บทที่ บทที่ 32 · 第32章

When I got there it was all still and Sunday-like, and hot and

sunshiny; the hands was gone to the fields; and there was them kind of

faint dronings of bugs and flies in the air that makes it seem so

lonesome and like everybody’s dead and gone; and if a breeze fans along

and quivers the leaves it makes you feel mournful, because you feel

like it’s spirits whispering—spirits that’s been dead ever so many

years—and you always think they’re talking about _you_. As a general

thing it makes a body wish _he_ was dead, too, and done with it all.

Phelps’ was one of these little one-horse cotton plantations, and they

all look alike. A rail fence round a two-acre yard; a stile made out of

logs sawed off and up-ended in steps, like barrels of a different

length, to climb over the fence with, and for the women to stand on

when they are going to jump on to a horse; some sickly grass-patches in

the big yard, but mostly it was bare and smooth, like an old hat with

the nap rubbed off; big double log-house for the white folks—hewed

logs, with the chinks stopped up with mud or mortar, and these

mud-stripes been whitewashed some time or another; round-log kitchen,

with a big broad, open but roofed passage joining it to the house; log

smoke-house back of the kitchen; three little log nigger-cabins in a

row t’other side the smoke-house; one little hut all by itself away

down against the back fence, and some outbuildings down a piece the

other side; ash-hopper and big kettle to bile soap in by the little

hut; bench by the kitchen door, with bucket of water and a gourd; hound

asleep there in the sun; more hounds asleep round about; about three

shade trees away off in a corner; some currant bushes and gooseberry

bushes in one place by the fence; outside of the fence a garden and a

watermelon patch; then the cotton fields begins, and after the fields

the woods.

I went around and clumb over the back stile by the ash-hopper, and

started for the kitchen. When I got a little ways I heard the dim hum

of a spinning-wheel wailing along up and sinking along down again; and

then I knowed for certain I wished I was dead—for that _is_ the

lonesomest sound in the whole world.

I went right along, not fixing up any particular plan, but just

trusting to Providence to put the right words in my mouth when the time

come; for I’d noticed that Providence always did put the right words in

my mouth if I left it alone.

When I got half-way, first one hound and then another got up and went

for me, and of course I stopped and faced them, and kept still. And

such another powwow as they made! In a quarter of a minute I was a kind

of a hub of a wheel, as you may say—spokes made out of dogs—circle of

fifteen of them packed together around me, with their necks and noses

stretched up towards me, a-barking and howling; and more a-coming; you

could see them sailing over fences and around corners from everywheres.

A nigger woman come tearing out of the kitchen with a rolling-pin in

her hand, singing out, “Begone _you_ Tige! you Spot! begone sah!” and

she fetched first one and then another of them a clip and sent them

howling, and then the rest followed; and the next second half of them

come back, wagging their tails around me, and making friends with me.

There ain’t no harm in a hound, nohow.

And behind the woman comes a little nigger girl and two little nigger

boys without anything on but tow-linen shirts, and they hung on to

their mother’s gown, and peeped out from behind her at me, bashful, the

way they always do. And here comes the white woman running from the

house, about forty-five or fifty year old, bareheaded, and her

spinning-stick in her hand; and behind her comes her little white

children, acting the same way the little niggers was doing. She was

smiling all over so she could hardly stand—and says:

“It’s _you_, at last!—_ain’t_ it?”

I out with a “Yes’m” before I thought.

She grabbed me and hugged me tight; and then gripped me by both hands

and shook and shook; and the tears come in her eyes, and run down over;

and she couldn’t seem to hug and shake enough, and kept saying, “You

don’t look as much like your mother as I reckoned you would; but law

sakes, I don’t care for that, I’m _so_ glad to see you! Dear, dear, it

does seem like I could eat you up! Children, it’s your cousin Tom!—tell

him howdy.”

But they ducked their heads, and put their fingers in their mouths, and

hid behind her. So she run on:

“Lize, hurry up and get him a hot breakfast right away—or did you get

your breakfast on the boat?”

