Chapter Chapter 14 · CHAPTER XIV. Camp-Life—A Sensation—Tom Steals Away from Camp

. CHAPTER XIV. Camp-Life—A Sensation—Tom Steals Away from Camp

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

sigh or two escaped, unawares. By and by Joe timidly ventured upon a

roundabout “feeler” as to how the others might look upon a return to

civilization—not right now, but—

Tom withered him with derision! Huck, being uncommitted as yet, joined

in with Tom, and the waverer quickly “explained,” and was glad to get

out of the scrape with as little taint of chicken-hearted home-sickness

clinging to his garments as he could. Mutiny was effectually laid to

rest for the moment.

As the night deepened, Huck began to nod, and presently to snore.

Joe followed next. Tom lay upon his elbow motionless, for some time,

watching the two intently. At last he got up cautiously, on his knees,

and went searching among the grass and the flickering reflections flung

by the campfire. He picked up and inspected several large semi-cylinders

of the thin white bark of a sycamore, and finally chose two which seemed

to suit him. Then he knelt by the fire and painfully wrote something

upon each of these with his “red keel”; one he rolled up and put in his

jacket pocket, and the other he put in Joe’s hat and removed it to a

little distance from the owner. And he also put into the hat certain

schoolboy treasures of almost inestimable value—among them a lump of

chalk, an India-rubber ball, three fishhooks, and one of that kind

of marbles known as a “sure ’nough crystal.” Then he tiptoed his way

cautiously among the trees till he felt that he was out of hearing, and

straightway broke into a keen run in the direction of the sandbar.