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<p><br/> <br/> <br/> <br/> CHAPTER XXVIII.</p>
<p>BY and by it was getting-up time. So I come down the ladder and
started for down-stairs; but as I come to the girls' room the door was
open, and I see Mary Jane setting by her old hair trunk, which was open
and she'd been packing things in it—getting ready to go to England.
But she had stopped now with a folded gown in her lap, and had her
face in her hands, crying. I felt awful bad to see it; of course
anybody would. I went in there and says:</p>
<p>"Miss Mary Jane, you can't a-bear to see people in trouble, and I can't—most
always. Tell me about it."</p>
<p>So she done it. And it was the niggers—I just expected it.
She said the beautiful trip to England was most about spoiled for
her; she didn't know <i>how</i> she was ever going to be happy there, knowing the
mother and the children warn't ever going to see each other no more—and
then busted out bitterer than ever, and flung up her hands, and says:</p>
<p>"Oh, dear, dear, to think they ain't <i>ever</i> going to see each other any
more!"</p>
<p>"But they <i>will</i>—and inside of two weeks—and I <i>know</i> it!" says I.</p>
<p>Laws, it was out before I could think! And before I could budge she
throws her arms around my neck and told me to say it <i>again</i>, say it <i>again</i>,
say it <i>again</i>!</p>
<p>I see I had spoke too sudden and said too much, and was in a close place.
I asked her to let me think a minute; and she set there, very impatient
and excited and handsome, but looking kind of happy and eased-up, like a
person that's had a tooth pulled out. So I went to studying it out.
I says to myself, I reckon a body that ups and tells the truth when
he is in a tight place is taking considerable many resks, though I ain't
had no experience, and can't say for certain; but it looks so to me,
anyway; and yet here's a case where I'm blest if it don't look to me like
the truth is better and actuly <i>safer</i> than a lie. I must lay it by in
my mind, and think it over some time or other, it's so kind of strange and
unregular. I never see nothing like it. Well, I says to myself at
last, I'm a-going to chance it; I'll up and tell the truth this time,
though it does seem most like setting down on a kag of powder and touching
it off just to see where you'll go to. Then I says:</p>
<p>"Miss Mary Jane, is there any place out of town a little ways where you
could go and stay three or four days?"</p>
<p>"Yes; Mr. Lothrop's. Why?"</p>
<p>"Never mind why yet. If I'll tell you how I know the niggers will
see each other again inside of two weeks—here in this house—and
<i>prove</i> how I know it—will you go to Mr. Lothrop's and stay four
days?"</p>
<p>"Four days!" she says; "I'll stay a year!"</p>
<p>"All right," I says, "I don't want nothing more out of <i>you</i> than just your
word—I druther have it than another man's kiss-the-Bible." She
smiled and reddened up very sweet, and I says, "If you don't mind it, I'll
shut the door—and bolt it."</p>
<p>Then I come back and set down again, and says:</p>
<p>"Don't you holler. Just set still and take it like a man. I
got to tell the truth, and you want to brace up, Miss Mary, because it's a
bad kind, and going to be hard to take, but there ain't no help for it.
These uncles of yourn ain't no uncles at all; they're a couple of
frauds—regular dead-beats. There, now we're over the worst of
it, you can stand the rest middling easy."</p>
<p>It jolted her up like everything, of course; but I was over the shoal
water now, so I went right along, her eyes a-blazing higher and higher all
the time, and told her every blame thing, from where we first struck that
young fool going up to the steamboat, clear through to where she flung
herself on to the king's breast at the front door and he kissed her
sixteen or seventeen times—and then up she jumps, with her face
afire like sunset, and says:</p>
<p>"The brute! Come, don't waste a minute—not a <i>second</i>—we'll
have them tarred and feathered, and flung in the river!"</p>
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<p><br/></p>
<p>Says I:</p>
<p>"Cert'nly. But do you mean <i>before</i> you go to Mr. Lothrop's, or—"</p>
<p>"Oh," she says, "what am I <i>thinking</i> about!" she says, and set right down
again. "Don't mind what I said—please don't—you <i>won't,</i>
now, <i>will</i> you?" Laying her silky hand on mine in that kind of a way that I
said I would die first. "I never thought, I was so stirred up," she
says; "now go on, and I won't do so any more. You tell me what to
do, and whatever you say I'll do it."</p>
<p>"Well," I says, "it's a rough gang, them two frauds, and I'm fixed so I
got to travel with them a while longer, whether I want to or not—I
druther not tell you why; and if you was to blow on them this town would
get me out of their claws, and I'd be all right; but there'd be another
person that you don't know about who'd be in big trouble. Well, we
got to save <i>him</i>, hain't we? Of course. Well, then, we won't
blow on them."</p>
