by Mark Twain
When I got half-way, first one hound and then another got up and went for me, and of course I stopped and faced them, and kept still. And such another powwow as they made! In a quarter of a minute I was a kind of a hub of a wheel, as you may say-spokes made out of dogs-circle of fifteen of them packed together around me, with their necks and noses stretched up towards me, a-barking and howling; and more a-coming; you could see them sailing over fences and around corners from everywheres.
A black woman come tearing out of the kitchen with a rolling-pin in her hand, singing out, “Begone you Tige! you Spot! begone sah!” and she fetched first one and then another of them a clip and sent them howling, and then the rest followed; and the next second half of them come back, wagging their tails around me, and making friends with me. There ain't no harm in a hound, nohow.
And behind the woman comes a little black girl and two little black boys without anything on but tow-linen shirts, and they hung on to their mother's gown, and peeped out from behind her at me, bashful, the way they always do. An’ I thought to myself this was how it musta been before the fissythis, when folks was still usin’ dark folks as slaves; and it seemed very strange to me. You know-humans ownin’ living humans. And here comes the white woman running from the house, about forty-five or fifty year old, bareheaded, and her spinning-stick in her hand; and behind her comes her little white children, acting the same way the other kids was going. She was smiling all over so she could hardly stand-and says:
"It's you, at last!-ain't it?"
I out with a “Yes'm” before I thought.
She grabbed me and hugged me tight; and then gripped me by both hands and shook and shook; and the tears come in her eyes, and run down over; and she couldn't seem to hug and shake enough, and kept saying, “You don't look as much like your mother as I reckoned you would; but law sakes, I don't care for that, I'm so glad to see you! It's the worst kind of news we've been getting down here. Dear, dear, I am so pleased that none of those monsters were able to eat you up! Children, it's your cousin Tom!-tell him howdy."
But they ducked their heads, and put their fingers in their mouths, and hid behind her. So she run on:
"Lize, hurry up and get him a hot breakfast right away-or did you get your breakfast on the boat?"
I said I had got it on the boat. So then she started for the house, leading me by the hand, and the children tagging after. When we got there she set me down in a split-bottomed chair, and set herself down on a little low stool in front of me, holding both of my hands, and says:
"Now I can have a good look at you; and, laws-a-me, I've been hungry for it a many and a many a time, all these long years, and it's come at last! We been expecting you a couple of days and more. What kep’ you?-boat get aground?"
"Yes'm-she-"
"Don't say yes'm-say Aunt Sally. Where'd she get aground?"
I didn't rightly know what to say, because I didn't know whether the boat would be coming up the river or down. But I go a good deal on instinct; and my instinct said she would be coming up-from down towards Orleans. That didn't help me much, though; for I didn't know the names of bars down that way. I see I'd got to invent a bar, or forget the name of the one we got aground on-or-Now I struck an idea, and fetched it out:
"It warn't the grounding-that didn't keep us back but a little. We blowed out a cylinder-head."
"Good gracious! anybody hurt?"
"Killed a Chinaman."
"Well, it's lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt. Two years ago last Christmas your uncle Silas was coming up from Newrleans on the old Lally Rook, and she blowed out a cylinder-head and crippled a man. And I think he died afterwards. He was a Baptist. Your uncle Silas knowed a family in Baton Rouge that knowed his people very well. Yes, I remember now, he did die. Mortification set in, and they had to amputate him. But it didn't save him. Yes, it was mortification-that was it. He turned blue all over, and died in the hope of a glorious eternity. But he must be thankin’ the Lord he din’ have to come back as slave-dead, now, like so many others, poor souls. They say he was a sight to look at. Your uncle's been up to the town every day to fetch you. And he's gone again, not more'n an hour ago; he'll be back any minute now. You must a met him on the road, didn't you?-oldish man, with a-"
"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 many were on the boat?"
It was kinder thin ice, but I says:
"I reckon a million or more."
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, or what's become of them. These are devilish times. I can only pray that ever'one gets evacuated before the worst sets in. 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 warld 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! An’ we got these other issues to deal with-"
"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 hain't no idea. Who is it?"
"It's Tom Sawyer!"
By jings, I most slumped through the floor! But there warn't no time to swap knives; the old man grabbed me by the hand and shoo
k, 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 bolthead it would a done just as well. An’ how there was a million of us onboard, so many that we was hangin’ over the edges, and it was the best evac'ation I ever experienced.
Now I was feeling 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, s'pose Tom Sawyer comes down on that boat? And s'pose 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.
An’ that worked out good for him, too, ‘cause he had all this business with the traders an’ the wayward baggers; and they was still debatin’ on the best way to deal with things, trying to circle-vent a zomby uprising like what was happenin’ in the north. I says,
"You killin’ them dirty zombys, yet?” And he says,
"Nut fer a spell, I reckon. Some folks think it's money into the dirt. Others say it's fer the best. Y'all knows I cain't even make my own mind about it."
And that made me smile inside, knowin’ there was still time to save Jim.
CHAPTER XXVI
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 stayed so; and he swallowed two or three times like a person that's got a dry throat, and then says: "I hain't never thought you'd come back a bagger."
I says:
"I hain't come back a bagger-I hain't even died."
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, you ain't a bagger or a ghost?"
"Honest injun, I ain't,” I says. “I din’ catch no pox for surely."
"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 sick or murdered or eaten at all?"
"No. I warn't ever, not at all-I played it on them. You come in here and smell me if you don't believe it."
So he done it, had a sniff; 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 alone 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 bagger here that I'm a-trying to rescue, 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 a-going to steal him, and I want you 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 bagger-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 zomby, 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! Whoever 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 hundred 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 schoolhouse, and never charged nothing for his preaching, and it was worth it, too. There was plenty other farmer-preachers like that, and done the same way, down South. But he made most of his money off the exchange of baggers, an’ it was a considerable weight on his conscience that they was havin’ to round up these zombys just to finish ‘em off so cruel-like. He said,
"Sometimes I think they still a bit human inside."
"Yes,” I said. “I reckon they seem that way to me sometimes, too."
"But it's Armageddon comin’ down the pike. An’ you know that as well as anyone, don't ya, Tom? I'm sure you've seen awful sights."
"Yes sir."
An’ deep inside, I knowed this man was right. I saw them dead hordes for myself. Saw ‘em an’ heard ‘em and smelt ‘em. But still I couldn't let Jim go down like that. I said,
"Das you check ‘em all for brands?"
"Don't matter,” he told me. “Brands don't matter no more. Whether they got ‘em or don't, it don't change the situation at all."
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 a-front 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. Not in these uncertain times. 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, and on, making up stuff about Hicksville and everybody in it he could invent, an’ about how pret’ near ever'one in town got all gobbled up by rovin’ bunderlugs, and I getting a little nervious, 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:
