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Chapter twenty four. Splendid days andfearsome nights. Tom was a glittering hero,
once more, the pet of theold, the envy of the young.
His name even went into immortal print, for the village paper magnified him.
There were some that believed he wouldbe president. Yet if he escaped
hanging, as usual, the fickle, unreasoning world took muff Potter to its
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bosom and fondled him as lavishly asit had abused him before. But that
sort of conduct is to the world'scredit. Therefore it is not well to
find fault with it. Tom's dayswere days of splendor and exaltation to him,
but his nights were seasons of horror. Injun Joe infested all his dreams,
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and all was with doom in hiseye. Hardly any temptation could persuade
the boy to stir abroad after nightfall. Poor Huck was in the same state
of wretchedness and terror, for Tomhad told the whole story to the lawyer
the night before the great day ofthe trial, and Huck was sore afraid
that his share in the business mightleak out. Yet, notwithstanding, Injun
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Joe's flight had saved him the sufferingof testifying in court. The poor fellow
had got the attorney to promise secrecy, but what of that, Since Tom's
harassed conscience had managed to drive himto the lawyer's house by night and ring
a dread tail from lips that hadbeen sealed with the dismallest and most formidable
of oaths, Huck's confidence in thehuman race was well nigh obliterated. Daily
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muff Potter's gratitude made Tom glad hehad spoken, but nightly he wished he
had sealed up his tongue. Halfthe time Tom was afraid Injun Joe would
never be captured. The other halfhe was afraid he would be. He
felt sure he never could draw asafe breath again until that man was dead
and he had seen the corpse.Rewards had been offered, the country had
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been scoured, but no Injun Joewas found. One of those omniscient and
all inspiring marvels, a detective cameup from Saint Louis, moused around,
shook his head, looked wise,and made that sort of astounding success which
members of the craft usually achieve.That is to say, he found a
clue, but you can't hang aclue for murder, And so after that
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detective had got through and gone home, Tom felt just as insecure as he
was before. The slow days driftedon, and each left behind it a
slightly lightened weight of apprehension. Endof Chapter twenty four. Chapter twenty five,
Seeking the Buried Treasure. There comesa time in every rightly constructed boy's
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life when he has a raging desireto go somewhere and dig for hidden treasure.
This desire suddenly came upon Tom.One day He sallied out to find
Joe Harper, but failed of success. Next he sought Ben Rogers, he
had gone fishing. Presently he stumbledupon Huck Finn. The red handed Huck
would answer. Tom took him toa private place and opened the matter to
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him confidentially. Huck was willing.Huck was always willing to take a hand
in any enterprise that offered entertainment andrequired no capital, for he had a
troublesome superabundance of that sort of time, which is not money. Where'll we
dig, said Huck? Oh,most anywhere? Why is it hid all
round? No? Indeed it ain't. It's hid in mighty particular places.
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Huck sometimes on islands, sometimes inrotten chests, under the end of a
limb of an old dead tree,just where the shadow falls at midnight,
but mostly under the floor in hauntedhouses. Who hides it? Why?
Robbers? Of course? Who'd youreckon Sunday School superintendence? I don't know.
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If twas mine, I wouldn't hideit. I'd spend it and have
a good time, so would I. But robbers don't do that way.
They always hide it and leave itthere. Don't they come after it anymore?
No, they think they will,but they generally forget the marks,
or else they die. Anyway,it lays there a long time and gets
rusty, and buy and buy.Somebody finds an old yellow paper that tells
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how to find the marks, apaper that's got to be ciphered over about
a week because it's mostly signs andhigh rou glyphics hiro which high rode glyphics,
pictures and things you know that don'tseem to mean anything. If you
got one of them papers, Tom, No, well then how are you
going to find the marks? No? I don't want to find any marks.
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They always bury it under a hauntedhouse, or on an island,
or under a dead tree that's gotone limb sticking out. Well, we've
tried Jackson's Island a little, andwe can try it again sometime. And
there's the old Haunted house up thestill House branch, and there's lots of
dead limb trees, dead loads ofthem? Is it? Under all of
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them? How you talk? Andhow are you going to know which one
to go? For? Go forall of them? Why? Tom,
it'll take all summer? Well whatof that? Suppose you find a brass
pot with a hundred dollars in it, all rusty and gay, or a
rotten chest full of diamonds. How'sthat? Huck's eyes glowed? That's bully
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plenty, bully enough for me.Just you give me the hundred dollars.
