ou ain't afeard."
   "Afeard! 'Tain't likely. Will you meow?"
   "Yes-and  you  meow  back,  if you get a chance. Last time, you kep' me
a-meowing around till old Hays went to throwing rocks at me and says 'Dern
that cat!' and so I hove a brick through his window-but don't you tell."
   "I won't. I couldn't meow that night, becuz auntie was watching me, but
I'll meow this time. Say-what's that?"
   "Nothing but a tick."
   "Where'd you get him?"
   "Out in the woods."
   "What'll you take for him?"
   "I don't know. I don't want to sell him."
   "All right. It's a mighty small tick, anyway."
   "Oh,  anybody  can  run  a  tick  down  that  don't belong to them. I'm
satisfied with it. It's a good enough tick for me."
   "Sho,  there's  ticks  a  plenty.  I  could have a thousand of 'em if I
wanted to."
   "Well,  why  don't you? Becuz you know mighty well you can't. This is a
pretty early tick, I reckon. It's the first one I've seen this year."
   "Say, Huck-I'll give you my tooth for him."
   "Less see it."
   Tom  got  out  a  bit  of  paper and carefully unrolled it. Huckleberry
viewed it wistfully. The temptation was very strong. At last he said:
   "Is it genuwyne?"
   Tom lifted his lip and showed the vacancy.
   "Well, all right," said Huckleberry, "it's a trade."
   Tom  enclosed  the  tick in the percussion-cap box that had lately been
the pinchbug's prison, and the boys separated, each feeling wealthier than
before.
   When  Tom  reached  the little isolated frame schoolhouse, he strode in
briskly,  with  the  manner  of one who had come with all honest speed. He
hung  his  hat on a peg and flung himself into his seat with business-like
alacrity.   The  master,  throned  on  high  in  his  great  splint-botTom
arm-chair, was dozing, lulled by the drowsy hum of study. The interruption
roused him.
   "Thomas Sawyer!"
   Tom knew that when his name was pronounced in full, it meant trouble.
   "Sir!"
   "Come up here. Now, sir, why are you late again, as usual?"
   Tom  was  about  to take refuge in a lie, when he saw two long tails of
yellow  hair  hanging  down  a  back  that  he  recognized by the electric
sympathy of love; and by that form was THE ONLY VACANT PLACE on the girls'
side of the school-house. He instantly said:
   "I STOPPED TO TALK WITH HUCKLEBERRY FINN!"
   The  master's  pulse stood still, and he stared helplessly. The buzz of
study ceased. The pupils wondered if this foolhardy boy had lost his mind.
The master said:
   "You-you did what?"
   "Stopped to talk with Huckleberry Finn."
   There was no mistaking the words.
   "Thomas  Sawyer,  this  is  the  most astounding confession I have ever
listened  to.  No  mere ferule will answer for this offence. Take off your
jacket."
   The master's arm performed until it was tired and the stock of switches
notably diminished. Then the order followed:
   "Now, sir, go and sit with the girls! And let this be a warning to you."
   The  titter that rippled around the room appeared to abash the boy, but
in reality that result was caused rather more by his worshipful awe of his
unknown  idol and the dread pleasure that lay in his high good fortune. He
sat  down upon the end of the pine bench and the girl hitched herself away
from  him with a toss of her head. Nudges and winks and whispers traversed
the  room, but Tom sat still, with his arms upon the long, low desk before
him, and seemed to study his book.
   By  and  by attention ceased from him, and the accusTomed school murmur
rose upon the dull air once more. Presently the boy began to steal furtive
glances  at  the girl. She observed it, "made a mouth" at him and gave him
the  back of her head for the space of a minute. When she cautiously faced
around  again,  a peach lay before her. She thrust it away. Tom gently put
it  back. She thrust it away again, but with less animosity. Tom patiently
returned  it  to  its  place.  Then she let it remain. Tom scrawled on his
slate,  "Please  take  it-I  got more." The girl glanced at the words, but
made no sign. Now the boy began to draw something on the slate, hiding his
work  with  his  left hand. For a time the girl refused to notice; but her
human  curiosity  presently began to manifest itself by hardly perceptible
signs.  The boy worked on, apparently unconscious. The girl made a sort of
noncommittal  attempt to see, but the boy did not betray that he was aware
of it. At last she gave in and hesitatingly whispered:
   "Let me see it."
   Tom partly uncovered a dismal caricature of a house with two gable ends
to  it  and a corkscrew of smoke issuing from the chimney. Then the girl's
interest  began  to  fasten itself upon the work and she forgot everything
else. When it was finished, she gazed a moment, then whispered:
   "It's nice-make a man."
   The  artist  erected a man in the front yard, that resembled a derrick.
He  could have stepped over the house; but the girl was not hypercritical;
she was satisfied with the monster, and whispered:
   "It's a beautiful man-now make me coming along."
