WE went tiptoeing along a path amongst the trees back
towards the end of the widow's garden, stooping down so
as the branches wouldn't scrape our heads. When we was
passing by the kitchen I fell over a root and made a
noise. We scrouched down and laid still. Miss Watson's
big nigger, named Jim, was setting in the kitchen door;
we could see him pretty clear, because there was a light
behind him. He got up and stretched his neck out about a
minute, listening. Then he says:
"Who dah?"
He listened some more; then he come tiptoeing down and
stood right between us; we could a touched him, nearly.
Well, likely it was minutes and minutes that there warn't
a sound, and we all there so close together. There was a
place on my ankle that got to itching, but I dasn't
scratch it; and then my ear begun to itch; and next my
back, right between my shoulders. Seemed like I'd die if
I couldn't scratch. Well, I've noticed that thing plenty
times since. If you are with the quality, or at a
funeral, or trying to go to sleep when you ain't sleepy
— if you are anywheres where it won't do for you to
scratch, why you will itch all over in upwards of a
thousand places. Pretty soon Jim says:
"Say, who is you? Whar is you? Dog my cats ef I
didn' hear sumf'n. Well, I know what I's gwyne to do: I's
gwyne to set down here and listen tell I hears it agin."
So he set down on the ground betwixt me and Tom. He
leaned his back up against a tree, and stretched his legs
out till one of them most touched one of mine. My nose
begun to itch. It itched till the tears come into my eyes.
But I dasn't scratch. Then it begun to itch on the inside.
Next I got to itching underneath. I didn't know how I was
going to set still. This miserableness went on as much as
six or seven minutes; but it seemed a sight longer than
that. I was itching in eleven different places now. I
reckoned I couldn't stand it more'n a minute longer, but
I set my teeth hard and got ready to try. Just then Jim
begun to breathe heavy; next he begun to snore — and
then I was pretty soon comfortable again.
Tom he made a sign to me — kind of a little noise
with his mouth — and we went creeping away on our hands
and knees. When we was ten foot off Tom whispered to me,
and wanted to tie Jim to the tree for fun. But I said no;
he might wake and make a disturbance, and then they'd
find out I warn't in. Then Tom said he hadn't got candles
enough, and he would slip in the kitchen and get some
more. I didn't want him to try. I said Jim might wake up
and come. But Tom wanted to resk it; so we slid in there
and got three candles, and Tom laid five cents on the
table for pay. Then we got out, and I was in a sweat to
get away; but nothing would do Tom but he must crawl to
where Jim was, on his hands and knees, and play something
on him. I waited, and it seemed a good while, everything
was so still and lonesome.
As soon as Tom was back we cut along the path, around
the garden fence, and by and by fetched up on the steep
top of the hill the other side of the house. Tom said he
slipped Jim's hat off of his head and hung it on a limb
right over him, and Jim stirred a little, but he didn't
wake. Afterwards Jim said the witches bewitched him and
put him in a trance, and rode him all over the State, and
then set him under the trees again, and hung his hat on a
limb to show who done it. And next time Jim told it he
said they rode him down to New Orleans; and, after that,
every time he told it he spread it more and more, till by
and by he said they rode him all over the world, and
tired him most to death, and his back was all over saddle-boils.
Jim was monstrous proud about it, and he got so he
wouldn't hardly notice the other niggers. Niggers would
come miles to hear Jim tell about it, and he was more
looked up to than any nigger in that country. Strange
niggers would stand with their mouths open and look him
all over, same as if he was a wonder. Niggers is always
talking about witches in the dark by the kitchen fire;
but whenever one was talking and letting on to know all
about such things, Jim would happen in and say, "Hm!
What you know 'bout witches?" and that nigger was
corked up and had to take a back seat. Jim always kept
that five-center piece round his neck with a string, and
said it was a charm the devil give to him with his own
hands, and told him he could cure anybody with it and
fetch witches whenever he wanted to just by saying
something to it; but he never told what it was he said to
it. Niggers would come from all around there and give Jim
anything they had, just for a sight of that fivecenter
piece; but they wouldn't touch it, because the devil had
had his hands on it. Jim was most ruined for a servant,
because he got stuck up on account of having seen the
devil and been rode by witches.
Well, when Tom and me got to the edge of the hilltop
we looked away down into the village and could see three
or four lights twinkling, where there was sick folks,
maybe; and the stars over us was sparkling ever so fine;
and down by the village was the river, a whole mile
broad, and awful still and grand. We went down the hill
and found Jo Harper and Ben Rogers, and two or three more
of the boys, hid in the old tanyard. So we unhitched a
skiff and pulled down the river two mile and a half, to
the big scar on the hillside, and went ashore.
We went to a clump of bushes, and Tom made everybody
swear to keep the secret, and then showed them a hole in
the hill, right in the thickest part of the bushes. Then
we lit the candles, and crawled in on our hands and knees.
We went about two hundred yards, and then the cave opened
up. Tom poked about amongst the passages, and pretty soon
ducked under a wall where you wouldn't a noticed that
there was a hole. We went along a narrow place and got
into a kind of room, all damp and sweaty and cold, and
there we stopped. Tom says:
"Now, we'll start this band of robbers and call
it Tom Sawyer's Gang. Everybody that wants to join has
got to take an oath, and write his name in blood."
