by Dave Mckay
I went around and climbed over the steps by the box of ashes, and started for the kitchen. When I got a little ways I heard the quiet sound of a spinning-wheel going up and then coming down again; and then I knowed for sure I wished I was dead -- for that IS the saddest sound in the whole world.
I went right along, not fixing up any special plan, but just trusting to God to put the right words in my mouth when the time come; for I’d learned that He always did put the right words in my mouth if I left it alone.
When I got half-way, first one dog and then another got up and went for me, and so I stopped and faced them, and didn’t move. And such a lot of noise they made! In a few seconds I was kind of the middle of a wheel, as you may say, with a circle of fifteen dogs pointing at me in the centre, with their necks and noses reaching up toward me, making all kinds of noise; and more a-coming; you could see them sailing over fences and around corners from everywhere.
A black woman come running out of the kitchen with a stick in her hand, singing out, “Stop that you Tiger! you Spot! get out of here!” and she hit first one and then another of them with the stick and sent them running off crying, and then the others followed; and the next second half of them come back, shaking their tails around me, and making friends with me. There ain’t no bad in a dog, no way.
And behind the woman comes a little black girl and two little black boys without anything on but shirts, and they was hanging onto their mother’s dress, and looked out from behind her at me, shy, the way they always do. And here comes the white woman running from the house, about forty-five or fifty years old, with a stick in her hand too; and behind her comes her little white children, acting the same way the little black ones did. 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 ma'am” before I thought.
She took me and hugged me tight; and then held 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 thought you would; but I’m not worried about that, I’m so glad to see you! My, my, it does seem like I could eat you up! Children, it’s your cousin Tom! -- tell him hello.”
But they dropped their heads, and put their fingers in their mouths, and went 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 coming after. When we got there she sat me down in a chair, and sat herself down on a little box in front of me, holding both of my hands, and says:
“Now I can have a good look at you; and, my, my, I’ve been hungry for it many a time, all these long years, and it’s come at last! We been thinking you would be here for two days and more. What kept you? -- boat go to ground?”
“Yes ma'am -- she -- “
“Don’t say ma'am; say Aunt Sally. Where’d she go to ground?”
I didn’t really know what to say, because I didn’t know if the boat would be coming up the river or down. But I go a good lot on feelings; and my feeling said she would be coming up -- from down toward New Orleans. But that didn’t help me much, because I didn’t know the names of the sand bars down that way. I needed to make up a name, or forget the name, or -- Now I knew what to do and I did it:
“It weren’t the grounding -- that didn’t keep us back but a little. We blowed up a motor.”
“Good Lord! Anyone hurt?”
“No ma'am. Killed a slave.”
“Well, it’s lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt when that happens. Two years ago last Christmas your Uncle Silas was coming up from New Orleans on the old Lally Rook, and she blowed up a motor and crippled a man. And I think he died later. He was a Baptist. Your uncle’s been up to the town every day to meet you. And he’s gone again, not more than an hour ago; he’ll be back any minute now. You must a met him on the road, didn’t you? -- older man, with a -- “
“No, I didn’t see nobody, Aunt Sally. The boat landed just as the sun was coming up. I left my bags there and went looking around 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 bags to?”
“Nobody.”
“Why, child, it’ll be robbed!”
“Not where I put it, I think it won’t,” I says.
“How’d you get your breakfast so early on the boat?”
It was kind of thin ice, but I says: “The driver seen me standing around, and told me I better have something to eat before I landed; so he took me in to where he and the others eat, and give me all I wanted.”
I was getting so worried I couldn’t listen well. I was thinking about the children; I wanted to get them 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. She made my blood run cold, when she says: “But here we’re a-running on this way, and you ain’t told me a word about my sister, or any of them. Now I’ll rest my mouth a little, and you start up yours; just tell me everything -- tell me all about ‘em all, every one of ‘em; and how they are, and what they’re doing, and what they told you to tell me; every last thing you can think of.”