   Tom drew an hour-glass with a full moon and straw limbs to it and armed
the spreading fingers with a portentous fan. The girl said:
   "It's ever so nice-I wish I could draw."
   "It's easy," whispered Tom, "I'll learn you."
   "Oh, will you? When?"
   "At noon. Do you go home to dinner?"
   "I'll stay if you will."
   "Good-that's a whack. What's your name?"
   "Becky Thatcher. What's yours? Oh, I know. It's Thomas Sawyer."
   "That's  the  name  they lick me by. I'm Tom when I'm good. You call me
Tom, will you?"
   "Yes."
   Now  Tom  began to scrawl something on the slate, hiding the words from
the girl. But she was not backward this time. She begged to see. Tom said:
   "Oh, it ain't anything."
   "Yes it is."
   "No it ain't. You don't want to see."
   "Yes I do, indeed I do. Please let me."
   "You'll tell."
   "No I won't-deed and deed and double deed won't."
   "You won't tell anybody at all? Ever, as long as you live?"
   "No, I won't ever tell ANYbody. Now let me."
   "Oh, YOU don't want to see!"
   "Now that you treat me so, I WILL see." And she put her small hand upon
his  and  a little scuffle ensued, Tom pretending to resist in earnest but
letting  his  hand slip by degrees till these words were revealed: "I LOVE
YOU."
   "Oh, you bad thing!" And she hit his hand a smart rap, but reddened and
looked pleased, nevertheless.
   Just  at this juncture the boy felt a slow, fateful grip closing on his
ear,  and  a  steady lifting impulse. In that vise he was borne across the
house  and  deposited  in  his own seat, under a peppering fire of giggles
from  the  whole school. Then the master stood over him during a few awful
moments,  and  finally moved away to his throne without saying a word. But
although Tom's ear tingled, his heart was jubilant.
   As  the school quieted down Tom made an honest effort to study, but the
turmoil within him was too great. In turn he took his place in the reading
class and made a botch of it; then in the geography class and turned lakes
into  mountains,  mountains  into rivers, and rivers into continents, till
chaos  was  come again; then in the spelling class, and got "turned down,"
by  a  succession  of  mere baby words, till he brought up at the foot and
yielded up the pewter medal which he had worn with ostentation for months.


        Chapter VII

   The harder Tom tried to fasten his mind on his book, the more his ideas
wandered.  So at last, with a sigh and a yawn, he gave it up. It seemed to
him that the noon recess would never come. The air was utterly dead. There
was  not  a  breath  stirring.  It  was  the sleepiest of sleepy days. The
drowsing  murmur of the five and twenty studying scholars soothed the soul
like  the  spell  that  is  in the murmur of bees. Away off in the flaming
sunshine,  Cardiff  Hill  lifted its soft green sides through a shimmering
veil  of  heat, tinted with the purple of distance; a few birds floated on
lazy  wing  high  in  the  air; no other living thing was visible but some
cows,  and they were asleep. Tom's heart ached to be free, or else to have
something  of  interest  to  do to pass the dreary time. His hand wandered
into  his  pocket  and  his  face lit up with a glow of gratitude that was
prayer,  though  he did not know it. Then furtively the percussion-cap box
came  out.  He  released  the  tick and put him on the long flat desk. The
creature probably glowed with a gratitude that amounted to prayer, too, at
this  moment,  but  it  was  premature:  for when he started thankfully to
travel  off,  Tom  turned  him  aside  with  a pin and made him take a new
direction.
   Tom's  bosom  friend  sat next him, suffering just as Tom had been, and
now  he  was  deeply and gratefully interested in this entertainment in an
instant. This bosom friend was Joe Harper. The two boys were sworn friends
all  the  week,  and embattled enemies on Saturdays. Joe took a pin out of
his  lapel  and began to assist in exercising the prisoner. The sport grew
in  interest  momently. Soon Tom said that they were interfering with each
other,  and  neither  getting  the  fullest benefit of the tick. So he put
Joe's  slate on the desk and drew a line down the middle of it from top to
botTom.
   "Now,"  said he, "as long as he is on your side you can stir him up and
I'll let him alone; but if you let him get away and get on my side, you're
to leave him alone as long as I can keep him from crossing over."
   "All right, go ahead; start him up."
   The  tick  escaped  from  Tom,  presently, and crossed the equator. Joe
harassed  him  awhile,  and  then he got away and crossed back again. This
change  of  base  occurred often. While one boy was worrying the tick with
absorbing  interest,  the other would look on with interest as strong, the
two  heads  bowed  together  over the slate, and the two souls dead to all
things  else.  At  last luck seemed to settle and abide with Joe. The tick
tried  this, that, and the other course, and got as excited and as anxious
as  the  boys themselves, but time and again just as he would have victory
in  his  very  grasp, so to speak, and Tom's fingers would be twitching to
begin,  Joe's  pin would deftly head him off, and keep possession. At last
Tom could stand it no longer. The temptation was too strong. So he reached
out and lent a hand with his pin. Joe was angry in a moment. Said he:
   "Tom, you let him alone."
