The Adventures of Tom Sawyer: Chapter 33-34-35

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, Chapter thirty three,
The Fate of Injun Joe. Within a few minutes, the
news had spread, and a dozen skiff loads of men
were on their way to McDougall's cave, and the ferry
boat well filled with passengers soon followed. Tom Sawyer was
in a skiff that bore Judge Thatcher. When the cave

(00:22):
door was unlocked, a sorrowful sight presented itself in the
dim twilight of the place. Injinn Joe lay stretched upon
the ground, dead, with his face close to the crack
of the door, as if his longing eyes had been
fixed to the latest moment upon the light and the
cheer of the free world outside. Tom was touched, for

(00:45):
he knew by his own experience how this wretch had suffered.
His pity was moved, but nevertheless he felt an a
bounding sense of relief and security now which revealed to him,
in a degree which he had not fully appreciated before,
how vast a weight of dread had been lying upon
him since the day he lifted his voice against this bloody,
minded outcast. Injun Joe's bowie knife lay close by, its

(01:09):
blade broken in two. The great foundation beam of the
door had been chipped and hacked through with tedious labor.
Useless labor too, it was, for the native rock formed
a sill outside it, and upon that stubborn material the
knife had wrought no effect. The only damage done was
to the knife itself. But if there had been no

(01:30):
stony obstruction there, the labor would have been useless still,
For if the beam had been wholly cut away injun
Joe could not have squeezed his body under the door,
and he knew it. So he had only hacked that
place in order to be doing something, in order to
pass the weary time, in order to employ his tortured faculties. Ordinarily,

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one could find half a dozen bits of candles stuck
around in the crevices of this vestibule, left there by tourists,
but there were none now. The pisoner had searched them
out and eaten them. He had also contrived to catch
a few bats, and these also he had eaten, leaving
only their claws. The poor unfortunate had starved to death.

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In one place near at hand, a stalac might had
been slowly growing up from the ground for ages builded
by the water drip from a stalac tight overhead. The
captive had broken off the stalac mighte, and upon the
stump had placed a stone, wherein he had scooped a
shallow hollow to catch the precious drop that fell once
in every three minutes, with the dreary regularity of a

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clocktik a dessert spoonful once in four and twenty hours.
That drop was falling when the pyramids were new, when
Troy fell, when the foundations of Rome were laid, when
Christ was crucified, when the conqueror created the British Empire,
when Columbus sailed, when the massacre at Lexington was news.

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It is falling now, it will still be falling when
all these things shall have sunk down the afternoon of history,
in the twilight of tradition, and been swallowed up in
the thick night of oblivion. Has everything a purpose and
a mission? Did this drop fall patiently during five thousand
years to be ready for this flitting human insect's need?

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And has it another important object to accomplish ten thousand
years to come? No matter? It is many and many
a year since the hapless half breed scooped out the
stone to catch the priceless drops. But to this day
the tourist stairs longest at that pathetic stone and that
slow dropping water when he comes to see the wonders
of McDougall's cave. Injun Joe's cup stands first in the

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list of the cavern's marvels. Even Aladdin's Palace cannot rival it.
Injun Joe was buried near the mouth of the cave,
and people flocked there in boats and wagons from the
towns and from all the farms and hamlets for seven
miles around. They brought their children and all sorts of provisions,
and confess that they had had almost a satisfactory at

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time at the funeral as they could have had at
the hanging. This funeral stopped the further growth of one thing,
the petition to the governor for injun Joe's pardon. The
petition had been largely signed, many tearful and eloquent meetings
had been held, and a committee of sappy women been
appointed to go in deep mourning and wail around the

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governor and implore him to be a merciful ass and
trample his duty underfoot. Injun Joe was believed to have
killed five citizens of the village. But what of that?
If he had been Satan himself, there would have been
plenty of weaklings ready to scribble their names to a
pardon petition and drip a tear on it from their
permanently impaired and leaky water works. The morning after the funeral,

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Tom took Huck to a private place to have an
important talk. Huck had learned all about Tom's adventure from
the Welshman and the widow Douglas by this time, but
Tom said he reckoned there was one thing they had
not told him. That thing was what he wanted to
talk about now. Huck's face saddened, he said, I know
what it is. You got into Number two and never

