“I _told_ you we’d be too soon; they haven’t come—the door is locked. Here,I’ll lock some of you into the cabin, and you lay for ’em in the dark and kill ’em when they come;and the rest scatter around a piece, and listen if you can hear ’em coming.”
So in they come, but couldn’t see us in the dark,and most trod on us whilst we was hustling to get under the bed. But we got under all right,and out through the hole, swift but soft—Jim first, me next, and Tom last,which was according to Tom’s orders. Now we was in the lean-to,and heard trampings close by outside. So we crept to the door,and Tom stopped us there and put his eye to the crack, but couldn’t make out nothing,it was so dark; and whispered and said he would listen for the steps to get further,and when he nudged us Jim must glide out first, and him last.So he set his ear to the crack and listened, and listened, and listened,and the steps a-scraping around out there all the time; and at last he nudged us, and we slid out,and stooped down, not breathing, and not making the least noise,and slipped stealthy towards the fence in Injun file, and got to it all right,and me and Jim over it; but Tom’s britches catched fast on a splinter on the top rail,and then he hear the steps coming, so he had to pull loose,which snapped the splinter and made a noise;and as he dropped in our tracks and started somebody sings out:
“Who’s that?Answer, or I’ll shoot!”
But we didn’t answer; we just unfurled our heels and shoved. Then there was a rush, and a _bang, bang, bang!_ and the bullets fairly whizzed around us!We heard them sing out:
“Here they are!They’ve broke for the river!After ’em, boys, and turn loose the dogs!”
So here they come, full tilt. We could hear them because they wore boots and yelled,but we didn’t wear no boots and didn’t yell. We was in the path to the mill;and when they got pretty close on to us we dodged into the bush and let them go by,and then dropped in behind them. They’d had all the dogs shut up,so they wouldn’t scare off the robbers; but by this time somebody had let them loose,and here they come, making powwow enough for a million; but they was our dogs;so we stopped in our tracks till they catched up; and when they see it warn’t nobody but us,and no excitement to offer them, they only just said howdy,and tore right ahead towards the shouting and clattering; and then we up-steam again,and whizzed along after them till we was nearly to the mill,and then struck up through the bush to where my canoe was tied,and hopped in and pulled for dear life towards the middle of the river,but didn’t make no more noise than we was obleeged to. Then we struck out, easy and comfortable,for the island where my raft was; and we could hear them yelling and barking at each other all up and down the bank,till we was so far away the sounds got dim and died out. And when we stepped onto the raft I says:
“_Now_, old Jim, you’re a free man _again_, and I bet you won’t ever be a slave no more.”
“En a mighty good job it wuz, too, Huck. It ’uz planned beautiful, en it ’uz _done_ beautiful;en dey ain’t _nobody_ kin git up a plan dat’s mo’ mixed-up en splendid den what dat one wuz.”
We was all glad as we could be, but Tom was the gladdest of all because he had a bullet in the calf of his leg.
When me and Jim heard that we didn’t feel so brash as what we did before.It was hurting him considerable, and bleeding;so we laid him in the wigwam and tore up one of the duke’s shirts for to bandage him, but he says:
“Gimme the rags; I can do it myself. Don’t stop now; don’t fool around here,and the evasion booming along so handsome; man the sweeps, and set her loose!Boys, we done it elegant!—’deed we did. I wish _we’d_ a had the handling of Louis XVI.,there wouldn’t a been no ‘Son of Saint Louis, ascend to heaven!’ wrote down in _his_ biography; no, sir,we’d a whooped him over the _border_—that’s what we’d a done with _him_—and done it just as slick as nothing at all, too. Man the sweeps—man the sweeps!”
But me and Jim was consulting—and thinking. And after we’d thought a minute, I says:
“Say it, Jim.”
So he says:
“Well, den, dis is de way it look to me, Huck. Ef it wuz _him_ dat ’uz bein’ sot free,en one er de boys wuz to git shot, would he say, ‘Go on en save me,nemmine ’bout a doctor f’r to save dis one?’ Is dat like Mars Tom Sawyer?Would he say dat?You _bet_ he wouldn’t!_Well_, den, is _Jim_ gywne to say it?No, sah—I doan’ budge a step out’n dis place’dout a _doctor;_ not if it’s forty year!”
I knowed he was white inside, and I reckoned he’d say what he did say—so it was all right now,and I told Tom I was a-going for a doctor. He raised considerable row about it,but me and Jim stuck to it and wouldn’t budge;so he was for crawling out and setting the raft loose himself; but we wouldn’t let him.Then he give us a piece of his mind, but it didn’t do no good.