   "I only just want to stir him up a little, Joe."
   "No, sir, it ain't fair; you just let him alone."
   "Blame it, I ain't going to stir him much."
   "Let him alone, I tell you."
   "I won't!"
   "You shall-he's on my side of the line."
   "Look here, Joe Harper, whose is that tick?"
   "I  don't  care  whose  tick he is-he's on my side of the line, and you
sha'n't touch him."
   "Well,  I'll  just  bet I will, though. He's my tick and I'll do what I
blame please with him, or die!"
   A  tremendous  whack came down on Tom's shoulders, and its duplicate on
Joe's; and for the space of two minutes the dust continued to fly from the
two  jackets  and  the  whole  school  to  enjoy it. The boys had been too
absorbed  to notice the hush that had stolen upon the school awhile before
when  the  master came tiptoeing down the room and stood over them. He had
contemplated  a good part of the performance before he contributed his bit
of variety to it.
   When school broke up at noon, Tom flew to Becky Thatcher, and whispered
in her ear:
   "Put  on  your bonnet and let on you're going home; and when you get to
the  corner, give the rest of 'em the slip, and turn down through the lane
and come back. I'll go the other way and come it over 'em the same way."
   So  the  one  went  off  with one group of scholars, and the other with
another. In a little while the two met at the botTom of the lane, and when
they  reached  the  school  they  had  it all to themselves. Then they sat
together, with a slate before them, and Tom gave Becky the pencil and held
her hand in his, guiding it, and so created another surprising house. When
the  interest  in  art  began  to  wane,  the two fell to talking. Tom was
swimming in bliss. He said:
   "Do you love rats?"
   "No! I hate them!"
   "Well,  I  do, too-LIVE ones. But I mean dead ones, to swing round your
head with a string."
   "No, I don't care for rats much, anyway. What I like is chewing-gum."
   "Oh, I should say so! I wish I had some now."
   "Do  you? I've got some. I'll let you chew it awhile, but you must give
it back to me."
   That  was  agreeable,  so  they chewed it turn about, and dangled their
legs against the bench in excess of contentment.
   "Was you ever at a circus?" said Tom.
   "Yes, and my pa's going to take me again some time, if I'm good."
   "I  been  to the circus three or four times-lots of times. Church ain't
shucks  to a circus. There's things going on at a circus all the time. I'm
going to be a clown in a circus when I grow up."
   "Oh, are you! That will be nice. They're so lovely, all spotted up."
   "Yes,  that's  so.  And they get slathers of money-most a dollar a day,
Ben Rogers says. Say, Becky, was you ever engaged?"
   "What's that?"
   "Why, engaged to be married."
   "No."
   "Would you like to?"
   "I reckon so. I don't know. What is it like?"
   "Like?  Why  it ain't like anything. You only just tell a boy you won't
ever  have  anybody  but him, ever ever ever, and then you kiss and that's
all. Anybody can do it."
   "Kiss? What do you kiss for?"
   "Why, that, you know, is to-well, they always do that."
   "Everybody?"
   "Why,  yes,  everybody  that's in love with each other. Do you remember
what I wrote on the slate?"
   "Ye-yes."
   "What was it?"
   "I sha'n't tell you."
   "Shall I tell YOU?"
   "Ye-yes-but some other time."
   "No, now."
   "No, not now-to-morrow."
   "Oh,  no,  NOW.  Please, Becky-I'll whisper it, I'll whisper it ever so
easy."
   Becky  hesitating,  Tom  took  silence  for consent, and passed his arm
about  her  waist  and  whispered  the tale ever so softly, with his mouth
close to her ear. And then he added:
   "Now you whisper it to me-just the same."
   She resisted, for a while, and then said:
   "You  turn  your  face  away so you can't see, and then I will. But you
mustn't ever tell anybody-WILL you, Tom? Now you won't, WILL you?"
   "No, indeed, indeed I won't. Now, Becky."
   He  turned  his  face  away.  She  bent  timidly around till her breath
stirred his curls and whispered, "I-love-you!"
   Then  she  sprang away and ran around and around the desks and benches,
with  Tom  after her, and took refuge in a corner at last, with her little
white apron to her face. Tom clasped her about her neck and pleaded:
   "Now,  Becky,  it's all done-all over but the kiss. Don't you be afraid
of  that-it  ain't  anything  at all. Please, Becky." And he tugged at her
apron and the hands.
   By  and  by  she gave up, and let her hands drop; her face, all glowing
with  the  struggle,  came  up  and submitted. Tom kissed the red lips and
said:
   "Now  it's  all done, Becky. And always after this, you know, you ain't
ever  to  love anybody but me, and you ain't ever to marry anybody but me,
ever never and forever. Will you?"