Everybody was willing. So Tom got out a sheet of paper
that he had wrote the oath on, and read it. It swore
every boy to stick to the band, and never tell any of the
secrets; and if anybody done anything to any boy in the
band, whichever boy was ordered to kill that person and
his family must do it, and he mustn't eat and he mustn't
sleep till he had killed them and hacked a cross in their
breasts, which was the sign of the band. And nobody that
didn't belong to the band could use that mark, and if he
did he must be sued; and if he done it again he must be
killed. And if anybody that belonged to the band told the
secrets, he must have his throat cut, and then have his
carcass burnt up and the ashes scattered all around, and
his name blotted off of the list with blood and never
mentioned again by the gang, but have a curse put on it
and be forgot forever.
Everybody said it was a real beautiful oath, and asked
Tom if he got it out of his own head. He said, some of
it, but the rest was out of pirate-books and robber-books,
and every gang that was high-toned had it.
Some thought it would be good to kill the FAMILIES of
boys that told the secrets. Tom said it was a good idea,
so he took a pencil and wrote it in. Then Ben Rogers says:
"Here's Huck Finn, he hain't got no family; what
you going to do 'bout him?"
"Well, hain't he got a father?" says Tom
Sawyer.
"Yes, he's got a father, but you can't never find
him these days. He used to lay drunk with the hogs in the
tanyard, but he hain't been seen in these parts for a
year or more."
They talked it over, and they was going to rule me
out, because they said every boy must have a family or
somebody to kill, or else it wouldn't be fair and square
for the others. Well, nobody could think of anything to
do — everybody was stumped, and set still. I was most
ready to cry; but all at once I thought of a way, and so
I offered them Miss Watson — they could kill her.
Everybody said:
"Oh, she'll do. That's all right. Huck can come
in."
Then they all stuck a pin in their fingers to get
blood to sign with, and I made my mark on the paper.
"Now," says Ben Rogers, "what's the
line of business of this Gang?"
"Nothing only robbery and murder," Tom said.
"But who are we going to rob? — houses, or
cattle, or —"
"Stuff! stealing cattle and such things ain't
robbery; it's burglary," says Tom Sawyer. "We
ain't burglars. That ain't no sort of style. We are
highwaymen. We stop stages and carriages on the road,
with masks on, and kill the people and take their watches
and money."
"Must we always kill the people?"
"Oh, certainly. It's best. Some authorities think
different, but mostly it's considered best to kill them
— except some that you bring to the cave here, and keep
them till they're ransomed."
"Ransomed? What's that?"
"I don't know. But that's what they do. I've seen
it in books; and so of course that's what we've got to do."
"But how can we do it if we don't know what it
is?"
"Why, blame it all, we've GOT to do it. Don't I
tell you it's in the books? Do you want to go to doing
different from what's in the books, and get things all
muddled up?"
"Oh, that's all very fine to SAY, Tom Sawyer, but
how in the nation are these fellows going to be ransomed
if we don't know how to do it to them? — that's the
thing I want to get at. Now, what do you reckon it is?"
"Well, I don't know. But per'aps if we keep them
till they're ransomed, it means that we keep them till
they're dead. "
"Now, that's something LIKE. That'll answer. Why
couldn't you said that before? We'll keep them till
they're ransomed to death; and a bothersome lot they'll
be, too — eating up everything, and always trying to get
loose."
"How you talk, Ben Rogers. How can they get loose
when there's a guard over them, ready to shoot them down
if they move a peg?"
"A guard! Well, that IS good. So somebody's got
to set up all night and never get any sleep, just so as
to watch them. I think that's foolishness. Why can't a
body take a club and ransom them as soon as they get
here?"
"Because it ain't in the books so — that's why.
Now, Ben Rogers, do you want to do things regular, or
don't you? — that's the idea. Don't you reckon that the
people that made the books knows what's the correct thing
to do? Do you reckon YOU can learn 'em anything? Not by a
good deal. No, sir, we'll just go on and ransom them in
the regular way."
"All right. I don't mind; but I say it's a fool
way, anyhow. Say, do we kill the women, too?"
"Well, Ben Rogers, if I was as ignorant as you I
wouldn't let on. Kill the women? No; nobody ever saw
anything in the books like that. You fetch them to the
cave, and you're always as polite as pie to them; and by
and by they fall in love with you, and never want to go
home any more."
"Well, if that's the way I'm agreed, but I don't
take no stock in it. Mighty soon we'll have the cave so
cluttered up with women, and fellows waiting to be
ransomed, that there won't be no place for the robbers.
But go ahead, I ain't got nothing to say."
Little Tommy Barnes was asleep now, and when they
waked him up he was scared, and cried, and said he wanted
to go home to his ma, and didn't want to be a robber any
more.
So they all made fun of him, and called him crybaby,
and that made him mad, and he said he would go straight
and tell all the secrets. But Tom give him five cents to
keep quiet, and said we would all go home and meet next
week, and rob somebody and kill some people.
Ben Rogers said he couldn't get out much, only
Sundays, and so he wanted to begin next Sunday; but all
the boys said it would be wicked to do it on Sunday, and
that settled the thing. They agreed to get together and
fix a day as soon as they could, and then we elected Tom
Sawyer first captain and Jo Harper second captain of the
Gang, and so started home.
I clumb up the shed and crept into my window just
before day was breaking. My new clothes was all greased
up and clayey, and I was dog-tired.