Well, I see I was up a tree – and up it good. God had stood by me this far all right, but I was hard and tight trapped now. I see it weren’t no 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 tell the truth. I opened my mouth to start; but she took hold of me and pulled me in behind the bed, and says: “Here he comes! pull 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 trap now. But it weren’t no good to worry; there weren’t nothing to do but just try and be ready to stand from under when the lightning hit.
I had just one little look of the old man when he come in; then the bed was between me and him. Mrs. Phelps she jumps for him, and says:
“Has he come?”
“No,” says her husband.
“My, my!” she says. “What on earth has become of him?”
“I can’t think,” says the old man; “and I must say it makes me very worried.”
“Worried?” she says; “I’m ready to go crazy! He must a come; and you’ve missed him. I know it’s so -- something tells me.”
“Why, Sally, I couldn’t of missed him along the road – you know that.”
“But oh, my, my, what will my sister say! He must a come! You must a missed him. He -- “
“Oh, don’t trouble me any more than I’m already troubled. I don’t know what in the world to make of it. I’m at the end of what I can do, and the truth is 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 awful -- just awful -- something’s happened to the boat, sure!”
“Why, Silas! Look there, up the road! Ain’t that someone?”
He jumped to the window at the head of the bed, and that give Mrs. Phelps what she wanted. She leaned down quickly 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, smiling like a house on fire, and me standing shy and scared beside her. The old man looked, and says: “Why, who’s that?”
“Who do you think it is?”
“I ain’t never seen him. Who is it?”
“It’s Tom Sawyer!”
I almost fell through the floor! But there weren’t no time to change knives; the old man took 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 family.
But if they was happy, it weren’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 stayed at it for two hours; and at last, when my mouth 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 told all about how we blowed a motor up at the mouth of White River, and it took us three days to fix it. Which was all right, and worked well; because they didn’t know but what it would take three days to fix it. If I’d a said a screw fell off it would a done just as well.
Now I was feeling pretty comfortable all down one side, and pretty much the opposite all up the other. Being Tom Sawyer was easy and comfortable, and it stayed easy and comfortable until by and by I hear a river-boat coughing along down the river. Then I says to myself, what if Tom Sawyer come down on that boat? And what if 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 stop him. So I told them I would go up to the town and bring down my bags. The old man was for going along with me, but I said no, I could drive the horse myself, and I didn’t want him to take no trouble about me.
Chapter 33
So I started for town in the wagon, and when I was half-way I see another wagon coming, and sure enough it was Tom Sawyer, and I stopped and waited until he come along. I says “Hold on!” and it stopped beside me, and his mouth opened up like a suitcase, and stayed so; and he worked his mouth like a person that’s got a dry throat, with no words coming out until he says: “I ain’t ever hurt you. You know that. So, then, what you want to come back and follow me for?”
I says: “I ain’t come back -- I ain’t been gone.”
When he heard my voice it righted him up some, but he weren’t quite sure yet. He says: “Don’t you play nothing on me, because I wouldn’t on you. Honest Indian, you ain’t a ghost?”
“Honest Indian, I ain’t,” I says.
“Well, I -- that should be good enough; but I can’t seem to understand it no way. Look here, weren’t you ever killed at all?”
“No. I weren’t ever killed 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 was enough for him; he was that glad to see me again he didn’t know what to do. He wanted to know all about it right off, because it was a great adventure, and so it hit him right where he lived. But I said, leave it alone until by and by; and I told his driver to wait, and we pulled off a little piece, and I told him the kind of trouble I was in, and what did he think we should do? He said, let him alone a minute, and don’t say nothing. So he thought and thought, and pretty soon he says: “It’s all right; I’ve got it. Take my suitcase in your wagon, and let on it’s yours, Turn back and go along very slowly, so as to get to the house about the time you should; and I’ll go toward town a piece, and take a new start, and get there fifteen minutes 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 -- one that nobody knows but me. There’s a slave here that I’m a-trying to free, 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 rob him free, and I want you to keep quiet and not let on. Will you?”
