, I tell you! I had
a couple of patients with the
chills, and of course I'd of
liked to run up to town and see
them, but I dasn't, because the
nigger might get away, and then
I'd be to blame; and yet never
a skiff come close enough for
me to hail. So there I had to
stick plumb until daylight this
morning; and I never see a nigger
that was a better nuss or faithfuller,
and yet he was risking his freedom
to do it, and was all tired out,
too, and I see plain enough he'd
been worked main hard lately.
I liked the nigger for that;
I tell you, gentlemen, a nigger
like that is worth a thousand
dollars -- and kind treatment,
too. I had everything I needed,
and the boy was doing as well
there as he would a done at home
-- better, maybe, because it
was so quiet; but there I WAS,
with both of 'm on my hands,
and there I had to stick till
about dawn this morning; then
some men in a skiff come by,
and as good luck would have it
the nigger was setting by the
pallet with his head propped
on his knees sound asleep; so
I motioned them in quiet, and
they slipped up on him and grabbed
him and tied him before he knowed
what he was about, and we never
had no trouble. And the boy being
in a kind of a flighty sleep,
too, we muffled the oars and
hitched the raft on, and towed
her over very nice and quiet,
and the nigger never made the
least row nor said a word from
the start. He ain't no bad nigger,
gentlemen; that's what I think
about him."
Somebody says:
"Well, it sounds
very good, doctor, I'm obleeged
to say."
Then the others softened up
a little, too, and I was mighty
thankful to that old doctor for
doing Jim that good turn; and
I was glad it was according to
my judgment of him, too; because
I thought he had a good heart
in him and was a good man the
first time I see him. Then they
all agreed that Jim had acted
very well, and was deserving
to have some notice took of it,
and reward. So every one of them
promised, right out and hearty,
that they wouldn't cuss him no
more.
Then they come out and locked
him up. I hoped they was going
to say he could have one or two
of the chains took off, because
they was rotten heavy, or could
have meat and greens with his
bread and water; but they didn't
think of it, and I reckoned it
warn't best for me to mix in,
but I judged I'd get the doctor's
yarn to Aunt Sally somehow or
other as soon as I'd got through
the breakers that was laying
just ahead of me -- explanations,
I mean, of how I forgot to mention
about Sid being shot when I was
telling how him and me put in
that dratted night paddling around
hunting the runaway nigger.
But I had plenty time. Aunt
Sally she stuck to the sick-room
all day and all night, and every
time I see Uncle Silas mooning
around I dodged him.
Next morning I heard Tom was
a good deal better, and they
said Aunt Sally was gone to get
a nap. So I slips to the sick-room,
and if I found him awake I reckoned
we could put up a yarn for the
family that would wash. But he
was sleeping, and sleeping very
peaceful, too; and pale, not
fire-faced the way he was when
he come. So I set down and laid
for him to wake. In about half
an hour Aunt Sally comes gliding
in, and there I was, up a stump
again! She motioned me to be
still, and set down by me, and
begun to whisper, and said we
could all be joyful now, because
all the symptoms was first-rate,
and he'd been sleeping like that
for ever so long, and looking
better and peacefuller all the
time, and ten to one he'd wake
up in his right mind.
So we set there watching, and
by and by he stirs a bit, and
opened his eyes very natural,
and takes a look, and says:
"Hello! --
why, I'm at HOME! How's that?
Where's the raft?"
"It's all right," I
says.
"And JIM?"
"The same," I
says, but couldn't say it pretty
brash. But he never
noticed, but says:
"Good! Splendid!
NOW we're all right and safe!
Did you tell
Aunty?"
I was going
to say yes; but she chipped
in and says: "About
what, Sid?"
"Why, about
the way the whole thing was
done."
"What whole
thing?"
"Why, THE whole
thing. There ain't but one;
how we set the
runaway nigger free -- me and
Tom."
"Good land!
Set the run -- What IS the
child talking about!
Dear, dear, out of his head again!"
"NO, I ain't out of my HEAD;
I know all what I'm talking about.
We DID set him free -- me and
Tom. We laid out to do it, and
we DONE it. And we done it elegant,
too." He'd got a start, and she
never checked him up, just set
and stared and stared, and let
him clip along, and I see it
warn't no use for ME to put in. "Why,
Aunty, it cost us a power of
work -- weeks of it -- hours
and hours, every night, whilst
you was all asleep. And we had
to steal candles, and the sheet,
and the shirt, and your dress,
and spoons, and tin plates, and
case-knives, and the warming-pan,
and the grindstone, and flour,
and just no end of things, and
you can't think what work it
was to make the saws, and pens,
and inscriptions, and one thing
or another, and you can't think
HALF the fun it was. And we had
to make up the pictures of coffins
and things, and nonnamous letters
from the robbers, and get up
and down the lightning-rod, and
dig the hole into the cabin,
and made the rope ladder and
send it in cooked up in a pie,
and send in spoons and things
to work with in your apron pocket
--"
"Mercy sakes!"
"-- and load
up the cabin with rats and
snakes and so on, for
company for Jim; and then you
kept Tom here so long with the
butter in his hat that you come
near spiling the whole business,
because the men come before we
was out of the cabin, and we
had to rush, and they heard us
and let drive at us, and I got
my share, and we dodged out of
the path and let them go by,
and when the dogs come they warn't
interested in us, but went for
the most noise, and we got our
canoe, and made for the raft,
and was all safe, and Jim was
a free man, and we done it all
by ourselves, and WASN'T it bully,
Aunty!"
"Well, I never
heard the likes of it in all
my born days! So
it was YOU, you little rapscallions,
that's been making all this trouble,
and turned everybody's wits clean
inside out and scared us all
most to death. I've as good a
notion as ever I had in my life
to take it out o' you this very
minute. To think, here I've been,
night after night, a -- YOU just
get well once, you young scamp,
and I lay I'll tan the Old Harry
out o' both o' ye!"