   "No, I'll never love anybody but you, Tom, and I'll never marry anybody
but you-and you ain't to ever marry anybody but me, either."
   "Certainly.  Of  course. That's PART of it. And always coming to school
or when we're going home, you're to walk with me, when there ain't anybody
looking-and  you choose me and I choose you at parties, because that's the
way you do when you're engaged."
   "It's so nice. I never heard of it before."
   "Oh, it's ever so gay! Why, me and Amy Lawrence-"
   The big eyes told Tom his blunder and he stopped, confused.
   "Oh, Tom! Then I ain't the first you've ever been engaged to!"
   The child began to cry. Tom said:
   "Oh, don't cry, Becky, I don't care for her any more."
   "Yes, you do, Tom-you know you do."
   Tom  tried  to  put his arm about her neck, but she pushed him away and
turned  her  face  to  the wall, and went on crying. Tom tried again, with
soothing  words  in  his mouth, and was repulsed again. Then his pride was
up,  and  he  strode  away  and went outside. He stood about, restless and
uneasy,  for a while, glancing at the door, every now and then, hoping she
would  repent and come to find him. But she did not. Then he began to feel
badly  and  fear that he was in the wrong. It was a hard struggle with him
to  make  new  advances, now, but he nerved himself to it and entered. She
was still standing back there in the corner, sobbing, with her face to the
wall.  Tom's  heart  smote  him.  He  went  to her and stood a moment, not
knowing exactly how to proceed. Then he said hesitatingly:
   "Becky, I-I don't care for anybody but you."
   No reply-but sobs.
   "Becky"-pleadingly. "Becky, won't you say something?"
   More sobs.
   Tom  got  out  his  chiefest  jewel,  a  brass  knob from the top of an
andiron, and passed it around her so that she could see it, and said:
   "Please, Becky, won't you take it?"
   She  struck it to the floor. Then Tom marched out of the house and over
the  hills  and  far away, to return to school no more that day. Presently
Becky began to suspect. She ran to the door; he was not in sight; she flew
around to the play-yard; he was not there. Then she called:
   "Tom! Come back, Tom!"
   She  listened  intently, but there was no answer. She had no companions
but  silence  and  loneliness.  So  she  sat down to cry again and upbraid
herself;  and by this time the scholars began to gather again, and she had
to  hide  her griefs and still her broken heart and take up the cross of a
long, dreary, aching afternoon, with none among the strangers about her to
exchange sorrows with.


        Chapter VIII

   Tom  dodged  hither  and thither through lanes until he was well out of
the  track  of  returning  scholars,  and  then  fell into a moody jog. He
crossed  a  small  "branch"  two  or  three times, because of a prevailing
juvenile  superstition  that  to cross water baffled pursuit. Half an hour
later  he  was  disappearing  behind  the Douglas mansion on the summit of
Cardiff  Hill, and the school-house was hardly distinguishable away off in
the valley behind him. He entered a dense wood, picked his pathless way to
the  centre  of  it,  and  sat down on a mossy spot under a spreading oak.
There  was  not  even  a  zephyr  stirring; the dead noonday heat had even
stilled  the songs of the birds; nature lay in a trance that was broken by
no  sound  but  the occasional far-off hammering of a woodpecker, and this
seemed  to  render  the pervading silence and sense of loneliness the more
profound.  The  boy's soul was steeped in melancholy; his feelings were in
happy  accord  with  his  surroundings. He sat long with his elbows on his
knees  and  his  chin in his hands, meditating. It seemed to him that life
was  but a trouble, at best, and he more than half envied Jimmy Hodges, so
lately  released; it must be very peaceful, he thought, to lie and slumber
and dream forever and ever, with the wind whispering through the trees and
caressing  the grass and the flowers over the grave, and nothing to bother
and  grieve  about,  ever  any  more. If he only had a clean Sunday-school
record  he could be willing to go, and be done with it all. Now as to this
girl.  What  had he done? Nothing. He had meant the best in the world, and
been treated like a dog-like a very dog. She would be sorry some day-maybe
when it was too late. Ah, if he could only die TEMPORARILY!