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found anything but whiskey. Nobody told me it was you,
but I just knowed it must have been you as
soon as I heard bout that whiskey business, and I
knowed you hadn't got the money, because you'd have got
it me someway or other. And told me, even if
you was Mum to everybody else, Tom, something's always told
me we'd never get hold of that swag. Why, Huck,

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I never told on that tavern keeper. You know, his
tavern was all right, the Saturday I went to the picnic.
Don't you remember you was to watch there that night? Oh? Yes,
Why it seems about a year ago. It was that
very night that I followed Injun Joe to the Winders.
You followed him, yes, but you keep mum. I reckon.
Injun Joe's left friends behind him, and I don't want

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them soaring on me and doing me mean tricks. If
it hadn't been for me, he'd be down in Texas now,
all right? Then, Huck told his entire adventure and confidence
to Tom, who had only heard of the Welshman's part
of it before. Well, said Huck, presently, coming back to
the main question. Whoever nipped the whiskey? And number two
nip the money too? I reckon anyway, it's a gone

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er for us, Tom, Huck. That money wasn't ever in
number two? What Huck searched his comrade's face. Keenly, Tom,
have you got on the track of that money again? Hack?
It's in the cave. Huck's eyes blazed. Say it again, Tom,
the money's in the cave, Tom, honest engine? Now is

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it fun or earnest? Earnest? Huck? Just as earnest as
ever I was in my life. Will you go in
there with me and help me get it out? I
bet I will. I will. If it's where, we can
blaze our way to it and not get lost. Huck.
We can do that without the least little bit of
trouble in the world. Good as wheat. What makes you
think the money's Huck? You just wait till we get

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in there. If we don't find it, I'll agree to
give you my drum and everything I've got in the world.
I will by jings. All right, it's a whiz. When
do you say right now? If you say it, are
you strong enough? Is it far in the cave? I've
been on my pins a little three four days now,
but I can't walk more than a mile, Tom, least,
I don't think I could. It's about five mile into

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there the way. Anybody but me would go, Huck, But
there's a mighty short cut that they don't anybody but
me know about. Huck. I'll take you right to it
in a skiff. I'll float the skiff down there, and
i'll pull it back again, all by myself. You needn't
ever turn your hand over. Let's start right off, Tom,
all right, we want some bread and meat in our pipes,

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and little bag or two and two or three kite strings,
and some of these new fangled things they call lucifer matches.
I tell you many's the time I wished I had some.
When I was in there before a trifle afternoon. The
boys borrowed a small skiff from a citizen who was absent,
and got under way at once. When they were several
miles below Cave Hollow, Tom said, now you see this

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bluff here, looks all alike all the way down from
the Cave Hollow. No houses, no wood yards, bushes all alike.
But do you see that white place up there where
there's been a land slide. Well, that's one of my marks.
We'll get ashore now they landed. Now, Huck, where we're
a stand, and you could touch that hole I got

(08:10):
out of with a fishing pole. See if you can
find it. Huck searched all the place about and found nothing.
Tom proudly marched into a thick clump of sumac bushes
and said, here you are, look at it, Huck. It's
the snuggist hole in this country. You just keep mum
about it all along. I've been wanted to be a robber,
but I knew I'd got to have a thing like this,

(08:31):
and where to run across it was the bother. We've
got it now, and we'll keep it quiet. Only we'll
let Joe Harper and Ben Rogers in because of course
there's got to be a gang, or else there wouldn't
be any style about it. Tom Sawyer's gang. It sounds splendid,
dull huck Well, it just does, Tom, And who we rob? Oh,
most anybody? Way? Lay people, that's mostly the way. And

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kill them, no, not always hive of them in the
cave till they raise a ransom. What's a random money?
You make them raise all they can, often their friends,
and after you kept them a year, if it ain't raised,
then you kill them. That's the general way. Only you
don't kill the women. You shut up the women, but
you don't kill them. They're always beautiful and rich and

(09:16):
all fully scared. You take their watches and things, but
you always take your hat off and talk polite. They
ain't anybody as plight as robbers. You'll see that in
any book. Well, the women get to loving you, and
after they've been in the cave a week, or two
weeks they stop crying. And after that you couldn't get
them to leave. If you drove them out, they'd turn
right around come back. It's so in all the books.

