The Portable Mark Twain (56 page)

“No, I didn't see nobody, Aunt Sally. The boat landed just at daylight, and I left my baggage on the wharf-boat and went looking around the town and out a piece in the country, to put in the time and not get here too soon; and so I come down the back way.”

“Who'd you give the baggage to?”

“Nobody.”

“Why, child, it'll be stole!”

“Not where
I
hid it I reckon it won't,” I says.

“How'd you get your breakfast so early on the boat?”

It was kinder thin ice, but I says:

“The captain see me standing around, and told me I better have something to eat before I went ashore; so he took me in the texas to the officers' lunch, and give me all I wanted.”

I was getting so uneasy I couldn't listen good. I had my mind on the children all the time; I wanted to get them out to one side, and pump them a little, and find out who I was. But I couldn't get no show, Mrs. Phelps kept it up and run on so. Pretty soon she made the cold chills streak all down my back, because she says:

“But here we're a running on this way, and you hain't told me a word about Sis, nor any of them. Now I'll rest my works a little, and you start up yourn; just tell me
everything
—tell me all about 'm all—every one of 'm; and how they are, and what they're doing, and what they told you to tell me; and every last thing you can think of.”

Well, I see I was up a stump—and up it good. Providence had stood by me this fur, all right, but I was hard and tight aground, now. I see it warn't a bit of use to try to go ahead—I'd
got
to throw up my hand. So I says to myself, here's another place where I got to resk the truth. I opened my mouth to begin; but she grabbed me and hustled me in behind the bed, and says:

“Here he comes! stick your head down lower—there, that'll do; you can't be seen, now. Don't you let on you're here. I'll play a joke on him. Children, don't you say a word.”

I see I was in a fix, now. But it warn't no use to worry; there warn't nothing to do but just hold still, and try and be ready to stand from under when the lightning struck.

I had just one little glimpse of the old gentleman when he come in, then the bed hid him. Mrs. Phelps she jumps for him and says:

“Has he come?”

“No,” says her husband.

“Good-
ness
gracious!” she says, “what in the world
can
have become of him?”

“I can't imagine,” says the old gentleman; “and I must say, it makes me dreadful uneasy.”

“Uneasy!” she says, “I'm ready to go distracted! He
must
a come; and you've missed him along the road. I
know
it's so—something
tells
me so.”

“Why Sally, I
couldn't
miss him along the road—
you
know that.”

“But oh, dear, dear, what
will
Sis say! He must a come! You must a missed him. He—”

“Oh, don't distress me any more'n I'm already distressed. I don't know what in the world to make of it. I'm at my wit's end, and I don't mind acknowledging 't I'm right down scared. But there's no hope that he's come; for he
couldn't
come and me miss him. Sally, it's terrible—just terrible—something's happened to the boat, sure!”

“Why, Silas! Look yonder!—up the road!—ain't that somebody coming?”

He sprung to the window at the head of the bed, and that give Mrs Phelps the chance she wanted. She stooped down quick, at the foot of the bed, and give me a pull, and out I come; and when he turned back from the window, there she stood, a-beaming and a-smiling like a house afire, and I standing pretty meek and sweaty alongside. The old gentleman stared, and says:

“Why, who's that?”

“Who do you reckon 't is?”

“I haint no idea. Who
is
it?”

“It's
Tom Sawyer!
”

By jings, I most slumped though the floor. But there warn't no time to swap knives; the old man grabbed me by the hand and shook, and kept on shaking; and all the time, how the woman did dance around and laugh and cry; and then how they both did fire off questions about Sid, and Mary, and the rest of the tribe.

But if they was joyful, it warn't nothing to what I was; for it was like being born again, I was so glad to find out who I was. Well, they froze to me for two hours; and at last when my chin was so tired it couldn't hardly go, any more, I had told them more about my family—I mean the Sawyer family—than ever happened to any six Sawyer families. And I explained all about how we blowed out a cylinder-head at the mouth of White River and it took us three days to fix it. Which was all right, and worked first rate; because
they
didn't know but what it would take three days to fix it. If I'd a called it a bolt-head it would a done just as well.

Now I was felling pretty comfortable all down one side, and pretty uncomfortable all up the other. Being Tom Sawyer was easy and comfortable; and it stayed easy and comfortable till by-and-by I hear a steamboat coughing along down the river—then I says to myself, spose Tom Sawyer come down on that boat?—and spose he steps in here, any minute, and sings out my name before I can throw him a wink to keep quiet? Well, I couldn't
have
it that way—it wouldn't do at all. I must go up the road and waylay him. So I told the folks I reckoned I would go up to the town and fetch down my baggage. The old gentleman was for going along with me, but I said no, I could drive the horse myself, and I druther he wouldn't take no trouble about me.

So I started for town, in the wagon, and when I was half-way I see a wagon coming, and sure enough it was Tom Sawyer, and I stopped and waited till he come along. I says “Hold on!” and it stopped alongside, and his mouth opened up like a trunk, and staid so; and he swallowed two or three times like a person that's got a dry throat, and then says:

“I hain't ever done you no harm. You know that. So then, what you want to come back and ha'nt
me
for?”

I says:

“I hain't come back—I hain't been
gone.
”

When he heard my voice, it righted him up some, but he warn't quite satisfied yet. He says:

“Don't you play nothing on me, because I wouldn't on you. Honest injun, now, you ain't a ghost?”

“Honest injun, I ain't,” I says.

“Well—I—I—well, that ought to settle it, of course; but I can't somehow seem to understand it, no way. Looky here, warn't you ever murdered
at all?
”

“No. I warn't ever murdered at all—I played it on them. You come in here and feel of me if you don't believe me.”