I said I had got it on the boat. So then she started for the house,

leading me by the hand, and the children tagging after. When we got

there she set me down in a split-bottomed chair, and set herself down

on a little low stool in front of me, holding both of my hands, and

says:

“Now I can have a _good_ look at you; and, laws-a-me, I’ve been hungry

for it a many and a many a time, all these long years, and it’s come at

last! We been expecting you a couple of days and more. What kep’

you?—boat get aground?”

“Yes’m—she—”

“Don’t say yes’m—say Aunt Sally. Where’d she get aground?”

I didn’t rightly know what to say, because I didn’t know whether the

boat would be coming up the river or down. But I go a good deal on

instinct; and my instinct said she would be coming up—from down towards

Orleans. That didn’t help me much, though; for I didn’t know the names

of bars down that way. I see I’d got to invent a bar, or forget the

name of the one we got aground on—or—Now I struck an idea, and fetched

it out:

“It warn’t the grounding—that didn’t keep us back but a little. We

blowed out a cylinder-head.”

“Good gracious! anybody hurt?”

“No’m. Killed a nigger.”

“Well, it’s lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt. Two years ago

last Christmas your uncle Silas was coming up from Newrleans on the old

_Lally Rook_, and she blowed out a cylinder-head and crippled a man.

And I think he died afterwards. He was a Baptist. Your uncle Silas

knowed a family in Baton Rouge that knowed his people very well. Yes, I

remember now, he _did_ die. Mortification set in, and they had to

amputate him. But it didn’t save him. Yes, it was mortification—that

was it. He turned blue all over, and died in the hope of a glorious

resurrection. They say he was a sight to look at. Your uncle’s been up

to the town every day to fetch you. And he’s gone again, not more’n an

hour ago; he’ll be back any minute now. You must a met him on the road,

didn’t you?—oldish man, with a—”

“No, I didn’t see nobody, Aunt Sally. The boat landed just at daylight,

and I left my baggage on the wharf-boat and went looking around the

town and out a piece in the country, to put in the time and not get

here too soon; and so I come down the back way.”

“Who’d you give the baggage to?”

“Nobody.”

“Why, child, it’ll be stole!”

“Not where _I_ hid it I reckon it won’t,” I says.

“How’d you get your breakfast so early on the boat?”

It was kinder thin ice, but I says:

“The captain see me standing around, and told me I better have

something to eat before I went ashore; so he took me in the texas to

the officers’ lunch, and give me all I wanted.”

I was getting so uneasy I couldn’t listen good. I had my mind on the

children all the time; I wanted to get them out to one side and pump

them a little, and find out who I was. But I couldn’t get no show, Mrs.

Phelps kept it up and run on so. Pretty soon she made the cold chills

streak all down my back, because she says:

“But here we’re a-running on this way, and you hain’t told me a word

about Sis, nor any of them. Now I’ll rest my works a little, and you

start up yourn; just tell me _everything_—tell me all about ’m all

every one of ’m; and how they are, and what they’re doing, and what

they told you to tell me; and every last thing you can think of.”

Well, I see I was up a stump—and up it good. Providence had stood by me

this fur all right, but I was hard and tight aground now. I see it

warn’t a bit of use to try to go ahead—I’d _got_ to throw up my hand.

So I says to myself, here’s another place where I got to resk the

truth. I opened my mouth to begin; but she grabbed me and hustled me in

behind the bed, and says:

“Here he comes! Stick your head down lower—there, that’ll do; you can’t

be seen now. Don’t you let on you’re here. I’ll play a joke on him.

Children, don’t you say a word.”

I see I was in a fix now. But it warn’t no use to worry; there warn’t

nothing to do but just hold still, and try and be ready to stand from

under when the lightning struck.

I had just one little glimpse of the old gentleman when he come in;

then the bed hid him. Mrs. Phelps she jumps for him, and says:

“Has he come?”

“No,” says her husband.

“Good-_ness_ gracious!” she says, “what in the world 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.