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Why it's really bully, Tom, I believe it's better and
to be a pirate. Yes, it's better in some ways
because it's close to home and circuses and all that.
By this time everything is ready, and the boys entered
the hole. Tom and the lead. They toiled their way
to the farther end of the tunnel, then made their
spliced kite strings fast and moved on. A few steps

(10:00):
brought them to the spring, and Tom felt a shudder
quiver all through him. He showed Huck the fragment of
Candlewick perched on a lump of clay against the wall,
and described how he and Becky had watched the flame
struggle and expire. The boys began to quiet down to
whispers now, for the stillness and gloom of the place
oppressed their spirits. They went on and presently entered and

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followed Tom's other corridors until they reached the jumping off place.
The candles revealed the fact that it was not really
a precipice, but only a steep clay hill twenty or
thirty feet high. Tom whispered, Now I'll show you something, Huck.
He held his candle aloft and said, look as far
round the corner as you can. You see that there

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on the big rock over yonder down with the candle smoke. Tom,
it's a cross. Now, where's your number two? Under the cross? Hey,
right yonders where I saw Indian Joe poke up his candle, Huck.
Huck stared at the mystic sign a while, and then said,
with a shaky voice, Tom, let's get out of here.

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What and leave the treasure? Yes, leave it? Injun Joe's
ghost is round about. They're certain. No it ain't, Huck,
No it ain't. It would haunt the place where he died,
way out at the mouth of the cave, five miles
from here. No, Tom, it wouldn't. It would hang around
the money. I know the ways of ghosts, and so
do you. Tom began to fear that Huck was right.

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Misgivings gathered in his mind, but presently an idea occurred
to him. Look here, Tuck, what fools were making of ourselves? Injun?
Joe's ghost ain't a going to come round? Where there's
a cross. The point was well taken. It had its effect. Tom,
I didn't think of that, but that's so it's luck
for us that crosses. I reckon, we'll climb down there

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and have a hunt for that box. Tom went first,
cutting rude steps in the clay hill. As he descended,
Huck followed. Four avenues opened out of the small cavern
which the great rock stood in. The boy is examined
three of them, with no result. They found a small
recess in the one nearest the base of the rock,
with a pallett of blankets spread down in it, also

(12:09):
an old suspender, some bacon rind, and the well gnawed
bones of two or three fowls, but there was no
money box. The lad searched and researched this place, but
in vain Tom said, he said, under the cross. Well,
this comes nearest being under the cross. It can't be
under the rock itself, because that's set solid on the ground.

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They searched everywhere once more, and then sat down, discouraged.
Huck could suggest nothing by and bye. Tom said, lookye here, Huck,
there's footprints and some candle grease on the clay about
one side of this rock. But not on the other sides. Now,
what's that for? I bet you the money is under
the rock. I'm going to dig in the clay. That

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ain't no bad notion, Tom said Huck with animation. Tom's
real barlow was out at once, and he had not
dug four inches before he struck wood. Hey, Huck, you
hear that. Huck began to dig and scratch. Now some
boards were soon uncovered and removed. They had concealed a
natural chasm which led under the rock. Tom got into
this and held his candle as far unto the rock

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as he could, but said he could not see to
the end of the rift he proposed to explore. He
stooped and passed under. The narrow way descended gradually. He
followed its winding course, first to the right and then
to the left, Huck at his heels. Tom turned a
short curve by and by and exclaimed, my goodness, Huck,
lookye here it was the treasure box, sure enough, occupying

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a snug little cavern, along with an empty powder keg,
a couple of guns and leather cases, two or three
pairs of old moccasins, a leather belt, and some other rubbish.
Well soaked with the water. Drip. Got it at last,
said Huck, plowing among the tarnished coins with his hands.
My but we're rich, Tom, Huck, I always reckoned, we'd

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get it. It's just too good to blome. But we
have got it. Sure, say, let's not fool around here.
Let's snake it out. Let me see if we can
lift the box. We weighed about fifty pounds. Tom could
lift it after an awkward fashion, but could not carry
it conveniently, I thought so, he said. They carried it
like it was heavy. That day at the Haunted House.

