BY and by it was getting-up time. So I come down the
ladder and started for down-stairs; but as I come to the
girls' room the door was open, and I see Mary Jane
setting by her old hair trunk, which was open and she'd
been packing things in it — getting ready to go to
England. But she had stopped now with a folded gown in
her lap, and had her face in her hands, crying. I felt
awful bad to see it; of course anybody would. I went in
there and says:
"Miss Mary Jane, you can't a-bear to see people
in trouble, and I can't — most always. Tell me about it."
So she done it. And it was the niggers — I just
expected it. She said the beautiful trip to England was
most about spoiled for her; she didn't know HOW she was
ever going to be happy there, knowing the mother and the
children warn't ever going to see each other no more —
and then busted out bitterer than ever, and flung up her
hands, and says:
"Oh, dear, dear, to think they ain't EVER going
to see each other any more!"
"But they WILL — and inside of two weeks — and
I KNOW it!" says I.
Laws, it was out before I could think! And before I
could budge she throws her arms around my neck and told
me to say it AGAIN, say it AGAIN, say it AGAIN!
I see I had spoke too sudden and said too much, and
was in a close place. I asked her to let me think a
minute; and she set there, very impatient and excited and
handsome, but looking kind of happy and eased-up, like a
person that's had a tooth pulled out. So I went to
studying it out. I says to myself, I reckon a body that
ups and tells the truth when he is in a tight place is
taking considerable many resks, though I ain't had no
experience, and can't say for certain; but it looks so to
me, anyway; and yet here's a case where I'm blest if it
don't look to me like the truth is better and actuly
SAFER than a lie. I must lay it by in my mind, and think
it over some time or other, it's so kind of strange and
unregular. I never see nothing like it. Well, I says to
myself at last, I'm a-going to chance it; I'll up and
tell the truth this time, though it does seem most like
setting down on a kag of powder and touching it off just
to see where you'll go to. Then I says:
"Miss Mary Jane, is there any place out of town a
little ways where you could go and stay three or four
days?"
"Yes; Mr. Lothrop's. Why?"
"Never mind why yet. If I'll tell you how I know
the niggers will see each other again inside of two weeks
— here in this house — and PROVE how I know it — will
you go to Mr. Lothrop's and stay four days?"
"Four days!" she says; "I'll stay a
year!"
"All right," I says, "I don't want
nothing more out of YOU than just your word — I druther
have it than another man's kiss-the-Bible." She
smiled and reddened up very sweet, and I says, "If
you don't mind it, I'll shut the door — and bolt it."
Then I come back and set down again, and says:
"Don't you holler. Just set still and take it
like a man. I got to tell the truth, and you want to
brace up, Miss Mary, because it's a bad kind, and going
to be hard to take, but there ain't no help for it. These
uncles of yourn ain't no uncles at all; they're a couple
of frauds — regular dead-beats. There, now we're over
the worst of it, you can stand the rest middling easy."
It jolted her up like everything, of course; but I was
over the shoal water now, so I went right along, her eyes
a-blazing higher and higher all the time, and told her
every blame thing, from where we first struck that young
fool going up to the steamboat, clear through to where
she flung herself on to the king's breast at the front
door and he kissed her sixteen or seventeen times — and
then up she jumps, with her face afire like sunset, and
says:
"The brute! Come, don't waste a minute — not a
SECOND — we'll have them tarred and feathered, and flung
in the river!"
Says I:
"Cert'nly. But do you mean BEFORE you go to Mr.
Lothrop's, or —"
"Oh," she says, "what am I THINKING
about!" she says, and set right down again. "Don't
mind what I said — please don't — you WON'T, now, WILL
you?" Laying her silky hand on mine in that kind of
a way that I said I would die first. "I never
thought, I was so stirred up," she says; "now
go on, and I won't do so any more. You tell me what to
do, and whatever you say I'll do it."
"Well," I says, "it's a rough gang,
them two frauds, and I'm fixed so I got to travel with
them a while longer, whether I want to or not — I
druther not tell you why; and if you was to blow on them
this town would get me out of their claws, and I'd be all
right; but there'd be another person that you don't know
about who'd be in big trouble. Well, we got to save HIM,
hain't we? Of course. Well, then, we won't blow on them."