   But   the  elastic  heart  of  youth  cannot  be  compressed  into  one
constrained  shape long at a time. Tom presently began to drift insensibly
back  into  the  concerns  of this life again. What if he turned his back,
now,  and disappeared mysteriously? What if he went away-ever so far away,
into  unknown  countries beyond the seas-and never came back any more! How
would  she  feel then! The idea of being a clown recurred to him now, only
to  fill him with disgust. For frivolity and jokes and spotted tights were
an  offense,  when they intruded themselves upon a spirit that was exalted
into  the  vague  august realm of the romantic. No, he would be a soldier,
and  return  after  long  years,  all  war-worn and illustrious. No-better
still, he would join the Indians, and hunt buffaloes and go on the warpath
in the mountain ranges and the trackless great plains of the Far West, and
away  in  the  future  come  back  a great chief, bristling with feathers,
hideous  with  paint,  and  prance  into  Sundayschool, some drowsy summer
morning,  with a bloodcurdling war-whoop, and sear the eyeballs of all his
companions  with  unappeasable  envy.  But no, there was something gaudier
even  than  this.  He  would  be a pirate! That was it! NOW his future lay
plain  before  him,  and  glowing with unimaginable splendor. How his name
would  fill the world, and make people shudder! How gloriously he would go
plowing the dancing seas, in his long, low, black-hulled racer, the Spirit
of  the  Storm, with his grisly flag flying at the fore! And at the zenith
of  his  fame,  how  he would suddenly appear at the old village and stalk
into  church,  brown  and  weather-beaten, in his black velvet doublet and
trunks,  his  great  jack-boots, his crimson sash, his belt bristling with
horse-pistols,  his  crime-rusted cutlass at his side, his slouch hat with
waving  plumes,  his black flag unfurled, with the skull and crossbones on
it,  and  hear with swelling ecstasy the whisperings, "It's Tom Sawyer the
Pirate!-the Black Avenger of the Spanish Main!"
   Yes,  it was settled; his career was determined. He would run away from
home and enter upon it. He would start the very next morning. Therefore he
must  now  begin to get ready. He would collect his resources together. He
went  to  a  rotten  log near at hand and began to dig under one end of it
with his Barlow knife. He soon struck wood that sounded hollow. He put his
hand there and uttered this incantation impressively:
   "What hasn't come here, come! What's here, stay here!"
   Then  he  scraped away the dirt, and exposed a pine shingle. He took it
up  and  disclosed  a shapely little treasure-house whose botTom and sides
were of shingles. In it lay a marble. Tom's astonishment was boundless! He
scratched his head with a perplexed air, and said:
   "Well, that beats anything!"
   Then  he  tossed  the  marble away pettishly, and stood cogitating. The
truth  was,  that a superstition of his had failed, here, which he and all
his  comrades had always looked upon as infallible. If you buried a marble
with  certain  necessary  incantations, and left it alone a fortnight, and
then  opened  the  place  with the incantation he had just used, you would
find  that  all  the  marbles  you  had  ever lost had gathered themselves
together  there,  meantime,  no matter how widely they had been separated.
But  now,  this  thing had actually and unquestionably failed. Tom's whole
structure of faith was shaken to its foundations. He had many a time heard
of this thing succeeding but never of its failing before. It did not occur
to him that he had tried it several times before, himself, but could never
find  the  hiding-places  afterward. He puzzled over the matter some time,
and  finally  decided that some witch had interfered and broken the charm.
He  thought  he would satisfy himself on that point; so he searched around
till he found a small sandy spot with a little funnel-shaped depression in
it.  He  laid  himself down and put his mouth close to this depression and
called-
   "Doodle-bug,  doodle-bug,  tell  me  what  I  want to know! Doodle-bug,
doodle-bug, tell me what I want to know!"
   The  sand began to work, and presently a small black bug appeared for a
second and then darted under again in a fright.
   "He dasn't tell! So it WAS a witch that done it. I just knowed it."
   He  well  knew the futility of trying to contend against witches, so he
gave up discouraged. But it occurred to him that he might as well have the
marble  he  had just thrown away, and therefore he went and made a patient
search  for  it.  But  he  could  not  find  it.  Now  he went back to his
treasure-house  and  carefully placed himself just as he had been standing
when  he  tossed  the  marble  away;  then he took another marble from his
pocket and tossed it in the same way, saying:
   "Brother, go find your brother!"
   He  watched  where  it  stopped, and went there and looked. But it must
have  fallen  short  or  gone  too  far;  so he tried twice more. The last
repetition  was  successful.  The  two  marbles  lay within a foot of each
other.
   Just  here  the  blast of a toy tin trumpet came faintly down the green
aisles  of  the  forest.  Tom  flung off his jacket and trousers, turned a
suspender  into  a  belt,  raked  away  some  brush behind the rotten log,
disclosing  a rude bow and arrow, a lath sword and a tin trumpet, and in a
moment  had  seized  these  things  and  bounded  away,  barelegged,  with
fluttering shirt. He presently halted under a great elm, blew an answering
blast, and then began to tiptoe and look warily out, this way and that. He
said cautiously-to an imaginary company:
   "Hold, my merry men! Keep hid till I blow."
   Now  appeared  Joe Harper, as airily clad and elaborately armed as Tom.
Tom called:
   "Hold! Who comes here into Sherwood Forest without my pass?"
   "Guy of Guisborne wants no man's pass. Who art thou that-that-"
   "Dares  to hold such language," said Tom, prompting-for they talked "by
the book," from memory.
   "Who art thou that dares to hold such language?"
   "I, indeed! I am Robin Hood, as thy caitiff carcase soon shall know."