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I noticed that I reckon I was right to think
of fetching the little bags along. The money was soon
in the bags, and the boys took it up to
the cross rock. Now let's fetch the guns and things,
said Huck. No, Huck, leave them there. They're just the
tricks to have when you go to robbing. We'll keep
them there all the time, and we'll hold our orgies
there too. It's an awful snug place for orgies. What's orgies,

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I don't know, but robbers always have orgies, and of
course we've got to have them too. Come along, Huck,
we've been here a long time. It's getting late. I reckon.
I'm hungry too. We'll eat and smoke when we get
to the skiff. They presently emerged into the clump of
sumac bushes, looked warily about, found the coast clear, and
were soon lunching and smoking in the skiff. As the

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sun dipped toward the horizon, they pushed out and got
under way. Tom skimmed up the shore through the long twilight,
chatting cheerily with Huck, and landed shortly after dark. Now,
Huck said Tom, we'll hide the money in the loft
of the Widder's wood shed, and I'll come up in
the morning and we'll count it and divide it, and
then we'll hunt up a place out in the woods
for it where it will be safe. Just you lay

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quiet here and watch the stuff till I run up
and hook Benny Taylor's little wagon. I won't be gone
a minute. He disappeared and presently returned with the wagon,
put the two small sacks into it, threw some old
rags on top of them, and started off, dragging his
cargo behind him. When the boys reached the Welshman's house,
they stopped to rest just as they were about to

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move on. The Welshman stepped out and said, hello, who's
that Huck and Tom Sawyer? Good? Come along with me. Boys,
you are keeping everybody waiting here. Hurry up, trot ahead,
I'll haul the wagon for you. Why it's not as light? Does? It?
Might be got bricks in it or old metal? Old metal,
said Tom, I judge, so the boys in this town

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will take more trouble and fool away, more time hunting
up six bits worth of old iron to sell to
the foundry than they would to make twice the money
at regular work. But that's human nature. Hurry long, hurry long.
The boys wanted to know what the hurry was about.
Never mind, you'll see when we get to the widow
Douglas's Hucks said, with some apprehension, for he was long

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used to being falsely accused, mister Jones, we haven't been
doing nothing, Welshman laughed, Well, I don't know, Huck, my boy,
I don't know about that. Ain't you and the widow
good friends? Yes? Well she's been good friends to me anyways.
All right, then what do you want to be frayed for?
This question was not entirely answered in Huck's slow mind

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before he found himself pushed along with Tom into Missus
Douglas's drawing room. Mister Jones left the wagon near the
door and followed. The place was grandly lighted, and everybody
that was of any consequence in the village was there.
The Thatchers were there, the Harpers, the Rogerses, Aunt Polly,
sid Mary, the minister, the editor, and a great many more,

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and all dressed in their best. The widow received the
boys as hardly as any one could well receive two
such looking beings. They were covered with clay and candle grease.
Aunt Polly blushed Crimson with humiliation, and frowned and shook
her head at Tom. Nobody suffered half as much as
the two boys did. However, mister Jones said, Tom wasn't
at home yet, so I gave him up. But I

(17:33):
stumbled on him and Huck right at my door, and
so I just brought them along in a hurry. And
you did just right, said the widow. Come with me, boys.
She took them to a bed chamber and said, now
wash and dress yourselves. Here are two new suits of clothes, shirts, socks,
everything complete. There, Hucks, no, no thanks, Huck mister Jones

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bought one and I the other. But they'll fit both
of you. Get into them. We'll wait, come down when
you're slicked up enough. Then she left. End of chapter
thirty three, Chapter thirty four, floods of Gold. Hucks said, Tom,
we can slope if we can find a rope. The

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window ain't high from the ground. Shucks, what do you
want to slope for? Well, I ain't used to that
kind of crowd. I can't stand it. I ain't going
down there, Tom, oh bother, ain't anything. I don't mind
it a bit. I'll take care of you. It appeared,
Tom said he Auntie has been waiting for you all
the afternoon. Mary got your Sunday clothes ready, and everybody's

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been fretting about you. Say, ain't this grease and clay
on your clothes? Now? Mister City, you just tend to
your own business. What's all this blow out about? Anyway?
It's one of the widow's parties that she's always having.
This time it's for the welsh Man and his sons
on account of that scrape they helped her out of
the other night, And say, I can tell you something

(19:00):
if you want to know, Well, what why old mister
Jones is going to try to spring something on the
people here tonight. But I overheard him tell Andy to
day about it as a secret. But I reckon it's
not much of a secret now everybody knows the wider too.
For all she tries to let on, she don't. Mister
Jones was bound Huck should be here. Couldn't get along

(19:20):
with his grand secret without Huck. You know secret about what? Sid?
About Huck tracking the robbers to the widows? I reckon
mister Jones was going to make a grand time over
his surprise, But I bet ye it will drop pretty flat, Sid,
chuckled in a very contented and satisfied way. Sid. Was
it you that told? Oh, never mind who it was.