Saying them words put a good idea in my head. I see
how maybe I could get me and Jim rid of the frauds; get
them jailed here, and then leave. But I didn't want to
run the raft in the daytime without anybody aboard to
answer questions but me; so I didn't want the plan to
begin working till pretty late to-night. I says:
"Miss Mary Jane, I'll tell you what we'll do, and
you won't have to stay at Mr. Lothrop's so long, nuther.
How fur is it?"
"A little short of four miles — right out in the
country, back here."
"Well, that 'll answer. Now you go along out
there, and lay low till nine or half-past to-night, and
then get them to fetch you home again — tell them you've
thought of something. If you get here before eleven put a
candle in this window, and if I don't turn up wait TILL
eleven, and THEN if I don't turn up it means I'm gone,
and out of the way, and safe. Then you come out and
spread the news around, and get these beats jailed."
"Good," she says, "I'll do it."
"And if it just happens so that I don't get away,
but get took up along with them, you must up and say I
told you the whole thing beforehand, and you must stand
by me all you can."
"Stand by you! indeed I will. They sha'n't touch
a hair of your head!" she says, and I see her
nostrils spread and her eyes snap when she said it, too.
"If I get away I sha'n't be here," I says,
"to prove these rapscallions ain't your uncles, and
I couldn't do it if I WAS here. I could swear they was
beats and bummers, that's all, though that's worth
something. Well, there's others can do that better than
what I can, and they're people that ain't going to be
doubted as quick as I'd be. I'll tell you how to find
them. Gimme a pencil and a piece of paper. There —
'Royal Nonesuch, Bricksville.' Put it away, and don't
lose it. When the court wants to find out something about
these two, let them send up to Bricksville and say
they've got the men that played the Royal Nonesuch, and
ask for some witnesses — why, you'll have that entire
town down here before you can hardly wink, Miss Mary. And
they'll come a-biling, too."
I judged we had got everything fixed about right now.
So I says:
"Just let the auction go right along, and don't
worry. Nobody don't have to pay for the things they buy
till a whole day after the auction on accounts of the
short notice, and they ain't going out of this till they
get that money; and the way we've fixed it the sale ain't
going to count, and they ain't going to get no money.
It's just like the way it was with the niggers — it
warn't no sale, and the niggers will be back before long.
Why, they can't collect the money for the NIGGERS yet —
they're in the worst kind of a fix, Miss Mary."
"Well," she says, "I'll run down to
breakfast now, and then I'll start straight for Mr.
Lothrop's."
"'Deed, THAT ain't the ticket, Miss Mary Jane,"
I says, "by no manner of means; go BEFORE breakfast."
"Why?"
"What did you reckon I wanted you to go at all
for, Miss Mary?"
"Well, I never thought — and come to think, I
don't know. What was it?"
"Why, it's because you ain't one of these
leatherface people. I don't want no better book than what
your face is. A body can set down and read it off like
coarse print. Do you reckon you can go and face your
uncles when they come to kiss you goodmorning, and never
—"
"There, there, don't! Yes, I'll go before
breakfast — I'll be glad to. And leave my sisters with
them?"
"Yes; never mind about them. They've got to stand
it yet a while. They might suspicion something if all of
you was to go. I don't want you to see them, nor your
sisters, nor nobody in this town; if a neighbor was to
ask how is your uncles this morning your face would tell
something. No, you go right along, Miss Mary Jane, and
I'll fix it with all of them. I'll tell Miss Susan to
give your love to your uncles and say you've went away
for a few hours for to get a little rest and change, or
to see a friend, and you'll be back to-night or early in
the morning."
"Gone to see a friend is all right, but I won't
have my love given to them."
"Well, then, it sha'n't be." It was well
enough to tell HER so — no harm in it. It was only a
little thing to do, and no trouble; and it's the little
things that smooths people's roads the most, down here
below; it would make Mary Jane comfortable, and it
wouldn't cost nothing. Then I says: "There's one
more thing — that bag of money."
"Well, they've got that; and it makes me feel
pretty silly to think HOW they got it."
"No, you're out, there. They hain't got it."
"Why, who's got it?"