   "Then  art  thou indeed that famous outlaw? Right gladly will I dispute
with thee the passes of the merry wood. Have at thee!"
   They  took  their  lath swords, dumped their other traps on the ground,
struck  a  fencing  attitude,  foot  to  foot,  and began a grave, careful
combat, "two up and two down." Presently Tom said:
   "Now, if you've got the hang, go it lively!"
   So  they "went it lively," panting and perspiring with the work. By and
by Tom shouted:
   "Fall! fall! Why don't you fall?"
   "I  sha'n't!  Why  don't you fall yourself? You're getting the worst of
it."
   "Why,  that  ain't  anything. I can't fall; that ain't the way it is in
the  book.  The  book says, 'Then with one back-handed stroke he slew poor
Guy of Guisborne.' You're to turn around and let me hit you in the back."
   There  was  no  getting around the authorities, so Joe turned, received
the whack and fell.
   "Now," said Joe, getting up, "you got to let me kill YOU. That's fair."
   "Why, I can't do that, it ain't in the book."
   "Well, it's blamed mean-that's all."
   "Well,  say,  Joe,  you can be Friar Tuck or Much the miller's son, and
lam  me with a quarter-staff; or I'll be the Sheriff of Nottingham and you
be Robin Hood a little while and kill me."
   This  was  satisfactory, and so these adventures were carried out. Then
Tom  became  Robin  Hood  again, and was allowed by the treacherous nun to
bleed  his  strength  away  through  his neglected wound. And at last Joe,
representing  a  whole  tribe of weeping outlaws, dragged him sadly forth,
gave his bow into his feeble hands, and Tom said, "Where this arrow falls,
there  bury  poor  Robin  Hood under the greenwood tree." Then he shot the
arrow and fell back and would have died, but he lit on a nettle and sprang
up too gaily for a corpse.
   The  boys  dressed  themselves,  hid  their accoutrements, and went off
grieving  that  there  were no outlaws any more, and wondering what modern
civilization  could  claim to have done to compensate for their loss. They
said they would rather be outlaws a year in Sherwood Forest than President
of the United States forever.


        Chapter IX

   At  half-past nine, that night, Tom and Sid were sent to bed, as usual.
They  said  their  prayers,  and  Sid  was  soon asleep. Tom lay awake and
waited,  in  restless  impatience.  When  it seemed to him that it must be
nearly daylight, he heard the clock strike ten! This was despair. He would
have  tossed  and  fidgeted,  as his nerves demanded, but he was afraid he
might  wake  Sid. So he lay still, and stared up into the dark. Everything
was  dismally  still.  By  and  by, out of the stillness, little, scarcely
preceptible noises began to emphasize themselves. The ticking of the clock
began  to bring itself into notice. Old beams began to crack mysteriously.
The  stairs  creaked  faintly.  Evidently spirits were abroad. A measured,
muffled  snore  issued  from  Aunt  Polly's  chamber. And now the tiresome
chirping  of  a  cricket that no human ingenuity could locate, began. Next
the ghastly ticking of a deathwatch in the wall at the bed's head made Tom
shudder-it  meant  that  somebody's days were numbered. Then the howl of a
far-off dog rose on the night air, and was answered by a fainter howl from
a  remoter  distance.  Tom  was in an agony. At last he was satisfied that
time had ceased and eternity begun; he began to doze, in spite of himself;
the  clock  chimed  eleven,  but  he did not hear it. And then there came,
mingling  with his half-formed dreams, a most melancholy caterwauling. The
raising of a neighboring window disturbed him. A cry of "Scat! you devil!"
and  the  crash of an empty bottle against the back of his aunt's woodshed
brought  him  wide awake, and a single minute later he was dressed and out
of  the  window  and creeping along the roof of the "ell" on all fours. He
"meow'd"  with  caution once or twice, as he went; then jumped to the roof
of the woodshed and thence to the ground. Huckleberry Finn was there, with
his  dead cat. The boys moved off and disappeared in the gloom. At the end
of half an hour they were wading through the tall grass of the graveyard.
   It was a graveyard of the old-fashioned Western kind. It was on a hill,
about  a  mile  and  a  half  from the village. It had a crazy board fence
around  it,  which  leaned  inward  in places, and outward the rest of the
time,  but stood upright nowhere. Grass and weeds grew rank over the whole
cemetery.  All the old graves were sunken in, there was not a Tombstone on
the  place;  round-topped,  worm-eaten  boards  staggered over the graves,
leaning  for support and finding none. "Sacred to the memory of" So-and-So
had  been  painted on them once, but it could no longer have been read, on
the most of them, now, even if there had been light.
   A  faint  wind moaned through the trees, and Tom feared it might be the
spirits  of  the  dead,  complaining  at  being disturbed. The boys talked
little,  and  only  under their breath, for the time and the place and the
pervading  solemnity  and  silence oppressed their spirits. They found the
sharp  new  heap  they  were  seeking, and ensconced themselves within the
protection  of  three great elms that grew in a bunch within a few feet of
the grave.