But Tom, he WAS so proud and
joyful, he just COULDN'T hold
in, and his tongue just WENT
it -- she a-chipping in, and
spitting fire all along, and
both of them going it at once,
like a cat convention; and she
says:
"WELL, you
get all the enjoyment you can
out of it NOW, for mind
I tell you if I catch you meddling
with him again --"
"Meddling with WHO?" Tom
says, dropping his smile and
looking
surprised.
"With WHO?
Why, the runaway nigger, of
course. Who'd you
reckon?"
Tom looks at me very grave,
and says:
"Tom, didn't
you just tell me he was all
right? Hasn't he
got away?"
"HIM?" says Aunt Sally; "the
runaway nigger? 'Deed he hasn't.
They've got him back, safe and
sound, and he's in that cabin
again, on bread and water, and
loaded down with chains, till
he's claimed or sold!"
Tom rose square up in bed,
with his eye hot, and his nostrils
opening and shutting like gills,
and sings out to me:
"They hain't
no RIGHT to shut him up! SHOVE!
-- and don't you
lose a minute. Turn him loose!
he ain't no slave; he's as free
as any cretur that walks this
earth!"
"What DOES
the child mean?"
"I mean every
word I SAY, Aunt Sally, and
if somebody don't
go, I'LL go. I've knowed him
all his life, and so has Tom,
there. Old Miss Watson died two
months ago, and she was ashamed
she ever was going to sell him
down the river, and SAID so;
and she set him free in her will."
"Then what
on earth did YOU want to set
him free for, seeing
he was already free?"
"Well, that
IS a question, I must say;
and just like women!
Why, I wanted the ADVENTURE of
it; and I'd a waded neck-deep
in blood to -- goodness alive,
AUNT POLLY!"
If she warn't standing right
there, just inside the door,
looking as sweet and contented
as an angel half full of pie,
I wish I may never!
Aunt Sally jumped for her,
and most hugged the head off
of her, and cried over her, and
I found a good enough place for
me under the bed, for it was
getting pretty sultry for us,
seemed to me. And I peeped out,
and in a little while Tom's Aunt
Polly shook herself loose and
stood there looking across at
Tom over her spectacles -- kind
of grinding him into the earth,
you know. And then she says:
"Yes, you BETTER
turn y'r head away -- I would
if I was you,
Tom."
"Oh, deary me!" says Aunt Sally; "IS
he changed so? Why, that ain't
TOM, it's Sid; Tom's -- Tom's
-- why, where is Tom? He was
here a minute ago."
"You mean where's
Huck FINN -- that's what you
mean! I reckon
I hain't raised such a scamp
as my Tom all these years not
to know him when I SEE him. That
WOULD be a pretty howdy-do. Come
out from under that bed, Huck
Finn."
So I done it. But not feeling
brash.
Aunt Sally
she was one of the mixed-upest-looking
persons I
ever see -- except one, and that
was Uncle Silas, when he come
in and they told it all to him.
It kind of made him drunk, as
you may say, and he didn't know
nothing at all the rest of the
day, and preached a prayer-meeting
sermon that night that gave him
a rattling ruputation, because
the oldest man in the world couldn't
a understood it. So Tom's Aunt
Polly, she told all about who
I was, and what; and I had to
up and tell how I was in such
a tight place that when Mrs.
Phelps took me for Tom Sawyer
-- she chipped in and says, "Oh,
go on and call me Aunt Sally,
I'm used to it now, and 'tain't
no need to change" -- that when
Aunt Sally took me for Tom Sawyer
I had to stand it -- there warn't
no other way, and I knowed he
wouldn't mind, because it would
be nuts for him, being a mystery,
and he'd make an adventure out
of it, and be perfectly satisfied.
And so it turned out, and he
let on to be Sid, and made things
as soft as he could for me.
And his Aunt Polly she said
Tom was right about old Miss
Watson setting Jim free in her
will; and so, sure enough, Tom
Sawyer had gone and took all
that trouble and bother to set
a free nigger free! and I couldn't
ever understand before, until
that minute and that talk, how
he COULD help a body set a nigger
free with his bringing-up.
Well, Aunt Polly she said that
when Aunt Sally wrote to her
that Tom and SID had come all
right and safe, she says to herself:
"Look at that,
now! I might have expected
it, letting him
go off that way without anybody
to watch him. So now I got to
go and trapse all the way down
the river, eleven hundred mile,
and find out what that creetur's
up to THIS time, as long as I
couldn't seem to get any answer
out of you about it."
"Why, I never heard nothing
from you," says Aunt Sally.
"Well, I wonder!
Why, I wrote you twice to ask
you what you
could mean by Sid being here."
"Well, I never
got 'em, Sis."
Aunt Polly she turns around
slow and severe, and says:
"You, Tom!"
"Well -- WHAT?" he
says, kind of pettish.
"Don t you
what ME, you impudent thing
-- hand out them letters."
"What letters?"
"THEM letters.
I be bound, if I have to take
aholt of you
I'll --"
"They're in
the trunk. There, now. And
they're just the same
as they was when I got them out
of the office. I hain't looked
into them, I hain't touched them.
But I knowed they'd make trouble,
and I thought if you warn't in
no hurry, I'd --"
"Well, you
DO need skinning, there ain't
no mistake about
it. And I wrote another one to
tell you I was coming; and I
s'pose he --"
"No, it come
yesterday; I hain't read it
yet, but IT'S all right,
I've got that one."
I wanted to offer to bet two
dollars she hadn't, but I reckoned
maybe it was just as safe to
not to. So I never said nothing.
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