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Somebody told that's enough. Sid. There's only one person in
this town mean enough to do that, and that's you.
If you'd been in Huck's place, you'd to sneak down
the hill and never told anybody on the robbers. You
can't do any but mean things, and you can't bear
to see anybody praise for doing good. Ones. There no thanks,
as the widow says, and Tom cuffed Sid's ears and

(20:04):
helped him to the door. With several kicks. Now go
and tell Annie if you dare, and tomorrow you'll catch it.
Some minutes later, the widow's guests were at the supper table,
and a dozen children were propped up at little side
tables in the same room, after the fashion of that
country and that day, at the proper time, mister Jones
made his little speech, in which he thanked the widow
for the honor she was doing himself and his sons,

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but said that there was another person whose modesty, and
so forth and so on. He sprung his secret about
Huck's share and the adventure in the finest dramatic manner
he was master of, but the surprise at occasion was
largely counterfeit, and not as clamorous and effusive as it
might have been under happier circumstances. However, the widow made
a pretty fair show of astonishment, and heaped so many

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compliments and so much gratitude upon Huck that he almost
forgot the nearly intolerable discomfort of his new clothes, in
the entirely intolerable discomfort of being set up as a
target for ever everybody's gaze and everybody's laudations. The widow
said she meant to give Huck a home under her
roof and have him educated, and that when she could
spare the money, she would start him in business in

(21:10):
a modest way. Tom's chance was come. He said, Huck
don't need it. Huck's rich. Nothing but a heavy strain
upon the good manners of the company kept back the
dew and proper complimentary laugh at this pleasant joke, but
the silence was a little awkward. Tom broke it, Huck's
got money. Maybe you don't believe it, but he's got

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lots of it. Oh, you needn't smile. I reckon, I
can show you you just wait a minute. Tom ran
out of doors. The company looked at each other with
a perplexed interest, and inquiringly at Huck, who was tongue tied.
See it what ails? Tom said, Aunt Polly. He, well,
there ain't ever any making of that boy out I never.

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Tom entered, struggling with the weight of his sacks, and
Aunt Polly did not finish her sentence. Tom poured the
mass of yellow coins up on the table and said, there,
what did I tell you? Half of its hucks and
half of its mine. The spectacle took the general breath away,
all gazed. Nobody spoke for a moment. Then there was

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a unanimous call for an explanation. Tom said he could
furnish it, and he did. The tale was long, but
brim full of interest. There was scarcely an interruption from
any one to break the charm of its flow. When
he had finished, mister Jones said, I thought I had
fixed up a little surprise for this occasion, but it
don't amount to anything now. This one makes it sing

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mighty small. I'm willing to allow. The money was counted.
The sum amounted to a little over twelve thousand dollars.
It was more than anyone present had ever seen at
one time before, though several persons were there who were
worth considerably more than that. In property end of chapter
thirty four, Chapter thirty five, Respectable Huck joins the gang.

(23:01):
The reader may rest satisfied that Tom's and Huck's windfall
made a mighty stir in the poor little village of
Saint Petersburg. So vast a sum, all in actual cash,
seemed next to incredible. It was talked about, gloated over, glorified,
until the reason of many of the citizens tottered under
the strain of the unhealthy excitement. Every haunted house in

(23:22):
Saint Petersburg and the neighboring villages was dissected plank by plank,
and its foundations dug up and ransacked for hidden treasure.
And not by boys, but men, pretty grave, unromantic men too,
some of them. Wherever Tom and Huck appeared, they were courted, admired,
stared at. The boys were not able to remember that
their remarks had possessed weight before, but now their sayings

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were treasured and repeated. Everything they did seemed somehow to
be regarded as remarkable. They had evidently lost the power
of doing and saying commonplace things. Moreover, their past history
was raked up and discovered to bear marks of conspicuous originality.
The village paper published biographical sketches of the boys. The

(24:06):
widow Douglas put Huck's money out at six percent, and
Judge Thatcher did the same with Tom's, at Aunt Polly's request.
Each lad had an income now that was simply prodigious,
a dollar for every week day in the year, and
half of the sundays. It was just what the minister got, No,
it was what he was promised. He generally couldn't collect it.