So when he sees me getting the canoe ready, he says:
“Well, then, if you’re bound to go, I’ll tell you the way to do when you get to the village.Shut the door and blindfold the doctor tight and fast,and make him swear to be silent as the grave, and put a purse full of gold in his hand,and then take and lead him all around the back alleys and everywheres in the dark,and then fetch him here in the canoe, in a roundabout way amongst the islands,and search him and take his chalk away from him,and don’t give it back to him till you get him back to the village,or else he will chalk this raft so he can find it again. It’s the way they all do.”
So I said I would, and left, and Jim was to hide in the woods when he see the doctor coming till he was gone again.
CHAPTER XLI.
The doctor was an old man; a very nice, kind-looking old man when I got him up.I told him me and my brother was over on Spanish Island hunting yesterday afternoon,and camped on a piece of a raft we found,and about midnight he must a kicked his gun in his dreams, for it went off and shot him in the leg,and we wanted him to go over there and fix it and not say nothing about it, nor let anybody know,because we wanted to come home this evening and surprise the folks.
“Who is your folks?” he says.
“The Phelpses, down yonder.”
“Oh,” he says. And after a minute, he says:
“How’d you say he got shot?”
“He had a dream,” I says, “and it shot him.”
“Singular dream,” he says.
So he lit up his lantern, and got his saddle-bags, and we started.But when he sees the canoe he didn’t like the look of her—said she was big enough for one,but didn’t look pretty safe for two. I says:
“Oh, you needn’t be afeard, sir, she carried the three of us easy enough.”
“What three?”
“Why, me and Sid, and—and—and _the guns;_ that’s what I mean.”
“Oh,” he says.
But he put his foot on the gunnel and rocked her, and shook his head,and said he reckoned he’d look around for a bigger one. But they was all locked and chained;so he took my canoe, and said for me to wait till he come back, or I could hunt around further,or maybe I better go down home and get them ready for the surprise if I wanted to.But I said I didn’t; so I told him just how to find the raft, and then he started.
I struck an idea pretty soon. I says to myself,spos’n he can’t fix that leg just in three shakes of a sheep’s tail, as the saying is?spos’n it takes him three or four days?What are we going to do?—lay around there till he lets the cat out of the bag?No, sir; I know what _I’ll_ do. I’ll wait,and when he comes back if he says he’s got to go any more I’ll get down there, too, if I swim;and we’ll take and tie him, and keep him, and shove out down the river;and when Tom’s done with him we’ll give him what it’s worth, or all we got, and then let him get ashore.
So then I crept into a lumber-pile to get some sleep;and next time I waked up the sun was away up over my head!I shot out and went for the doctor’s house,but they told me he’d gone away in the night some time or other, and warn’t back yet. Well,thinks I, that looks powerful bad for Tom, and I’ll dig out for the island right off.So away I shoved, and turned the corner, and nearly rammed my head into Uncle Silas’s stomach!He says:
“Why, _Tom!_ Where you been all this time, you rascal?”
“_I_ hain’t been nowheres,” I says, “only just hunting for the runaway nigger—me and Sid.”
“Why, where ever did you go?” he says. “Your aunt’s been mighty uneasy.”
“She needn’t,” I says, “because we was all right. We followed the men and the dogs,but they outrun us, and we lost them; but we thought we heard them on the water,so we got a canoe and took out after them and crossed over, but couldn’t find nothing of them;so we cruised along up-shore till we got kind of tired and beat out;and tied up the canoe and went to sleep, and never waked up till about an hour ago;then we paddled over here to hear the news, and Sid’s at the post-office to see what he can hear,and I’m a-branching out to get something to eat for us, and then we’re going home.”
So then we went to the post-office to get “Sid”; but just as I suspicioned, he warn’t there;so the old man he got a letter out of the office, and we waited a while longer,but Sid didn’t come; so the old man said, come along, let Sid foot it home, or canoe it,when he got done fooling around—but we would ride.I couldn’t get him to let me stay and wait for Sid; and he said there warn’t no use in it,and I must come along, and let Aunt Sally see we was all right.
When we got home Aunt Sally was that glad to see me she laughed and cried both, and hugged me,and give me one of them lickings of hern that don’t amount to shucks,and said she’d serve Sid the same when he come.
And the place was plum full of farmers and farmers’ wives, to dinner;and such another clack a body never heard. Old Mrs. Hotchkiss was the worst;her tongue was a-going all the time. She says:
“Well, Sister Phelps, I’ve ransacked that-air cabin over, an’ I b’lieve the nigger was crazy.I says to Sister Damrell—didn’t I, Sister Damrell?—s’I, he’s crazy, s’I—them’s the very words I said. You all hearn me: he’s crazy, s’I;everything shows it, s’I. Look at that-air grindstone, s’I;want to tell _me_’t any cretur ’t’s in his right mind’s a goin’ to scrabble all them crazy things onto a grindstone, s’I?Here sich ’n’ sich a person busted his heart; ’n’ here so ’n’ so pegged along for thirty-seven year,’n’ all that—natcherl son o’ Louis somebody, ’n’ sich everlast’n rubbage. He’s plumb crazy, s’I;it’s what I says in the fust place, it’s what I says in the middle,’n’ it’s what I says last ’n’ all the time—the nigger’s crazy—crazy ’s Nebokoodneezer, s’I.”
“An’ look at that-air ladder made out’n rags, Sister Hotchkiss,” says old Mrs. Damrell;“what in the name o’ goodness _could_ he ever want of—”
“The very words I was a-sayin’ no longer ago th’n this minute to Sister Utterback,’n’ she’ll tell you so herself. Sh-she, look at that-air rag ladder, sh-she; ’n’ s’I, yes,_look_ at it, s’I—what _could_ he a-wanted of it, s’I. Sh-she, Sister Hotchkiss, sh-she—”
“But how in the nation’d they ever _git_ that grindstone _in_ there, _any_way?’n’ who dug that-air _hole?_ ’n’ who—”
“My very _words_, Brer Penrod!I was a-sayin’—pass that-air sasser o’ m’lasses, won’t ye?—I was a-sayin’ to Sister Dunlap, jist this minute, how _did_ they git that grindstone in there,s’I. Without _help_, mind you—’thout _help!Thar’s_ wher ’tis. Don’t tell _me_, s’I; there _wuz_ help, s’I; ’n’ ther’ wuz a _plenty_ help, too,s’I; ther’s ben a _dozen_ a-helpin’ that nigger,’n’ I lay I’d skin every last nigger on this place but _I’d_ find out who done it, s’I; ’n’ moreover, s’I—”
“A _dozen_ says you!—_forty_ couldn’t a done every thing that’s been done. Look at them case-knife saws and things,how tedious they’ve been made; look at that bed-leg sawed off with ’m, a week’s work for six men;look at that nigger made out’n straw on the bed; and look at—”
“You may _well_ say it, Brer Hightower!It’s jist as I was a-sayin’ to Brer Phelps, his own self. S’e, what do _you_ think of it, Sister Hotchkiss, s’e?Think o’ what, Brer Phelps, s’I?Think o’ that bed-leg sawed off that a way, s’e?_think_ of it, s’I?I lay it never sawed _itself_ off, s’I—somebody _sawed_ it, s’I; that’s my opinion,take it or leave it, it mayn’t be no ’count, s’I, but sich as ’t is, it’s my opinion, s’I,’n’ if any body k’n start a better one, s’I, let him _do_ it, s’I, that’s all. I says to Sister Dunlap, s’I—”
“Why, dog my cats, they must a ben a house-full o’ niggers in there every night for four weeks to a done all that work,Sister Phelps. Look at that shirt—every last inch of it kivered over with secret African writ’n done with blood!Must a ben a raft uv ’m at it right along, all the time, amost. Why,I’d give two dollars to have it read to me; ’n’ as for the niggers that wrote it, I ’low I’d take ’n’ lash ’m t’ll—”
“People to _help_ him, Brother Marples!Well, I reckon you’d _think_ so if you’d a been in this house for a while back. Why,they’ve stole everything they could lay their hands on—and we a-watching all the time, mind you.They stole that shirt right off o’ the line!and as for that sheet they made the rag ladder out of,ther’ ain’t no telling how many times they _didn’t_ steal that; and flour, and candles,and candlesticks, and spoons, and the old warming-pan,and most a thousand things that I disremember now, and my new calico dress;and me and Silas and my Sid and Tom on the constant watch day _and_ night, as I was a-telling you,and not a one of us could catch hide nor hair nor sight nor sound of them;and here at the last minute, lo and behold you, they slides right in under our noses and fools us,and not only fools _us_ but the Injun Territory robbers too,and actuly gets _away_ with that nigger safe and sound,and that with sixteen men and twenty-two dogs right on their very heels at that very time!I tell you, it just bangs anything I ever _heard_ of. Why,_sperits_ couldn’t a done better and been no smarter.And I reckon they must a _been_ sperits—because, _you_ know our dogs, and ther’ ain’t no better;well, them dogs never even got on the _track_ of ’m once!You explain _that_ to me if you can!—_any_ of you!”
