The Adventures of Tom Sawyer: Chapter 27-28

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, chapter twenty seven.
Trembling on the trail, the adventure of the day mightily
tormented Tom's dreams. That night, Four times he had his
hands on that rich treasure, and four times it wasted
to nothingness in his fingers, as sleep forsook him and

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wakefulness brought back the hard reality of his misfortune. As
he lay in the early morning recalling the incidents of
his great adventure, he noticed that they seemed curiously subdued
and far away, somewhat as if they had happened in
another world or in a time long gone by. Then
it occurred to him that the great Adventure itself must

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be a dream. There was one very strong argument in
favor of this idea, namely that the quantity of coin
he had seen was too vast to be real. He
had never seen as much as fifty dollars in one
mass before, and he was like all boys of his
age and station in life in that he imagined that
all references to hundreds and thousands were mere fanciful forms

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of speech, and that no such sums really existed in
the world. He never had supposed for a moment that
so large a sum as a hundred dollars was to
be found in actual money in any one's possession. If
his notions of hidden treasure had been analyzed, they would
have been found to consist of a handful of real
dimes and a bushel of vague, splendid, ungraspable dollars. But

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the incidents of his adventure grew sensibly sharper and clearer
under the attrition of thinking them over, and so he
presently found himself leaning to the impression that the thing
might not have been a dream. After all, this uncertainty
must be swept away. He would snatch a hurried breakfast
and go and find Huck. Huck was sitting on the
gunwale of a flat boat, listlessly, dangling his feet in

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the water and looking very melancholy. Tom concluded to let
Huck lead up to the subject. If he did not
do it, then the adventure would be to have been
only a dream. Hello Huck, Hello yourself. Silence for a minute, Tom.
If we'd a left the blame tools at the dead tree,
we'd a got the money. Oh, ain't it awful? Tain't

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a dream? Then? Tain't a dream? Somehow, I most wish
it was dogged. If I don't, huck, what ain't a dream? Oh?
That thing yesterday i'd been half thinkin it was dream.
If them stairs hadn't broke down, you'd have seen how
much dream it was. I've had dreams enough all night
with that patch eyed Spanish devil going for me all

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through em. Rot him, no, not rot him, find him?
Track the money. Tom will never find him. A feller,
don't have only one chance for such a pile, and
that one's lost. I'd feel mighty shaky if I was
to see him anyway. Well so'd i. But I'd like
to see him anyway. Track him out to his number

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two number two. Yes, that's it. I've been thinking about that,
but I can't make nothing out of it. What do
you reckon it is? I don't know. It's too deep,
say huck. Maybe it's the number of a house. Goody, No, Tom,
that ain't it. If it is, it ain't in this
one horse town. They ain't no numbers here. Well that's

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so let me think a minute. Here, it's the number
of a room in a tavern, you know. Oh that's
the trick. They ain't only two taverns. We can find
out quick you stay here, Huck till I come. Tom
was off at once. He did not care to have
Huck's company in public places. He was gone half an hour.
He found that in the best tavern, number two had

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long been occupied by a young lawyer, and was still
so occupied. In the less ostentatious house, Number two was
a mystery. The tavern keeper's young son said it was
kept locked all the time, and he never saw anybody
go into it or come out of it, except at night.
He did not know any particular reason for this state
of things. Had had some little curiosity, but it was

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rather feeble. Had made the most of the mystery by
entertaining himself with the idea that the room was haunted.
Had noticed that there was a light in there the
night before. That's what I've found out, Huck. I reckon,
that's the very number two we're after. I reckon, it
is Tom. Now what you going to do? Let me think?

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Tom thought a long time. Then he said, I'll tell you.
The back door of that number two is the door
that comes out into the little close alley between the
tavern and the old rattle trap of a brick store.
Now you get hold of all the door keys you
can find, and I'll nip all the bounties, and the
first dark night we'll go there and try him. And
mind you keep a look out for Injun Joe, because

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he said he was going to drop into town and
spy around once more for a chance to get his revenge.
If you see him, you just follow him. And if
he don't go to that number two, that ain't the place, Lordy,
I don't want to follow him by myself. Why it'll
be a night. Sure he mightn't ever see you, and
if he did, maybe he'd never think anything. Well, if

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it's pretty dark, I reckon i'll track him. I don't know.
I don't know. I'll try. You bet, I'll follow him
if it's dark, Huck, why he might have found the
out he couldn't get his revenge and and be going
right after that money. It's so, Tom, it's so, I'll
follow him. I will buy jingoes. Now you're talking. Don't

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you ever weaken? Huck? And I won't. End of chapter
twenty seven, Chapter twenty eight. In the Lair of Injun Joe.
That night, Tom and Huck were ready for their adventure.
They hung about the neighborhood of the tavern until after nine,
one watching the alley at a distance and the other
the tavern door. Nobody entered the alley or left it.