"I wish I knowed, but I don't. I HAD it, because
I stole it from them; and I stole it to give to you; and
I know where I hid it, but I'm afraid it ain't there no
more. I'm awful sorry, Miss Mary Jane, I'm just as sorry
as I can be; but I done the best I could; I did honest. I
come nigh getting caught, and I had to shove it into the
first place I come to, and run — and it warn't a good
place."
"Oh, stop blaming yourself — it's too bad to do
it, and I won't allow it — you couldn't help it; it
wasn't your fault. Where did you hide it?"
I didn't want to set her to thinking about her
troubles again; and I couldn't seem to get my mouth to
tell her what would make her see that corpse laying in
the coffin with that bag of money on his stomach. So for
a minute I didn't say nothing; then I says:
"I'd ruther not TELL you where I put it, Miss
Mary Jane, if you don't mind letting me off; but I'll
write it for you on a piece of paper, and you can read it
along the road to Mr. Lothrop's, if you want to. Do you
reckon that 'll do?"
"Oh, yes."
So I wrote: "I put it in the coffin. It was in
there when you was crying there, away in the night. I was
behind the door, and I was mighty sorry for you, Miss
Mary Jane."
It made my eyes water a little to remember her crying
there all by herself in the night, and them devils laying
there right under her own roof, shaming her and robbing
her; and when I folded it up and give it to her I see the
water come into her eyes, too; and she shook me by the
hand, hard, and says:
"GOOD-bye. I'm going to do everything just as
you've told me; and if I don't ever see you again, I
sha'n't ever forget you. and I'll think of you a many and
a many a time, and I'll PRAY for you, too!" — and
she was gone.
Pray for me! I reckoned if she knowed me she'd take a
job that was more nearer her size. But I bet she done it,
just the same — she was just that kind. She had the grit
to pray for Judus if she took the notion — there warn't
no back-down to her, I judge. You may say what you want
to, but in my opinion she had more sand in her than any
girl I ever see; in my opinion she was just full of sand.
It sounds like flattery, but it ain't no flattery. And
when it comes to beauty — and goodness, too — she lays
over them all. I hain't ever seen her since that time
that I see her go out of that door; no, I hain't ever
seen her since, but I reckon I've thought of her a many
and a many a million times, and of her saying she would
pray for me; and if ever I'd a thought it would do any
good for me to pray for HER, blamed if I wouldn't a done
it or bust.
Well, Mary Jane she lit out the back way, I reckon;
because nobody see her go. When I struck Susan and the
hare-lip, I says:
"What's the name of them people over on t'other
side of the river that you all goes to see sometimes?"
They says:
"There's several; but it's the Proctors, mainly."
"That's the name," I says; "I most
forgot it. Well, Miss Mary Jane she told me to tell you
she's gone over there in a dreadful hurry — one of
them's sick."
"Which one?"
"I don't know; leastways, I kinder forget; but I
thinks it's —"
"Sakes alive, I hope it ain't HANNER?"
"I'm sorry to say it," I says, "but
Hanner's the very one."
"My goodness, and she so well only last week! Is
she took bad?"
"It ain't no name for it. They set up with her
all night, Miss Mary Jane said, and they don't think
she'll last many hours."
"Only think of that, now! What's the matter with
her?"
I couldn't think of anything reasonable, right off
that way, so I says:
"Mumps."
"Mumps your granny! They don't set up with people
that's got the mumps."
"They don't, don't they? You better bet they do
with THESE mumps. These mumps is different. It's a new
kind, Miss Mary Jane said."
"How's it a new kind?"
"Because it's mixed up with other things."
"What other things?"
"Well, measles, and whooping-cough, and
erysiplas, and consumption, and yaller janders, and brain-fever,
and I don't know what all."
"My land! And they call it the MUMPS?"
"That's what Miss Mary Jane said."
"Well, what in the nation do they call it the
MUMPS for?"
"Why, because it IS the mumps. That's what it
starts with."
"Well, ther' ain't no sense in it. A body might
stump his toe, and take pison, and fall down the well,
and break his neck, and bust his brains out, and somebody
come along and ask what killed him, and some numskull up
and say, 'Why, he stumped his TOE.' Would ther' be any
sense in that? NO. And ther' ain't no sense in THIS,
nuther. Is it ketching?"
"Is it KETCHING? Why, how you talk. Is a HARROW
catching — in the dark? If you don't hitch on to one
tooth, you're bound to on another, ain't you? And you
can't get away with that tooth without fetching the whole
harrow along, can you? Well, these kind of mumps is a
kind of a harrow, as you may say — and it ain't no
slouch of a harrow, nuther, you come to get it hitched on
good."
"Well, it's awful, I think," says the hare-lip.
"I'll go to Uncle Harvey and —"
"Oh, yes," I says, "I WOULD. Of COURSE
I would. I wouldn't lose no time."
"Well, why wouldn't you?"
"Just look at it a minute, and maybe you can see.
Hain't your uncles obleegd to get along home to England
as fast as they can? And do you reckon they'd be mean
enough to go off and leave you to go all that journey by
yourselves? YOU know they'll wait for you. So fur, so
good. Your uncle Harvey's a preacher, ain't he? Very
well, then; is a PREACHER going to deceive a steamboat
clerk? is he going to deceive a SHIP CLERK? — so as to
get them to let Miss Mary Jane go aboard? Now YOU know he
ain't. What WILL he do, then? Why, he'll say, 'It's a
great pity, but my church matters has got to get along
the best way they can; for my niece has been exposed to
the dreadful pluribus-unum mumps, and so it's my bounden
duty to set down here and wait the three months it takes
to show on her if she's got it.' But never mind, if you
think it's best to tell your uncle Harvey —"
"Shucks, and stay fooling around here when we
could all be having good times in England whilst we was
waiting to find out whether Mary Jane's got it or not?
Why, you talk like a muggins."
"Well, anyway, maybe you'd better tell some of
the neighbors."
"Listen at that, now. You do beat all for natural
stupidness. Can't you SEE that THEY'D go and tell? Ther'
ain't no way but just to not tell anybody at ALL."
"Well, maybe you're right — yes, I judge you ARE
right."
"But I reckon we ought to tell Uncle Harvey she's
gone out a while, anyway, so he won't be uneasy about
her?"
"Yes, Miss Mary Jane she wanted you to do that.
She says, 'Tell them to give Uncle Harvey and William my
love and a kiss, and say I've run over the river to see
Mr.' — Mr. — what IS the name of that rich family your
uncle Peter used to think so much of? — I mean the one
that —"
"Why, you must mean the Apthorps, ain't it?"
"Of course; bother them kind of names, a body
can't ever seem to remember them, half the time, somehow.
Yes, she said, say she has run over for to ask the
Apthorps to be sure and come to the auction and buy this
house, because she allowed her uncle Peter would ruther
they had it than anybody else; and she's going to stick
to them till they say they'll come, and then, if she
ain't too tired, she's coming home; and if she is, she'll
be home in the morning anyway. She said, don't say
nothing about the Proctors, but only about the Apthorps
— which 'll be perfectly true, because she is going
there to speak about their buying the house; I know it,
because she told me so herself."
"All right," they said, and cleared out to
lay for their uncles, and give them the love and the
kisses, and tell them the message.
Everything was all right now. The girls wouldn't say
nothing because they wanted to go to England; and the
king and the duke would ruther Mary Jane was off working
for the auction than around in reach of Doctor Robinson.
I felt very good; I judged I had done it pretty neat — I
reckoned Tom Sawyer couldn't a done it no neater himself.
Of course he would a throwed more style into it, but I
can't do that very handy, not being brung up to it.
Well, they held the auction in the public square,
along towards the end of the afternoon, and it strung
along, and strung along, and the old man he was on hand
and looking his level pisonest, up there longside of the
auctioneer, and chipping in a little Scripture now and
then, or a little goody-goody saying of some kind, and
the duke he was around goo-gooing for sympathy all he
knowed how, and just spreading himself generly.
But by and by the thing dragged through, and
everything was sold — everything but a little old
trifling lot in the graveyard. So they'd got to work that
off — I never see such a girafft as the king was for
wanting to swallow EVERYTHING. Well, whilst they was at
it a steamboat landed, and in about two minutes up comes
a crowd a-whooping and yelling and laughing and carrying
on, and singing out:
"HERE'S your opposition line! here's your two
sets o' heirs to old Peter Wilks — and you pays your
money and you takes your choice!"