<p>Saying them words put a good idea in my head. I see how maybe I
could get me and Jim rid of the frauds; get them jailed here, and then
leave. But I didn't want to run the raft in the daytime without anybody
aboard to answer questions but me; so I didn't want the plan to begin
working till pretty late to-night. I says:</p>
<p>"Miss Mary Jane, I'll tell you what we'll do, and you won't have to stay
at Mr. Lothrop's so long, nuther. How fur is it?"</p>
<p>"A little short of four miles—right out in the country, back here."</p>
<p>"Well, that 'll answer. Now you go along out there, and lay low till
nine or half-past to-night, and then get them to fetch you home again—tell
them you've thought of something. If you get here before eleven put
a candle in this window, and if I don't turn up wait <i>till</i> eleven, and <i>then</i>
if I don't turn up it means I'm gone, and out of the way, and safe. Then
you come out and spread the news around, and get these beats jailed."</p>
<p>"Good," she says, "I'll do it."</p>
<p>"And if it just happens so that I don't get away, but get took up along
with them, you must up and say I told you the whole thing beforehand, and
you must stand by me all you can."</p>
<p>"Stand by you! indeed I will. They sha'n't touch a hair of your
head!" she says, and I see her nostrils spread and her eyes snap when she
said it, too.</p>
<p>"If I get away I sha'n't be here," I says, "to prove these rapscallions
ain't your uncles, and I couldn't do it if I <i>was</i> here. I could swear
they was beats and bummers, that's all, though that's worth something.
Well, there's others can do that better than what I can, and they're
people that ain't going to be doubted as quick as I'd be. I'll tell
you how to find them. Gimme a pencil and a piece of paper. There—'Royal
Nonesuch, Bricksville.' Put it away, and don't lose it. When
the court wants to find out something about these two, let them send up to
Bricksville and say they've got the men that played the Royal Nonesuch,
and ask for some witnesses—why, you'll have that entire town down
here before you can hardly wink, Miss Mary. And they'll come
a-biling, too."</p>
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<p><br/></p>
<p>I judged we had got everything fixed about right now. So I says:</p>
<p>"Just let the auction go right along, and don't worry. Nobody don't
have to pay for the things they buy till a whole day after the auction on
accounts of the short notice, and they ain't going out of this till they
get that money; and the way we've fixed it the sale ain't going to count,
and they ain't going to get no money. It's just like the way it was
with the niggers—it warn't no sale, and the niggers will be back
before long. Why, they can't collect the money for the <i>niggers</i> yet—they're
in the worst kind of a fix, Miss Mary."</p>
<p>"Well," she says, "I'll run down to breakfast now, and then I'll start
straight for Mr. Lothrop's."</p>
<p>"'Deed, <i>that</i> ain't the ticket, Miss Mary Jane," I says, "by no manner of
means; go <i>before</i> breakfast."</p>
<p>"Why?"</p>
<p>"What did you reckon I wanted you to go at all for, Miss Mary?"</p>
<p>"Well, I never thought—and come to think, I don't know. What
was it?"</p>
<p>"Why, it's because you ain't one of these leather-face people. I
don't want no better book than what your face is. A body can set
down and read it off like coarse print. Do you reckon you can go and
face your uncles when they come to kiss you good-morning, and never—"</p>
<p>"There, there, don't! Yes, I'll go before breakfast—I'll be
glad to. And leave my sisters with them?"</p>
<p>"Yes; never mind about them. They've got to stand it yet a while.
They might suspicion something if all of you was to go. I
don't want you to see them, nor your sisters, nor nobody in this town; if
a neighbor was to ask how is your uncles this morning your face would tell
something. No, you go right along, Miss Mary Jane, and I'll fix it
with all of them. I'll tell Miss Susan to give your love to your uncles
and say you've went away for a few hours for to get a little rest and
change, or to see a friend, and you'll be back to-night or early in the
morning."</p>
<p>"Gone to see a friend is all right, but I won't have my love given to
them."</p>
<p>"Well, then, it sha'n't be." It was well enough to tell <i>her</i> so—no
harm in it. It was only a little thing to do, and no trouble; and
it's the little things that smooths people's roads the most, down here
below; it would make Mary Jane comfortable, and it wouldn't cost nothing.
Then I says: "There's one more thing—that bag of money."</p>
<p>"Well, they've got that; and it makes me feel pretty silly to think <i>how</i>
they got it."</p>
<p>"No, you're out, there. They hain't got it."</p>
<p>"Why, who's got it?"</p>
<p>"I wish I knowed, but I don't. I <i>had</i> it, because I stole it from
them; and I stole it to give to you; and I know where I hid it, but I'm
afraid it ain't there no more. I'm awful sorry, Miss Mary Jane, I'm
just as sorry as I can be; but I done the best I could; I did honest.