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Nobody resembling the spaniard entered or left the tavern door.
The night promised to be a fair one, so Tom
went home, with the understanding that if a considerable degree
of darkness came on, Huck was to co and maw,
whereupon he would slip out and try the keys. But
the night remained clear, and Huck closed his watch and

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retired to bed in an empty sugar hogshead about twelve Tuesday.
The boys had the same ill luck also Wednesday, but
Thursday night promised better. Tom slipped out in good season
with his aunt's old tin lantern and a large towel
to blindfold it with. He hid the lantern and Huck's
sugar hogshead, and the watch began. An hour before midnight.

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The tavern closed up and its lights, the only ones thereabouts,
were put out. No spaniard had been seen, Nobody entered
or left the alley. Everything was auspicious. The blackness of
darkness reigned. The perfect stillness was interrupted only by occasional
mutterings of distant thunder. Tom got his lantern, lit it
in the hogshead, wrapped it closely in the towel, and

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the two adventurers crept in the gloom toward the tavern.
Huck stood sentry and Tom felt his way into the alley.
Then and there was a season of waiting, anxiety that
weighed upon Huck's spirits like a mountain. He began to
wish he could see a flash from the lantern. It
would frighten him, but it would at least tell him
that Tom was alive. Yet it seemed hours since Tom

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had disappeared. Surely he must have fainted, Maybe he was dead,
maybe his heart had burst Under terror and excitement. In
his uneasiness, Huck found himself drawing closer and closer to
the alley, fearing all sorts of dreadful things, and momentarily
expecting some catastrophe to happen that would take away his breath.
There was not much to take away, for he seemed

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only able to inhale it by thimblefuls, and his heart
would soon wear itself out the way it was beating. Suddenly,
there was a flash of light, and Tom came tearing
by him. Run said he run for your life. He
needn't have repeated it once was enough. Huck was making
thirty or forty miles an hour before the repetition was uttered.
The boys never stopped till they reached the shed of

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a deserted slaughter house at the lower end of the village.
Just as they got within its shelter, the storm burst
and the rain poured down. As soon as Tom got
his breath, he said, Huck, it was awful. I tried
two of the keys, just as soft as I could,
but they seemed to make such a power of a
racket that I couldn't hardly get my breath. I was
so scared they wouldn't turn in the lock either. Well,

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without noticing what I was doing, I took hold of
the knob and open comes the door. It warn't locked.
I hopped in and shook off the towel and Great
Caesar's ghost. What what you see, Tom Hack? I most
stepped on a injun Joe's hand. No, yes, he was
laying there, sound asleep on the floor, with his old

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patch on his eye and his arms spread out. Lord,
he would you do? Did he wake up? No? Never budged. Drunk,
I reckon I just grabbed that towel and started. I'd
never thought of the towel. I bet well I would.
My aunt would make me mighty sick if I lost it.
Say Tom, did you see that box? Hack? I didn't
wait to look round. I didn't see the box. I

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didn't see that. I didn't see anything but a bottle
and a tin cup on the floor by Injun Joe. Yes,
and I saw two barrels and lots more bottles in
the room. Don't you see? Now? What's the matter with
that hanted room? How why it's hanted with whiskey? Maybe
all the temperance taverns have got a hanted room? Hey, Huck, Well,

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I reckon. Maybe that's so? Who'd have thought such a thing.
But say Tom, now's a mighty good time to get
that box. If Injun Joe's drunk, it is that you
try it, Huck shuddered. Well, no, I reckon not, And
I reckon not, Huck, Only one bottle alongside of Injune
Joe ain't enough. If there'd been three, he'd be drunk enough,

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and I'd do it. There was a long pause for reflection,
and then Tom said, look here, Huck, let's not try
that thing anymore till we know injun Joe's not in there.
It's too scary. Now, if we watch every night, we'll
be dead sure to see him go out sometime or other,
and then we'll snatch that box quicker in lightning. Well,
I'm g I'll watch the whole night long, and i'll

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do it every night too, if you'll do the other
part of the job, all right, I will. All you
got to do is to trot up Hooper Street a
block and mow. And if I'm asleep, you throw some
gravel at the window and that'll fetch me. Agreed, and
good as wheat. Now, huck, the storm's over and I'll
go home. It'll begin to be daylight in a couple hours.

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You go back and watch that long, will you? I
said I would, Tom, and I will. I'll haunt that
tavern every night for a year. I'll sleep all day
and I'll stand watch all night. That's all right. Now?
Where are you going to sleep? In? Ben rogers Hayloft?
He lets me, and so does his PAP's nigger man,
Uncle Jake. I tote water for Uncle Jake whenever he

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wants me to, and any time I ask him he
gives me a little something to eat if he can
spare it. That's a mighty good nigger, Tom. He likes
me because I don't ever act as if I was
above him. Sometimes I've set right down and eat with him.
But you needn't tell that. A body's got to do
things when he's awful hungry. He wouldn't want to do
as a steady thing. Well, if I don't want you

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in the daytime, I'll let you sleep. I won't come
bothering round any time you see something's up in the night.
Just skip right around and now. End of chapter twenty
eight