   Then they waited in silence for what seemed a long time. The hooting of
a  distant  owl  was all the sound that troubled the dead stillness. Tom's
reflections  grew  oppressive.  He  must  force some talk. So he said in a
whisper:
   "Hucky, do you believe the dead people like it for us to be here?"
   Huckleberry whispered:
   "I wisht I knowed. It's awful solemn like, AIN'T it?"
   "I bet it is."
   There  was  a  considerable pause, while the boys canvassed this matter
inwardly. Then Tom whispered:
   "Say, Hucky-do you reckon Hoss Williams hears us talking?"
   "O' course he does. Least his sperrit does."
   Tom, after a pause:
   "I wish I'd said Mister Williams. But I never meant any harm. Everybody
calls him Hoss."
   "A  body  can't  be  too  partic'lar how they talk 'bout these-yer dead
people, Tom."
   This was a damper, and conversation died again.
   Presently Tom seized his comrade's arm and said:
   "Sh!"
   "What is it, Tom?" And the two clung together with beating hearts.
   "Sh! There 'tis again! Didn't you hear it?"
   "I-"
   "There! Now you hear it."
   "Lord, Tom, they're coming! They're coming, sure. What'll we do?"
   "I dono. Think they'll see us?"
   "Oh,  Tom,  they  can  see  in the dark, same as cats. I wisht I hadn't
come."
   "Oh, don't be afeard. I don't believe they'll bother us. We ain't doing
any harm. If we keep perfectly still, maybe they won't notice us at all."
   "I'll try to, Tom, but, Lord, I'm all of a shiver."
   "Listen!"
   The  boys  bent  their  heads together and scarcely breathed. A muffled
sound of voices floated up from the far end of the graveyard.
   "Look! See there!" whispered Tom. "What is it?"
   "It's devil-fire. Oh, Tom, this is awful."
   Some   vague   figures   approached  through  the  gloom,  swinging  an
old-fashioned tin lantern that freckled the ground with innumerable little
spangles of light. Presently Huckleberry whispered with a shudder:
   "It's  the  devils sure enough. Three of 'em! Lordy, Tom, we're goners!
Can you pray?"
   "I'll try, but don't you be afeard. They ain't going to hurt us. 'Now I
lay me down to sleep, I-'"
   "Sh!"
   "What is it, Huck?"
   "They're  HUMANS! One of 'em is, anyway. One of 'em's old Muff Potter's
voice."
   "No-'tain't so, is it?"
   "I  bet  I  know it. Don't you stir nor budge. He ain't sharp enough to
notice us. Drunk, the same as usual, likely-blamed old rip!"
   "All  right,  I'll  keep  still. Now they're stuck. Can't find it. Here
they  come again. Now they're hot. Cold again. Hot again. Red hot! They're
p'inted  right,  this time. Say, Huck, I know another o' them voices; it's
Injun Joe."
   "That's  so-that  murderin'  half-breed!  I'd druther they was devils a
dern sight. What kin they be up to?"
   The  whisper  died  wholly  out, now, for the three men had reached the
grave and stood within a few feet of the boys' hiding-place.
   "Here  it  is,"  said  the  third  voice;  and the owner of it held the
lantern up and revealed the face of young Doctor Robinson.
   Potter  and  Injun  Joe  were  carrying  a handbarrow with a rope and a
couple  of  shovels on it. They cast down their load and began to open the
grave.  The  doctor  put the lantern at the head of the grave and came and
sat  down  with his back against one of the elm trees. He was so close the
boys could have touched him.
   "Hurry,  men!" he said, in a low voice; "the moon might come out at any
moment."
   They growled a response and went on digging. For some time there was no
noise  but  the  grating  sound of the spades discharging their freight of
mould  and gravel. It was very monotonous. Finally a spade struck upon the
coffin  with a dull woody accent, and within another minute or two the men
had  hoisted  it  out  on  the  ground.  They pried off the lid with their
shovels,  got  out  the  body and dumped it rudely on the ground. The moon
drifted from behind the clouds and exposed the pallid face. The barrow was
got  ready  and the corpse placed on it, covered with a blanket, and bound
to  its  place with the rope. Potter took out a large spring-knife and cut
off the dangling end of the rope and then said:
   "Now  the  cussed  thing's  ready,  Sawbones,  and you'll just out with
another five, or here she stays."
   "That's the talk!" said Injun Joe.
   "Look  here,  what does this mean?" said the doctor. "You required your
pay in advance, and I've paid you."
   "Yes,  and  you  done  more than that," said Injun Joe, approaching the
doctor,  who was now standing. "Five years ago you drove me away from your
father's  kitchen  one night, when I come to ask for something to eat, and
you  said  I warn't there for any good; and when I swore I'd get even with
you  if  it took a hundred years, your father had me jailed for a vagrant.