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A dollar and a quarter a week would board lodge
and school a boy in those old simple days, and
clothe him and wash him too. For that matter, Judge
Thatcher had conceived a great opinion of Tom. He said
that no commonplace boy would ever have got his daughter
out of the cave. When Becky told her father in
strict confidence, how Tom had taken her whipping at school,

(24:48):
the Judge was visibly moved. And when she pleaded grace
for the mighty lie which Tom had told in order
to shift that whipping from her shoulders to his own,
the Judge said, with a fine outburst that it was
a noble, a generous, a magnanimous lie, a lie that
was worthy to hold up its head and march down
through history breast to breast with George Washington's lauded truth

(25:11):
about the hatchet. Becky thought her father had never looked
so tall and so superb as when he walked the
floor and stamped his foot, and said that she went
straight off and told Tom about it. Judge Thatcher hoped
to see Tom a great lawyer or a great soldier
some day. He said he meant to look to it
that tom should be admitted to the National Military Academy

(25:31):
and afterward trained in the best law school in the country,
in order that he might be ready for either career
or both. Huck Finn's wealth and the fact that he
was now under the Widow Douglas's protection introduced him into society.
No dragged him into it, hurled him into it, and
his sufferings were almost more than he could bear. The

(25:52):
widow's servants kept him clean and neat, combed and brushed,
and they bedded him nightly in unsympathetic sheets that had
not won little spot or stain which he could press
to his heart and know for a friend. He had
to eat with knife and fork, and had to use napkin,
cup and plate. He had to learn his book. He
had to go to church. He had to talk so

(26:13):
properly that speech was become insipid in his mouth. Whithersoever
he turned. The bars and shackles of civilization shut him
in and bound him hand and foot. He bravely bore
his miseries three weeks, and then one day turned up
missing for at forty eight hours. The widow hunted for
him everywhere in great distress. The public were profoundly concerned.

(26:35):
They searched high and low, They dragged the river for
his body. Early the third morning, Tom Sawyer wisely went
poking among some old empty hogsheads down behind the abandoned
slaughter house, and in one of them he found the
refugee Huck had slept there. He had just breakfast upon
some stolen odds and ends of food, and was lying
off now in comfort with his pipe. He was unkempt, uncombed,

(26:57):
and clad in the same old ruin of rags that
had made him picturesque in the days when he was
free and happy. Tom routed him out, told him the
trouble he had been causing, and urged him to go home.
Huck's face lost its tranquil content and took a melancholy cast,
and he said, don't talk about it, Tom. I've tried
it and it don't work. It don't work, Tom, it

(27:20):
ain't for me. I ain't used to it. The Widder's
good to me and friendly, but I can't stand them ways.
She makes me get up just at the same time
every morning, she makes me wash, They comb me all
to thunder. She won't let me sleep in the woodshed.
I got to wear them. Blame clothes that just smothers me. Tom.
They don't seem to let any air get through em somehow,

(27:42):
and they're so rotten nice that I can't set down,
nor lay down, nor roll around anywheres. I ain't slid
on a cellar door for well, it's pears to be years.
I got to go to church and sweat and sweat.
I hate them ornery sermons. I can't catch a fly
in there. I can't chaw. I got to wear shoes
all Sunday. The winder eats by a bell, she goes

(28:04):
to bed by a bell, she gets up by a bell.
Everything's so awful regular a body can't stand it. Well,
everybody does that, huck Tom. It don't make no difference.
I ain't everybody, and I can't stand it. It's awful
to be tied up so and grub comes too easy.
I don't take no interest in vitals that way. I
got to ask to go a fishing. I got to

(28:26):
ask to go in a swimming durned. If I hain't
got to ask to do everything, well, I'd got to
talk so nice. It wasn't no comfort. I'd got to
go up in the attic and rip out a while
every day to get a taste in my mouth, or
had it died. Tom the winner wouldn't let me smoke,
She wouldn't let me yell. She wouldn't let me gape,
nor stretch, nor scratch before folks. Then with a spasm

