The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

"No," says her husband.

"Good-NESS gracious!" she says, "what in the warld can have become of
him?"

"I can't imagine," says the old gentleman; "and I must say it makes me
dreadful uneasy."

"Uneasy!" she says; "I'm ready to go distracted!  He MUST a come; and
you've missed him along the road.  I KNOW it's so--something tells me
so."

"Why, Sally, I COULDN'T miss him along the road--YOU know that."

"But oh, dear, dear, what WILL Sis say!  He must a come!  You must a
missed him.  He--"

"Oh, don't distress me any more'n I'm already distressed.  I don't know
what in the world to make of it.  I'm at my wit's end, and I don't mind
acknowledging 't I'm right down scared.  But there's no hope that he's
come; for he COULDN'T come and me miss him.  Sally, it's terrible--just
terrible--something's happened to the boat, sure!"

"Why, Silas!  Look yonder!--up the road!--ain't that somebody coming?"

He sprung to the window at the head of the bed, and that give Mrs. Phelps
the chance she wanted.  She stooped down quick at the foot of the bed and
give me a pull, and out I come; and when he turned back from the window
there she stood, a-beaming and a-smiling like a house afire, and I
standing pretty meek and sweaty alongside.  The old gentleman stared, and
says:

"Why, who's that?"

"Who do you reckon 't is?"

"I hain't no idea.  Who IS it?"

"It's TOM SAWYER!"

By jings, I most slumped through the floor!  But there warn't no time to
swap knives; the old man grabbed me by the hand and shook, and kept on
shaking; and all the time how the woman did dance around and laugh and
cry; and then how they both did fire off questions about Sid, and Mary,
and the rest of the tribe.

But if they was joyful, it warn't nothing to what I was; for it was like
being born again, I was so glad to find out who I was.  Well, they froze
to me for two hours; and at last, when my chin was so tired it couldn't
hardly go any more, I had told them more about my family--I mean the
Sawyer family--than ever happened to any six Sawyer families.  And I
explained all about how we blowed out a cylinder-head at the mouth of
White River, and it took us three days to fix it.  Which was all right,
and worked first-rate; because THEY didn't know but what it would take
three days to fix it.  If I'd a called it a bolthead it would a done just
as well.

Now I was feeling pretty comfortable all down one side, and pretty
uncomfortable all up the other.  Being Tom Sawyer was easy and
comfortable, and it stayed easy and comfortable till by and by I hear a
steamboat coughing along down the river.  Then I says to myself, s'pose
Tom Sawyer comes down on that boat?  And s'pose he steps in here any
minute, and sings out my name before I can throw him a wink to keep
quiet?

Well, I couldn't HAVE it that way; it wouldn't do at all.  I must go up
the road and waylay him.  So I told the folks I reckoned I would go up to
the town and fetch down my baggage.  The old gentleman was for going
along with me, but I said no, I could drive the horse myself, and I
druther he wouldn't take no trouble about me.




CHAPTER XXXIII.

SO I started for town in the wagon, and when I was half-way I see a wagon
coming, and sure enough it was Tom Sawyer, and I stopped and waited till
he come along.  I says "Hold on!" and it stopped alongside, and his mouth
opened up like a trunk, and stayed so; and he swallowed two or three
times like a person that's got a dry throat, and then says:

"I hain't ever done you no harm.  You know that.  So, then, what you want
to come back and ha'nt ME for?"

I says:

"I hain't come back--I hain't been GONE."

When he heard my voice it righted him up some, but he warn't quite
satisfied yet.  He says:

"Don't you play nothing on me, because I wouldn't on you.  Honest injun,
you ain't a ghost?"

"Honest injun, I ain't," I says.

"Well--I--I--well, that ought to settle it, of course; but I can't
somehow seem to understand it no way.  Looky here, warn't you ever
murdered AT ALL?"