Did you think I'd forget? The Injun blood ain't in me for nothing. And now
I've GOT you, and you got to SETTLE, you know!"
   He was threatening the doctor, with his fist in his face, by this time.
The  doctor  struck  out suddenly and stretched the ruffian on the ground.
Potter dropped his knife, and exclaimed:
   "Here, now, don't you hit my pard!" and the next moment he had grappled
with the doctor and the two were struggling with might and main, trampling
the grass and tearing the ground with their heels. Injun Joe sprang to his
feet,  his eyes flaming with passion, snatched up Potter's knife, and went
creeping,  catlike  and  stooping,  round  and round about the combatants,
seeking  an opportunity. All at once the doctor flung himself free, seized
the heavy headboard of Williams' grave and felled Potter to the earth with
it-and  in  the  same  instant the half-breed saw his chance and drove the
knife  to  the  hilt  in the young man's breast. He reeled and fell partly
upon  Potter,  flooding  him  with  his  blood, and in the same moment the
clouds blotted out the dreadful spectacle and the two frightened boys went
speeding away in the dark.
   Presently, when the moon emerged again, Injun Joe was standing over the
two  forms, contemplating them. The doctor murmured inarticulately, gave a
long gasp or two and was still. The half-breed muttered:
   "THAT score is settled-damn you."
   Then he robbed the body. After which he put the fatal knife in Potter's
open  right  hand,  and sat down on the dismantled coffin. Three-four-five
minutes  passed,  and  then Potter began to stir and moan. His hand closed
upon  the  knife;  he  raised  it,  glanced at it, and let it fall, with a
shudder.  Then  he sat up, pushing the body from him, and gazed at it, and
then around him, confusedly. His eyes met Joe's.
   "Lord, how is this, Joe?" he said.
   "It's a dirty business," said Joe, without moving.
   "What did you do it for?"
   "I! I never done it!"
   "Look here! That kind of talk won't wash."
   Potter trembled and grew white.
   "I  thought  I'd got sober. I'd no business to drink to-night. But it's
in  my  head  yet-worse'n when we started here. I'm all in a muddle; can't
recollect anything of it, hardly. Tell me, Joe-HONEST, now, old feller-did
I  do  it? Joe, I never meant to-'pon my soul and honor, I never meant to,
Joe.  Tell  me  how  it  was,  Joe.  Oh,  it's  awful-and him so young and
promising."
   "Why,  you two was scuffling, and he fetched you one with the headboard
and  you fell flat; and then up you come, all reeling and staggering like,
and  snatched  the  knife  and  jammed it into him, just as he fetched you
another awful clip-and here you've laid, as dead as a wedge til now."
   "Oh,  I didn't know what I was a-doing. I wish I may die this minute if
I  did. It was all on account of the whiskey and the excitement, I reckon.
I  never used a weepon in my life before, Joe. I've fought, but never with
weepons.  They'll  all  say  that.  Joe,  don't  tell! Say you won't tell,
Joe-that's  a  good feller. I always liked you, Joe, and stood up for you,
too.  Don't  you  remember?  You  WON'T tell, WILL you, Joe?" And the poor
creature  dropped on his knees before the stolid murderer, and clasped his
appealing hands.
   "No,  you've  always  been  fair and square with me, Muff Potter, and I
won't go back on you. There, now, that's as fair as a man can say."
   "Oh,  Joe,  you're  an angel. I'll bless you for this the longest day I
live." And Potter began to cry.
   "Come,  now, that's enough of that. This ain't any time for blubbering.
You  be  off  yonder  way and I'll go this. Move, now, and don't leave any
tracks behind you."
   Potter  started  on  a  trot  that  quickly  increased  to  a  run. The
half-breed stood looking after him. He muttered:
   "If  he's  as much stunned with the lick and fuddled with the rum as he
had  the  look of being, he won't think of the knife till he's gone so far
he'll   be   afraid   to   come   back   after  it  to  such  a  place  by
himself-chicken-heart!"
   Two  or three minutes later the murdered man, the blanketed corpse, the
lidless  coffin,  and  the  open  grave  were  under no inspection but the
moon's. The stillness was complete again, too.


        Chapter X

   The  two  boys  flew  on  and  on,  toward the village, speechless with
horror.  They  glanced  backward  over  their shoulders from time to time,
apprehensively, as if they feared they might be followed. Every stump that
started  up  in  their path seemed a man and an enemy, and made them catch
their breath; and as they sped by some outlying cottages that lay near the
village,  the  barking  of  the aroused watch-dogs seemed to give wings to
their feet.
   "If we can only get to the old tannery before we break down!" whispered
Tom, in short catches between breaths. "I can't stand it much longer."
   Huckleberry's  hard  pantings  were  his only reply, and th