And I don't want no diamonds,all right, But I bet you I
ain't going to throw off on diamonds. Some of them's worth twenty dollars a
piece. There ain't any hardly,but it's worth six bits or a dollar?
No? Is that so? Certainly? Anybody to tell you? So?
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Hain't you ever seen one? Huck? Not as I remember? Oh,
kings have slatherers of them. Well, I don't know, no,
kings. Tom, Now, Ireckon, you don't. But if you
was to go to Europe, you'dsee a raft of them hopping around.
Do they hop hop you're granny?No? Well, what'd you say they
did for? Shucks? I onlymeant you'd see him not hopping, of
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course, what do they want tohop for? But I mean you just
see him scattered around, you know, in a kind of a general way,
like that old humpbacked Richard. Richardwhat's his other name? He didn't
have any other name. Kings don'thave any but a given name. No,
but they don't. Well if theylike it, Tom, all right,
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but I don't want to be aking and have only just a given
name, like a nigger. Butsay, where are you going to dig?
First? Well? I don't know. Suppose we tackle that old dead
limb tree on the hill and tother side of stillhouse branch. I'm agreed.
So they got a crippled pick anda shovel and set out on their
three mile tramp. They arrived hotand panting, and threw themselves down in
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the shade of a neighboring elm torest and have a smoke. I like
this, said Tom, So doI say, huck, if we find
a treasure here, what are yougoing to do with your share? Well,
I'll have pie and a glass ofsoda every day, and I'll go
to every circus that comes along.I bet I'll have a gay time.
Well, ain't you going to saveany of it? Save it? What
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for? Why? So as tohave something to live on? Buy and
buy? Oh, that ain't anyuse. Pap would come back to this
year town someday and get his clawson it if I didn't hurry up,
And I tell you, he'd cleanit out pretty quick. What you're gonna
do with yourn, Tom, I'mgoing to buy a new drum and a
sure enough sword, and a rednecktie and a bull pup and get married.
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Married? That's it, Tom?You why you ain't in your right
mind? Wait, you'll see.Well that's the foolishest thing you could do.
Look at Pap and my mother fight. Why they used to fight all
the time. I remember, mightywell, that ain't anything. The girl
I'm going to marry won't fight,Tom. I reckon, they're all alike.
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They'll all comb a body. Nowyou better think about this a while.
I tell you you better. What'sthe name of the gal. It
ain't a gal at all, it'sa girl. It's all the same,
I reckon. Some says gal,some says girl. Both's right, Like
enough anyway, what's her name?Tom? I'll tell you sometime, not
now, All right, that'll do. Only if you get married, I'll
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be more lonesomer than ever. No, you won't. You'll come and live
with me. Now, stir outof this and we'll go to digging.
They worked and sweated for half anhour, no result. They toiled another
half hour, still no result.Huck said, do they always buried as
deep as this? Sometimes? Notalways, not generally. I reckon,
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we haven't got the right place.So they chose a new spot and began
again. The labor dragged a little, but still they made progress. They
pegged away in silence for some time. Finally Huck leaned on his shovel,
swabbed the beaded drops from his browwith his sleeve, and said, where
are you going to dig next?After we get this one? I reckon,
maybe we'll tackle the old tree that'sover yonder on Cardiff Hill, back
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of the widows. I reckon that'llbe a good one. But won't the
widow take it away from us.Tom it's on her land. She take
it away. Maybe she'd like totry it once. Whoever finds one of
these hid treasures, it belongs tohim. It don't make any difference whose
land it's on. That was satisfactory. The work went on by, and
bye, Huck said, blame it. We must be in the wrong place
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again. What do you think itis? Mighty curious, Huck, I
don't understand it. Sometimes witches interfere, I reckon. Maybe that's what's the
trouble, now, shucks, witchesain't got no power in the daytime.
