CHAPTER XXXII.
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 faintdronings of bugs and flies in the air that makes it seem so lonesome andlike everybody's dead and gone; and if a breeze fans along and quiversthe leaves it makes you feel mournful, because you feel like it's spiritswhispering--spirits that's been dead ever so many years--and you alwaysthink they're talking about YOU. As a general thing it makes a body wishHE was dead, too, and done with it all.
Phelps' was one of these little one-horse cotton plantations, and theyall look alike. A rail fence round a two-acre yard; a stile made out oflogs 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 aregoing 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 rubbedoff; big double log-house for the white folks--hewed logs, with thechinks stopped up with mud or mortar, and these mud-stripes beenwhitewashed some time or another; round-log kitchen, with a big broad,open but roofed passage joining it to the house; log smoke-house back ofthe kitchen; three little log nigger-cabins in a row t'other side thesmoke-house; one little hut all by itself away down against the backfence, and some outbuildings down a piece the other side; ash-hopper andbig 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; morehounds 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 cottonfields begins, and after 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 hum ofa spinning-wheel wailing along up and sinking along down again; and thenI knowed for certain I wished I was dead--for that IS the lonesomestsound in the whole world.
I went right along, not fixing up any particular plan, but just trustingto Providence to put the right words in my mouth when the time come; forI'd noticed that Providence always did put the right words in my mouth ifI left it alone.
When I got half-way, first one hound and then another got up and went forme, and of course I stopped and faced them, and kept still. And suchanother powwow as they made! In a quarter of a minute I was a kind of ahub of a wheel, as you may say--spokes made out of dogs--circle offifteen of them packed together around me, with their necks and nosesstretched up towards me, a-barking and howling; and more a-coming; youcould see them sailing over fences and around corners from everywheres.
A nigger woman come tearing out of the kitchen with a rolling-pin in herhand, singing out, "Begone YOU Tige! you Spot! begone sah!" and shefetched 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'tno 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 to theirmother's gown, and peeped out from behind her at me, bashful, the waythey always do. And here comes the white woman running from the house,about forty-five or fifty year old, bareheaded, and her spinning-stick inher hand; and behind her comes her little white children, acting the sameway the little niggers was going. She was smiling all over so she couldhardly 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 andshook and shook; and the tears come in her eyes, and run down over; andshe couldn't seem to hug and shake enough, and kept saying, "You don'tlook as much like your mother as I reckoned you would; but law sakes, Idon't care for that, I'm so glad to see you! Dear, dear, it does seemlike I could eat you up! Children, it's your cousin Tom!--tell himhowdy."
But they ducked their heads, and put their fingers in their mouths, andhid 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 down ona 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 forit 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?--boatget 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 boatwould 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 barsdown that way. I see I'd got to invent a bar, or forget the name of theone 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. 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 the oldLally Rook, and she blowed out a cylinder-head and crippled a man. And Ithink he died afterwards. He was a Baptist. Your uncle Silas knowed afamily in Baton Rouge that knowed his people very well. Yes, I remembernow, 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. Heturned 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 townevery 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'tyou?--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 townand out a piece in the country, to put in the time and not get here toosoon; 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 somethingto 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 thechildren all the time; I wanted to get them out to one side and pump thema 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 chillsstreak 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 'm all everyone of 'm; and how they are, and what they're doing, and what they toldyou 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 methis 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. SoI says to myself, here's another place where I got to resk the truth. Iopened my mouth to begin; but she grabbed me and hustled me in behind thebed, and says:
"Here he comes! Stick your head down lower--there, that'll do; you can'tbe 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. B
ut it warn't no use to worry; there warn'tnothing to do but just hold still, and try and be ready to stand fromunder when the lightning struck.
I had just one little glimpse of the old gentleman when he come in; thenthe 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 warld can have become ofhim?"
"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; andyou've missed him along the road. I KNOW it's so--something tells meso."
"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 amissed 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's terrible--justterrible--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. Phelpsthe chance she wanted. She stooped down quick at the foot of the bed andgive me a pull, and out I come; and when he turned back from the windowthere she stood, a-beaming and a-smiling like a house afire, and Istanding pretty meek and sweaty alongside. The old gentleman stared, andsays:
"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 toswap knives; the old man grabbed me by the hand and shook, and kept onshaking; and all the time how the woman did dance around and laugh andcry; 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 likebeing born again, I was so glad to find out who I was. Well, they frozeto me for two hours; and at last, when my chin was so tired it couldn'thardly go any more, I had told them more about my family--I mean theSawyer family--than ever happened to any six Sawyer families. And Iexplained all about how we blowed out a cylinder-head at the mouth ofWhite 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 takethree days to fix it. If I'd a called it a bolthead it would a done justas 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 hear asteamboat coughing along down the river. Then I says to myself, s'poseTom Sawyer comes down on that boat? And s'pose he steps in here anyminute, and sings out my name before I can throw him a wink to keepquiet?
Well, I couldn't HAVE it that way; it wouldn't do at all. I must go upthe road and waylay him. So I told the folks I reckoned I would go up tothe town and fetch down my baggage. The old gentleman was for goingalong with me, but I said no, I could drive the horse myself, and Idruther he wouldn't take no trouble about me.