“Well, it does beat—”
“Laws alive, I never—”
“So help me, I wouldn’t a be—”
“_House_-thieves as well as—”
“Goodnessgracioussakes, I’d a ben afeard to _live_ in sich a—”
“’Fraid to _live!_—why, I was that scared I dasn’t hardly go to bed, or get up, or lay down, or _set_ down,Sister Ridgeway. Why, they’d steal the very—why, goodness sakes,you can guess what kind of a fluster _I_ was in by the time midnight come last night.I hope to gracious if I warn’t afraid they’d steal some o’ the family!I was just to that pass I didn’t have no reasoning faculties no more. It looks foolish enough _now_,in the daytime; but I says to myself, there’s my two poor boys asleep,’way up stairs in that lonesome room, and I declare to goodness I was that uneasy ’t I crep’ up there and locked ’em in!I _did_. And anybody would. Because, you know, when you get scared that way,and it keeps running on, and getting worse and worse all the time, and your wits gets to addling,and you get to doing all sorts o’ wild things, and by-and-by you think to yourself,spos’n _I_ was a boy, and was away up there, and the door ain’t locked, and you—” She stopped,looking kind of wondering, and then she turned her head around slow,and when her eye lit on me—I got up and took a walk.
Says I to myself, I can explain better how we come to not be in that room this morning if I go out to one side and study over it a little.So I done it. But I dasn’t go fur, or she’d a sent for me.And when it was late in the day the people all went,and then I come in and told her the noise and shooting waked up me and “Sid,” and the door was locked, and we wanted to see the fun, so we went down the lightning-rod,and both of us got hurt a little, and we didn’t never want to try _that_ no more.And then I went on and told her all what I told Uncle Silas before;and then she said she’d forgive us, and maybe it was all right enough anyway,and about what a body might expect of boys,for all boys was a pretty harum-scarum lot as fur as she could see; and so,as long as no harm hadn’t come of it, she judged she better put in her time being grateful we was alive and well and she had us still,stead of fretting over what was past and done. So then she kissed me, and patted me on the head,and dropped into a kind of a brown study; and pretty soon jumps up, and says:
“Why, lawsamercy, it’s most night, and Sid not come yet!What _has_ become of that boy?”
I see my chance; so I skips up and says:
“I’ll run right up to town and get him,” I says.
“No you won’t,” she says. “You’ll stay right wher’ you are; _one’s_ enough to be lost at a time.If he ain’t here to supper, your uncle ’ll go.”
Well, he warn’t there to supper; so right after supper uncle went.
He come back about ten a little bit uneasy; hadn’t run across Tom’s track.Aunt Sally was a good _deal_ uneasy; but Uncle Silas he said there warn’t no occasion to be—boys will be boys,he said, and you’ll see this one turn up in the morning all sound and right.So she had to be satisfied. But she said she’d set up for him a while anyway,and keep a light burning so he could see it.
And then when I went up to bed she come up with me and fetched her candle, and tucked me in,and mothered me so good I felt mean, and like I couldn’t look her in the face;and she set down on the bed and talked with me a long time, and said what a splendid boy Sid was,and didn’t seem to want to ever stop talking about him;and kept asking me every now and then if I reckoned he could a got lost, or hurt,or maybe drownded, and might be laying at this minute somewheres suffering or dead,and she not by him to help him, and so the tears would drip down silent,and I would tell her that Sid was all right, and would be home in the morning, sure;and she would squeeze my hand, or maybe kiss me, and tell me to say it again,and keep on saying it, because it done her good, and she was in so much trouble.And when she was going away she looked down in my eyes so steady and gentle, and says:
“The door ain’t going to be locked, Tom, and there’s the window and the rod; but you’ll be good, _won’t_ you?And you won’t go?For _my_ sake.”
Laws knows I _wanted_ to go bad enough to see about Tom, and was all intending to go;but after that I wouldn’t a went, not for kingdoms.
But she was on my mind and Tom was on my mind, so I slept very restless.And twice I went down the rod away in the night, and slipped around front,and see her setting there by her candle in the window with her eyes towards the road and the tears in them;and I wished I could do something for her, but I couldn’t,only to swear that I wouldn’t never do nothing to grieve her any more.And the third time I waked up at dawn, and slid down, and she was there yet,and her candle was most out, and her old gray head was resting on her hand, and she was asleep.
CHAPTER XLII.
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?”