I come nigh getting caught, and I had to shove it into the first
place I come to, and run—and it warn't a good place."</p>
<p>"Oh, stop blaming yourself—it's too bad to do it, and I won't allow
it—you couldn't help it; it wasn't your fault. Where did you
hide it?"</p>
<p>I didn't want to set her to thinking about her troubles again; and I
couldn't seem to get my mouth to tell her what would make her see that
corpse laying in the coffin with that bag of money on his stomach. So
for a minute I didn't say nothing; then I says:</p>
<p>"I'd ruther not <i>tell</i> you where I put it, Miss Mary Jane, if you don't mind
letting me off; but I'll write it for you on a piece of paper, and you can
read it along the road to Mr. Lothrop's, if you want to. Do you
reckon that 'll do?"</p>
<p>"Oh, yes."</p>
<p>So I wrote: "I put it in the coffin. It was in there when you
was crying there, away in the night. I was behind the door, and I
was mighty sorry for you, Miss Mary Jane."</p>
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<p>It made my eyes water a little to remember her crying there all by herself
in the night, and them devils laying there right under her own roof,
shaming her and robbing her; and when I folded it up and give it to her I
see the water come into her eyes, too; and she shook me by the hand, hard,
and says:</p>
<p>"<i>Good</i>-bye. I'm going to do everything just as you've told me; and if
I don't ever see you again, I sha'n't ever forget you and I'll think of
you a many and a many a time, and I'll <i>pray</i> for you, too!"—and she
was gone.</p>
<p>Pray for me! I reckoned if she knowed me she'd take a job that was
more nearer her size. But I bet she done it, just the same—she
was just that kind. She had the grit to pray for Judus if she took
the notion—there warn't no back-down to her, I judge. You may
say what you want to, but in my opinion she had more sand in her than any
girl I ever see; in my opinion she was just full of sand. It sounds
like flattery, but it ain't no flattery. And when it comes to beauty—and
goodness, too—she lays over them all. I hain't ever seen her
since that time that I see her go out of that door; no, I hain't ever seen
her since, but I reckon I've thought of her a many and a many a million
times, and of her saying she would pray for me; and if ever I'd a thought
it would do any good for me to pray for <i>her</i>, blamed if I wouldn't a done
it or bust.</p>
<p>Well, Mary Jane she lit out the back way, I reckon; because nobody see her
go. When I struck Susan and the hare-lip, I says:</p>
<p>"What's the name of them people over on t'other side of the river that you
all goes to see sometimes?"</p>
<p>They says:</p>
<p>"There's several; but it's the Proctors, mainly."</p>
<p>"That's the name," I says; "I most forgot it. Well, Miss Mary Jane
she told me to tell you she's gone over there in a dreadful hurry—one
of them's sick."</p>
<p>"Which one?"</p>
<p>"I don't know; leastways, I kinder forget; but I thinks it's—"</p>
<p>"Sakes alive, I hope it ain't <i>Hanner</i>?"</p>
<p>"I'm sorry to say it," I says, "but Hanner's the very one."</p>
<p>"My goodness, and she so well only last week! Is she took bad?"</p>
<p>"It ain't no name for it. They set up with her all night, Miss Mary
Jane said, and they don't think she'll last many hours."</p>
<p>"Only think of that, now! What's the matter with her?"</p>
<p>I couldn't think of anything reasonable, right off that way, so I says:</p>
<p>"Mumps."</p>
<p>"Mumps your granny! They don't set up with people that's got the
mumps."</p>
<p>"They don't, don't they? You better bet they do with <i>these</i> mumps.
