Tom Sawyer, Detective

M >> Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) >> Tom Sawyer, Detective


"If they'd had any sense they'd 'a' knowed the lazy cuss slid out because
he wanted a loafing spell after all this work. He'll come pottering back
in a couple of weeks, and then how'll you fellers feel? But, laws bless
you, take the dog, and go and hunt his remainders. Do, Tom."

Then he busted out, and had another of them forty-rod laughs of hisn.
Tom couldn't back down after all this, so he said, "All right, unchain
him;" and the blacksmith done it, and we started home and left that old
man laughing yet.

It was a lovely dog. There ain't any dog that's got a lovelier
disposition than a bloodhound, and this one knowed us and liked us. He
capered and raced around ever so friendly, and powerful glad to be free
and have a holiday; but Tom was so cut up he couldn't take any intrust in
him, and said he wished he'd stopped and thought a minute before he ever
started on such a fool errand. He said old Jeff Hooker would tell
everybody, and we'd never hear the last of it.

So we loafed along home down the back lanes, feeling pretty glum and not
talking. When we was passing the far corner of our tobacker field we
heard the dog set up a long howl in there, and we went to the place and
he was scratching the ground with all his might, and every now and then
canting up his head sideways and fetching another howl.

It was a long square, the shape of a grave; the rain had made it sink
down and show the shape. The minute we come and stood there we looked at
one another and never said a word. When the dog had dug down only a few
inches he grabbed something and pulled it up, and it was an arm and a
sleeve. Tom kind of gasped out, and says:

"Come away, Huck--it's found."

I just felt awful. We struck for the road and fetched the first men that
come along. They got a spade at the crib and dug out the body, and you
never see such an excitement. You couldn't make anything out of the
face, but you didn't need to. Everybody said:

"Poor Jubiter; it's his clothes, to the last rag!"

Some rushed off to spread the news and tell the justice of the peace and
have an inquest, and me and Tom lit out for the house. Tom was all afire
and 'most out of breath when we come tearing in where Uncle Silas and
Aunt Sally and Benny was. Tom sung out:

"Me and Huck's found Jubiter Dunlap's corpse all by ourselves with a
bloodhound, after everybody else had quit hunting and given it up; and if
it hadn't a been for us it never WOULD 'a' been found; and he WAS
murdered too--they done it with a club or something like that; and I'm
going to start in and find the murderer, next, and I bet I'll do it!"

Aunt Sally and Benny sprung up pale and astonished, but Uncle Silas fell
right forward out of his chair on to the floor and groans out:

"Oh, my God, you've found him NOW!"




CHAPTER X. THE ARREST OF UNCLE SILAS

THEM awful words froze us solid. We couldn't move hand or foot for as
much as half a minute. Then we kind of come to, and lifted the old man
up and got him into his chair, and Benny petted him and kissed him and
tried to comfort him, and poor old Aunt Sally she done the same; but,
poor things, they was so broke up and scared and knocked out of their
right minds that they didn't hardly know what they was about. With Tom
it was awful; it 'most petrified him to think maybe he had got his uncle
into a thousand times more trouble than ever, and maybe it wouldn't ever
happened if he hadn't been so ambitious to get celebrated, and let the
corpse alone the way the others done. But pretty soon he sort of come to
himself again and says:

"Uncle Silas, don't you say another word like that. It's dangerous, and
there ain't a shadder of truth in it."

Aunt Sally and Benny was thankful to hear him say that, and they said the
same; but the old man he wagged his head sorrowful and hopeless, and the
tears run down his face, and he says;

"No--I done it; poor Jubiter, I done it!"

It was dreadful to hear him say it. Then he went on and told about it,
and said it happened the day me and Tom come--along about sundown. He
said Jubiter pestered him and aggravated him till he was so mad he just
sort of lost his mind and grabbed up a stick and hit him over the head
with all his might, and Jubiter dropped in his tracks. Then he was scared
and sorry, and got down on his knees and lifted his head up, and begged
him to speak and say he wasn't dead; and before long he come to, and when
he see who it was holding his head, he jumped like he was 'most scared to
death, and cleared the fence and tore into the woods, and was gone. So
he hoped he wasn't hurt bad.

"But laws," he says, "it was only just fear that gave him that last
little spurt of strength, and of course it soon played out and he laid
down in the bush, and there wasn't anybody to help him, and he died."

Then the old man cried and grieved, and said he was a murderer and the
mark of Cain was on him, and he had disgraced his family and was going to
be found out and hung. But Tom said:

"No, you ain't going to be found out. You DIDN'T kill him. ONE lick
wouldn't kill him. Somebody else done it."

