Mark Twain
Tom Sawyer Abroad
CHAPTER I. TOM SEEKS NEW ADVENTURES
DO you reckon Tom Sawyer was satisfied after all them adventures? I mean the adventures we had down the river, and the time we set the darky Jim free and Tom got shot in the leg. No, he wasnt. It only just pisoned him for more. That was all the effect it had. You see, when we three came back up the river in glory, as you may say, from that long travel, and the village received us with a torchlight procession and speeches, and everybody hurrahd and shouted, it made us heroes, and that was what Tom Sawyer had always been hankering to be.
For a while he WAS satisfied. Everybody made much of him, and he tilted up his nose and stepped around the town as though he owned it. Some called him Tom Sawyer the Traveler, and that just swelled him up fit to bust. You see he laid over me and Jim considerable, because we only went down the river on a raft and came back by the steamboat, but Tom went by the steamboat both ways. The boys envied me and Jim a good deal, but land! they just knuckled to the dirt before TOM.
Well, I dont know; maybe he might have been satisfied if it hadnt been for old Nat Parsons, which was postmaster, and powerful long and slim, and kind o good-hearted and silly, and bald-headed, on account of his age, and about the talkiest old cretur I ever see. For as much as thirty years hed been the only man in the village that had a reputation I mean a reputation for being a traveler, and of course he was mortal proud of it, and it was reckoned that in the course of that thirty years he had told about that journey over a million times and enjoyed it every time. And now comes along a boy not quite fifteen, and sets everybody admiring and gawking over HIS travels, and it just give the poor old man the high strikes. It made him sick to listen to Tom, and to hear the people say My land! Did you ever! My goodness sakes alive! and all such things; but he couldnt pull away from it, any more than a fly thats got its hind leg fast in the molasses. And always when Tom come to a rest, the poor old cretur would chip in on HIS same old travels and work them for all they were worth; but they were pretty faded, and didnt go for much, and it was pitiful to see. And then Tom would take another innings, and then the old man again and so on, and so on, for an hour and more, each trying to beat out the other.
You see, Parsons travels happened like this: When he first got to be postmaster and was green in the business, there come a letter for somebody he didnt know, and there wasnt any such person in the village. Well, he didnt know what to do, nor how to act, and there the letter stayed and stayed, week in and week out, till the bare sight of it gave him a conniption. The postage wasnt paid on it, and that was another thing to worry about. There wasnt any way to collect that ten cents, and he reckond the govment would hold him responsible for it and maybe turn him out besides, when they found he hadnt collected it. Well, at last he couldnt stand it any longer. He couldnt sleep nights, he couldnt eat, he was thinned down to a shadder, yet he dasnt ask anybodys advice, for the very person he asked for advice might go back on him and let the govment know about the letter. He had the letter buried under the floor, but that did no good; if he happened to see a person standing over the place itd give him the cold shivers, and loaded him up with suspicions, and he would sit up that night till the town was still and dark, and then he would sneak there and get it out and bury it in another place. Of course, people got to avoiding him and shaking their heads and whispering, because, the way he was looking and acting, they judged he had killed somebody or done something terrible, they didnt know what, and if he had been a stranger they wouldve lynched him.
Well, as I was saying, it got so he couldnt stand it any longer; so he made up his mind to pull out for Washington, and just go to the President of the United States and make a clean breast of the whole thing, not keeping back an atom, and then fetch the letter out and lay it before the whole govment, and say, Now, there she is do with me what youre a mind to; though as heaven is my judge I am an innocent man and not deserving of the full penalties of the law and leaving behind me a family that must starve and yet hadnt had a thing to do with it, which is the whole truth and I can swear to it.
So he did it. He had a little wee bit of steamboating, and some stage-coaching, but all the rest of the way was horseback, and it took him three weeks to get to Washington. He saw lots of land and lots of villages and four cities. He was gone most eight weeks, and there never was such a proud man in the village as he when he got back. His travels made him the greatest man in all that region, and the most talked about; and people come from as much as thirty miles back in the country, and from over in the Illinois bottoms, too, just to look at him and there theyd stand and gawk, and hed gabble. You never see anything like it.
Well, there wasnt any way now to settle which was the greatest traveler; some said it was Nat, some said it was Tom. Everybody allowed that Nat had seen the most longitude, but they had to give in that whatever Tom was short in longitude he had made up in latitude and climate. It was about a stand-off; so both of them had to whoop up their dangerous adventures, and try to get ahead THAT way. That bullet-wound in Toms leg was a tough thing for Nat Parsons to buck against, but he bucked the best he could; and at a disadvantage, too, for Tom didnt set still as hed orter done, to be fair, but always got up and sauntered around and worked his limp while Nat was painting up the adventure that HE had in Washington; for Tom never let go that limp when his leg got well, but practiced it nights at home, and kept it good as new right along.
Nats adventure was like this; I dont know how true it is; maybe he got it out of a paper, or somewhere, but I will say this for him, that he DID know how to tell it. He could make anybodys flesh crawl, and hed turn pale and hold his breath when he told it, and sometimes women and girls got so faint they couldnt stick it out. Well, it was this way, as near as I can remember:
He come a-loping into Washington, and put up his horse and shoved out to the Presidents house with his letter, and they told him the President was up to the Capitol, and just going to start for Philadelphia not a minute to lose if he wanted to catch him. Nat most dropped, it made him so sick. His horse was put up, and he didnt know what to do. But just then along comes a darky driving an old ramshackly hack, and he see his chance. He rushes out and shouts: A half a dollar if you git me to the Capitol in half an hour, and a quarter extra if you do it in twenty minutes!
Done! says the darky.
Nat he jumped in and slammed the door, and away they went a-ripping and a-tearing over the roughest road a body ever see, and the racket of it was something awful. Nat passed his arms through the loops and hung on for life and death, but pretty soon the hack hit a rock and flew up in the air, and the bottom fell out, and when it come down Nats feet was on the ground, and he see he was in the most desperate danger if he couldnt keep up with the hack. He was horrible scared, but he laid into his work for all he was worth, and hung tight to the arm-loops and made his legs fairly fly. He yelled and shouted to the driver to stop, and so did the crowds along the street, for they could see his legs spinning along under the coach, and his head and shoulders bobbing inside through the windows, and he was in awful danger; but the more they all shouted the more the nigger whooped and yelled and lashed the horses and shouted, Dont you fret, Ise gwine to git you dah in time, boss; Is gwine to do it, sho! for you see he thought they were all hurrying him up, and, of course, he couldnt hear anything for the racket he was making. And so they went ripping along, and everybody just petrified to see it; and when they got to the Capitol at last it was the quickest trip that ever was made, and everybody said so. The horses laid down, and Nat dropped, all tuckered out, and he was all dust and rags and barefooted; but he was in time and just in time, and caught the President and give him the letter, and everything was all right, and the President give him a free pardon on the spot, and Nat give the nigger two extra quarters instead of one, because he could see that if he hadnt had the hack he wouldnta got there in time, nor anywhere near it.
It WAS a powerful good adventure, and Tom Sawyer had to work his bullet-wound mighty lively to hold his own against it.
Well, by and by Toms glory got to paling down graduly, on account of other things turning up for the people to talk about first a horse-race, and on top of that a house afire, and on top of that the circus, and on top of that the eclipse; and that started a revival, same as it always does, and by that time there wasnt any more talk about Tom, so to speak, and you never see a person so sick and disgusted.
Pretty soon he got to worrying and fretting right along day in and day out, and when I asked him what WAS he in such a state about, he said it most broke his heart to think how time was slipping away, and him getting older and older, and no wars breaking out and no way of making a name for himself that he could see. Now that is the way boys is always thinking, but he was the first one I ever heard come out and say it.
So then he set to work to get up a plan to make him celebrated; and pretty soon he struck it, and offered to take me and Jim in. Tom Sawyer was always free and generous that way. Theres a-plenty of boys thats mighty good and friendly when YOUVE got a good thing, but when a good thing happens to come their way they dont say a word to you, and try to hog it all. That warnt ever Tom Sawyers way, I can say that for him. Theres plenty of boys that will come hankering and groveling around you when youve got an apple and beg the core off of you; but when theyve got one, and you beg for the core and remind them how you give them a core one time, they say thank you most to death, but there aint a-going to be no core. But I notice they always git come up with; all you got to do is to wait.
Well, we went out in the woods on the hill, and Tom told us what it was. It was a crusade.
Whats a crusade? I says.
He looked scornful, the way hes always done when he was ashamed of a person, and says:
Huck Finn, do you mean to tell me you dont know what a crusade is?
No, says I, I dont. And I dont care to, nuther. Ive lived till now and done without it, and had my health, too. But as soon as you tell me, Ill know, and thats soon enough. I dont see any use in finding out things and clogging up my head with them when I maynt ever have any occasion to use em. There was Lance Williams, he learned how to talk Choctaw here till one come and dug his grave for him. Now, then, whats a crusade? But I can tell you one thing before you begin; if its a patent-right, theres no money in it. Bill Thompson he
Patent-right! says he. I never see such an idiot. Why, a crusade is a kind of war.