These mumps is different. It's a new kind, Miss Mary Jane
said."</p>
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<p>"How's it a new kind?"</p>
<p>"Because it's mixed up with other things."</p>
<p>"What other things?"</p>
<p>"Well, measles, and whooping-cough, and erysiplas, and consumption, and
yaller janders, and brain-fever, and I don't know what all."</p>
<p>"My land! And they call it the <i>mumps</i>?"</p>
<p>"That's what Miss Mary Jane said."</p>
<p>"Well, what in the nation do they call it the <i>mumps</i> for?"</p>
<p>"Why, because it <i>is</i> the mumps. That's what it starts with."</p>
<p>"Well, ther' ain't no sense in it. A body might stump his toe, and
take pison, and fall down the well, and break his neck, and bust his
brains out, and somebody come along and ask what killed him, and some
numskull up and say, 'Why, he stumped his <i>toe</i>.' Would ther' be any
sense in that? <i>No</i>. And ther' ain't no sense in <i>this</i>, nuther. Is
it ketching?"</p>
<p>"Is it <i>ketching</i>? Why, how you talk. Is a <i>harrow</i> catching—in
the dark? If you don't hitch on to one tooth, you're bound to on another,
ain't you? And you can't get away with that tooth without fetching the
whole harrow along, can you? Well, these kind of mumps is a kind of
a harrow, as you may say—and it ain't no slouch of a harrow, nuther,
you come to get it hitched on good."</p>
<p>"Well, it's awful, I think," says the hare-lip. "I'll go to Uncle
Harvey and—"</p>
<p>"Oh, yes," I says, "I <i>would</i>. Of <i>course</i> I would. I wouldn't
lose no time."</p>
<p>"Well, why wouldn't you?"</p>
<p>"Just look at it a minute, and maybe you can see. Hain't your uncles
obleegd to get along home to England as fast as they can? And do you
reckon they'd be mean enough to go off and leave you to go all that
journey by yourselves? <i>you</i> know they'll wait for you. So fur,
so good. Your uncle Harvey's a preacher, ain't he? Very well, then;
is a <i>preacher</i> going to deceive a steamboat clerk? is he going to deceive a
<i>ship clerk?</i>—so as to get them to let Miss Mary Jane go aboard?
Now <i>you</i> know he ain't. What <i>will</i> he do, then? Why, he'll
say, 'It's a great pity, but my church matters has got to get along the
best way they can; for my niece has been exposed to the dreadful
pluribus-unum mumps, and so it's my bounden duty to set down here and wait
the three months it takes to show on her if she's got it.' But never
mind, if you think it's best to tell your uncle Harvey—"</p>
<p>"Shucks, and stay fooling around here when we could all be having good
times in England whilst we was waiting to find out whether Mary Jane's got
it or not? Why, you talk like a muggins."</p>
<p>"Well, anyway, maybe you'd better tell some of the neighbors."</p>
<p>"Listen at that, now. You do beat all for natural stupidness. Can't
you <i>see</i> that <i>they'd</i> go and tell? Ther' ain't no way but just to not
tell anybody at <i>all</i>."</p>
<p>"Well, maybe you're right—yes, I judge you <i>are</i> right."</p>
<p>"But I reckon we ought to tell Uncle Harvey she's gone out a while,
anyway, so he won't be uneasy about her?"</p>
<p>"Yes, Miss Mary Jane she wanted you to do that. She says, 'Tell them
to give Uncle Harvey and William my love and a kiss, and say I've run over
the river to see Mr.'—Mr.—what <i>is</i> the name of that rich family
your uncle Peter used to think so much of?—I mean the one that—"</p>
<p>"Why, you must mean the Apthorps, ain't it?"</p>
<p>"Of course; bother them kind of names, a body can't ever seem to remember
them, half the time, somehow. Yes, she said, say she has run over
for to ask the Apthorps to be sure and come to the auction and buy this
house, because she allowed her uncle Peter would ruther they had it than
anybody else; and she's going to stick to them till they say they'll come,
and then, if she ain't too tired, she's coming home; and if she is, she'll
be home in the morning anyway. She said, don't say nothing about the
Proctors, but only about the Apthorps—which 'll be perfectly true,
because she is going there to speak about their buying the house; I know
it, because she told me so herself."</p>
<p>"All right," they said, and cleared out to lay for their uncles, and give
them the love and the kisses, and tell them the message.</p>
<p>Everything was all right now. The girls wouldn't say nothing because
they wanted to go to England; and the king and the duke would ruther Mary
Jane was off working for the auction than around in reach of Doctor
Robinson. I felt very good; I judged I had done it pretty neat—I
reckoned Tom Sawyer couldn't a done it no neater himself. Of course
he would a throwed more style into it, but I can't do that very handy, not
being brung up to it.</p>
<p>Well, they held the auction in the public square, along towards the end of
the afternoon, and it strung along, and strung along, and the old man he
was on hand and looking his level pisonest, up there longside of the
auctioneer, and chipping in a little Scripture now and then, or a little
goody-goody saying of some kind, and the duke he was around goo-gooing for
sympathy all he knowed how, and just spreading himself generly.</p>
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<p>But by and by the thing dragged through, and everything was sold—everything
but a little old trifling lot in the graveyard. So they'd got to
work that off—I never see such a girafft as the king was for wanting
to swallow <i>everything</i>. Well, whilst they was at it a steamboat
landed, and in about two minutes up comes a crowd a-whooping and yelling
and laughing and carrying on, and singing out:</p>
<p>"<i>Here's</i> your opposition line! here's your two sets o' heirs to old Peter
Wilks—and you pays your money and you takes your choice!"</p>
<p><br/></p>
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