"Oh, yes," he says, "I done it--nobody else. Who else had anything
against him? Who else COULD have anything against him?"

He looked up kind of like he hoped some of us could mention somebody that
could have a grudge against that harmless no-account, but of course it
warn't no use--he HAD us; we couldn't say a word. He noticed that, and
he saddened down again, and I never see a face so miserable and so
pitiful to see. Tom had a sudden idea, and says:

"But hold on!--somebody BURIED him. Now who--"

He shut off sudden. I knowed the reason. It give me the cold shudders
when he said them words, because right away I remembered about us seeing
Uncle Silas prowling around with a long-handled shovel away in the night
that night. And I knowed Benny seen him, too, because she was talking
about it one day. The minute Tom shut off he changed the subject and
went to begging Uncle Silas to keep mum, and the rest of us done the
same, and said he MUST, and said it wasn't his business to tell on
himself, and if he kept mum nobody would ever know; but if it was found
out and any harm come to him it would break the family's hearts and kill
them, and yet never do anybody any good. So at last he promised. We was
all of us more comfortable, then, and went to work to cheer up the old
man. We told him all he'd got to do was to keep still, and it wouldn't
be long till the whole thing would blow over and be forgot. We all said
there wouldn't anybody ever suspect Uncle Silas, nor ever dream of such a
thing, he being so good and kind, and having such a good character; and
Tom says, cordial and hearty, he says:

"Why, just look at it a minute; just consider. Here is Uncle Silas, all
these years a preacher--at his own expense; all these years doing good
with all his might and every way he can think of--at his own expense, all
the time; always been loved by everybody, and respected; always been
peaceable and minding his own business, the very last man in this whole
deestrict to touch a person, and everybody knows it. Suspect HIM? Why,
it ain't any more possible than--"

"By authority of the State of Arkansaw, I arrest you for the murder of
Jubiter Dunlap!" shouts the sheriff at the door.

It was awful. Aunt Sally and Benny flung themselves at Uncle Silas,
screaming and crying, and hugged him and hung to him, and Aunt Sally said
go away, she wouldn't ever give him up, they shouldn't have him, and the
niggers they come crowding and crying to the door and--well, I couldn't
stand it; it was enough to break a person's heart; so I got out.

They took him up to the little one-horse jail in the village, and we all
went along to tell him good-bye; and Tom was feeling elegant, and says to
me, "We'll have a most noble good time and heaps of danger some dark
night getting him out of there, Huck, and it'll be talked about
everywheres and we will be celebrated;" but the old man busted that
scheme up the minute he whispered to him about it. He said no, it was his
duty to stand whatever the law done to him, and he would stick to the
jail plumb through to the end, even if there warn't no door to it. It
disappointed Tom and graveled him a good deal, but he had to put up with
it.

But he felt responsible and bound to get his uncle Silas free; and he
told Aunt Sally, the last thing, not to worry, because he was going to
turn in and work night and day and beat this game and fetch Uncle Silas
out innocent; and she was very loving to him and thanked him and said she
knowed he would do his very best. And she told us to help Benny take
care of the house and the children, and then we had a good-bye cry all
around and went back to the farm, and left her there to live with the
jailer's wife a month till the trial in October.




CHAPTER XI. TOM SAWYER DISCOVERS THE MURDERERS

WELL, that was a hard month on us all. Poor Benny, she kept up the best
she could, and me and Tom tried to keep things cheerful there at the
house, but it kind of went for nothing, as you may say. It was the same
up at the jail. We went up every day to see the old people, but it was
awful dreary, because the old man warn't sleeping much, and was walking
in his sleep considerable and so he got to looking fagged and miserable,
and his mind got shaky, and we all got afraid his troubles would break
him down and kill him. And whenever we tried to persuade him to feel
cheerfuler, he only shook his head and said if we only knowed what it was
to carry around a murderer's load in your heart we wouldn't talk that
way. Tom and all of us kept telling him it WASN'T murder, but just
accidental killing! but it never made any difference--it was murder, and
he wouldn't have it any other way. He actu'ly begun to come out plain
and square towards trial time and acknowledge that he TRIED to kill the
man. Why, that was awful, you know. It made things seem fifty times as
dreadful, and there warn't no more comfort for Aunt Sally and Benny. But
he promised he wouldn't say a word about his murder when others was
around, and we was glad of that.

