The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Complete
wealthy pirates to start with a proper wardrobe.
Gradually their talk died out and drowsiness began to steal upon the
eyelids of the little waifs. The pipe dropped from the fingers of the
Red-Handed, and he slept the sleep of the conscience-free and the weary.
The Terror of the Seas and the Black Avenger of the Spanish Main had
more difficulty in getting to sleep. They said their prayers inwardly,
and lying down, since there was nobody there with authority to make them
kneel and recite aloud; in truth, they had a mind not to say them at
all, but they were afraid to proceed to such lengths as that, lest they
might call down a sudden and special thunderbolt from heaven. Then at
once they reached and hovered upon the imminent verge of sleep—but an
intruder came, now, that would not “down.” It was conscience. They began
to feel a vague fear that they had been doing wrong to run away; and
next they thought of the stolen meat, and then the real torture came.
They tried to argue it away by reminding conscience that they had
purloined sweetmeats and apples scores of times; but conscience was not
to be appeased by such thin plausibilities; it seemed to them, in the
end, that there was no getting around the stubborn fact that taking
sweetmeats was only “hooking,” while taking bacon and hams and such
valuables was plain simple stealing—and there was a command against that
in the Bible. So they inwardly resolved that so long as they remained in
the business, their piracies should not again be sullied with the
crime of stealing. Then conscience granted a truce, and these curiously
inconsistent pirates fell peacefully to sleep.
CHAPTER XIV
When Tom awoke in the morning, he wondered where he was. He sat up and
rubbed his eyes and looked around. Then he comprehended. It was the cool
gray dawn, and there was a delicious sense of repose and peace in the
deep pervading calm and silence of the woods. Not a leaf stirred; not
a sound obtruded upon great Nature’s meditation. Beaded dewdrops stood
upon the leaves and grasses. A white layer of ashes covered the fire,
and a thin blue breath of smoke rose straight into the air. Joe and Huck
still slept.
Now, far away in the woods a bird called; another answered; presently
the hammering of a woodpecker was heard. Gradually the cool dim gray
of the morning whitened, and as gradually sounds multiplied and life
manifested itself. The marvel of Nature shaking off sleep and going
to work unfolded itself to the musing boy. A little green worm came
crawling over a dewy leaf, lifting two-thirds of his body into the air
from time to time and “sniffing around,” then proceeding again—for he
was measuring, Tom said; and when the worm approached him, of its own
accord, he sat as still as a stone, with his hopes rising and falling,
by turns, as the creature still came toward him or seemed inclined to
go elsewhere; and when at last it considered a painful moment with its
curved body in the air and then came decisively down upon Tom’s leg and
began a journey over him, his whole heart was glad—for that meant that
he was going to have a new suit of clothes—without the shadow of a
doubt a gaudy piratical uniform. Now a procession of ants appeared,
from nowhere in particular, and went about their labors; one struggled
manfully by with a dead spider five times as big as itself in its arms,
and lugged it straight up a tree-trunk. A brown spotted lady-bug climbed
the dizzy height of a grass blade, and Tom bent down close to it and
said, “Lady-bug, lady-bug, fly away home, your house is on fire, your
children’s alone,” and she took wing and went off to see about it—which
did not surprise the boy, for he knew of old that this insect was
credulous about conflagrations, and he had practised upon its simplicity
more than once. A tumblebug came next, heaving sturdily at its ball, and
Tom touched the creature, to see it shut its legs against its body
and pretend to be dead. The birds were fairly rioting by this time. A
catbird, the Northern mocker, lit in a tree over Tom’s head, and trilled
out her imitations of her neighbors in a rapture of enjoyment; then
a shrill jay swept down, a flash of blue flame, and stopped on a twig
almost within the boy’s reach, cocked his head to one side and eyed the
strangers with a consuming curiosity; a gray squirrel and a big fellow
of the “fox” kind came skurrying along, sitting up at intervals to
inspect and chatter at the boys, for the wild things had probably never
seen a human being before and scarcely knew whether to be afraid or not.
All Nature was wide awake and stirring, now; long lances of sunlight
pierced down through the dense foliage far and near, and a few
butterflies came fluttering upon the scene.
Tom stirred up the other pirates and they all clattered away with
a shout, and in a minute or two were stripped and chasing after and
tumbling over each other in the shallow limpid water of the white
sandbar. They felt no longing for the little village sleeping in the
distance beyond the majestic waste of water. A vagrant current or a
slight rise in the river had carried off their raft, but this only
gratified them, since its going was something like burning the bridge
between them and civilization.
They came back to camp wonderfully refreshed, glad-hearted, and
ravenous; and they soon had the camp-fire blazing up again. Huck found a
spring of clear cold water close by, and the boys made cups of broad oak
or hickory leaves, and felt that water, sweetened with such a wildwood
charm as that, would be a good enough substitute for coffee. While Joe
was slicing bacon for breakfast, Tom and Huck asked him to hold on a
minute; they stepped to a promising nook in the river-bank and threw in
their lines; almost immediately they had reward. Joe had not had time
to get impatient before they were back again with some handsome bass,
a couple of sun-perch and a small catfish—provisions enough for quite a
family. They fried the fish with the bacon, and were astonished; for
no fish had ever seemed so delicious before. They did not know that the
quicker a fresh-water fish is on the fire after he is caught the better
he is; and they reflected little upon what a sauce open-air sleeping,
open-air exercise, bathing, and a large ingredient of hunger make, too.