So he done it; and it satisfied him; and he was that glad to see me again, he didn't know what to do. And he wanted to know all about it right off; because it was a grand adventure, and mysterious, and so it hit him where he lived. But I said, leave it along till by-and-by; and told his driver to wait, and we drove off a little piece, and I told him the kind of a fix I was in, and what did he reckon we better do? He said, let him alone a minute, and don't disturb him. So he thought and thought, and pretty soon he says:

“It's all right, I've got it. Take my trunk in your wagon, and let on it's your'n; and you turn back and fool along slow, so as to get to the house about the time you ought to; and I'll go towards town a piece, and take a fresh start, and get there a quarter or a half an hour after you; and you needn't let on to know me, at first.”

I says:

“All right; but wait a minute. There's one more thing—a thing that
nobody
don't know but me. And that is, there's a nigger here that I'm trying to steal out of slavery—and his name is
Jim
—old Miss Watson's Jim.”

He says:

“What! Why Jim is—”

He stopped and went to studying. I says:

“
I
know what you'll say. You'll say it's dirty low-down business; but what if it is?—
I
'm low down; and I'm agoing to steal him, and I want you to keep mum and not let on. Will you?”

His eye lit up, and he says:

“I'll
help
you steal him!”

Well, I let go all holts then, like I was shot. It was the most astonishing speech I ever heard—and I'm bound to say Tom Sawyer fell, considerable, in my estimation. Only I couldn't believe it. Tom Sawyer a
nigger stealer!

“Oh, shucks,” I says, “you're joking.”

“I ain't joking, either.”

“Well, then,” I says, “joking or no joking, if you hear anything said about a runaway nigger, don't forget to remember that
you
don't know nothing about him, and
I
don't know nothing about him.”

Then we took the trunk and put it in my wagon, and he drove off his way, and I drove mine. But of course I forgot all about driving slow, on accounts of being glad and full of thinking; so I got home a heap too quick for that length of a trip. The old gentleman was at the door, and he says:

“Why, this is wonderful. Who ever would a thought it was in that mare to do it. I wish we'd a timed her. And she hain't sweated a hair—not a hair. It's wonderful. Why, I wouldn't take a hunderd dollars for that horse now; I wouldn't honest; and yet I'd a sold her for fifteen before, and thought 'twas all she was worth.”

That's all he said. He was the innocentest, best old soul I ever see. But it warn't surprising; because he warn't only just a farmer, he was a preacher, too, and had a little one-horse log church down back of the plantation, which he built it himself at his own expense, for a church and school-house, and never charged nothing for his preaching, and it was worth it, too. There was plenty of other farmer-preachers like that, and done the same way, down South.

In about half an hour Tom's wagon drove up to the front stile, and Aunt Sally she see it through the window because it was only about fifty yards, and says:

“Why, there's somebody come! I wonder who 'tis? Why, I do believe it's a stranger. Jimmy” (that's one of the children), “run and tell Lize to put on another plate for dinner.”

Everybody made a rush for the front door, because, of course, a stranger don't come
every
year, and so he lays over the yaller fever, for interest, when he does come. Tom was over the stile and starting for the house; the wagon was spinning up the road for the village, and we was all bunched in the front door. Tom had his store clothes on, and an audience—and that was always nuts for Tom Sawyer. In them circumstances it warn't no trouble to him to throw in an amount of style that was suitable. He warn't a boy to meeky along up that yard like a sheep; no, he come ca'm and important, like the ram. When he got afront of us, he lifts his hat ever so gracious and dainty, like it was the lid of a box that had butterflies asleep in it and he didn't want to disturb them, and says:

“Mr. Archibald Nichols, I presume?”

“No, my boy,” says the old gentleman, “I'm sorry to say 't your driver has deceived you; Nichols's place is down a matter of three mile more. Come in, come in.”

Tom he took a look back over his shoulder, and says, “Too late—he's out of sight.”

“Yes, he's gone, my son, and you must come in and eat your dinner with us; and then we'll hitch up and take you down to Nichols's.”

“Oh, I
can't
make you so much trouble; I couldn't think of it. I'll walk—I don't mind the distance.”

“But we won't
let
you walk—it wouldn't be Southern hospitality to do it. Come right in.”

“Oh,
do,
” says Aunt Sally; “it ain't a bit of trouble to us, not a bit in the world. You
must
stay. It's a long, dusty three mile, and we
can't
let you walk. And besides, I've already told 'em to put on another plate, when I see you coming; so you mustn't disappoint us. Come right in, and make yourself at home.”

So Tom he thanked them very hearty and handsome, and let himself be persuaded, and come in; and when he was in, he said he was a stranger from Hicksville, Ohio, and his name was William Thompson—and he made another bow.

Well, he run on, and on, making up stuff about Hicksville and everybody in it he could invent, and I getting a little nervous, and wondering how this was going to help me out of my scrape; and at last, still talking along, he reached over and kissed Aunt Sally right on the mouth, and then settled back again in his chair, comfortable, and was going on talking; but she jumped up and wiped it off with the back of her hand, and says:

“You owdacious puppy!”

He looked kind of hurt, and says:

“I'm surprised at you, m'am.”

“You're s'rp—Why, what do you reckon
I
am? I've a good notion to take and—say, what do you mean by kissing me?”

He looked kind of humble, and says:

“I didn't mean nothing, m'am. I didn't mean no harm. I—I—thought you'd like it.”

“Why, you born fool!” She took up the spinning-stick, and it looked like it was all she could do to keep from giving him a crack with it. “What made you think I'd like it?”

‘Well, I don't know. Only, they—they—told me you would.”

“
They
told you I would. Whoever told you's
another
lunatic. I never heard the beat of it. Who's
they?
”

“Why—everybody. They all said so, m'am.”

It was all she could do to hold in; and her eyes snapped, and her fingers worked like she wanted to scratch him; and she says: