e 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-"
   Up jumps Tom and shouts:
   "NOW,  I've  got it!" and waves his hand, oh, ever so fine and starchy,
towards the old man, and says:
   "Set down! A murder WAS done, but you never had no hand in it!"
   Well,  sir,  you could a heard a pin drop. And the old man he sunk down
kind  of  bewildered  in his seat and Aunt Sally and Benny didn't know it,
because  they  was so astonished and staring at Tom with their mouths open
and not knowing what they was about. And the whole house the same. I never
seen  people  look so helpless and tangled up, and I hain't ever seen eyes
bug  out  and gaze without a blink the way theirn did. Tom says, perfectly
ca'm:
   "Your honor, may I speak?"
   "For God's sake, yes-go on!" says the judge, so astonished and mixed up
he didn't know what he was about hardly.
   Then  Tom  he  stood  there and waited a second or two- that was for to
work  up  an  "effect," as he calls it- then he started in just as ca'm as
ever, and says:
   "For  about  two  weeks  now there's been a little bill sticking on the
front of this courthouse offering two thousand dollars reward for a couple
of big di'monds-stole at St. Louis. Them di'monds is worth twelve thousand
dollars.  But  never  mind  about  that  till  I get to it. Now about this
murder.  I  will  tell  you all about it-how it happened-who done it-every
DEtail."
   You  could  see  everybody nestle now, and begin to listen for all they
was worth.
   "This  man  here, Brace Dunlap, that's been sniveling so about his dead
brother  that  YOU  know  he never cared a straw for, wanted to marry that
young  girl  there,  and  she wouldn't have him. So he told Uncle Silas he
would  make  him  sorry.  Uncle  Silas knowed how powerful he was, and how
little  chance  he  had against such a man, and he was scared and worried,
and done everything he could think of to smooth him over and get him to be
good  to  him: he even took his no-account brother Jubiter on the farm and
give  him  wages  and stinted his own family to pay them; and Jubiter done
everything  his brother could contrive to insult Uncle Silas, and fret and
worry  him,  and  try to drive Uncle Silas into doing him a hurt, so as to
injure  Uncle  Silas  with  the  people.  And it done it. Everybody turned
against  him and said the meanest kind of things about him, and it graduly
broke  his  heart-yes,  and he was so worried and distressed that often he
warn't hardly in his right mind.
   "Well,  on  that  Saturday that we've had so much trouble about, two of
these  witnesses  here,  Lem Beebe and Jim Lane, come along by where Uncle
Silas and Jubiter Dunlap was at work-and that much of what they've said is
true,  the  rest  is  lies. They didn't hear Uncle Silas say he would kill
Jubiter; they didn't hear no blow struck; they didn't see no dead man, and
they  didn't  see  Uncle  Silas  hide anything in the bushes. Look at them
now-how  they  set  there,  wishing  they  hadn't been so handy with their
tongues; anyway, they'll wish it before I get done.
   "That  same  Saturday  evening  Bill  and  Jack Withers DID see one man
lugging off another one. That much of what they said is true, and the rest
is  lies.  First  off  they thought it was a nigger stealing Uncle Silas's
corn-you  notice  it  makes  them  look  silly,  now, to find out somebody
overheard  them  say  that. That's because they found out by and by who it
was  that  was  doing  the lugging, and THEY know best why they swore here
that  they  took  it for Uncle Silas by the gait-which it WASN'T, and they
knowed it when they swore to that lie.
   "A  man out in the moonlight DID see a murdered person put under ground
in  the tobacker field-but it wasn't Uncle Silas that done the burying. He
was in his bed at that very time.
   "Now,  then,  before  I go on, I want to ask you if you've ever noticed
this:  that  people,  when they're thinking deep, or when they're worried,
are  most always doing something with their hands, and they don't know it,
and  don't  notice  what  it  is  their hands are doing. some stroke their
chins; some stroke their noses; some stroke up UNDER their chin with their
hand;  some  twirl  a  chain, some fumble a button, then there's some that
draws  a  figure  or  a  letter with their finger on their cheek, or under
their  chin  or  on  their under lip. That's MY way. When I'm restless, or
worried,  or  thinking hard, I draw capital V's on my cheek or on my under
lip or under my chin, and never anything BUT capital V's-and half the time
I don't notice it and don't know I'm doing it."
   That was odd. That is just what I do; only I make an O. And I could see
people nodding to one another, same as they do when they mean "THAT's so."
   "Now,  then,  I'll  go  on.  That  same  Saturday-no,  it was the night
before-there  was  a  steamboat  laying  at Flagler's Landing, forty miles
above here, and it was raining and storming like the nation. And there was
a  thief  aboard,  and  he had them two big di'monds that's advertised out
here  on this courthouse door; and he slipped ashore with his hand-bag and
struck  out  into the dark and the storm, and he was a-hoping he could get
to  this  town all right and be safe. But he had two pals aboard the boat,
hiding, and he knowed they was going to kill him the first chance they got
and  take the di'monds; because all three stole them, and then this fellow
he got hold of them and skipped.
   "Well,  he hadn't been gone more'n ten minutes before his pals found it
out,  and  they  jumped  ashore  and lit out after him. Prob'ly they burnt
matches  and found his tracks. Anyway, they dogged along after him all day
Saturday  and  kept  out  of his sight; and towards sundown he come to the
bunch  of  sycamores  down by Uncle Silas's field, and he went in there to
get  a disguise out of his hand-bag and put it on before he showed himself
here  in  the  town-and mind you he done that just a little after the time
that  Uncle Silas was hitting Jubiter Dunlap over the head with a club-for
he DID hit him.
   "But  the  minute  the  pals  see  that  thief  slide into the bunch of
sycamores, they jumped out of the bushes and slid in after him.
   "They fell on him and clubbed him to death.
   "Yes,  for  all  he  screamed and howled so, they never had no mercy on
him, but clubbed him to death. And two men that was running along the road
heard  him  yelling  that  way, and they made a rush into the syca- i more
bunch-which  was  where  they  was bound for, anyway-and when the pals saw
them  they  lit out and the two new men after them a-chasing them as tight
as  they could go. But only a minute or two-then these two new men slipped
back very quiet into the sycamores.
   "THEN  what  did  they  do?  I will tell you what they done. They found
where  the thief had got his disguise out of his carpet-sack to put on; so
one of them strips and puts on that disguise."
   Tom  waited  a  little  here, for some more "effect"-then he says, very
deliberate:
   "The man that put on that dead man's disguise was- JUBITER DUNLAP!"
   "Great  Scott!"  everybody  shouted,  all over the house, and old Uncle
Silas he looked perfectly astonished.
   "Yes,  it  was  Jubiter Dunlap. Not dead, you see. Then they pulled off
the  dead  man's  boots  and  put Jubiter Dunlap's old ragged shoes on the
corpse  and  put the corpse's boots on Jubiter Dunlap. Then Jubiter Dunlap
stayed  where  he  was,  and the other man lugged the dead body off in the
twilight;  and after midnight he went to Uncle Silas's house, and took his
old  green  work-robe  off of the peg where it always hangs in the passage
betwixt  the  house  and  the  kitchen  and  put  it  on,  and  stole  the
long-handled  shovel  and went off down into the tobacker field and buried
the murdered man."
   He  stopped,  and  stood half a minute. Then-"And who do you reckon the
murdered man WAS? It was-JAKE Dunlap, the long-lost burglar!"
   "Great Scott!"
   "And the man that buried him was-BRACE Dunlap, his brother!"
   "Great Scott!"
   "And  who do you reckon is this mowing idiot here that's letting on all
these weeks to be a deef and dumb stranger? It's-JUBITER Dunlap!"
   My  land,  they all busted out in a howl, and you never see the like of
that  excitement  since  the  day you was born. And Tom he made a jump for
Jubiter  and  snaked off his goggles and his false whiskers, and there was
the  murdered  man,  sure enough, just as alive as anybody! And Aunt Sally
and  Benny  they went to hugging and crying and kissing and smothering old
Uncle  Silas to that degree he was more muddled and confused and mushed up
in  his mind than he ever was before, and that is saying considerable. And
next, people begun to yell:
   "Tom  Sawyer!  Tom Sawyer! Shut up everybody, and let him go on! Go on,
Tom Sawyer!"
   Which  made  him feel uncommon bully, for it was nuts for Tom Sawyer to
be  a  public  character that-away, and a hero, as he calls it. So when it
was all quiet, he says:
   "There  ain't  much left, only this. When that man there, Bruce Dunlap,
had  most  worried  the  life and sense out of Uncle Silas till at last he
plumb  lost  his mind and hit this other blatherskite, his brother, with a
club,  I  reckon  he seen his chance. Jubiter broke for the woods to hide,
and  I  reckon  the game was for him to slide out, in the night, and leave
the  country.  Then  Brace would make everybody believe Uncle Silas killed
him and hid his body somers; and that would ruin Uncle Silas and drive HIM
out  of  the  country-hang  him, maybe; I dunno. But when they found their
dead  brother  in  the  sycamores  without  knowing him, because he was so
battered up, they see they had a better thing; disguise BOTH and bury Jake
and dig him up presently all dressed up in Jubiter's clothes, and hire Jim
Lane  and  Bill  Withers  and the others to swear to some handy lies-which
they  done. And there they set, now, and I told them they would be looking
sick before I got done, and that is the way they're looking now.
   "Well,  me  and  Huck  Finn  here,  we  come  down on the boat with the
thieves,  and  the  dead  one told us all about the di'monds, and said the
others  would  murder him if they got the chance; and we was going to help
him  all  we  could.  We  was  bound  for the sycamores when we heard them
killing  him  in there; but we was in there in the early morning after the
storm  and  allowed  nobody hadn't been killed, after all. And when we see
Jubiter  Dunlap  here spreading around in the very same disguise Jake told
us  HE  was  going to wear, we thought it was Jake his own self-and he was
goo-gooing deef and dumb, and THAT was according to agreement.
   "Well,  me  and  Huck  went  on hunting for the corpse after the others
quit,  and  we found it. And was proud, too; but Uncle Silas he knocked us
crazy by telling us HE killed the man. So we was mighty sorry we found the
body,  and  was  bound  to save Uncle Silas's neck if we could; and it was
going  to  be tough work, too, because he wouldn't let us break him out of
prison the way we done with our old nigger Jim.
   "I done everything I could the whole month to think up some way to save
Uncle  Silas,  but  I  couldn't strike a thing. So when we come into court
to-day I come empty, and couldn't see no chance anywheres. But by and by I
had  a  glimpse  of  something  that  set  me  thinking-just  a little wee
glimpse-only  that,  and  not  enough to make sure; but it set me thinking
hard-and  WATCHING,  when  I  was only letting on to think; and by and by,
sure  enough, when Uncle Silas was piling out that stuff about HIM killing
Jubiter  Dunlap,  I  catched that glimpse again, and this time I jumped up
and  shut  down  the  proceedings,  because  I  KNOWED  Jubiter Dunlap was
a-setting  here before me. I knowed him by a thing which I seen him do-and
I remembered it. I'd seen him do it when I was here a year ago."
   He  stopped  then, and studied a minute-laying for an "effect"-I knowed
it  perfectly  well.  Then  he  turned  off like he was going to leave the
platform, and says, kind of lazy and indifferent:
   "Well, I believe that is all."
   Why, you never heard such a howl!-and it come from the whole house:
   "What WAS it you seen him do? Stay where you are, you little devil! You
think you are going to work a body up till his mouth's a-watering and stop
there? What WAS it he done?"
   That  was  it, you see-he just done it to get an "effect"; you couldn't
'a' pulled him off of that platform with a yoke of oxen.
   "Oh,  it  wasn't  anything much," he says. "I seen him looking a little
excited  when he found Uncle Silas was actuly fixing to hang himself for a
murder  that  warn't  ever  done;  and  he  got  more and more nervous and
worried, I a-watching him sharp but not seeming to look at him- and all of
a  sudden  his  hands  begun  to work and fidget, and pretty soon his left
crept up and HIS FINGER DRAWED A CROSS ON HIS CHEEK, and then I HAD him!"
   Well,  then  they ripped and howled and stomped and clapped their hands
till  Tom  Sawyer  was that proud and happy he didn't know what to do with
himself.
   And then the judge he looked down over his pulpit and says:
   "My boy, did you SEE all the various details of this strange conspiracy
and tragedy that you've been describing?"
   "No, your honor, I didn't see any of them."
   "Didn't  see  any  of them! Why, you've told the whole history straight
through,  just  the  same  as if you'd seen it with your eyes. How did you
manage that?"
   Tom says, kind of easy and comfortable:
   "Oh,  just  noticing  the  evidence and piecing this and that together,
your  honor;  just an ordinary little bit of detective work; anybody could
'a' done it."
   "Nothing of the kind! Not two in a million could 'a' done it. You are a
very remarkable boy."
   Then  they  let go and give Tom another smashing round, and he-well, he
wouldn't 'a' sold out for a silver mine. Then the judge says:
   "But are you certain you've got this curious history straight?"
   "Perfectly,  your honor. Here is Brace Dunlap-let him deny his share of
it  if he wants to take the chance; I'll engage to make him wish he hadn't
said  anything......  Well,  you  see HE'S pretty quiet. And his brother's
pretty  quiet,  and  them four witnesses that lied so and got paid for it,
they're  pretty quiet. And as for Uncle Silas, it ain't any use for him to
put in his oar, I wouldn't believe him under oath!"
   Well,  sir,  that  fairly made them shout; and even the judge he let go
and  laughed.  Tom  he was just feeling like a rainbow. When they was done
laughing he looks up at the judge and says:
   "Your honor, there's a thief in this house."
   "A thief?"
   "Yes, sir. And he's got them twelve-thousand-dollar di'monds on him."
   By gracious, but it made a stir! Everybody went shouting:
   "Which is him? which is him? p'int him out!"
   And the judge says:
   "Point him out, my lad. Sheriff, you will arrest him. Which one is it?"
   Tom says:
   "This late dead man here-Jubiter Dunlap."
   Then   there   was   another  thundering  let-go  of  astonishment  and
excitement;  but  Jubiter,  which  was  astonished enough before, was just
fairly  putrified with astonishment this time. And he spoke up, about half
crying, and says:
   "Now  THAT'S  a  lie.  Your honor, it ain't fair; I'm plenty bad enough
without  that.  I  done  the  other  things-Brace  he put me up to it, and
persuaded me, and promised he'd make me rich, some day, and I done it, and
I'm sorry I done it, and I wisht I hadn't; but I hain't stole no di'monds,
and I hain't GOT no di'monds; I wisht I may never stir if it ain't so. The
sheriff can search me and see."
   Tom says:
   "Your  honor,  it  wasn't right to call him a thief, and I'll let up on
that  a little. He did steal the di'monds, but he didn't know it. He stole
them  from  his brother Jake when he was laying dead, after Jake had stole
them from the other thieves; but Jubiter didn't know he was stealing them;
and  he's  been  swelling  around here with them a month; yes, sir, twelve
thousand  dollars'  worth  of  di'monds  on him-all that riches, and going
around here every day just like a poor man. Yes, your honor, he's got them
on him now."
   The judge spoke up and says:
   "Search him, sheriff."
   Well,  sir,  the sheriff he ransacked him high and low, and everywhere:
searched  his  hat, socks, seams, boots, everything-and Tom he stood there
quiet,  laying for another of them effects of hisn. Finally the sheriff he
give it up, and everybody looked disappointed, and Jubiter says:
   "There, now! what'd I tell you?"
   And the judge says:
   "It appears you were mistaken this time, my boy."
   Then Tom took an attitude and let on to be studying with all his might,
and  scratching  his head. Then all of a sudden he glanced up chipper, and
says:
   "Oh, now I've got it ! I'd forgot."
   Which was a lie, and I knowed it. Then he says:
   "Will  somebody  be  good enough to lend me a little small screwdriver?
There was one in your brother's hand-bag that you smouched, Jubiter. but I
reckon you didn't fetch it with you."
   "No, I didn't. I didn't want it, and I give it away."
   "That's because you didn't know what it was for."
   Jubiter  had  his boots on again, by now, and when the thing Tom wanted
was passed over the people's heads till it got to him, he says to Jubiter:
   "Put  up  your  foot  on  this chair." And he kneeled down and begun to
unscrew  the  heel-plate,  everybody  watching;  and  when he got that big
di'mond  out  of  that boot-heel and held it up and let it flash and blaze
and  squirt  sunlight  everwhichaway, it just took everybody's breath; and
Jubiter he looked so sick and sorry you never see the like of it. And when
Tom  held  up  the other di'mond he looked sorrier than ever. Land! he was
thinking  how  he would 'a' skipped out and been rich and independent in a
foreign  land  if he'd only had the luck to guess what the screwdriver was
in the carpet-bag for.
   Well,  it  was  a  most  exciting time, take it all around, and Tom got
cords  of  glory. The judge took the di'monds, and stood up in his pulpit,
and  cleared  his  throat, and shoved his spectacles back on his head, and
says:
   "I'll  keep  them and notify the owners; and when they send for them it
will  be  a  real pleasure to me to hand you the two thousand dollars, for
you've  earned  the  money-yes,  and  you've  earned  the deepest and most
sincerest  thanks  of  this  community  besides, for lifting a wronged and
innocent family out of ruin and shame, and saving a good and honorable man
from a felon's death, and for exposing to infamy and the punishment of the
law a cruel and odious scoundrel and his miserable creatures!"
   Well,  sir,  if there'd been a brass band to bust out some music, then,
it  would 'a' been just the perfectest thing I ever see, and Tom Sawyer he
said the same.
   Then  the  sheriff  he nabbed Brace Dunlap and his crowd, and by and by
next  month  the judge had them up for trial and jailed the whole lot. And
everybody crowded back to Uncle Silas's little old church, and was ever so
loving and kind to him and the family and couldn't do enough for them; and
Uncle  Silas he preached them the blamedest jumbledest idiotic sermons you
ever struck, and would tangle you up so you couldn't find your way home in
daylight;  but  the  people  never let on but what they thought it was the
clearest  and  brightest  and  elegantest  sermons that ever was; and they
would  set  there and cry, for love and pity; but, by George, they give me
the  jim-jams  and the fan-tods and caked up what brains I had, and turned
them  solid;  but  by and by they loved the old man's intellects back into
him again, and he was as sound in his skull as ever he was, which ain't no
flattery,  I  reckon.  And  so the whole family was as happy as birds, and
nobody  could be gratefuler and lovinger than what they was to Tom Sawyer;
and  the  same  to  me,  though  I  hadn't  done nothing. And when the two
thousand  dollars  come, Tom give half of it to me, and never told anybody
so, which didn't surprise me, because I knowed him.

        END