They lay around in the shade, after breakfast, while Huck had a smoke,
and then went off through the woods on an exploring expedition. They
tramped gayly along, over decaying logs, through tangled underbrush,
among solemn monarchs of the forest, hung from their crowns to the
ground with a drooping regalia of grape-vines. Now and then they came
upon snug nooks carpeted with grass and jeweled with flowers.
They found plenty of things to be delighted with, but nothing to be
astonished at. They discovered that the island was about three miles
long and a quarter of a mile wide, and that the shore it lay closest to
was only separated from it by a narrow channel hardly two hundred yards
wide. They took a swim about every hour, so it was close upon the middle
of the afternoon when they got back to camp. They were too hungry to
stop to fish, but they fared sumptuously upon cold ham, and then threw
themselves down in the shade to talk. But the talk soon began to drag,
and then died. The stillness, the solemnity that brooded in the woods,
and the sense of loneliness, began to tell upon the spirits of the boys.
They fell to thinking. A sort of undefined longing crept upon them. This
took dim shape, presently—it was budding homesickness. Even Finn the
Red-Handed was dreaming of his doorsteps and empty hogsheads. But they
were all ashamed of their weakness, and none was brave enough to speak
his thought.
For some time, now, the boys had been dully conscious of a peculiar
sound in the distance, just as one sometimes is of the ticking of a
clock which he takes no distinct note of. But now this mysterious sound
became more pronounced, and forced a recognition. The boys started,
glanced at each other, and then each assumed a listening attitude. There
was a long silence, profound and unbroken; then a deep, sullen boom came
floating down out of the distance.
“What is it!” exclaimed Joe, under his breath.
“I wonder,” said Tom in a whisper.
“’Tain’t thunder,” said Huckleberry, in an awed tone, “becuz thunder—”
“Hark!” said Tom. “Listen—don’t talk.”
They waited a time that seemed an age, and then the same muffled boom
troubled the solemn hush.
“Let’s go and see.”
They sprang to their feet and hurried to the shore toward the town. They
parted the bushes on the bank and peered out over the water. The little
steam ferry-boat was about a mile below the village, drifting with the
current. Her broad deck seemed crowded with people. There were a great
many skiffs rowing about or floating with the stream in the neighborhood
of the ferryboat, but the boys could not determine what the men in
them were doing. Presently a great jet of white smoke burst from the
ferryboat’s side, and as it expanded and rose in a lazy cloud, that same
dull throb of sound was borne to the listeners again.
“I know now!” exclaimed Tom; “somebody’s drownded!”
“That’s it!” said Huck; “they done that last summer, when Bill Turner
got drownded; they shoot a cannon over the water, and that makes
him come up to the top. Yes, and they take loaves of bread and put
quicksilver in ’em and set ’em afloat, and wherever there’s anybody
that’s drownded, they’ll float right there and stop.”
“Yes, I’ve heard about that,” said Joe. “I wonder what makes the bread
do that.”
“Oh, it ain’t the bread, so much,” said Tom; “I reckon it’s mostly what
they _say_ over it before they start it out.”
“But they don’t say anything over it,” said Huck. “I’ve seen ’em and
they don’t.”
“Well, that’s funny,” said Tom. “But maybe they say it to themselves. Of
_course_ they do. Anybody might know that.”
The other boys agreed that there was reason in what Tom said, because
an ignorant lump of bread, uninstructed by an incantation, could not
be expected to act very intelligently when set upon an errand of such
gravity.
“By jings, I wish I was over there, now,” said Joe.
“I do too,” said Huck. “I’d give heaps to know who it is.”
The boys still listened and watched. Presently a revealing thought
flashed through Tom’s mind, and he exclaimed:
“Boys, I know who’s drownded—it’s us!”
They felt like heroes in an instant. Here was a gorgeous triumph; they
were missed; they were mourned; hearts were breaking on their account;
tears were being shed; accusing memories of unkindness to these poor
lost lads were rising up, and unavailing regrets and remorse were being
indulged; and best of all, the departed were the talk of the whole town,
and the envy of all the boys, as far as this dazzling notoriety was
concerned. This was fine. It was worth while to be a pirate, after all.
As twilight drew on, the ferryboat went back to her accustomed business
and the skiffs disappeared. The pirates returned to camp. They were
jubilant with vanity over their new grandeur and the illustrious trouble
they were making. They caught fish, cooked supper and ate it, and then
fell to guessing at what the village was thinking and saying about them;
and the pictures they drew of the public distress on their account were
gratifying to look upon—from their point of view. But when the shadows
of night closed them in, they gradually ceased to talk, and sat gazing
into the fire, with their minds evidently wandering elsewhere. The
excitement was gone, now, and Tom and Joe could not keep back thoughts
of certain persons at home who were not enjoying this fine frolic as
much as they were. Misgivings came; they grew troubled and unhappy; a