Well that's so I didn't think ofthat. Oh, I know what the
matter is. What a blamed lotof fools we are. You got to
find out where the shadow of thelimb falls at midnight, and that's where
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you dig. Then con sound it. We've fooled away all this work for
nothing. Now hang it all.We've got to come back in the night.
It's an awful long way. Canyou get out? I bet I
will. We've got to do ittonight too, because if somebody sees these
holes, they'll know in a minutewhat's here and they'll go for it.
Well, I'll come around and mowtonight. All right, let's hide the
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tools in the bushes. The boyswere there that night about the appointed time.
They sat in the shadow waiting.It was a lonely place, and
an hour made solemn by old traditions. Spirits whispered in the rustling leaves,
Ghosts lurked in the murky nooks.The deep baying of a hound floated up
out of the distance. An owlanswered with his sepulchral note. The boys
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were subdued by these solemnities, andtalked little by and by. They judged
that twelve had come. They markedwhere the shadow fell and began to dig.
Their hopes commenced to rise. Theirinterests grew stronger, and their industry
kept pace with it. The holedeepened and still deepened, But every time
their hearts jumped to hear the pickstrike upon something, they only suffered a
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new disappointment. It was only astone or a chunk. At last,
Tom said, it ain't no use, Huck, We're wrong again. Well,
but we can't be wrong. Wespotted the shatter to a dot,
I know it. But then there'sanother thing. What's that? Why we
only guessed at the time, likeenough it was too late or too early,
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Huck dropped his shovel. That's it, he said. That's the very
trouble. We got to give thisone up. We can't ever tell the
right time. And besides, thiskind of thing's too awful here this time
of night, with witches and ghostsof fluttering around. So I feel as
if something's behind me all the time, and I'm afeared to turn around because
maybe there's others in front of waitinfor a chance. I've been creeping all
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over ever since I got here.Well, I've been pretty much so too,
Huck. They most always put ina dead man when they bury a
treasure under a tree to look outfor it. Lordy, yes they do.
I've always hurt that, Tom.I don't like to fool around much
where there's dead people, A body'sbound to get into trouble with. I'm
sure I don't like to stir himup either. Suppose this one here was
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to stick his skull out and saysomething, don't Tom, it's awful.
Well, it just is talk.I don't feel comfortable a bit. Say
Tom, let's give this place upand try somewhere else, all right,
I reckon we better? What'll itbe. Tom considered a while and then
said, the hanted house. That'sit. Blame it. I don't like
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hanted houses, Tom, Why they'rea derned sight, worse than dead people.
Dead people might talk, maybe,but they don't come sliding around in
a shroud when you ain't noticing,and peep over your shoulder all of a
sudden and grit their teeth the waya ghost does. I couldn't stand such
a thing as that, Tom,nobody could. Yes, but hack ghosts
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don't travel around only at night.They won't hander us from digging there in
the daytime. Well that's so.But you know, mighty well, people
don't go about that handed house inthe day nor the night. Well that's
mostly because they don't like to gowhere a man's been murdered. Anyway.
But nothing's ever been seen around thathouse except in the night. Just some
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blue lights slipping by the windows.No regular ghosts. Well, where you
see one of them blue lights flickeringaround, Tom, you can bet there's
a ghost mighty close behind it.It stands to reason, because you know
that they don't anybody but ghosts useem. Yes, that's so. For
any way, they don't come roundin the daytime, So what's the use
of our being affeered? Well,all right, we'll tackle the Hanted House
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if you say so, but Ireckon it's taken chances. They had started
down the hill by this time.There in the middle of the moonlit valley
below them stood the Hanted House,utterly isolated, its fences gone long ago,
rank weeds smothering the very doorsteps,the chimney crumpled to ruin, the
window sashes vacant. A corner ofthe roof caved in. The boy's gaze
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a while, half expecting to seea blue light flit past a window.
Then, talking in a low toneas befitted the time and the circumstances,
they struck far off to the rightto give the haunted House a wide berth,
and took their way homeward through thewoods that adorned the rearward side of
Cardiff Hill. End of Chapter twentyfive