Tom Sawyer racked the head off of himself all that month trying to plan
some way out for Uncle Silas, and many's the night he kept me up 'most
all night with this kind of tiresome work, but he couldn't seem to get on
the right track no way. As for me, I reckoned a body might as well give
it up, it all looked so blue and I was so downhearted; but he wouldn't.
He stuck to the business right along, and went on planning and thinking
and ransacking his head.

So at last the trial come on, towards the middle of October, and we was
all in the court. The place was jammed, of course. Poor old Uncle
Silas, he looked more like a dead person than a live one, his eyes was so
hollow and he looked so thin and so mournful. Benny she set on one side
of him and Aunt Sally on the other, and they had veils on, and was full
of trouble. But Tom he set by our lawyer, and had his finger in
everywheres, of course. The lawyer let him, and the judge let him. He
'most took the business out of the lawyer's hands sometimes; which was
well enough, because that was only a mud-turtle of a back-settlement
lawyer and didn't know enough to come in when it rains, as the saying is.

They swore in the jury, and then the lawyer for the prostitution got up
and begun. He made a terrible speech against the old man, that made him
moan and groan, and made Benny and Aunt Sally cry. The way HE told about
the murder kind of knocked us all stupid it was so different from the old
man's tale. He said he was going to prove that Uncle Silas was SEEN to
kill Jubiter Dunlap by two good witnesses, and done it deliberate, and
SAID he was going to kill him the very minute he hit him with the club;
and they seen him hide Jubiter in the bushes, and they seen that Jubiter
was stone-dead. And said Uncle Silas come later and lugged Jubiter down
into the tobacker field, and two men seen him do it. And said Uncle Silas
turned out, away in the night, and buried Jubiter, and a man seen him at
it.

I says to myself, poor old Uncle Silas has been lying about it because he
reckoned nobody seen him and he couldn't bear to break Aunt Sally's heart
and Benny's; and right he was: as for me, I would 'a' lied the same way,
and so would anybody that had any feeling, to save them such misery and
sorrow which THEY warn't no ways responsible for. Well, it made our
lawyer look pretty sick; and it knocked Tom silly, too, for a little
spell, but then he braced up and let on that he warn't worried--but I
knowed he WAS, all the same. And the people--my, but it made a stir
amongst them!

And when that lawyer was done telling the jury what he was going to
prove, he set down and begun to work his witnesses.

First, he called a lot of them to show that there was bad blood betwixt
Uncle Silas and the diseased; and they told how they had heard Uncle
Silas threaten the diseased, at one time and another, and how it got
worse and worse and everybody was talking about it, and how diseased got
afraid of his life, and told two or three of them he was certain Uncle
Silas would up and kill him some time or another.

Tom and our lawyer asked them some questions; but it warn't no use, they
stuck to what they said.

Next, they called up Lem Beebe, and he took the stand. It come into my
mind, then, how Lem and Jim Lane had come along talking, that time, about
borrowing a dog or something from Jubiter Dunlap; and that brought up the
blackberries and the lantern; and that brought up Bill and Jack Withers,
and how they passed by, talking about a nigger stealing Uncle Silas's
corn; and that fetched up our old ghost that come along about the same
time and scared us so--and here HE was too, and a privileged character,
on accounts of his being deef and dumb and a stranger, and they had fixed
him a chair inside the railing, where he could cross his legs and be
comfortable, whilst the other people was all in a jam so they couldn't
hardly breathe. So it all come back to me just the way it was that day;
and it made me mournful to think how pleasant it was up to then, and how
miserable ever since.

LEM BEEBE, sworn, said--"I was a-coming along, that day,
second of September, and Jim Lane was with me, and it was
towards sundown, and we heard loud talk, like quarrelling,
and we was very close, only the hazel bushes between (that's
along the fence); and we heard a voice say, 'I've told you
more'n once I'd kill you,' and knowed it was this prisoner's
voice; and then we see a club come up above the bushes and
down out of sight again, and heard a smashing thump and then
a groan or two: and then we crope soft to where we could
see, and there laid Jupiter Dunlap dead, and this prisoner
standing over him with the club; and the next he hauled the
dead man into a clump of bushes and hid him, and then we
stooped low, to be cut of sight, and got away."

Well, it was awful. It kind of froze everybody's blood to hear it, and
the house was 'most as still whilst he was telling it as if there warn't
nobody in it. And when he was done, you could hear them gasp and sigh,
all over the house, and look at one another the same as to say, "Ain't it
perfectly terrible--ain't it awful!"

