CHAPTER XXXII
When I got there it was all still and Sunday-like, and hot andsunshiny; the hands was gone to the fields; and there was them kind offaint dronings of bugs and flies in the air that makes it seem solonesome and like everybody's dead and gone; and if a breeze fansalong and quivers the leaves it makes you feel mournful, because youfeel like it's spirits whispering--spirits that's been dead ever somany years--and you always think they're talking about _you._ As ageneral thing it makes a body wish _he_ was dead, too, and done withit all.
Phelps's was one of these little one-horse cotton plantations, andthey all look alike. A rail fence round a two-acre yard; a stile madeout of logs sawed off and up-ended in steps, like barrels of adifferent length, to climb over the fence with, and for the women tostand on when they are going to jump onto a horse; some sicklygrass-patches in the big yard, but mostly it was bare and smooth, likean old hat with the nap rubbed off; big double log house for the whitefolks--hewed logs, with the chinks stopped up with mud or mortar, andthese mud-stripes been whitewashed some time or another; round-logkitchen, with a big broad, open but roofed passage joining it to thehouse; log smokehouse back of the kitchen; three little nigger cabinsin a row t'other side the smokehouse; one little hut all by itselfaway down against the back fence, and some outbuildings down a piecethe other side; ash-hopper and big kettle to bile soap in by thelittle hut; bench by the kitchen door, with bucket of water and agourd; hound asleep there in the sun; more hounds asleep round about;about three shade trees away off in a corner; some currant bushes andgooseberry bushes in one place by the fence; outside of the fence agarden and a watermelon patch; then the cotton-fields begins, andafter the fields the woods.
I went around and clumb over the back stile by the ash-hopper, andstarted for the kitchen. When I got a little ways I heard the dim humof a spinning-wheel wailing along up and sinking along down again; andthen I knowed for certain I wished I was dead--for that _is_ thelonesomest sound in the whole world.
I went right along, not fixing up any particular plan, but justtrusting to Providence to put the right words in my mouth when thetime come; for I'd noticed that Providence always did put the rightwords in my mouth if I left it alone.
When I got half-way, first one hound and then another got up and wentfor me, and of course I stopped and faced them, and kept still. Andsuch another powwow as they made! In a quarter of a minute I was akind of a hub of a wheel, as you may say--spokes made out ofdogs--circle of fifteen of them packed together around me, with theirnecks and noses stretched up towards me, a-barking and howling; andmore a-coming; you could see them sailing over fences and aroundcorners from every-wheres.
A nigger woman come tearing out of the kitchen with a rolling-pin inher hand, singing out, "Begone! _you_ Tige! you Spot! begone sah!" andshe fetched first one and then another of them a clip and sent themhowling, and then the rest followed; and the next second half of themcome 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 niggerboys without anything on but tow-linen shirts, and they hung on totheir mother's gown, and peeped out from behind her at me, bashful,the way they always do. And here comes the white woman running fromthe house, about forty-five or fifty year old, bareheaded, and herspinning-stick in her hand; and behind her comes her little whitechildren, acting the same way the little niggers was going. She wassmiling 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 handsand shook and shook; and the tears come in her eyes, and run downover; 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; butlaw 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 cousinTom!--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 getyour 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 gotthere she set me down in a split-bottomed chair, and set herself downon a little low stool in front of me, holding both of my hands, andsays:
"Now I can have a _good_ look at you; and, laws-a-me, I've been hungryfor it a many and a many a time, all these long years, and it's comeat 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 theboat would be coming up the river or down. But I go a good deal oninstinct; and my instinct said she would be coming up--from downtowards Orleans. That didn't help me much, though; for I didn't knowthe names of bars down that way. I see I'd got to invent a bar, orforget the name of the one we got aground on--or--Now I struck anidea, and fetched it out:
"It warn't the grounding--that didn't keep us back but a little. Weblowed 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 agolast Christmas your uncle Silas was coming up from Newrleans on theold 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 Silasknowed a family in Baton Rouge that knowed his people very well. Yes,I remember now, he _did_ die. Mortification set in, and they had toamputate him. But it didn't save him. Yes, it was mortification--thatwas it. He turned blue all over, and died in the hope of a gloriousresurrection. They say he was a sight to look at. Your uncle's been upto the town every day to fetch you. And he's gone again, not more'n anhour ago; he'll be back any minute now. You must 'a' met him on theroad, didn't you?--oldish man, with a--"
"No, I didn't see nobody, Aunt Sally. The boat landed just atdaylight, and I left my baggage on the wharf-boat and went lookingaround the town and out a piece in the country, to put in the time andnot 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 havesomething to eat before I went ashore; so he took me in the texas tothe officers' lunch, and give me all I wanted."
I was getting so uneasy I couldn't listen good. I had my mind on thechildren all the time; I wanted to get them out to one side and pumpthem 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 coldchills streak all down my back, because she says:
"But here we're a-running on this way, and you hain't told me a wordabout Sis, nor any of them. Now I'll rest my works a little, and youstart up yourn; just tell me _everything_--tell me all about 'mall--every one of 'm; and how they are, and what they're doing, andwhat 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 byme this fur all right, but I was hard and tight aground now. I see itwarn'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 thetruth. I opened my mouth to begin; but she grabbed me and hustled mein behind the bed, and says:
"Here he comes! Stick your head down lower--there, that'll do; youcan't be seen now. Don't you let on you're here. I'll play a joke onhim. Children, don't you say a word."
I see I was in a _fix_ now. But it warn't no use to worr
y; therewarn't nothing to do but just hold still, and try and be ready tostand 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 hecome?"
"No," says her husband.
"Good-_ness_ gracious!" she says, "what in the world _can_ have becomeof him?"
"I can't imagine," says the old gentleman; "and I must say it makes medreadful 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--somethingtells 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 knowwhat in the world to make of it. I'm at my wit's end, and I don't mindacknowledging 't I'm right down scared. But there's no hope that he'scome; for he _couldn't_ come and me miss him. Sally, it'sterrible--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 giveMrs. Phelps the chance she wanted. She stooped down quick at the footof the bed and give me a pull, and out I come; and when he turned backfrom the window there she stood, a-beaming and a-smiling like a houseafire, and I standing pretty meek and sweaty alongside. The oldgentleman stared, and says:
"Why, who's that?"
"Who do you reckon 'tis?"
"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 timeto swap knives; the old man grabbed me by the hand and shook, and kepton shaking; and all the time how the woman did dance around and laughand cry; and then how they both did fire off questions about Sid, andMary, and the rest of the tribe.
But if they was joyful, it warn't nothing to what I was; for it waslike being born again, I was so glad to find out who I was. Well, theyfroze to me for two hours; and at last, when my chin was so tired itcouldn't hardly go any more, I had told them more about my family--Imean the Sawyer family--than ever happened to any six Sawyer families.And I explained all about how we blowed out a cylinder-head at themouth of White River, and it took us three days to fix it. Which wasall right, and worked first-rate; because _they_ didn't know but whatit would take three days to fix it. If I'd 'a' called it a bolthead itwould 'a' done just as well.
Now I was feeling pretty comfortable all down one side, and prettyuncomfortable all up the other. Being Tom Sawyer was easy andcomfortable, and it stayed easy and comfortable till by and by I heara 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 inhere any minute, and sings out my name before I can throw him a winkto keep quiet?
Well, I couldn't _have_ it that way; it wouldn't do at all. I must goup the road and waylay him. So I told the folks I reckoned I would goup to the town and fetch down my baggage. The old gentleman was forgoing along with me, but I said no, I could drive the horse myself,and I druther he wouldn't take no trouble about me.