His eyes opened wide, and he says: “I’ll help you free him!”
Well, I let go all holds then, like I was dying. It was the most surprising thing I ever heard -- and I must say Tom Sawyer dropped a lot in my thinking about him. I couldn’t believe it. Tom Sawyer a slave-robber!
“No way!” 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 slave, remember that you don’t know nothing about him, and I don’t know nothing either.”
Then we took the suitcase and put it in my wagon, and he went riding off his way and I went mine. But I didn’t remember about driving slow because of being glad and full of thinking; so I got home way too early. The old man was at the door, and he says: “This is wonderful! Who would a thought it was in that horse to do it? I wish we’d a timed her. And she ain’t even breathing heavy. It’s wonderful. Why, I wouldn’t take a hundred dollars for that horse now -- honest; and yet I would a sold her for fifteen before, and thought it was all she was worth.”
That’s all he said. He was the most trusting old soul I ever seen. But it weren’t surprising; because he weren’t only just a farmer, he was a preacher, too, and had a little one-horse log church down back of the farm, which he built himself with his own money, for a church and a school. He never asked nothing for his preaching, and it was worth it, too.
In about half an hour Tom’s wagon come up to the front fence, and Aunt Sally she seen it through the window, because it was only about fifty yards, and says: “Why, there’s some- body come! Who could it be? 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 ran to the front door, because a stranger don’t come every year, and so he brings more interest than the smallpox when he does come. Tom was over the fence and starting for the house; the wagon was driving back up the road to the village, and we was all crowded in the front door. Tom had his good clothes on, and a crowd to talk to -- and that was always good as nuts for Tom Sawyer. With us all watching, it was easy for him to give it his special touch.
He weren’t a boy to walk shyly up the yard like a sheep; no, he come relaxed and important, and when he got in front of us he lifts his hat ever so nicely, like it was the top of a box that had butterflies asleep in it and he didn’t want to wake them, and says: “Mr. Archibald Nichols, is that right?”
“No, my boy,” says the old man, “Nichols’s place is down the road three miles more. Come in, come in.”
Tom he took a look back over his shoulder, and says, “Too late -- can’t even see him.”
“Yes, he’s gone, son. You must come in and eat your dinner with us; and then we’ll take you down to Nichols’s.”
“Oh, I can’t make you so much trouble; I couldn’t think of it. I’ll walk -- it’s no problem.”
“But we won’t let you walk -- it wouldn’t be right to do that. Come on in.”
“Oh, do,” says Aunt Sally; “it ain’t no trouble to us, no trouble at all. You must stay. It’s a long, dirty three mile, and we can’t let you walk. And, besides, I’ve already told ‘em to put on another plate when I seen you coming; so you mustn’t let us down. Come right in and make yourself at home.”
So Tom he thanked them very warmly and beautifully, and let himself be talked into coming 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 things about Hicksville and everybody in it he could make up, and I was getting a little worried, and thinking how was this going to help me out of my troubles; and at last, still talking along, he reached over and kissed Aunt Sally right on the mouth, and then sat back again in his chair comfortable, and was going on talking; but she jumped up and rubbed it off with the back of her hand, and says: “You dirty dog!”
He looked kind of hurt, and says: “I’m surprised at you, ma’am.”
“You’re surpri -- Why, what do you think I am? I should take and -- Say, what do you mean by kissing me?”
He looked kind of humble, and says: “I didn’t mean nothing, ma’am. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I -- I -- thought you’d like it.”
“Was you born crazy!” She took up a stick from the spinning-wheel, and it looked like it was all she could do to keep from giving him a hit 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 is another crazy person. I never heard anything like it. Who’s they?”
“Why, everybody. They all said so, ma’am.”