Now happened a thing that astonished me. All the time the first
witnesses was proving the bad blood and the threats and all that, Tom
Sawyer was alive and laying for them; and the minute they was through, he
went for them, and done his level best to catch them in lies and spile
their testimony. But now, how different. When Lem first begun to talk,
and never said anything about speaking to Jubiter or trying to borrow a
dog off of him, he was all alive and laying for Lem, and you could see he
was getting ready to cross-question him to death pretty soon, and then I
judged him and me would go on the stand by and by and tell what we heard
him and Jim Lane say. But the next time I looked at Tom I got the cold
shivers. Why, he was in the brownest study you ever see--miles and miles
away. He warn't hearing a word Lem Beebe was saying; and when he got
through he was still in that brown-study, just the same. Our lawyer
joggled him, and then he looked up startled, and says, "Take the witness
if you want him. Lemme alone--I want to think."

Well, that beat me. I couldn't understand it. And Benny and her
mother--oh, they looked sick, they was so troubled. They shoved their
veils to one side and tried to get his eye, but it warn't any use, and I
couldn't get his eye either. So the mud-turtle he tackled the witness,
but it didn't amount to nothing; and he made a mess of it.

Then they called up Jim Lane, and he told the very same story over again,
exact. Tom never listened to this one at all, but set there thinking and
thinking, miles and miles away. So the mud-turtle went in alone again and
come out just as flat as he done before. The lawyer for the prostitution
looked very comfortable, but the judge looked disgusted. You see, Tom was
just the same as a regular lawyer, nearly, because it was Arkansaw law
for a prisoner to choose anybody he wanted to help his lawyer, and Tom
had had Uncle Silas shove him into the case, and now he was botching it
and you could see the judge didn't like it much. All that the mud-turtle
got out of Lem and Jim was this: he asked them:

"Why didn't you go and tell what you saw?"

"We was afraid we would get mixed up in it ourselves. And we was just
starting down the river a-hunting for all the week besides; but as soon
as we come back we found out they'd been searching for the body, so then
we went and told Brace Dunlap all about it."

"When was that?"

"Saturday night, September 9th."

The judge he spoke up and says:

"Mr. Sheriff, arrest these two witnesses on suspicions of being
accessionary after the fact to the murder."

The lawyer for the prostitution jumps up all excited, and says:

"Your honor! I protest against this extraordi--"

"Set down!" says the judge, pulling his bowie and laying it on his
pulpit. "I beg you to respect the Court."

So he done it. Then he called Bill Withers.

BILL WITHERS, sworn, said: "I was coming along about sundown,
Saturday, September 2d, by the prisoner's field, and my
brother Jack was with me and we seen a man toting off
something heavy on his back and allowed it was a nigger
stealing corn; we couldn't see distinct; next we made out that
it was one man carrying another; and the way it hung, so kind
of limp, we judged it was somebody that was drunk; and by the
man's walk we said it was Parson Silas, and we judged he had
found Sam Cooper drunk in the road, which he was always trying
to reform him, and was toting him out of danger."

It made the people shiver to think of poor old Uncle Silas toting off the
diseased down to the place in his tobacker field where the dog dug up the
body, but there warn't much sympathy around amongst the faces, and I
heard one cuss say "'Tis the coldest blooded work I ever struck, lugging
a murdered man around like that, and going to bury him like a animal, and
him a preacher at that."

Tom he went on thinking, and never took no notice; so our lawyer took the
witness and done the best he could, and it was plenty poor enough.

Then Jack Withers he come on the stand and told the same tale, just like
Bill done.

And after him comes Brace Dunlap, and he was looking very mournful, and
most crying; and there was a rustle and a stir all around, and everybody
got ready to listen, and lost of the women folks said, "Poor cretur, poor
cretur," and you could see a many of them wiping their eyes.

BRACE DUNLAP, sworn, said: "I was in considerable trouble a
long time about my poor brother, but I reckoned things warn't
near so bad as he made out, and I couldn't make myself believe
anybody would have the heart to hurt a poor harmless cretur
like that"--[by jings, I was sure I seen Tom give a kind of a
faint little start, and then look disappointed again]--"and
you know I COULDN'T think a preacher would hurt him--it warn't
natural to think such an onlikely thing--so I never paid much
attention, and now I sha'n't ever, ever forgive myself; for if
I had a done different, my poor brother would be with me this
day, and not laying yonder murdered, and him so harmless." He
kind of broke down there and choked up, and waited to get his
voice; and people all around said the most pitiful things, and
women cried; and it was very still in there, and solemn, and
old Uncle Silas, poor thing, he give a groan right out so
everybody heard him. Then Brace he went on, "Saturday,
September 2d, he didn't come home to supper. By-and-by I got a
little uneasy, and one of my niggers went over to this
prisoner's place, but come back and said he warn't there. So
I got uneasier and uneasier, and couldn't rest. I went to
bed, but I couldn't sleep; and turned out, away late in the
night, and went wandering over to this prisoner's place and
all around about there a good while, hoping I would run across
my poor brother, and never knowing he was out of his troubles
and gone to a better shore--" So he broke down and choked up
again, and most all the women was crying now. Pretty soon he
got another start and says: "But it warn't no use; so at last
I went home and tried to get some sleep, but couldn't. Well,
in a day or two everybody was uneasy, and they got to talking
about this prisoner's threats, and took to the idea, which I
didn't take no stock in, that my brother was murdered so they
hunted around and tried to find his body, but couldn't and
give it up. And so I reckoned he was gone off somers to have
a little peace, and would come back to us when his troubles
was kind of healed. But late Saturday night, the 9th, Lem
Beebe and Jim Lane come to my house and told me all--told me
the whole awful 'sassination, and my heart was broke. And THEN
I remembered something that hadn't took no hold of me at the
time, because reports said this prisoner had took to walking
in his sleep and doing all kind of things of no consequence,
not knowing what he was about. I will tell you what that
thing was that come back into my memory. Away late that awful
Saturday night when I was wandering around about this
prisoner's place, grieving and troubled, I was down by the
corner of the tobacker-field and I heard a sound like digging
in a gritty soil; and I crope nearer and peeped through the
vines that hung on the rail fence and seen this prisoner
SHOVELING--shoveling with a long-handled shovel--heaving earth
into a big hole that was most filled up; his back was to me,
but it was bright moonlight and I knowed him by his old green
baize work-gown with a splattery white patch in the middle of
the back like somebody had hit him with a snowball. HE WAS
BURYING THE MAN HE'D MURDERED!"

And he slumped down in his chair crying and sobbing, and 'most everybody
in the house busted out wailing, and crying, and saying, "Oh, it's
awful--awful--horrible! and there was a most tremendous excitement, and
you couldn't hear yourself think; and right in the midst of it up jumps
old Uncle Silas, white as a sheet, and sings out:

"IT'S TRUE, EVERY WORD--I MURDERED HIM IN COLD BLOOD!"

By Jackson, it petrified them! People rose up wild all over the house,
straining and staring for a better look at him, and the judge was
hammering with his mallet and the sheriff yelling "Order--order in the
court--order!"

And all the while the old man stood there a-quaking and his eyes
a-burning, and not looking at his wife and daughter, which was clinging
to him and begging him to keep still, but pawing them off with his hands
and saying he WOULD clear his black soul from crime, he WOULD heave off
this load that was more than he could bear, and he WOULDN'T bear it
another hour! And then he raged right along with his awful tale,
everybody a-staring and gasping, judge, jury, lawyers, and everybody, and
Benny and Aunt Sally crying their hearts out. And by George, Tom Sawyer
never looked at him once! Never once--just set there gazing with all his
eyes at something else, I couldn't tell what. And so the old man raged
right along, pouring his words out like a stream of fire:

"I killed him! I am guilty! But I never had the notion in my life to hurt
him or harm him, spite of all them lies about my threatening him, till
the very minute I raised the club--then my heart went cold!--then the
pity all went out of it, and I struck to kill! In that one moment all my
wrongs come into my mind; all the insults that that man and the scoundrel
his brother, there, had put upon me, and how they laid in together to
ruin me with the people, and take away my good name, and DRIVE me to some
deed that would destroy me and my family that hadn't ever done THEM no
harm, so help me God! And they done it in a mean revenge--for why?
Because my innocent pure girl here at my side wouldn't marry that rich,
insolent, ignorant coward, Brace Dunlap, who's been sniveling here over a
brother he never cared a brass farthing for--"[I see Tom give a jump and
look glad THIS time, to a dead certainty]"--and in that moment I've told
you about, I forgot my God and remembered only my heart's bitterness, God
forgive me, and I struck to kill. In one second I was miserably
sorry--oh, filled with remorse; but I thought of my poor family, and I
MUST hide what I'd done for their sakes; and I did hide that corpse in
the bushes; and presently I carried it to the tobacker field; and in the
deep night I went with my shovel and buried it where--"