I thought he must be losing his mind. But no, he was in real earnest, and went right on, perfectly cam.
A crusade is a war to recover the Holy Land from the paynim.
Which Holy Land?
Why, the Holy Land there aint but one.
What do we want of it?
Why, cant you understand? Its in the hands of the paynim, and its our duty to take it away from them.
How did we come to let them git hold of it?
We didnt come to let them git hold of it. They always had it.
Why, Tom, then it must belong to them, dont it?
Why of course it does. Who said it didnt?
I studied over it, but couldnt seem to git at the right of it, no way. I says:
Its too many for me, Tom Sawyer. If I had a farm and it was mine, and another person wanted it, would it be right for him to
Oh, shucks! you dont know enough to come in when it rains, Huck Finn. It aint a farm, its entirely different. You see, its like this. They own the land, just the mere land, and thats all they DO own; but it was our folks, our Jews and Christians, that made it holy, and so they havent any business to be there defiling it. Its a shame, and we ought not to stand it a minute. We ought to march against them and take it away from them.
Why, it does seem to me its the most mixed-up thing I ever see! Now, if I had a farm and another person
Dont I tell you it hasnt got anything to do with farming? Farming is business, just common low-down business: thats all it is, its all you can say for it; but this is higher, this is religious, and totally different.
Religious to go and take the land away from people that owns it?
Certainly; its always been considered so.
Jim he shook his head, and says:
Mars Tom, I reckon deys a mistake about it somers dey mos sholy is. Is religious myself, en I knows plenty religious people, but I haint run across none dat acts like dat.
It made Tom hot, and he says:
Well, its enough to make a body sick, such mullet-headed ignorance! If either of youd read anything about history, youd know that Richard Cur de Loon, and the Pope, and Godfrey de Bulleyn, and lots more of the most noble-hearted and pious people in the world, hacked and hammered at the paynims for more than two hundred years trying to take their land away from them, and swum neck-deep in blood the whole time and yet heres a couple of sap-headed country yahoos out in the backwoods of Missouri setting themselves up to know more about the rights and wrongs of it than they did! Talk about cheek!
Well, of course, that put a more different light on it, and me and Jim felt pretty cheap and ignorant, and wished we hadnt been quite so chipper. I couldnt say nothing, and Jim he couldnt for a while; then he says:
Well, den, I reckon its all right; becase ef dey didnt know, dey aint no use for po ignorant folks like us to be trying to know; en so, ef its our duty, we got to go en tackle it en do de bes we can. Same time, I feel as sorry for dem paynims as Mars Tom. De hard part gwine to be to kill folks dat a body haint been quainted wid and dat haint done him no harm. Dats it, you see. Ef we wuz to go mongst em, jist we three, en say wes hungry, en ast em for a bite to eat, why, maybe deys jist like yuther people. Dont you reckon dey is? Why, DEYD give it, I know dey would, en den
Then what?
Well, Mars Tom, my idea is like dis. It aint no use, we CANT kill dem po strangers dat aint doin us no harm, till weve had practice I knows it perfectly well, Mars Tom deed I knows it perfectly well. But ef we takes a axe or two, jist you en me en Huck, en slips acrost de river to-night arter de moons gone down, en kills dat sick famly dats over on the Sny, en burns dey house down, en
Oh, you make me tired! says Tom. I dont want to argue any more with people like you and Huck Finn, thats always wandering from the subject, and aint got any more sense than to try to reason out a thing thats pure theology by the laws that protect real estate!
Now thats just where Tom Sawyer warnt fair. Jim didnt mean no harm, and I didnt mean no harm. We knowed well enough that he was right and we was wrong, and all we was after was to get at the HOW of it, and that was all; and the only reason he couldnt explain it so we could understand it was because we was ignorant yes, and pretty dull, too, I aint denying that; but, land! that aint no crime, I should think.
But he wouldnt hear no more about it just said if we had tackled the thing in the proper spirit, he would a raised a couple of thousand knights and put them in steel armor from head to heel, and made me a lieutenant and Jim a sutler, and took the command himself and brushed the whole paynim outfit into the sea like flies and come back across the world in a glory like sunset. But he said we didnt know enough to take the chance when we had it, and he wouldnt ever offer it again. And he didnt. When he once got set, you couldnt budge him.