(28:51):
of special irritation and injury and dead, fetch it, she
prayed all the time. I never see such a woman.
I had to shove Tom, I just had to. And besides,
that school is going to open, and i'd have got
to go to it. Well, I wouldn't stand that, Tom.
Look here, Tom, being rich hain't what it's cracked up
to be. It's just worry and worry and sweat and

(29:12):
sweat and a wishing you was dead all the time. Now,
these clothes suits me, and this barrel suits me, and
I ain't ever going to shake him anymore. Tom, I
wouldn't ever got into all this trouble if it hadn't
been for that money. Now, you just take my share
of it along with urine, and give me a ten
center sometimes not many times, because I don't give a

(29:33):
dern for a thing thout. It's tolerable, hard to get,
and you go and beg off for me with a winner. Oh, Hock,
you know I can't do that. Tain't fair. And besides,
if you'll try this thing just a while longer, you'll
come to like it. Like it, yes, the way I'd
like a hot stove if I was to set on
it long enough. No, Tom, I won't be rich, and

(29:56):
I won't live in them cussiped smothery houses. I like
the woods and the river and hogsheads, and I'll stick
to him too. Blame it all, just as we've got
guns in a cave and all just fix the rob
hear this darned foolishness has got to come up and
spile it all. Tom saw his opportunity. Look here, Huck,
being rich ain't going to keep me back from turning robber. No,

(30:19):
oh good, looks are you in real dead with earnest? Tom?
Just as dead earnest as I'm a sitting here. But Huck,
we can't let you into the gang if you ain't respectable.
You know, Huck's joy was quenched. Can't let me in, Tom.
Didn't you let me go for a pirate? Yes, but
that's different. A robber is more high toned than what

(30:42):
a pirate is as a general thing in most countries.
They are awful high up in the nobility, dukes and such. Now, Tom,
hain't you always been friendly to me? You wouldn't have
shut me out, would you. Tom? You wouldn't do that, now,
would you? Tom? Huck? I wouldn't want to, and I
don't want to. But what would people say? Why? They'd say,

(31:04):
Tom Sawyer's gang pretty low characters in it. They'd mean, you, Huck,
you wouldn't like that, and I wouldn't. Huck was silent
for some time, engaged in a mental struggle, and finally
he said, well, I'll go back to the Widder for
a month and tackle it and see if I can
come to stand it. If you'll let me belong to
the gang. Tom, all right, Huck, it's a whiz. Come along,

(31:26):
old Chap, and I'll ask the Widder to let up
on you a little, Huck, will you, Tom? Now? Will you?
That's good? If she'll let up on some of the
roughest things. I'll smoke private and cuss private, and crowd
through or bust when you're going to start the gang
and turn robbers. Oh, right off. We'll get the boys
together and have the initiation tonight, maybe have the witch

(31:48):
have the initiation? What's that? It's to swear to stand
by one another and never tell the gang's secrets, even
if you're chopped all to flinders and kill anybody and
all his fly that hurts one of the gang. That's gay.
That's mighty gay, Tom, I tell you, well, I bet
it is. And all that swearing's got to be done

(32:08):
at midnight in the lonesomest, awfulest place you can find.
A hunted house is the best, and they're all ripped up. Now, Well,
midnight's good anyway, Tom, Yes, so it is. And you've
got to swear on a coffin and sign it with blood.
Now that's something like why. It's a million times bullier
than pirating. I'll stick to the widder till I rot, Tom.

(32:32):
And if I get to be regular ripper of a
robber and everybody talking about it, I reckon she'll be
proud she snaked me in out of the wet conclusion.
So endeth this chronicle. It being strictly a history of
a boy, it must stop here. The story could not
go much further without becoming the history of a man.

(32:55):
When one writes a novel about grown people. He knows
exactly where to stop, that is, with a marriage, But
when he writes of juveniles, he must stop where he
best can. Most of the characters that perform in this
book still live and are prosperous and happy. Some day
it may seem worth while to take up the story

(33:16):
of the younger ones again and see what sort of
men and women they turned out to be. Therefore, it
will be wisest not to reveal any of that part
of their lives at present. The end. This is the
end of the Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain.